Father's Day

Sorry for the delay in blogging!  I was having some internet problems and the technician just came today.

I have been home a lot over the past few weeks.  It has been SO great!  I went home the second weekend in July for my 10 year class reunion and for Fathers Day.

I will be frank and honest with you, I have the best dad!  I love him so much and he is my world!  There is a special bond that is between a  father and a daughter.  No one will ever understand it until they live it.

                                                                    What Makes A Dad 

God took the strength of a mountain, The majesty of a tree, 

The warmth of a summer sun, The calm of a quiet sea, 

The generous soul of nature, The comforting arm of night,

 The wisdom of the ages, The power of the eagle's flight, 

The joy of a morning in spring, The faith of a mustard seed, 

The patience of eternity, The depth of a family need, 

Then God combined these qualities, When there was nothing more to add, 

He knew His masterpiece was complete, And so, He called it ... Dad 

~ Author Unknown 

My dad seems to have all the patience in the world when it comes to me and my mother.  My friend Libbie will be quick to tell you that his whole demeanor changes when one of us is around or when we call him on the phone.  He does not use his normal scruffy bark of "HELLO" with us cause when I call I get a sweet "Hello Suzanne!" usually followed by "when are you coming home?"

I am still a little ticked about the gift I got him.  As far as I know, it still hasn't arrived.  After searching high and low, I finally found "Dawn at Socorro" on DVD.  The book is where my grandfather found the name "Brett Rutledge" so I thought it would be nice for daddy to have that since this was his first Father's Day without PawPaw.  I couldn't find the book, so the movie will have to do! Hopefully it will be delivered soon!!

Me and my Daddy!

Daddy with his kids

Daddy, I hope you had a great Fathers Day!  I love you!

-Suzanne

Shall We Gather at the River?

The beautiful, the beautiful river?  All good baptists should know that hymn!  I know that I have abandoned blogging for a few weeks now, but I am back!  Don't worry, nothing exciting has happened!

This past weekend I went to Blountstown and spent some family time and celebrate my aunt's birthday!  My mom came down as well!  The family life of a farming is not for the overly sensitive person.  I really miss my dad and brother, but completely understood why they couldn't be gone for a few days right now.

On Saturday, my mom, aunt, and I went to St George Island for a few hours.  We weren't there an hour and my aunt was getting hit on by an older gentleman that needed oil rubbed on his back.  No offense to my male Georgia friends, but I cannot stand it when they start off  "I'm just an ole Georgia Boy...." and that's exactly how he started his conversation.  I will not repeat the words my aunt used, my mother simply smiled and didn't respond and since the old fart was standing next to me and Ashley had just made comment a few hours back of how hateful I am at times, I decided to be nice and "rubbed the lotion on the skin" to quote the famous movie line.  Generally, I am not a touchy person to people I don't know.  He could have had a dormant flesh eating skin virus that he didn't know about and was not showing any evidence of and now I could have it!  I know that is far fetched but, you never know! After receiving much grief about it from my family, I think I will continue to the status-quo Stacey.  I know longer care if you get burnt! After he left my mom and aunt informed me that I did it to be nice, they did not do it because their husbands would not have liked it and my mother (who is quite the feisty one) continued to say "once you're over 50, you really just don't care any more if you piss someone off and I'd rather a stranger be pissed for me not doing it than your daddy being upset that I did."  While this may sound harsh, the woman has a point.

St George Island

On Sunday afternoon, I had a chance to spend some uncle/niece time.  I went fishing with my uncle on the Chipola River.  That was my first time on that river and it was prettier that I thought!  We were there a good while before I started catching anything.  I was determined to catch something...anything...with my bitsy minnow hook and was very determined to have better luck with it than Ashley!  For her story with the same type of lurer click here and by clicking here you can have a more detailed idea of what went down this weekend...I'm not feeling very detailed today...more of a cliff notes kinda day! Anyway, I never caught anything with that rod so my uncle too pity on my and took if off my hands and gave me another one.  As soon as he casted it, he caught something!  Thankfully my line started pulling shortly after that!  And no, I didn't catch myself like Ash!

