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At times while getting ready for work in the mornings, I will turn to my eight-year-old niece, Jarah, to ask how something looks - my hair, makeup, clothes, etc. She never fails to tell me how “great” everything looks.

I know that I don’t always – or ever, for that matter – look great, but I have trusted her not to let me leave the house looking like a fool. My hair is the last thing I fix, or don’t fix in my case. I’m a wash, comb and go girl. The other day, I took a towel off my head and quickly towel dried my hair. It was standing up everywhere.

I looked at Jarah and asked about my hair, I told her I was trying a new style. She quickly told me it looked “great.” Thinking I’d call her bluff, we headed out the door. Halfway to school, I couldn’t take it any more, I asked Jarah if she was really going to let me go to work with my hair uncombed.

She again assured me how good it looked. I keep a brush in my car, and was able to tame my wild tresses before entering The TD building.

This morning, I thought my hair looked about normal, and was ready to leave the house only to have Jarah tell me how horrible it looked. I didn’t even ask her opinion this time.

I didn’t have time to do anything to fix it, so I walked around all day with my horrible hair.

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Aside from occasionally forgetting that my family has moved and driving to our old house, we have settled in quite nicely. All the boxes have disappeared and everything has its place.

As a child, we lived in the “country,” and I hated it. As an adult, I love it.

We had a housewarming party a couple of weeks ago. Lots of our family and friends came and shared refreshments and visited with us. We had a great time.

We also had a opossum that visited our house for about three weeks. He would eat dog food and then go about his business. I have pictures of the animal on my cell phone and watched for it every night. My husband, however, has put an end to these visits. We have lots of other critters to take its place, though.

Briar and Brad seem to really like the new house. They have friends who live nearby, and they have been spending a lot of time at our house. We also have a bigger yard, so they have been spending more time outside.

Everything is still new to us, but it seems as if we made a good move.

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Saturday my family had a reunion at Lake Frierson State Park. We had several who were unable to attend and were missed, but overall we had a good turnout.

I was very surprised, yet glad, to see long-time family friends Delbert and Mary Gall. Having her homemade pickles and deer sausage was a big treat.

I enjoyed catching up with everyone. While talking with a cousin, I had a feeling of nostalgia, watching our children running and playing together. It doesn’t seem like very long ago when we were the ones running and playing while our parents sat and visited.

In the past several years, we haven’t had a big family get together, and I didn’t realize how much I missed everyone.

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My family has now spent three nights in our new home. Briar and Bradley have their rooms completely unpacked and all their pictures and posters hung on their walls. Their rooms look really nice.

The rest of the house is still a work in progress. I know getting settled in takes some time, but I’m ready to have it all finished.

The refrigerator is too tall for its space. We are going to have to cut about an inch and a half off the cabinet above it to make it fit. The man we had hired to do our flooring put ceramic tile down in our bathroom. He came back Friday to do the grouting, but realized he had used the wrong stuff to stick the tile to the floor. He had to pull it all back up. He put a carpet in it so that the bathroom is functional. In a couple of weeks, he is going to redo it for us.

Hank, our dog, loves our new location. He has lots of room to roam or find a sunny spot to lie in the yard. I’m used to him following me around the house, but every time I looked for him this weekend, he was laying in the yard.

All in all, though, everything has gone pretty well.

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So we closed on our house last week. It is officially ours. Well, almost … Mr. and Mrs. Harris, previous owners, are in the process of moving out.

In the meantime, we have packed, picked out new carpeting, talked about paint colors for the living room and Briar’s bedroom, purchased new furniture, checked on different cable companies (our current one doesn’t provide service in the area in which our new home is located) and we’ve packed some more.

The only problem we’ve had so far happened while packing up things in the kitchen. It is decorated with mammies and Aunt Jemima memorabilia that I’ve collected for the past 14 years. I was cleaning the items to pack for the new house and soaked them in a cleaning solution that cleaned a little to well. It removed all the grime, but the paint came off, too. Luckily I was only doing a few pieces at a time, so most of my collection is still intact.

