Shame on you Lifetouch (and the school)...My letter ('cause that's what I do..)

DISCLAIMER: This is strictly my OPINION based on my PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with Lifetouch. You make your determinations based on your own experiences, not mine. :)

Dear Lifetouch,

My son is in the 4^th grade at (deleted because I'm a smart Mama who is looking out for her kiddo). Since his first year of school when he started Pre-K five years ago, I do not have a single school photo of him.  I remember picture days as a child always being given a personal little black comb to make sure your hair was ok, and teachers and photographers making time to ensure that you were presentable prior to having a picture taken.

I emailed you about this same issue in October of 2010. I wish I had saved your response. I vaguely remember being told that it was the first year for Lifetouch to do photos at (that school) and that your photographers did everything possible to make sure photos were good. However, I did post a copy of the email I sent to you to Facebook and found overwhelming agreement regarding the quality of Lifetouch photos. I will be posting this letter on Facebook too. I will also be posting it on my blog. Again, overwhelming agreement when I mentioned it on my status update this morning.

Since Lifetouch has taken over, I have only bought a school portrait ONCE because his hair is a mess or, in the case of last year, he was wearing a hoodie over his nice shirt that I sent him to be photographed in and his hair was a mess or, because shirts are twisted, facial expressions are off, etc. The list goes on.

In fairness, I’ve bought pictures of my other children. However, they are much older and, unlike "J" (because I don't post kiddo's name on the blog), do not have special needs so they can be counted on to check their own appearance.

My question to you, in this digital age when a photo is instantly viewable after being taken, how in the world do you expect to sell portraits that look like this?

Is the ultimate goal to sell a portrait, or are you just trying to find something for budding photographers to do during the day and forking out money to pay them with no return on your investment?

Sincerely,

Remembering Lola....

This was the day we brought her home. She was so tiny.








.

She tried to nurse on Sky. Poor old girl let her, too.

Here she is with Mom's little one, Margo.

Sometimes she had bad hair days. I always thought she looked like  Phyllis Diller when she did.

Mostly she just looked like a sweet little angel.
We will miss you,  Princess Lola McFluffy.

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.

There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....   Author unknown

Cake That's Not Carrot Cake But Still Didn't Break My Heart

I love cake. I don’t think I can even begin to express to you how much I love cake. Cake makes my world go round.

I wanted carrot cake, because it’s my favorite. However, I really didn’t have the energy to stand around grating carrots for my homemade carrot cake. So, I went to the grocery store to get one of those box cakes. They didn’t have carrot cake.

Can you believe that? No carrot cake?

*sigh* I bought myself a spice cake mix and two blocks of cream cheese instead and carried it home. Then, I got to thinking, spice cake isn’t really what I wanted either. How to fix it?

(I should have taken a picture but the cake was pounced upon before I thought of it. Sorry.)

Anyway, how to fix it? Raid the pantry.

The result was wonderful. Here goes…

You will need:

1 spice cake mix

2 blocks of cream cheese - softened

1 stick of butter - softened

About 3 ½ cups of powdered sugar

1 small can of crushed pineapple drained with juice reserved

7 ounce bag of pecan pieces

½ of a small bag of coconut

Vegetable oil

Orange juice

Eggs

1 tablespoon of Vanilla extract

Mix the spice cake according to package directions adding the oil and eggs – EXCEPT – where it calls for water, use the reserved pineapple juice and orange juice to make the amount required in the instructions. When the batter is mixed well, fold in the coconut and pecans.

Bake according to package directions. Don’t forget to grease and flour your pan!

While the cake is baking, make up your icing. Keep in mind, I like my cream cheese icing extra cream cheesy tasting and a little less sugary tasting. That’s why I use two blocks where most recipes only call for one.

First blend the butter, vanilla, and cream cheese. Then, while continuing to mix, add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, and mix until fluffy.  Or, you can dump it all in at once. But, don’t forget to call and invite me over first so I can laugh at the cloud of powdered sugar that explodes all over your kitchen and then quickly leave before you’re ready to clean it up.  J

You can use more or less powdered sugar here depending on your preference.  This makes a rather large batch, but we like lots of icing on our cake and I needed enough to ice 2 nine inch round cakes.