On Monday, Memorial Day, I spent it on Chipola River again!  This time with my cousins.  We sent up camp on a sand bar and relaxed and played in the water for hours!  I had an absolute great time!  Well..until the snake joined us!  People move quickly when a snake joins you!  Barrett and I were outta there!  Poor kid, at the beginning of the day when he was spraying me water and I had repeatedly told him no and to stop. I finally got to the point where I got in his face and proceeded to lecture him that we do not spray people without asking and that cousin Stacey spanks.  Then, for some reason he was still around me when the snake came.  I figured by now he didn't care for me anymore, especially after that last lecture. To escape the path of the snake,  I dragged him and his floaty to the boat...I am surprised I didn't drown him in the process!  Thank goodness he still loves me (I hope!)  

The snake!

Always time for a little fishing!

Brad baiting up!

That's Barrett in the middle...just having a great ole time!

Our Captain for the day!

Chipola

The cutest little boater!

The only other thing that is going on is trying to plan a vacation.  Jeff and I have deemed each other as vacation buddies, so we are going to try and make it to Canada this fall and I'll get to see my friend Alisha.  I have been up there twice and love it more every time I go!! Depending on if plane tickets increase too much more before then we are contemplating October...but we will see...maybe somewhere inside the states!

Fishy Weekend

"What the hell just happened?" is exactly what I asked Bentley on Friday night, about 10:00pm while we were out in the very back corner of my parents yard.  We were out in the yard walking around after being couped up in the car for four hours on our little journey from GA when ALL the outside lights went out.  Country dark is very different from city dark.  You still have some light in the city, in the country you have to wait for your eyes to adjust to the pitch black dark before you can see by moonlight and knowing what creatures lurk in the dark around home I wasn't going to be waiting around for that moment in time!  I am not scared of the dark, I'm just scared of what is in the dark!! I always like to see "things" before they see me!  As Bentley and I finally walked back to the house and stumbled across the deck we found that not only had the lights been turned off on us, my parents had also locked the door!  I had to ring the doorbell to let them know that they had forgot about me.  I had been home 10 minutes and they had already forgot I was there!!  They both answered the door laughing (which I was too) saying that they are just use to two people being in the house and so out of habit they closed up for the night!  Nothing says "Welcome Home" like "Oops, we forgot you were here!" does.  It will be a long time before they live that one down!

Saturday, my friend Jacob and I went to Mobile for a wedding.  It was so beautiful and so great to see some old classmates!  So many memories!  Jacob and I took a walk down memory lane on the drive over there and when we met up with more people from home, we all rehashed some old stories from high school.  Absolute great time!

Sunday, after church, my parents, cousin Jim, and I went fishing.  I caught the most...a whopping TWO fish!  It took some talent to fish in this creek.  It took me a few casts to get the hang of dodging the overgrowth!

This is where we were fishing

Jim and his catfish

Dad and his bream

My first cast that went in the tree....

...still trying to get it out of the tree...that's my seriously fishing face!  Na, actually it's my "please don't pop me in the face" face!

Me and my cute little stumpknocker!

I had an appointment in Pensacola today (Monday) so I stayed an extra day and I had breakfast with my grandmother this morning.  Of all the times I didn't have my camera with me, I missed out on capturing quite the breakfast setting!  I walked in and she had a table cloth over her breakfast table, gold chargers, fine china,  complete silverware setting, crystal goblets and crystal mugs and our napkins were sprayed neatly in our goblet.  She is a riot because our breakfast consisted of....two honeybuns still in the wrapper sitting on the dinner plate!  I started laughing as soon as I saw it!  She is where I get my silly-ness from!  But, I got to hand it to her...she knows me well because she saw that I honed in on the clear mugs.  She told me not to worry and handed me a regular ceramic mug...I can not stand to see coffee in a clear mug! 

Great weekend at home and after my appointment, I could have easily went down to the beach because it was beautiful in Pensacola today!  Unfortunately, work called me back here...on a good note, Canada may be in my future around Oct this year.  We still have a few details to work out, but its a possibility and a great opportunity to see my oldest bestie, Alisha!

