Whoa. Stay off the roads.

Sometimes we sense a thing in foresight that comes to pass in retrospect. If that doesn't sound terribly strange and weird than I think you're strange and weird. But I do have an explanation for all this. Thankee.
I have never truly enjoyed driving. I've never been like, "OOOH YEAH! 16, GONNA GET MY LICENSE!" (Obviously, now that I'm 20.) Not only was I not overly excited about it, but I didn't need it. Daniel has always been so close to us that anywhere we went he went unless the whole family was going in which case we all went. But courtships and various and sundries have made my getting a license rather important.

I wanted to get the dirty deed done before camp a couple weeks ago, but since I had been in Georgia and my permit had expired. Turns out Virginia doesn't renew permits. I would have to get a new one--yes, this includes the two-part knowledge exam. I decided to have at the test and see if I'd pass with three-year-old knowledge.

(yeah...no.)

The book was handed to me and I determined to study it and get that license ASAP. Accordingly yesterday I studied the book front to back, took the practice tests, and did well. Okay, I thought, I'll do this. It'll be a easy enough. 16 year-old nit-wits get their licenses every day, right? Right.
Daniel took me to the DMV this morning--I drove, reciting my facts all the way: "Did you know that between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. 3 out of 10 drivers are drunk?" Once there, I got through the written exams and the eye exams all right. Nothing too terrible...only missed two on the general knowledge exam which was okay by me since I knew common sense would cover me on the road....(only half-kidding there. ;)

Skeptical mug-shot while waiting for my name to be called...

After a wait of some minutes the lady came forth in her green vest. "Okay, hon, we're gonna go now!" We tramped out to the car and she instructed me to get in and do all my lights for her. Again. Again.
"Sorry, hon. Your right blinker's out. Can't test you without that. Go see if he can bang it or something."
Daniel was fetched and banged away but to no avail. It was determined that he and I would run up to the hardware store, replace the bulb, and come back. An hour later and Daniel had tried everything. The problem had to do with the wires and he wasn't going to be able to fix it with the tools he had before his major conference-call at 3:00.
So what's a girl to do when she's denied her license test? Make arrangements with the cousins to borrow their 12-passenger van she's never driven. So far so good. Mama volunteered to drive it up and meet Daniel and I. I mooched off of Daniel's wallet for lunch. (thanks, bro) Daniel took me to the Ice-cream parlor (a favorite haunt) and bought me a BLT for lunch. The bright red and white decor raised my spirits, as did the dill-pickle spear and the gawky, friendly, cute little deli-boy behind the counter. He seemed a little crestfallen that we didn't buy any ice-cream, so to console himself he made a meaty sub and perched on the bar-stools nearby. I finished my lunch just as Mama drove up with the van. I swapped places with Mama and drove to the DMV for the final try.
It was as if I'd never left. (Barring the fact that Mrs. Driver-Lady had taken off her vest.) She came out to the van with me and I held my breath as I flashed the lights....all as it should be.

Funny thing is, after I actually started driving, I wasn't nervous at all. We wound our way on main roads and neighborhood roads and a cul-de-sac or two. I passed just fine, I believe, and now am a licensed driver....finally.
Mama said this was cause for celebration and recommended some ice-cream. Back to the Ice-cream Parlor! I laughed at the cute fellow's expression when he saw me back at the counter. It was part confusion, part amusement, part "what-on-earth-is-up-with-this-girl?" But I suppose he liked me well enough because he absolutely loaded up my double-stack cone (Mud-Pie and Raspberry-white-chocolate!) and even had the courtesy to ask if I had a preference on how it was layered! :D
Mama and I sat out on the cobbled sidewalk with our cones dripping and made matches and discussed the fact that I cannot marry a spindly man, and generally had a plummy time of it with our ice-cream and chatter.
The end of it all? I'm legal. I could drive to California if I wanted. If there was a bridge I could drive to Scotland. (Get on it, VDOT! ;) I anticipate adventures in the future despite my wry feelings toward cars and roads and other cars in general. Ah me. It was fodder for a blog-post, right?

I was laughing.

Readables: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

"I listened, wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would have been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would have been the color of that chocolate."

The Help. It's a book I'd heard a deal about, a movie trailer that intrigued me, and a subject I personally love: the life of colored maids in the 1960's. Perhaps it is the stories of Mama's housekeeper, Laura Bullock, that always put me directly in sympathy with this sect of people. 

Mama's family loved Laura and Laura was always an integral part of their lives as children. I'll always remember the famous story of Grandmama coming home to find Laura dressed out in a helmet and jacket with a gun over her shoulder, doing drills with Uncle David who was only 5 or 6 at the time and had asked her to play army. And I'll never forget what Laura told Uncle David as a little boy:

"She's yo vanilla mama..." (nodding at Grandmama) "...but I's your choc'late mama."

Or what she would say when Mama was a little girl:

"Honey--you's fat, but you's purty!"

Bright in my imagination, too, is the family-legend of Laura's rooster. How it'd drown itself every rainstorm by looking up at the sky with his mouth open, and how Laura would shove it in the oven, heat it up till it started flapping around, and let it back outside again.

