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This is the horse I rode on the carousel at Alabama Adventure with my cousins this past Saturday. It's a ginger. XD
I love carousels because they remind me of the one at the Van Andel Museum in Grand Rapids, and of the little Christmas carousel that sits on a table in my grandparents' bedroom.


I'm serving in administrative duty this morning while the rest of day camp goes to the movies.
Naturally, this is the perfect time to update.

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home...

Well, it's not exactly Paris and Rome. It's Day Camp, and The Mansion, and the Bean-Brown Theatre, and First United Methodist Church, but it's still not home.

I took a "sick day" Tuesday so that I could sleep in (slept till 8:19--it was beautiful) and get caught up. I learned a little over half of the motions for the VBS songs, but that's on the docket for Saturday, too. We'll see how rehearsal for THAT goes this afternoon...

I stayed home most of the day with the dogs I'm sitting, cleaning up approximately 10 puppy puddles, and went to the church for a rehearsal that didn't happen. I didn't mind. It gave me time to run home for a bit to visit my family and my housebroken babies. I miss them so much.

May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

I had yesterday off as well. While day camp went to the Trussville Play Station and Tree Top Family Adventure, I went home that morning to sort through my grandmother's jewelry and clothes with my mom, my aunt, and her two daughters. I went into that with a bit of a heavy heart.

I'm terribly selfish when it comes to my childhood, and some of this stuff I wanted to cling to so tightly because I grew up with it. I was willing to relinquish to my mom and my aunt because they are the daughters and they grew up with it first, and some of what I remember from the house on 4760 Burton St. SE I didn't even see yesterday. But some of it I almost felt like I deserved because it had always been in our house, and I had routinely played with it, and I just wanted to keep it close to me. I know after some more time passes, I won't want that so much, but right now, the hurt of losing Mamaw is still too fresh, and I am grappling with my desire to hold on to what we have left. I say that, and I don't mean everything. I just wanted to keep everything to which I had attached sentimental value.

Looking back at yesterday, I think everything went to the right people, but I felt very much inwardly defensive as we divided up my grandmother's possessions.

I just had to keep reminding myself that I got the best of anything that belonged to my grandmother over any of the other grandchildren; I got 23 years of her life and mine. All of the beautiful dresses, dolls, jewels, or anything else, I'd gotten to share with Mamaw in our home, and for me to deny the rest of my family those little pieces of her would be wrong.

After taking care of the jewelry business, I had to go to the church for our VBS informational meeting, then came right back home to finish up the clothes.

My aunt and cousins have been going through all of this for the past week or two, so a lot of the leg work had already been done. All they needed was for me to stake any final claims, and then help bag up everything that was to be donated to the Hannah Home.

After managing the initial inkling of trepidation about sorting through Mamaw's jewelry, I felt better about going through her clothes. We found so much stuff (my grandmother loved her shoes and pastel tees and sweaters...) and it ended up being a pleasant way to spend the day, as strange as that is. I can't speak for my aunt and cousins, but I felt a sense of accomplishment at finishing this rather large task, and I'd been able to reminisce with my aunt throughout the process.

She can be a pill sometimes, but I always have and always will love my Aunt Lori with my whole heart.

I'll have to take pictures to share with you of some of the lovely things my grandmother left behind and I'm blessed enough to keep. They are a tiny reflection of the beautiful soul she is.

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

It all made me feel sad to have to leave the house again. It made me homesick for my family, and it makes me homesick for Michigan. I've told my aunt I'll come visit as soon as I possibly can, and I mean it.

I wanna go home.

Thankfully, I have a second family (one of many...) in the people of Theatre Tuscaloosa. Doing what I love with them makes it all a little more bearable.

I still wanna go home.