Hope you all have a great week and I will leave you with a few more pictures from home...

Don't know what they have done to the water, but that's the prettiest color I've ever seen it!

Corn, anyone?

The Bentley Chronicles

Hey Guys!  It's me, Bentley, again.  I know it has been awhile since I last posted on here, but I have found myself having a lot of extra time "sitting and thinking about what I have done" lately.  Or at least, that's what Privet says.  I like to call my owner Privet, because like the species Privet she too is invasive and is always in my space!  I mean, I sit in her favorite spot and all of the sudden, she's there.  I try to walk up and down the hallway, but I find her tripping all over me as if I was in the way!  The audacity that Privet has is unbelievable!!  So anyway, I am sitting here, behind bars, writing about my last few adventures.

Nothing fun has happened since the last time I wrote, however a few notable items have occurred.  The first thing is that summer is here and I actually love the water!  I know this ruff exterior gives off the impression that I like to keep my appearance just right, but underneath it all (and I DO mean ALL THIS HAIR) is a simple dog who likes to play in the water.  On Sunday, after church, Privet and I went swimming in the Treadon's pool and boy I had a blast!  I was even too tired from all my jumping and swimming that I didn't even have the energy to harass Privet and her cousin that night!  I have tons of energy to unleash everyday.  It's totally awesome!!  It also totally lands me in the slammer for a bit...what?  I cannot help that she left her $150 sunglasses that she has had for almost 5 years on a table that was way out of my reach!  She forgets that I have excellent climbing skills.  Obviously it is not on my paperwork that I, while Scottish, am also part Mountain Goat.  What does that all really boil down to?  One enraged invasive species...that's what!  Let's just say I heard her say that her hand hurt while "gently placing me in my cage"....with her famous reminder line of "Momma spanks, diapers off."

Those weren't the only two notable items.  Oh no, I also managed to release my processed water on her couch while Privet's mother was here.  Now, I like Wildflower. I call her Wildflower because she is like wildflowers which are beautiful no matter what setting they are placed in...and also that they cannot be tamed, hence the term "wild" ...that precious darlin' has some feistyness still left in her!  Wildflower was here visiting Privet before she left to go to the condo in Myrtle Beach.  She even stayed and went to church with Privet.  All I'm gonna say about that is Privet needed to go...it's been a ruff week on me cause of her!  I know she says God needs a few aggressive people in the world and that she doesn't mind being one of them, but geeze!  Enough is enough! Anyway, back to the issue at hand.  While I do love me some Wildflower and would love to have a whole bouquet of her, she kinda made me mad because she ...wait for it....wait for it...would NOT let me bite her toes!!  Can you believe this!?  Total abomination and complete defiance toward my overall goal of breaking her skin.  So of course I retaliated and continued to release my processed water on Privet's sofa...well....lets just say that didn't end well either...before I knew it, I was back here in the slammer.  She use to put me in solitary confinement...the first attempt was the guest bath, until I chewed a hole in the water line to the toilet and flooded the bath.  The next try was a blanket over my cage, until I stayed up all night pulling the blanket in through one of the cage's slots.  I am not a dumb dog and Privet knows this.  She likes a challenge...with me and with people. 

I guess we will be heading to FL/AL this weekend.  Her friend is getting married in Mobile and she wouldn't miss it for the world!  Plus the groom told her she better!  He's an interesting character...he calls her Snake.  Always has...since around middle school...apparently little Privet was "aggressive" then too! LOL! She has lots of nicknames or so I am finding out.  Well, it's almost grub time and I get to spend a little time out in the yard.  I hope some of the other inmates at this compound are going to be out.  I love to bark and growl like I am some fierce beast!  

Crotch sniffs and wet kisses, (that's too pansy to use in the slammer)

Barks & Bites, 

Big-Benzo 

(that's my name on the inside)

Fun in the Sun

Sorry for the delay of blogging!

