rope swing.

It was such a beautiful day today. After church, I sat outside in the sun while eating my salad for lunch. When Hosh and Rach came back to the house after their lunch, Hosh decided to build a rope swing (!!!).

Hosh and Pop wrestled with actually getting the rope up into the tree for a while. Verrrrryyyy entertaining. =)
Once they finally got the rope up in the tree, Hosh went to work on some great knot skills.

We ultimately decided that a wooden board would do better for swinging...

RACHELLLL!!!!

(The following pictures of me might not be the most flattering pictures of all time, but they show a truly happy Jecca. I felt like a care-free child on that dang rope swing!)

(check out that rattie blowin' in the wind...)

The perfect afternoon ended with a trip to Rita's (and just a few more swings after we got back to the house).

I hope your Sunday was fabulous as well. I had such a fun time with Hosh and Rach today!

Lerv to the max, I'm really feeling it.

jec

whirl-wind weekend.

This past weekend I took a quick trip up to Filthadelphia to visit my loves. Sweet T was in the school's musical and Ham is going to Utah all summer (which means I won't see him til August!). With all the activities, I forgot to take out my camera a lot buttttt I did manage to snap a few shots here and there.

(the boys longboarding)

(family after T's musical)

(an incredible feat of Barley's strength)

(precious Kieran!!! with the boys [so sweet!])

So there you have it. I had an awesome weekend. I didn't want to come home. I might've cried just a bit. (Ok, ok. I cried enough that my manager commented on my puffy face the next day at work. I can't help it. I wouldn't cry if I didn't love them so much and miss being with them. Oy.)

I'm not sure when the next post will be or what it will be of. (<--Am I not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition? Is that a preposition?) Hopefully I'll think of something to post soon, but until then...

lerv to the max.

jecca

easter.

It has been a tradition for as long as I can remember to have an Easter celebration at Memaw's house. After lunch, all the cousins would be sequestered in a room with no windows, monitored by one of the parents. While we were being held hostage, the adults would hide a myriad of Easter eggs in the front and back yards. The last time we did this as a family, Memaw was still with us and I got scolded for pulling up the shade and peeking outside.

It's a few (or several) years later. The cousins are all grown, and we decided to pick up the tradition again. What's an Easter celebration without an Easter egg hunt at Memaw's house?

The egg-hunting crew, from L to R: Loretta, Tini, Kiel, Jecca, Lauren, Trav, Anita, Nini and Hosh.

I was the unattested winner in volume of eggs. Tini's boyfriend, Kiel, followed me into the backyard in the beginning of the egg quest. He commented on my decision to go for the edges of the two sheds saying, "You hit the gold mine!" I said replied lovingly, "Duh, Kiel! This is NOT my first rodeo." (You can actually hear this in the video if you pay attention closely.)

The following is a video of the beginning of the egg hunt. What you can't see is Tini throwin' some bows... just saying. What you can see is Hosh and Trav's overwhelming enthusiasm. (Ha.)

There was money in some of the eggs and that's what really sparked my fervor in the hunt. (Most of you know that I don't eat candy.) Wouldn't you know it, I got a metric butt-ton of candy...and $1.25 in quarters. =) Loretta found $3 in her eggs, and she offered to buy my bag of candy with her $3 in quarters. Woot woot! I'm rich. A whole $4.25!!! (That should be read "coffeeeeeee".)

(Here's another video purely for your viewing pleasure...you can see me scurrying in the background at the beginning, Tini's lawn ornament discovery and Nini looking around in the "compost pile" that Loretta and I already hit up.)

Lots of family lerv today.

P.S.- Mamba, we missed you tons especially today. Love love love you!!!

cemetery on saturday.

I went to visit Memaw today at the cemetery. I asked my mom before I went if it was acceptable to take a run while I was there. She said people do it all the time. So I did too.

So now (after a trip to the bank and Sam's Club, and a phone chat with Barls) I'm working on a super secret crafty (again). It might end up being a semi-super secret crafty, depending on my level of confidence in my own skills and judgment abilities. We'll see. I think I might have done all I can do... Ugh... What do you think, bloggy buds?

Is a super secret crafty with a possibility of being slightly off better than a semi-super secret crafty that has more of a possibility of being right on? Or are they both equally exciting and acceptable?

Lerv.

nose knows.

I don't know about the rest of you, but certain smells have the power to instantly transport me to another time and place. I've noticed it especially as of late.

For instance:

The smell of wood and laundry takes me to Stanley-Land. I am surrounded by family, pups and love. Someone's looking for something. Someone's calling for someone they can't find. Mama's offering to make me something to eat, and I'm grinning from ear to ear.

The smell of winter is a wonderful thing. I could never describe it; it's impossible (but it's amazing). Whenever I smell winter I am taken back to my freshman dorm room at PBU. Renae and I are sitting, listening to music and "doing homework". I smell winter (because we keep the window open all year round). I tell Renae. She doesn't understand. We are bonded forever.
The smell of Vurt and cigarrettes puts me back in the presence of a dear friend. We are riding in the car, talking, laughing and probably drinking Starbucks. We make it a regular thing, because it's more than good in theory.

