you really have no idea.

ohhh, blogger. not loving you or your spacing malfunctions at the moment. sorry, y'all! but this is good stuff ... power through. i promise it'll be worth it! :) xoxo ... j

...........................................

so i figured it out, y'all.

i finally found the root of my insanity.

once i started looking, it was pretty obvious.

believe it or not, none of the usual suspects (you know, the heinous amount of black eyeliner i love to slather on; the perfume bath i take every morning while waiting on my ddp at sonic; the ozone-choking assault of hairspray i routinely unleash on the environment; the obnoxiously large wads of pink bubble gum i'm always smacking; and the nutritionally obscene quantities of caffeine {specifically, diet dr. pepper} coursing through my veins at any given moment) were able to lay the claim to fame here.

basically, to save y'all the complicated, convoluted scientific lingo ... it comes down to this:

i come from crazy people.

(i'll wait while you process such deep information. ....... )

this startling realization really hit home for me last night while i was looking through some old photo albums at nana's.

umm, wow.

see fo' yo'self ...

this one is actually a new one, but it boasts just as much cray-cray as the rest.

my fantastic uncle don (daddy bob's oldest son) came through town for a quick visit, and it was SO wonderful to see him.

the last time we saw his sweet face was last summer when we lost daddy bob. it did us all a lot of good to have a happier visit this time around.

he took us to dinner, busted taters (read: pounded knuckles) with the girls and brought us a whole bunch of homegrown peaches ... yum!

for any of you locals, we had a fun dinner downtown at zapata's even though my husband and i looked like total slobs. (no make-up, workout clothes, sweaty hair - major SICK.)

as we were headed out to leave, don stopped the girls and told them to look down the block at the old railroad tracks and then went on to tell a neat story about how daddy bob used to bring all the kids to texarkana (they lived about half an hour away in hope at the time) to see the circus come to town.

i really doubt they retained all (or knowing our girls ... any) of the tidbits he passed on, but they loved sitting there listening to him talk about lions and tigers and elephants.



there were a couple of (rather trampy) women sucking down cigarettes a couple of benches down from the girls who thought don was the sexiest thing since bradley cooper (or gerard butler if you're thinking more my speed. ha!) and kept trying to butt themselves into the conversation. i (rather un-)politely let them know we were giving our girls a bit of family history. (read: shut the ---- up, hookers!)

check out the wild woman and her crossed legs. it cracks me up that she can LOOK so prim and proper and normal.

i doubt she's fooling anyone here, though. (and if she is, you must be late to the party, friend. ha!)

don is a complete carbon copy of his daddy. oh how i wish y'all could have heard my sweet daddy bob tell a tale.

nearing the end of the history lesson. neither of these girls could tell you what he said even if their juice cups depended on it. they sure had an absolute blast listening though.

but back to the part about my entire family being certifiably nuts.

what follows is but a snippet of the great treasures that lie within those albums. i've got big plans to scan all the photos and save digital versions so i'll have them (to use for blackmail) forever and ever and ever.

(be sure to ask me how that's going in about 5 years ...)

anyway.

i snapped photos (with my trusty phone) of some of my very favorites for you to see. a few of them are baby pictures of me that i thought some of my mommy friends might appreciate (especially the ones who share my love of a good hairbow!) and a few are glimpses into my crooked little family tree.

enjoy!

right before my senior prom. i like this one even though it was clear i wasn't nearly heavy-handed enough with the eyebrow wax!

cuddled up with my papaw (my mom's dad). i was the center of his universe until he was killed in a railcar accident when i was 14 months old. it still stings my heart that i missed out on really knowing him.

in other news - check out my HAIR!

anyone else notice a theme? mom says we did a lot of this. papaw was the superintendent of schools in saratoga (about 20 minutes from us) when i was a baby, but mom said he showed up at our house during school hours just about every day. he found any reason he could (paper clip shortages, back-ordered #2 pencils, dry cleaning disputes) to head over to texarkana and steal away a few minutes with us.

call me crazy(er!), but i see a little bit of the wild woman in this photo. as much as i love that she looks like her daddy, part of me secretly hopes that she starts resembling me a little more as she gets older.... sshhh - don't tell hubs!

i REALLY see sophie in this one. especially with the open mouth ... neither of us are physiologically capable of keeping ours closed. unless we're chewing - and even then it's a 50/50 shot.

i am living, breathing proof that not even big bows, white dresses or olan mills portrait sessions can ward off the crazy. see how normal i used to look?!

mom has this one blown up to almost the size of our flat screen tv - i guess she wanted a LARGE reminder of one of the 7 seconds we weren't beating the snot out of each other while we were growing up.

an unusually small bow for school pictures. apparently there are several years' worth where my head is cocked to one side 'cuz the bow was so heavy. i guess mom decided to play this one safe?

love the bow. love the collar. wishing i had both to re-create this photo with my wild woman.

must have been a heavy bow day! ha!

i realize how egocentric i seem with all these self-portraits, but i just can't get over the dresses and tights and bows and patent leather shoes. makes me feel like such a slacker mom that my kid wears hello kitty sundresses and rapunzel flip flops most days!

my very favorite. of all time. hands down. i WILL re-create this one with my girl before the summer is up. the shoes ... the sweater around the shoulders ... the little button-down dress shirt ... i die!

okay. i promise y'all i'm finished stroking my own ego. at least for now. thanks for letting me indulge myself a little bit.

so.

let's take a little trip down memory lane. like, to the '70s.

nana, papaw, my dad (with the boy version of farrah fawcett's famous 'do) and my mom (in the 27 yards of peach chiffon). just lovely!

rickey shu ... #52 in your program, #1 in your heart!

what a couple of hotties! (and if you look closely, i'm technically in this photo too. ha!) this MAY or may not have ended up on facebook today. tagged. i just couldn't help myself.

this single photo convinces me that i am not to blame for whatever mental malfunctions i may exhibit. clearly, i came by it honestly.

something tells me nana could put the smack down.

wanda june! the big hair is fantastic ... and the mini dress? what a babe! (and HOW did i not inherit those killer legs?!) i would totally wear that dress right this minute. y'all know you would too!

annnnd here it is. my favorite photo out of the whole dadgum stack. papaw and nana with their very best friend ms. alice. see, ms. alice and her hubby mr. george had lots and lots of little get-togethers at their house. i highly doubt i want to know what really happened at those get-togethers, but i'm absolutely sure i couldn't keep up with this crowd no matter how hard i tried.

love & i'll have what they're having,