This past Friday, my grandmother and I went to see my uncle who lives just north of Tampa.  We had a great trip down there and back!

Saturday, my uncle took me and my cousin fishing in the Wikki Wachee river/spring which opens up to the Gulf of Mexico.  It was super windy and I knew it would not be prime fishing, but I wanted to go anyway and anytime on a boat is a good time!  Morgan had never been fishing so this was going to be a great experience for her...and as it ends up, a great experience for me!  Let me guide you through our day...

We wake up, coffee, breakfast, chitchat, etc.  Not in any hurry to leave, we were just taking our time.  Once we decide to get going, Morgan and her unknowing ways of humor, start to kick in.  We get in the truck and she realizes that she does not have her license.  She starts going through her paperwork from her car to see if she can find something with her license number on it so she can still get her fishing license.  Keep in mind that we are still sitting in the driveway.  Then she just says that she won't fish.  With that decided, we start heading out and as we are doing this, she casually looks behind us and says "oh, there's a boat behind us!"  Well, duh, we are going fishing!  She's a nut!  So back to her drivers license issue, I say to her dad, "has she always been like this?"  He said yes and the she was like him...as we are turning around to go back to the house for something he forgot!  Ok...maybe one day we will get to the water!

Once again, we start heading out.  On our way to Wally World to get our license, she finds her driver's license number on paper work so she is able to get a fishing license.  Get all that squared away and picked up a case of water and a few of my favorite Walmart brand white grape waters.

Moving on along, we are finally on the water.  Morgan asks if she could drive the boat...at this point, I am a little nervous...but not near as nervous as when I hear the words "Dad, why is the boat going this way?" and as we both look up she is headed toward the ONLY pole out in the water and we miss it by about two feet!  No more driving for her!! :)

Fishing away, we are catching absolutely nothing!  I don't care though, it's way better than being stuck inside all day.  We reel it in for a bit to ride up the river and site see the river houses.  One day, I will have one!  While we were on our site seeing tour, we decided to stop and fish in a little area...this is where my experience of the day comes in!  I am minding my own business in the back corner of the boat.  Now, granted it had been windy and I had on a recently purchased hat that Morgan deemed appropriate.  All of the sudden, my hat goes flying off my head and into the water.  I mean WAY out in the water.  I didn't even see any air time that my hat had, this all happened so quickly!  I told them that was a weird gust of wind because for it to have taken my hat off, I sure didn't feel anything on my skin and how odd it was for the gust just to be head level!  It landed about 30 feet in front of  Morgan and she exclaimed that she would get it for me.  Ok, fine by me.  I wasn't worried about it.  She began doing an excellent job of reeling in my hat!  I was so surprised and thankful of her new found fishing skills.  Without missing a beat she brought my hat up close to the boat.  However, that is when we realized what happened.  The reason she was doing it so well is because her hook was deeply intertwined within my hat and it got that way because she hooked me when she went to cast!  There was no gust of wind! Thank goodness I was wearing a hat or I would have lost my eye!  I think Jeff was a little grateful I was too because when I was talking to him later that night, he told me that while I could pull off many things, he didn't think I could pull off an eye patch.  Gotta agree with him on that...

As we started back toward the landing, my uncle told me to let him know when I got ready to go.  I told him that he better not leave it up to me or we would be there till dark.  He kinda giggled, but I was serious.  Finally, I did catch something.  A blue crab...that got loose in the boat before I could get it off the line...that began pinching and coming toward me.  Now, I do not mind getting dirty, or taking fish off the hooks, or baiting my own hook, but pinching crabs??? No, I don't think so!  I don't like to be pinched by a person, much less an animal who's defense method IS pinching!!  After my uncle got it off the boat he informed me that we were leaving.  Begrudgingly I said ok.

Sunday morning, my grandmother and I left around lunch time and made it back to T-ville around 5-ish.  She ended up staying with me until today.  I enjoyed her so much over the last four days!  Really makes me want to look at moving back home...or in that area.  Guess I will just have to wait until that perfect opportunity arises and see where a few other life details are at that point.  Hopefully not 3,000 miles away!