Note: a more standard cream cheese icing recipe uses 1 block of cream cheese, 1 stick of butter, and all of 1 small box of powdered sugar

Well, it's not an Earthship....

So, I told you I would tell you about this picture. I had a few interesting guesses when I posted the photo on Facebook. But, in this case, fact is so much more amusing than fiction.

We spent this weekend with my in-laws in Bastrop, Louisiana. We drove an hour and a half on a little state highway, through small town southern Arkansas, where outbuildings are better tended than the mobile homes and yards that line the roads. There were stray dogs, old campers in yards, and several residences that left one to wonder if people lived there or it was, in fact, a salvage yard, before finally crossing Bayou Bartholomew into Louisiana and hitting that little gravel road. (for those of you unfamiliar with the rules of grammar, I'm pretty sure that was what you call a "run on sentence")

On day two of our trip Don and I made our way back out to the bayou to see his cousin, Alan. As we approached Alan’s driveway, we notice his neighbor’s home. My husband, the eternal optimist, begins to dance in his seat, convinced that these incredibly cool people are not just redneck Cajuns, but rather redneck Cajuns who have seen the light of the earthship movement and are building a self sustainable home. (feel free to click the linky dink to read about earthships. cool stuff!)

Surrounding this home is a beautiful piece of property. It is well maintained with a garden spot, a field with cows, a very clean chicken yard, rain cisterns and stocked fishing ponds.

It is also a fortress for a family of conspiracy theorists who believe that the US economy will collapse soon and we will find ourselves in the midst of a civil war with every man for himself.

They are also gun dealers who travel the weekly circuit across the country from gun show to gun show.

The little openings along the bottom of the sandbags are so they can lie on the ground and shoot at you as you approach their property. There are even some of those at eye level along the front of the trailer.

It’s really quite creepy if you ask me.

And funny in its own southern way.

And creepy….

And did I mention creepy?

Apple Butter at Grandma's

The last time I saw my grandmother alive was twenty one years ago. No longer the sturdy red haired woman I knew. She was now rail thin, sitting slumped on her sofa watching Young and the Restless. Her once perfectly combed hair was now twisting this way and that upon her head, briefly reminding me of one of those troll dolls with the brightly colored hair that stood on end. A stroke had left this once outspoken woman barely able to speak an intelligible word. I wept inside. 

Twenty one years ago I was eighteen. Today I am thirty nine. 

But, this morning, I was ten and she was as strong as ever and telling me stories over breakfast. I moved the buttermilk biscuits that I had generously smeared with the homemade apple butter my friend Steph gave me for Christmas to the side of my plate. I wanted to save them for last. I wanted to savor them. I wanted to remember.

I watched the melting butter run down the sides of my biscuit as I finished my eggs and sipped my coffee. Finally, I was ready. It seemed as I took the first bite that I was transported back to that little country kitchen. I felt the tingle of cinnamon as the smooth puree of apples silked its way across my tongue. I was ten. I had homemade biscuits and her homemade apple butter. I had my mug of milk, just enough coffee added to make me feel like one of the grown ups as I ate my breakfast. My legs dangled over the side of my chair swinging cheerily in response to the sunshine glittering through her lace curtains, mocking the curls of cigarette smoke that snaked through the beams of light.

I closed my eyes, recalling her voice as she told one of her tall tales. Her boisterous laugh as I ooed and ahhed at her yarns. How we were certainly related to anyone named Hayes in the encyclopedia, that Jesse James was some long lost cousin, that we were all descendants of greatness. No, we weren't always rednecks and drunkards. And, while our own lives were unremarkable, we had tales to tell of glories that were never really ours.

This morning I was ten. This morning was indescribable joy. All because someone gave me apple butter for Christmas.

