A Pattern Emerges.

You know, I am noticing a pattern to my sporadic blogging. It would appear that I only blog when I am particularly outraged about something. My blogs are often tinged with sarcasm and snarkiness and general snottiness. This morning, as I logged in to take a quick peek at a comment my Precious Bestie Crane left, I noticed this trend and thought I should make amends for this. I'm quite nice, in real life, and generally relegate my saltiness to my own musings. So I thought I should write a blog that is full of kindness and love. Here it is...

This summer has been a particularly excellent summer, and you know how I normally feel about summer (the only good part of summer is sno-cones.) My daddy bought a fancy, shiny new boat recently and we've spent an excessive amount of time out on the boat in recent weeks. There is absolutely nothing more relaxing than an afternoon on the lake, a nice card game and the requisite several beers that go along with this scenario. It almost makes the inevitable camping part of the situation bearable. Don't look now, but I have caught myself enjoying camping for the last several weekends. In a row. It has been so much fun to relax and hang out with the fam (minus, of course, that one particular weekend when the dogs had to join us...Stay tuned for a blog explaining why a Hot Air Balloon Festival controlled our destiny.)

Gordon and I took a break from Camp-Mania 2010 last weekend for an impromptu trip to Portland. Sadly, we were in town for the funeral of a very good friend of Gordon's. That part was pretty rough. However, we did get to spend some quality time with his mom, step-dad, sister and the cutest baby (my very own nephew) that ever existed in all the land. We also spend Saturday evening with a couple of Gordon's cousins. We sat at a table alongside the river and just laughed. It was a highlight of the trip, for sure.

Also, a warm note about Clyde L. Willard. During our trip to Portland, we stopped in to see Grandpa and Rosalee, and of course the newly relocated Auntie Norma. We spent several hours chatting away, talking about absolutely nothing at all. Grandpa stood up and said he had something to show me. He took me into the bedroom where he pulled out several shoeboxes that were crammed full of pictures from, like, the 1820s. Just kidding, Jeffy....only the 1960s or so. Some of you may be acquainted with Clyde L. Willard, so you know that there has been a teensy bit of strife in recent years regarding my grandmother, who passed away several years ago. Specifically, there was an occasion where he got crafty and cut my grandmother right out of her own wedding portrait and added his new wife to the photo instead. This caused the first ever day when Bethany Grandpa's Girl Forever and Ever got so mad at Gramps that we left without saying a word to him. It was quite the thing. Anyway. I digress, but that bit of background info was vital to this story. So Gramps pulls out all of these pictures of my dad and his two sisters from when they were little, little kids. I think we had all been convinced that he had tossed out all of those old memories with the bathwater when he re-married. Turns out, he had carefully saved many pictures and memories. He produced a photo of my dear, sweet Grandma when she was pregnant with my dad. He told me that it had always been his very favorite picture of Gram. It just melted my heart. And then, most surprising at all, he mentioned that he had been working on a big project where he was making photo albums for each of his kids that contained a lot of these photos from their childhood. Well knock me over with a feather. Never in a million years would I have imagined that crusty old Gramps would have such a soft side.


And while I'm on the subject, can I just tell you how much I love my hubby? I mean, duh, of course I love him. I'm married to him (for almost three years now, BTW....) But I mean, I really love him. I totally adore him. He is just the best ever. He does so much for me, I can't believe I got so lucky. For instance...we came home from Portland last Saturday night. He stayed up all night and drove straight through while I kept him company, er, well, while I slept in the front seat. We got home at nine in the morning, tired but relieved to be home. I slept for most of the afternoon, but when I woke up, he was nowhere to be found. I finally found him outside in the hot sun, washing, vacuuming and detailing my car. I had mentioned that I needed to wash the car because it was a mess from our trip. But he did it all for me. Right down to taking apart the center console so that he could vacuum out all the little crevices and cracks. I have never known anyone more thoughtful, I just can't believe how lucky I am.

Okay so anyway. See how nice I am?

And now, I'll let my snide and snarky blog-personality take back over. I have several things I'd like to rant about, most importantly that I CANNOT BELIEVE that this country is even having a discussion about building a mosque in Manhattan.