Goings on and donuts – Edited

So, I haven’t written in a while. I’m just – I don’t know. Not a lot going on. Mentally, I think I’m a bit down. Anctually, I know I’m a bit down. Just in a mood I guess.

June 15 was Evan’s second birthday. We got him a child’s toy called a "corn popper." It’s ball popper on two wheels with a push handle. He loves that thing. 🙂 He pushes it up and down the hallway as fast as he can laughing wildly the entire time. He scares the crap out of all 3 cats and the dog with it. He just come barrelling down on them and he won’t stop so they all flee in terror. It’s quite funny actually.

My Grandma Imo has pancreatic cancer. It’s from all her smoking. 3 packs a day for oh, 40 or 50 years does not make you healthy. But, it’s still sad. Very sad. Growing up, she was my "nice grandma." She never judged us and loved us and wanted us to be kids. She’s not even my real grandmother. She’s my older sister’s grandmother (we have different fathers). But, she treats us just as she treats my sister. Always has. She’s got months, maybe a year left. Please, if you smoke, please quit. It’s not worth it. And dying an horrific and painful death because of it is horrible.

My twin sister’s pregnancy is going well. She had another ultrasound and they found that one of the kidneys is enlarged and has cysts. 🙁 But, both kidneys are functioning. 🙂 So, they’re going to watch and see. A lot of babies have cystic kidneys and turn out just fine. So, little M will be just fine.

Another yard sale this weekend. It’s going to be near 100F. Yeah. Hot. Yay. If I don’t make a good selling this time, I don’t care. I’m going to load it all into the van and send it off to the Goodwill store. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t CARE.

My good friend H is leaving. She got a posh government job in Denver, CO. Her parents live out there and she’s been wanting to move home for a while. She’s divorced and they were transferred here about one year before the divorce. There’s nothing holding her here except a few friends. So, she’s going home. I’m happy for her, but I’m gonna miss her.

Big birthday party at my house on the 27th. It’s for Kenny, Evan, my nephew Stevie and my neice April. We’ll also be giving my neice Tesia and nephew Scott a present. It’s hard being the only 2 kids out of 6 not getting a cake or presents. So, they’ll get a present each. If it’s nice out, we’ll have the pool up and a slip n’ slide and maybe the sprinklers and bouncy house. We’re going to do a pinata too. A real "hit me" one. That’s really for Scott and April. I’m going to put some toy coins and whistles in it. No candy. We have too much candy as it is in our house. I scored the party decorations at Target. In their "dollar spot" they had some really cute generic jungle birthday party stuff. I got the plates, napkins, and table covering for $10 total. I’m going to use plastic cups that we already have in the house. And I’ll hit up the local party store for balloons and other decorations. We’re going to have pizza and I’m going to make 4 little cakes (2 box mixes). That way, everybody celebrating their birthday gets to blow out candles on their own cakes. Two chocolate and two funfetti. It’ll be fun. And then my SIL can take one of each home so that I don’t end up eating all the cake.

One of our vendors (who loves us) brought in massive quantities of donuts for us this morning. It’s a good thing too as I skipped breakfast and was starving. I was talking to Jen and in walks this vendor with 3 HUGE (like 3 feet long) boxes of donuts. YAY! I had a chocolate cake one with chocolate icing and a glaze. They’ve brought these donuts in before, so I knew that I wanted a glaze. The glaze donuts from this particular bakery taste EXACTLY like the donuts my Grandma H’s church used to serve after service. They are WONDERFUL. I’m very picky about my donuts. I don’t eat Krispy Kreme (BLECH!). These glaze donuts take me back to a simpler time. A time when all I had to do was sit still for one hour in church so that my granmother would take us down to the cafeteria and gym to eat a donut, have a (glass bottle) of coke to share, and then get to play in the gym for a bit while the adults chatted. We’d play basketball, bounce on pogo sticks, and just generally goof around with the other church kids. But the donuts. After everybody had gotten at least one and we’d play for a bit and my grandfather was done doing whatever it is he did after service (I think he helped drink off the last of the sacremental wine for the day – yuck), he’d come in and tell us we could have another donut and then it was time to go home. I looked forward to those donuts every single trip we made down to Arkansas. Imagine my disappointment after not going down for over 10 years and then making my first solo trip to discover that they still serve donuts, but it was Krispy Kreme (BLECH BLECH BLECH and GAG). So, when I started working here and the vendor brought in these donuts, I wasn’t expecting much. I bit into my first glaze and there was the wonderful flavor from my childhood. My simple pleasure. It makes me remember the smell of the church coffee (which I wasn’t allowed to have). The pounding of the basketballs in the gym behind the wall. The talk of all the adults and the teenagers too cool to play in the gym anymore. Watching my grandfather from the gym door with the golden goblet in his hand talking to the group of men who did the basket passing. The smell of the Arkansas air and the dew on the grass. The donut that I’ve had this morning will literally get me through the day. It makes me desperately miss my summer home. But that place is my happy thought. The hot summer sun. Sitting on the spill way or in the tin boat. Eating donuts in the church cafeteria. The trees. It’s the best happy thought there is.

Edit: It’s about 12 hours later and a little after midnight. I really hate thunderstorms and wind. Really really hate them. Very loud and I was sleeping well.