The smell of Polo takes me back to Sunday mornings as a child. My father wore Polo cologne and made cinnamon buns for us before church. I can't get enough of the smell. I hug him and bury my nose in his neck. (This technique proves to be most effective and is used later in life to identify and remember especially important people.)

The smell of grass mixed with a certain humidity in the air transports me to track practices after classes in high school. There's a whole lot of messing around and not a lot of practicing. I think I know everything about the world and how things should turn out. I am blissfully mistaken.

The smell of Comet cleaner takes me back to summer days of old. I'm sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Ma's slicing strawberries and sprinkling sugar over them. We'll have strawberry shortcake for dessert after a day in the sun at the beach.

Now I'm wondering about you, my bloggy buds. I'd love to hear about the smells that transport you to somewhere else. I think that sometimes your nose knows exactly where you secretly want or need to be.

Lerv, lerv.

february is american heart month.

In honor of the month, I decided to take a few steps toward heart health by visiting some of my dearest friends and family at PBU this past weekend.

Barley picked me up from the airport on Friday and my heart expressed its thanks by jumping nearly out of my chest and making it hard for my lungs to take in enough air. It felt like death was knocking at my door, but I know that feeling is just my heart's attempt at expressing such immense joy.

The weekend was full of love, fun, great music, great people, more love, some pain and more love. For the most part our adventures did not make it onto film, but here are a few moments that did.

The above photo and the photo below show the aftermath of an intense gummy worm fight.

So much pain, but oh so fun.

Barley tried out my knitting needles in his ear holes. They fit.

I cut the Stanley boys' hairs. (The usual.)

We went on a quest for Cadbury Creme Eggs for Barls. I think it's safe to say that he lervs them.

Stephers & Trev

Who even knows what they were laughing at?

T pierced Ninj's ears. Owwweee!!!

(I lerv this picture of T and Langs.)

The scissors I used for hair-cutting were utter crap, if you wanted to know.

Hammie's new cut was uber-cute. I'm not tooting my own horn because I just did what he told me to do...but HONK, HONK!

Jake is obsessed with large icicles, and on this particular occasion he retrieved one for his good friend Barls as well.

Hammie got super-sweet new plugs. They're squishie and make it look like he has nothing in. So cool.

(This photo is preciously ridonk.)

So, there you have it. The photos are really in no order whatsoever. The captions, I'm sure, are less than entertaining or even helpful...but that's all I've got.

Thanks so much to everyone who let me borrow stuff (Langs, Ninj, Ham, Krista, George), to everyone who let me "stay" in their room (Langs, Ray, Krista, Gwen Stefani), to everyone who gave me freakin' awesome music and helped me navigate my new Maccy (Barls, Ham), to everyone who encouraged/helped me to stretch my ears (Jake, Barls, T, Ham), to everyone who aided me in my pursuit of coffee (BARLS, T, Ninj, Ham) and to everyone who lerved me enough to forgive me when I left without saying goodbye (Stephers).

For now, Cass McCombs is calling my name along with a cup of coffee and my product knowledge manual for work. You can look forward to a couple new posts coming up this weekend hopefully. I've made a couple crafty things that I'd love to share. (1) My special gift for a special someone has successfully been delivered and can therefore be revealed. (2) A quick weekend project will also be posted if I can get the current owner to take some pictures of it. (3) I also have at least one more (probably 2) projects in the queue to get to work on and hopefully post soon!

lerv.

happy birthday, sweet T.

(*This post will just barely make it onto your birth day, T. I'm sorry I failed in the birthday department this year. I feel rotten.)

Happy Birthday to one of my dearest friends, Sweet T.

When I think of you, I recall any one of the following moments (or a million others not included in my life-documentation). You are such a precious part of my life. It feels like I've known you for 37 years instead of just 351 days.

Remember when...

...Cameron got pooped on by that bird on the way to the park on the Fourth of July?


..."where's my chalupa?" at Playa Cancun?


...you just wanted to sleep at Belmar when we went to watch the sunrise with George?


...you took me for a ride on your bike/airplane thing and then it broke...but we got to look at that neat dirigible?

...we used to go to IHOP with Jer in the mornings?


...we went to Cam's game and that bee kept bugging George but didn't even come around you or me?


...you were Tanley. (For the record, this might be my most favorite picture of you ever.)
...you and Carl made me do stupid things in the caf and then take my picture?


...we went to the beach and played and sunned and read that book about strange things (and on the way home you found that shell in your suit...which I still have in my car, by the way)?


...we laughed at poor Jer trying to make that bracelet, sang along with Celine and made plans for the new semester?

...Ian pointed the camera at you, said "Do the Jecca smile!" and you came up with this right away? (Priceless.)

Well, I do!!! How could I forget?!

I love you, T. Happy Birthday. <3