Moving is not an easy task, but we are really looking forward to making this house our home.

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Can you call it writer’s block when you don’t really consider yourself a writer? Hmmm…. Something to think about.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I didn’t realize how many people actually read the “blah” that I post until I missed several weeks.

Since my last post, a lot has happened…

Briar and Brad had the flu, and I haven’t felt well.

We are possibly buying a house, so we’ve been doing some serious cleaning at our current residence for the past couple of weeks. I have boxes stacked up all over the house labeled to go to different places. It is definitely a crazy time.

A few friends came over and watched the Super Bowl with us. I really wanted the Giants to win, but never thought they could actually pull it off. I was pleasantly surprised.

We have seen our share of sorrow, having already attended four funerals in 2008.

I don’t know what the rest of the year holds for us, but I’m sure there will be plenty of stories to share with all of you!

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Well, we survived Christmas again this year. I know that sounds so dreadful and I really shouldn’t use that phrase because we actually had a wonderful Christmas ~ just different.

I always wait till the last minute to do my shopping. I finished earlier than usual this year, but still had to rush around.

Briar and Brad are also at the ages where the “magic” of Christmas starts to go away. I can’t use “You better be good, Santa is watching” anymore. They don’t believe me. No more leaving cookies for Santa, no visiting Santa… They don’t even want to watch the Christmas movies we normally enjoy. They don’t want anything with Santa at all.

I told them Santa would be disappointed when he stopped by our house, and they would be lucky if he left them any presents.

Of course the excitement of receiving presents never goes away. I was pleased that they enjoyed spending time with our family and friends as well as remembering Jesus’ birth. After all, that is what it is all about.

So, even though Christmas was different for us, the boys have deemed it the best Christmas ever.

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I’ve been watching The Next Great American Band on FOX on Friday nights. I was a first time viewer of American Idol this year and thought this show would be entertaining as well. I haven’t been disappointed. This week will be the finale and there are three bands left. Two of them stand out to me and have from the beginning. I just can’t pick one above the other. One group’s performance even moved one of the judges to tears.

Saturday morning my husband’s company invited employees to enjoy a movie at the Paragould Cinema 8. We were able to choose between Fred Clause and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. We chose Fred Clause. It was a very entertaining movie — I laughed from beginning to end.

I received a phone call from my sister-in-law Saturday evening. She wanted me to keep Jarah and Kylie while she and Blake “went to talk with Santa.”

I love spending time with my nieces, so I jumped at the chance. After painting fingernails and toenails, putting on makeup and new hair-dos, Jarah played on the computer while Kylie and Tim argued back and forth. Most kids are scared of Tim, but Kylie gets in his face and tells him like it is. It’s fun to watch them go at it.

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Brad has found a way to unnerve me lately… he has started calling me “Angie” instead of “Mom.” I know that’s my name and it is not really a big deal, BUT there is just something about the way he says it that bothers me. He uses the same tone that my husband uses when he calls me Angela.

I calmly remind him that I’m “Mom” to him, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.

A few years back he called me “Mother” all the time and I hated that, too. It took a VERY long time for him to stop. Maybe he’ll get it out of his system quicker this time and I’ll be “Mom” again by Christmas!!!

I hope…

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Last year, I was devastated when I could not find the Christmas decorations that were handmade by Briar and Brad throughout their childhood. I looked for them for days. They simply could not be replaced, and our tree was not the same without them.

Sunday afternoon, the boys and I pulled the Christmas tree and decorations out of the attic and put the tree up. There was a box full of old garland I was getting ready to throw away when Brad noticed what I was doing.

He loves to decorate and wouldn’t let me throw it away. As I pulled the strands out of the box for him, a little snowman made of gumballs caught my eye. There, in the bottom of that box, were all the lost decorations!!!

I can’t explain the joy I felt upon finding them…

And to think, I almost threw them away.

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