Here are a few photos from this weekend:

My pretty little pinchin' crab!

Wikki Watchee

Morgan and her catch of the day!

Morgan and I

Two last things: 1) My water never made it on the boat because Morgan forgot to put her bag she was carrying in the cooler.  2) Morgan, you kept me laughing and smiling all weekend.  Love and miss you already!  Ready for our next adventure, whatever that may be!

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go administer a corrective behavior lesson to my dog who decided to eat my Costa sunglasses while I was typing my blog.  He's whining in his cage, but he will be whining more in a bit...

28 and Holding Tight!!

But not as tightly as I will be holding on to 29 next year!  I had the absolute best birthday!  My day started with 'Happy Birthday' texts about 6:30 am and continued on throughout the day.  Phone calls and emails were in abundance too!  Other than aging, how can you not enjoy a day that is all yours?  It is an easy reminder of how much you mean to others and how much you are loved.  All I can say is, I am truly blessed!

Once I got to work, and threw everyone off because I was dressed up (I had to dress up on my birthday!), I had a little "birthday crown!" 

On Thursday night, I went out with some gal pals to the Mexican restaurant where we enjoyed some margaritas and each other's company.

Friday, I left T-ville around two pm and headed home.  Some changes in events caused me to decide to go home to see my family, but also to get to see my best guy friend...that was the cherry on top!  No pun intended since that is his last name! 

He let me know a few weeks ago that he would be flying in from California to Pensacola to take his Professional Engineering exam in Mobile.  At first, I was hesitant to go, but then I realized that if he can fly across country and wants to see me, I can drive four measly hours.  He was so excited when I let him know I had changed my mind!  He said he knew I'd come to my senses and that he was gonna give me a few more days till he let me know how dumb I was being.  He's so patient with me it's ridiculous!  Over the last five years we have really gotten close and two years ago we both moved away.  During our time back home, he would come up to see me the occasional Friday and we'd spend all day goofing off.  He's met most of my family and well...he kept coming back so I guess they didn't scare him off!   So, needless to say, we were both pretty excited to see each other!  

I'm going to back up a bit here and go back to Wednesday, when I got my hair colored because I refused to turn 28 with gray hair.  I thought it looked fine.  When my dad saw me he asked what what with all the red hair?  I quickly informed him that it was NOT red, but brown...he let it go...

Saturday, I met up with J in Pensacola and we had both understood that he would be on his friends motorcycle so I knew that we would be taking my vehicle.  Homegirl doesn't ride bikes!  I was a little early and he was a little late...that, also, is completely understood on both sides!  Once he finally got there, he walked over and opened my door to get out for a hug...and what does he say???  I LOVE your RED hair! Ugh!  Anyway, he said he'd drive so I dang sure let him!  He, and his chivalrous mannerisms that he obtains, walked me back around my vehicle to the passenger side and opened and shut my door for me.  He did this every time we went anywhere Saturday night!  He is also one to always have a plan and always be prepared. We had talked about going out to the beach.  Once we were in the vehicle he said that he thought we should go to Hemingway on the beach.  Neither of us had ever ate there so it was fine by me!  Supper was great and we picked up right where we left off.  After supper we walked the boardwalk and then went to the beach.  In my whole time of growing up there, I have NEVER been on the beach at night!  We went down a few public access places, away from the lights and Mr. Prepared had brought a blanket.  We sat on the blanket, listened to the waves crash, watched the stars (when the clouds would give us that opportunity), talked about life and discussed the condos across the street and which one we wanted.  The conversation is never lacking between us.  Never has been.  Time flew by and before we knew it, it was after 1am!  We headed back to the north side of town, where we had to say goodbye again.  Fortunately, Sunday held a window of opportunity for us and while he was dropped off super early for his flight, I picked him up and we went over to the mall.  It gave us a chance to spend a little more time together before he really had to leave...again.  Saying goodbye to a friend is ALWAYS hard to do...but it makes you feel good when you get a text that says "you are thought of and missed today."

