Loquacious Lady

It’s nice to know that I’m surrounded by big, strong men all day long who won’t let anything bad happen to me.

Also, it’s nice to have a visual on the internet to remind you to vacuum the home office. Not.

~Meghan

Good neighbors are valuable relationships. I grew up knowing and playing with my neighbors, and I love that I had that kind of childhood. Although Tom was content to have “our privacy” in this neighborhood, I was not. I wanted to know the people on our street (or our entire neighborhood), and I set out to see that happen.

Now that our list of neighborhood friends is steadily growing, Tom has jumped on board with my enthusiasm for meeting new people and building relationships with the people around us. This is most likely due to the fact that we have great neighbors, so they’ve made it easy to want to continue the trend.

But I don’t stop at knowing just our neighbors. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all of the Lineberry’s neighbors too. They moved right into the friendliest little area, and Will and I are probably wearing out our welcome across the street.

Gary and Theresa have a beautifully landscaped yard that has a little waterfall splashing into a big goldfish pond. Will LOVES it. And I really love going over for the adult company. We sit out on their deck and sip on iced beverages while Will chases the cat, throws bread to the fish, and looks at the birds.

Recently, Gary found a little chair in the garage that belongs to the grandkids, and he pulled it out for Will to use. They were having a good time hanging out.

A veteran grandpa, Gary knows all the fun games for kids Will’s age.

And Will was especially interested in Gary’s hat since it was so bright that day.

Good neighbors make good friends. I think they are going to love watching Will grow up.

~Meghan

On Saturday, despite the rainy weather, Tom and I woke up early, hopped into my sister-in-law, Lisa’s, van with her and her 4 kiddos, and headed to Athens for a 5K we were all (all but Anna Kate, 4, and Violet, 2) signed up to participate in that morning.

It was a race called “Strollin’ For The Colon.”

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That was reason enough to do it, but we also wanted to sign up because Lisa’s sister, Amy, was the organizer of the event, raising money for colon cancer research. I’m all about beating cancer and supporting family/friends, not to mention getting t-shirts with funny event names on them, so we were excited to participate.

I say “participate” and not “run” because I don’t do running. I’ve tried and failed. I have great visions of myself jogging down the street, lean and tone like I used to be. These “great visions” are something more akin to “delusions of grandeur.”

So, I walked the three mile race with Lisa’s dad, Millard, who was great company. I was going to walk it with my niece, Madeline, also (she’s 6), but even she decided she wanted to run it. After we took turns walking and jogging the first mile, she just took off jogging.

“See ya later!” I called. I had no intentions of running the last two miles. She giggled and looked back at me. When she realized I wasn’t kidding, she giggled some more and kept going.

But, unlike me, the rest of my family actually can run. And they enjoy it.

Freaks.

Anyway, it was fun for me to cheer them on as they were looping back for their final stretch (I had almost made it to the first mile by then). Lisa and Tom zoomed past, and we high fived each other. I cheered and yelled their names and had a great time smiling at all the winners leaving me in the dust.

I’m very proud of people for doing things I can’t do. Especially if those people are people I know. I have a lot of opportunities to be proud, in case you wondered.

When I finally got close to the finish line, Tom jogged out to join us. Millard and I looked at each other. “Do you think he’s gonna try to get you to run the last bit in with him?” he asked. “I hope not,” I answered. “We’ve been married 3 years. He should know better by now.”

And he did know better. Tom walked in with us and filled us in on all that had been going on while we were moseying through the race. Tom and Lisa had finished then jogged back to encourage  Tyler (almost 8yo) as he neared the end. He had literally run as hard as he could the entire race. He did great.

Then another loop was made to jog in with Madeline. She had pretty much jogged the last two miles and gave it her all. We were impressed!

And then he came back for us. Millard and I were the peanut gallery of the race. Everyone working the race was laughing with us (at us?) as we walked by while we cracked jokes to them about our time and placement in our age groups. We decided we were winners just because we walked three miles in the rain. Works for me.

So, where did everyone place?

Lisa- First Overall Female, 10th overall for entire race (there were about 250 people signed up)

Tom- Second in his age group (25-29 y.o. male), 7th overall for entire race

Tyler-First in his age group (10 and under males)

Madeline- Third in her age group (10 and under females)

Meghan and Millard- Hahahahahahahahahaha

Amy’s daughters and one of her sons also ran, and they all placed as well.

