Explanations are in order

Seeing as I plopped those unexplained pictures up the other day (that would be Wednesday) and had some questions about them, I thought I'd 'splain them.

Picture 1:  My quilter friend Barb Green also makes dolls.  Only she doesn't make cute little Kewpie type dolls, she makes these extravagant creations wrapped in lamé, feathers, beads, and who knows what else.  They are fascinating and beautiful.  For me, the best part is looking at their tiny little hands.  (Pam, it never occurred to me that the thumb was too big!)

The hands are sewn inside out, then flipped and stuffed.  I could never do it, and that is probably part of the fascination with the whole thing.  Plus I thought it might be a fun, freaky picture to take.  And I want it noted that I was holding onto the harnesses for two hyperactive toddlers at the time.  The fact that it's clear at all is amazing in and of itself.

Picture 2:  Awww...ain't they cute?  That was one from the pumpkin patch.

Pictures 3, 4, & 5 are from our trip to Texas.  I can't remember now if I mentioned that we were able to go to the home where my grandmother and her siblings were raised.  Those pictures are of that house.  It was such a beautiful house in its time, it just made me want to cry to see it.  And I said, "Mamaw would just cry if she could see how deteriorated this house is."  Then I thought, maybe not since she was in such a hot hurry to get off the farm when she married.  So that is how my story started, Janet, wondering what Mamaw would have to say to me about the house and about growing up in that house, if she could talk to me now, when I can actually understand something.

Picture 3 is of Rachel and Keziah on the front porch.  I think the room behind the door was a sitting room or a living room.  I'm waiting on confirmation of that from my great aunt, the only one of the family left who used to live in that house.  The room to the left (the opening with no door) was a bedroom, which still had some of the wallpaper attached to the wall.  I dig that sort of thing. 

Picture 4 is of the sitting room or living room or whatever it is.  The land has changed hands a few times since it was sold after my great-grandmother's death.  Currently it is rented and there is a trailer home right alongside the abandoned farmhouse.  I'm assuming the baby chair belongs to the renters, as well as some other stuff that looks like it's stored there or just dumped there.  It does look a little weird, but I was trying to get a picture of the doorway and it was just there.  I didn't dare go into the house, as one of my cousins (who is the age of my oldest daughter), went in without first ascertaining where the floor joists were, and fell through the flooring.  About all I needed was to get a broken leg while I was 2 days' drive away from home.

Picture 5 is what I'm assuming was the sun porch where my grandmother and her sisters slept.  The "boys" slept upstairs in their loft.  I'm not a great photog-gal, so sue me.

So, NaNo is humming along, sort of.  NaNo hums along but I'm not humming with it.  At this point, I've written two possible beginnings, the end of the story, and part of the middle, but Augustus still won't die and I'm getting a bit peeved.  Still, I take Terri's advice and just sit down and write. 

Sarah has been really chugging along on it.  Yesterday was our half day off and we made cinnamon rolls and talked about all sorts of sciency and philosophical topics such as how yeast works and how cooking is an art but baking is a science, unless you're terribly proficient at which point it can become an art.  Yeah.  Anyway, while we were waiting for the dough to rise (twice), she was downstairs pounding away at her story.  When she had free time, she was pounding away at her story.  I'm going to have to work hard to keep up with her.  That and stop doing genealogy searches on Ancestry.com, although I am finding out lots of cool stuff and have even met a woman in Sweden who is sort of a distant cousin.  She's given me scads of information, which is too too cool.  Still, I need to focus on NaNo right now.  That's a good thing, right?  Life is either full or empty, there seems to be no in-between.