Sunday morning I went to church with my family and afterwards my mom cooked us a fantastic meal for my birthday!.  

Me and my brother...his card had to be the funniest one I received.  It said "Forget the past, you can't change it" on the front and when you opened it, it said "Forget the present...there isn't one!"

My Maw Maw and my Mom...and the jolly green giant...gotta love genetics!

My parent's improvisation...no candles?  No problem!  Just use a balloon and a toothpick! :)

All in all, I had a great birthday!  I will have to blog later on my presents that I received.  Starting with some damn birds that Ashely got me!! Just kidding Ash!  Since they came from you, I love them!  I also got an Auburn picture for my office.  Once it is on the wall, I'll share a picture!   

Birthday Cards & Photos

It is the beginning of my birthday week and these days I actually check my mail daily for none other than....BIRTHDAY CARDS!!!  It is the only kind of mail I enjoy, well, that and party/wedding invites!  I have a box dedicated to cards...dating back quite some time.  But  you want to know the irony of all this?  I very rarely send anyone a card...if you have gotten a card from me, you rank pretty high on my list!  It's not (how many of you just read 'its snot' instead of it's not...it's one of my pet peeves but sometimes I do it just to say its snot cause its fun!) that I don't care about you...I just really forget to pick up cards.  No rhyme, no reason, I just don't do it!

So far I have received two cards, one from my grandmother and the other from my aunt and uncle.  Along with that I have already teared up twice...it was my first birthday card that didn't have Paw Paw's name in it and I know I won't get to hear him sing to me this year...oh how I loved to hear him sing!  There was an indescribable melody to his singing and I loved hearing every note of it.  It's like he never sang with anyone, but he sang by himself and pretended that no one was around...you could really tell he was in this zone when he started singing the wrong verse at church!!  However, along with Paw Paw, there is someone else's name I won't see on a card this year with the infamous dollar bill in it...my MaMaw's.

I was lucky enough to know three of my great grandparents.  MaWard died when I was in 8th grade, Old PawPaw died when I was in college, I think, and I do mean old...I think he was 102 or 103 when he died.  The last one that we lost was MaMaw, just six years ago.  She was a prissy little thing.  She and MaWard were complete opposites...its amazing their children married!  My grandmother will still call me MaWard when I get a little too opinionated, she'll say "you are just like your PawPaw and you are both just like his momma!"  MaMaw wasn't as strict as MaWard though.  I remember she would send us great grandchildren  birthday cards and there would always be a dollar in them.  I thought it was the coolest thing!  I always felt closest to MaMaw because she was in my life the longest.  I remember going to get her one Sunday for church and I think that she primped and looked in the mirror the whole time we were in the car!  I would tease her and ask "who are you getting all dolled up for?"  She'd just smile and tell me "you never know might be here!"  My first year of college I went to a junior college and I would usually stop in and see her on Wednesdays.  Every time I walked in she would be drinking a coke float.  I asked her one day if she was suppose to be having that and her response to me, with a giggle included, was that the doctor actually prescribed it for her.  Hmm...sure MaMaw!  Her husband, Granddaddy, died when I was just a few weeks old and one of the most precious items I have in my house is this picture...

This picture is exactly the way she had it.  I have not changed one thing about it, the only thing that has changed is it's location.  She kept this by her bedside, probably since the day she had it developed!  When she passed away, I made sure I got it and now it sits on my dresser.  The picture is her, holding me at just a few days/weeks old, and showing me to my great granddaddy.  It makes me sad to think that I never got to know such a great man, but knowing that he was able to meet me and knowing that he's waiting to hold me again in heaven is a great feeling.

The countdown continues...today in my cousin Morgan's birthday, then we skip two days and it's my birthday on Thursday, then we skip two more days and it's my cousin Arden's birthday....then we had a boy cousin and he screwed the pattern up! I think he's just one day after Arden.  It's hard to believe another year is coming and going so quickly.  I am the oldest granddaughter on my dad's side, Heath is the only grandchild above me, and to know that there are now ten of us is crazy!