It was a good day for winning awards. And for kickin’ some cancer booty.

~Meghan

If you remember, about a month ago, Tom and I went to bring a meal to our friends Tara and Chris and meet their baby Raegan when they came home from the hospital. Tara and Chris are in our small group, and it’s been fun getting to know them better and seeing them become parents.

Last Friday, Tom and I went by their place for an hour or so to take some shots of Raegan at one month old. She was exhausted but refused to sleep for me. I got a few pictures where she was tired enough to close her eyes, but she was really fighting sleep.

That’s okay though- I got the chance to capture her pretty blue eyes!

Raegan’s middle name is Billie, after Tara’s grandfather, who has since passed away. He was so proud of this baby, and he and Tara’s grandmother had made this blanket and these booties for her, so these items are extra special to them all.

I just love her little feet.

And her sweet little face. She was trying to figure out what was going on when she heard my camera clicking.

I can’t decide if Raegan’s a mama’s girl or a daddy’s girl. I think it’s split right down the middle for now.

What a little doll!

Sweet little Raegan. Thanks for letting me come by and play with her, Chris and Tara!!

~Meghan

I am not a major coffee drinker. Tom, on the other hand, could hook up a coffee pot to an IV line and happily infuse himself with the stuff 24 hours a day.

When we got engaged one of the few things that Tom seriously cared about picking out for our registry was a coffee maker. We registered for one that had a coffee bean grinder in it, so it could do everything in one machine.

I still remember the couple’s shower where he opened that. The heavens beamed a light through the roof of the house and onto his smiling face, while the angels burst into a round of the Hallelujah Chorus.

For two years, that coffee pot served us well. And by “us” I mean Tom. Because even if I made myself a cup of coffee, I would only drink about half of it. (Actually, that’s a weird thing I do with water too.) But after two years (and a few months), we needed a replacement.

Over those years, though, the “coffee station” in our kitchen became a source of constant frustration for me. This was mostly because it should have had a sign like this hanging in front of it:

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Tom would dump the coffee grinds out in the sink, and they wouldn’t all go down, so I would always see grimy black junk all over the sides of the sink, the dishes I hadn’t gotten to yet, and the counters. Ick.

Then there was the coffee pot itself. It looked nasty. It was so stained looking, that it started to be opaque. I kept asking Tom why it was stained like that, and he said he wasn’t sure. Well, when we finally replaced it, I found out.

He never washed the thing. I never did because every time I wanted to, there was coffee in it, and he was going to drink it. Therein lay the problem. You see, he drinks so much coffee, that he never had time to wash the coffee pot. And it just got layer after layer of coffee building up on it. Double Ick.

When I washed it (finally) before putting it away, it came out of the dishwasher clear, the way glass should be. I was amazed. Then grossed out. Because I also had to tackle the coffee maker, and I couldn’t put it in the dishwasher. I did the best I could. That’s all I will say about that.

So. The replacement. Everywhere we turned, it seemed that people we knew were using Keurigs. And Tom LOVED them. Even I liked them, because they make a single cup of coffee, and it’s premeasured, so I can’t mess it up. In case you haven’t used one before, this is what ours looks like:

And if you want to fill a taller cup, you just slide out the little stand:

I got both of those photos off of the Keurig site. They have a TON of brewers, and you can see them all online. I love the variety, because you can pick something that suits your needs and your price range.

Anyway, what you do is you lift the little handle (right under where it says “Keurig” on the machine), and it opens that section. You put in something called a K-Cup, which is a plastic cup with a measured amount of coffee, tea, or cocoa powder inside it.

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Then you close the Keurig again. Assuming you have a cup in place and water in the tank on the side, that’s all you have to do before pressing the button to start brewing. Easy, no?

For people who have a special kind of coffee or tea they like best, there are 233 different kinds of K-Cups to choose from (to date), so you are most likely going to find something you like, maybe even the same thing you already drink. On their site, Keurig has a list of all the K-Cups.

And you can search for the right kind for you by a variety of means, including brand, popularity, consumer ratings, amount of caffeine, type (bold, flavored, fair trade, etc.), roast, blend (for tea drinkers: black, chai, green, etc.), box count (how many K-Cups per box), cup size (regular versus travel mugs), and even cocoa flavor (milk or white chocolate). If you click on any K-Cup listed, it will give you all of that information for that particular one. Trust me, you are bound to find something you like.