I Don't Know Why I Remember ~ A writing prompt

Here are the instructions:

Writing Exercise from The Making of a Story:  A Norton Guide to Creative Writing

Goal:  To pinpoint some previously unexplored material that remains “hot” for you in some important emotional way.

What to do: 

1.       Scan back over your life and think of things that have stuck in your mind, but for no obvious reason.  (No births or deaths, or other “important” moments, please. Go for the small ones.)

2.       Render them precisely on the page using concrete details, beginning each one with the phrase, “I don’t know why I remember.”

3.       Don’t try to explain why they stuck with you, or interpret the meaning of them. Just put your reader there.

I don’t know why I remember him so clearly. I remember the deep lines set firmly around brown eyes, the whites both blood shot and jaundiced, assuring me that, most likely, any money he acquired was spent on liquor. The leathery black skin of his face was framed by the M shape of his receding hariline and the peppered gray stubble along his jaw that centered chapped lips the color of bruised plums, all together making it seem as if the rows of perfect white teeth were somehow out of place.

 Regardless of the season he wore navy blue coveralls blackened with the grime of the city streets and gooey with the stench of unwashed body and stale urine; the odor an independently tangible presence that clung to the air around him. They were of the insulated sort, the coveralls, like one might see on a mechanic. Only his face and hands were left exposed and the coveralls had zippered pockets here and there. Over his arms and legs, one on each of the upper and lower portions of his extremities, were t-shirts wrapped and tied like tourniquets with their frayed ends swaying to and fro as he moved. Their purpose was perplexing, at best, and yet one was left with the assurance that the various shirts were somehow as necessary to him as the unseasonable coveralls he insisted upon wearing.

A homeless Katrina evacuee who often sat quietly on the corner near the smoking area, watching with anticipation those who passed by in hopes they would leave the still smoldering remains of their cigarettes for him to pick up. Sometimes, from his position perched on the stoop, he would violently wave his arms in a style much like martial arts. Making those little sounds often heard from little boys playing, the expelling of air between the upper teeth and lower lip.

Pfft, pfft, pfft.

Some days, if he was lucid enough, he would gingerly approach, his jaundiced eyes averted, and mumble his desire for a whole cigarette.  Again, if lucid enough, he might even tell you his name, or that he was a Katrina evacuee, or that he was the administrator of a space station and only waiting for them to retrieve him.

It's been so long since he last held court on our little corner of the street. Other faces of other shiftless sorts, who are unable, both by choice or uncontrollable circumstance, have since come and gone. Their faces are blurred by the passing of days and years.

But his face, I remember.

I'm a grumpy old troll...

I often wonder what I would do if I didn’t have friends who understood my need to lean towards anti-social behaviors. I don’t really know why I’m such a hermit like person. Given the opportunity to socialize, I tend to thoroughly enjoy those moments, drinking them up as if I thirsted for them during the time I chose to hide. When finished, I retreat silently back into my shell, my little haven at home where I am freed from the conformities of social circumstance and obligation.

I’m left to speculate what occurrences have left me to be such a solitarian that I do not seem to react to the lack of social stimuli, regularly finding myself quite content to abstain from the typical social requirements of making phone calls, inviting others into my home, or even asking someone to go to lunch.  Instead, I ensconce myself into my reclusive world and watch as others go on with all the things they think they are required to do as “normal” human beings.

However, were you to call, I would talk to you. If you were to ask me to lunch, I would go. And, in those moments I am there, I would be most happy to share those glimpses of my time with you.

My friends, who could all be so easily offended if they were to choose that path, all seem to take my quirks in stride and patiently await my emergence from my hidey hole. They enjoy their time with me, hug me tightly when we part ways and tell me not to be a stranger, comfortable with knowing that it may be a while before we cross paths again.

I wonder sometimes what makes them ok with who I am. Perhaps, do they too posses just enough of that hermit quality to give them a sense of understanding?

At any rate, I guess it’s all neither here nor there. I just wanted to take that moment to acknowledge that you, my friends, are appreciated. To let those of you I care about know, that your patience and loyalty don’t go unrecognized.

Much love,

SD