One nice thing is that you don’t have to buy any of these products through their site. I buy Tom’s K-Cups at Sam’s in an 80-Count box.

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He got his Keurig as a Christmas present, and his mom found it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and used a store coupon to score major savings. They’re carried all over the place, so you most likely can find it either on sale or with a coupon somewhere.

But the best part, for me? It’s that it is SO CLEAN in his little coffee station now. There’s a bowl holding several K-cups, and there’s a small, sealed container with sugar in it. They flank the Keurig, and after I implemented the “no spoons left out after stirring the sugar and creamer” policy to save my counters from constant stickiness (and dirtiness), I can honestly say it has made ALL the difference.

No coffee grinds. No spills from pouring the coffee. No messy filters. Nothing but an organized coffee station. (Those of you who have read about my organizational…umm..challenges…may be surprised, but the kitchen is my domain, and I like it neat.)

So, if you have a Keurig, do you like it? Love it? Miss your old coffee maker? For those who have a regular coffee maker, would you consider making the switch? If the answer is no, why not?

~Meghan

As I mentioned yesterday, the Hoopers had us over for Kathleen’s 91st birthday party last Saturday.

Kathleen is not your typical grandma. She is the embodiment of “spunk.”

And so I guess it shouldn’t have surprised us that when we went inside and started to play Just Dance 2 on Wii, she would not just want to watch us playing but would want to try it out herself.

No kidding. This is what it looks like when a 91 year-old-lady dances on her birthday to “It’s Raining Men.” I love it.

You may be wondering about her hat. It was left over from her St. Patrick’s Day/ Mardi Gras celebrating. And she was wearing it because she felt like it. I love that. It’s a green cowboy hat with purple feathers on the rim. =)

She is so awesome.

Her thoughts on Just Dance? “We used to dance with people. I like having somebody to hold onto,” she told me. “We danced with each other and did different dances. This is too much like exercise.”

I’m with Kathleen. I wish it was still typical for everyone to know various forms of dance. I’d love to go out dancing somewhere and everyone (including me) know how to do swing dance, tango, and the waltz.

But since we don’t, I’m glad to see her adapt to current dance styles! Shake it like yo grandma!
~Meghan

Well, for someone who promised you plenty of stories about my weekend, I sure didn’t follow through yesterday. All I can say is that yesterday I didn’t get on my computer at all; I just couldn’t add one more thing to my day, including my blog. But today is a new day, and it requires a new post.

As promised, I am going to share a couple of the alluded to stories- miniature horses and flashing my brother-in-law. Hold onto your hats, folks.

Alrighty. The Hooper family and the McFarlin family go way back. Like, 23 years back.

They vacation together, go to church together, attend each other’s birthdays, etc. Suzanne Hooper (a year older than Tom) and Will Hooper (a year younger than Tom and a year older than Ben) are siblings, and pretty much are like extended siblings for Tom and Ben.

Needless to say, we’re all pretty tight.

Now that you have the family history, you can understand why we all were looking forward to spending our Saturday night attending the birthday of their 91-year-old grandma, Kathleen. She is hilarious, and we love her.

So we all headed to the Hooper homestead, which is pretty much a farm. They raise and sell goats (not as their main income, just for kicks, I guess), and they also board horses. Recently that has extended to a few miniature horses.

After a couple hours of socializing, playing lawn games, and eating, I got out my camera, and we (all the youngins) decided to go get some cute and some silly pictures in the pasture. Which led to Suzanne, who just happens to be six feet tall, getting the idea to pose on a miniature horse. Little did we know that this horse had some spunk, and it took her for a short ride.

It definitely took her by surprise. And then I took everyone by surprise by flashing them.

Yep. I just said that.

I had my 50mm lens on the camera, and since I couldn’t zoom in or out with it, I was moving myself around to adjust. I decided to sit down on a stump next to the wire fence to get a better angle, then changed my mind and stood up. When I did, the wire on the fence caught my dress. See where this is going?

I pulled against it, and all in a sudden, it snapped free- and up to my waist. Wonderful.

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t wearing granny-panties. Extra bad since I ripped a hole in the dress. Mortifying, but it could have been worse. I could have been with people that haven’t known me for 13 years.

Anyway. The moral of the story is to think about what you’re doing when you’re trying to get a good picture. And be sure that you get a funny picture of the person you’re most embarrassed to have flashed out of those situations. Like your brother-in-law getting an unplanned trip on a 3 foot tall horse.

Other than the awful dress incident, it was a pretty great night.

Well, maybe not for the mini horses. Though, to be fair, Ben and Suze were just standing over them with their weight on the ground when the little dudes just took off running with people having to jump off.

And we got the chance to meet Kelly, Will’s girlfriend. She’s got such a variety of interests- everything from knitting to motocross racing. No kidding.

Ben and Lana did some cute shots blowing on dandelions. Did you ever used to make a wish and then try to blow all the pieces off a dandelion to “make it come true?” I did.

Tom and I mostly took goofy pictures, but we got a few “normal ones” together too. This was post-flashing and dress ripping. I was feeling very concerned about the hole in my dress and trying not to flash anyone again.

As for Tom, he had been running around doing funny pictures, and he had managed to rip a hole in his pants. Not a great night for clothes in our family.

That was not the end of the night. We headed inside and took lessons from Kathleen on Wii Dance. But that is a post for another day.

~Meghan

I feel like Tom and I just finished a marathon. Not because we did so much this weekend, but because we did so much this weekend that I can blog about. You have no idea what all is in store. But here are a few things:

*Riding miniature horses

*Flashing my brother-in-law (On accident, and no, I don’t have, nor would I deem appropriate, pictures. But I’ll share the story.)

*91-year-old grandma’s version of Wii Dance

*Father-in-law singing Three Dog Night…in church

*An awesome restored Chevy Truck

It was a really fun, really random weekend. But for now, I’ll just leave you with my new desktop image, which I took right before all the aforementioned craziness went down. I know it’s a weed, but I love the way this dandelion caught the sunlight.

How was your weekend?

~Meghan

The other night, my husband insisted on leaving the TV on a show about great white sharks and other scary killers before bed, because, apparently, it’s really fun to see how high pitched my terror-ridden squeals can get before I revert back to begging him to change the channel.

And watching that show, I informed Tom, as I have many times before, that I NEVER want to go to Australia.

“They have all the worst stuff in the world there. TONS of deadly spiders, snakes, Salt-water crocs, and great white sharks,” I informed him. “That place is the stuff of nightmares.”

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“I’ll change the channel in a second,” he replied.

Too late. Damage done. We were already hearing about the salt-water crocodile. Apparently it can get up to 23 feet long and weigh as much as 2 tons, which is just under half what an adult elephant weighs.

And that’s not all. They also like to watch their prey for weeks to establish their routine and be sure they strike at the right time.

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“Pre-meditated murder,” I gasp. “Great. Wonderful. The biggest, scariest crocodile in the world, that you aren’t even safe from at the beach, just also happens to be smart enough to PLAN your death! UUUH! I am NEVER going to Australia.”

To which Tom only said, with no small amount of awe in his voice, mind you, “Dinosaur….”

At this point I was staring at Tom. “Something is wrong with you,” I thought.

I always knew he liked dinosaurs and thinks it’s cool that crocs, gators, and komodo dragons are pretty much dinosaurs still roaming the earth, but I mean, we were talking about a crocodile- a giant crocodile- that plans your death for weeks. NOT cool.

Just to be clear, the closest I’m getting to the “land down under” is cheese fries and steak (all with ranch dip/dressing) at Outback Steakhouse. I have no idea if that’s very Australian or not, but I do know I don’t care.

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It’s delicious. And it won’t bite me.

~Meghan

It is true. I am a 12-year-old.

As I type this, I am going through past seasons of Wizards of Waverly Place on Netflix, trying to find episodes I haven’t already seen. There are very few. I’m all the way back to season 2 at this point.

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Also, I love Selena Gomez.

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She’s cute, she’s funny, and- so far- she hasn’t turned into a total nasty chick just to go against a “good girl” image.

I’m also not above other Disney shows.

And I might have Tivo’d all the Tinkerbell movies when they were on TV. And the Hannah Montana Movie.

Also, someone listening to my cds might find some Hannah Montana music. That would be because I really actually want to learn the Hoedown Throwdown dance from the movie. Yep. I just said that.

The truth is out. I am twelve on the inside. And I’m not ashamed.

Haters gonna hate. The rest of us know that Disney makes some addictive shows.

And that boys have cooties.

~Meghan