I had the honor of meeting Laura several times as a little girl. I remember being slightly intimidated by the warm pressure of her wrinkled, leathery hand and her intent gaze, but I do remember liking her a deal despite my fears.

All that to say, when a copy of Kathryn Stockett's The Help came into my hands and Sarah read it and told me I really needed to read it (High praise from Sarah!) I was ready. The general plot as described by the back of the book is as follows:

Aibileen Clark is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, raising her seventeenth white child. She's always taken orders quietly, but lately it leaves her with a bitterness she can no longer bite back. Her friend Minny Jackson has certainly never held her tongue, or held on to a job for very long, but now she's working for a newcomer with secrets that leave her speechless. And white socialite Skeeter Phelan has just returned from college with ambition and a degree but, to her mother's lament, no husband....Together, these seemingly different women join to work on a project that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town--to write, in secret, a tell-all book about what it's really like to work as a black maid in the white homes of the South...

What is there to say about this book except... Wow. I found myself laughing and crying alternately and sometimes simultaneously. As a writer I was astonished that this was Ms. Stockett's first novel. As a reader I connected deeply and intimately with the characters. As a white woman, I blushed over the treatment the black maids received and prayed that, had I grown up in that era, I would have been different than Hilly and Elizabeth and the other Jackson women.

This book is so full of emotion, so full of complex relationships, so full of truth and goodness and a realization of the common-ness of humanity that I found myself marveling that any author could boil it down and smash it between two covers.

"I don't know what to say to her. All I know is, I ain't saying it. And I know she ain't saying what she want a say either, and it's a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation."

The characters are alive, the events poignant, the realizations touching and sharp-edged. I enjoyed the choice of "first-person, now narrative" for a fresh reading experience as well. I love the immediacy of it. The novel took me from looking at The Help as a historical-fiction and brought me winging back to 1960, and it flighting forward to 2012 and we met somewhere in the middle and had a heart-connection rare to find in today's helter-skelter thriller-fiction-craze. Kathryn Stockett tells it just like it was. She didn't assign all evil or all goodness to one side of the racial argument or the other. But she didn't sugar-coat anything. And I mean anything.

That's the only complaint I had about The Help. The author included quite a lot of language which--if it did help the ink-people come alive--presented lots of words in my mind that aren't usually there for good reason. One of the main characters is definitely not a Christian and speaks rather mockingly of it sometimes. There are two scenes I can think of that could have been toned down. One, I actually liked the raw, pithy emotion and horror of--the other I thought was a little graphic. That--along with the fact that the whole subject of the plot is a little weighty for younger readers--puts my recommendation for The Help at 18+. If you are 18 years of age or older and want a book that'll take your by the shoulders with warm, brown hands and shake you gently with strong, supple fingers that smell of dryer sheets and cake frosting, read this book. You'll never regret it. Never-ever.

*WARNING* In Chapter 24 there is a really creepy part that is described too graphically. Really, you'd not miss it if you skipped it. So read with caution or skip pages 360-365 entirely. :)

A teaser-taste for you:

"We go on in her room, where we like to set. I get up in the big chair and she get up on me and smile, bounce a little. 'Tell me bout the brown wrapping. And the present.' She so excited, she squirming. She has to jump off my lap, squirm a little to get it out. Then she crawl back up.That's her favorite story cause when I tell it, she get two presents. I take the brown wrapping from my Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and wrap up a little something, like a piece a candy, inside. Then I use the white paper from my Cole's Drug Store bag and wrap another one just like it. She take it real serious, the unwrapping, letting me tell the story bout how it ain't the color of the wrapping that count, it's what we is inside."

"One more dawn, one more day..."

This song is a pretty accurate of my feelings today. ;)

(ah. i love this video so much. too bad it isn't in English.)

This is pretty much all you're going to hear from us for the next week because Rachel and I (along with two sisters and many friends) will be going to the Daughters of Destiny camp in the mountains of NC!!!! I'm so excited and tomorrow morning we'll be well on our way to an awesome week. xD We'd appreciate prayer for the week and for all the leaders. :)
Until then,
Sarah

I shall do it myself, please.

Here's a collection of DIYs that I really want to accomplish this fall/winter:

Missing You Card (check!)

Nautical Bracelet Tutorials

Sweater Mug Holder. (isn't this so cozy looking?)

This is a site where they give you tons of ideas for crazy things to send through the mail! :) (and they've experimented, so they know what works!)

Make my own mask for a masquerade I'm (hopefully) going to this fall!

These apple cider caramels are a must-have for me this autumn. :D

And Texas Roadhouse rolls just can't be beat. 

Edible glitter!!! Who'da thunk, right? This would be fun to do with the little kids.....:)

Check this out---freeze dollops of whipped cream for use in a hot chocolate bar, or party, or whatever!

right now.........

I'm reading...............The Help, Heaven is For Real, Dombey and Son

I'm listening to............whoa! an a cappella version of "Fireflies"! Who'da thunk?

I'm singing................. "On My Own" in my most-est dramatic voice.

I'm thinking................."wow, it's getting dark early..." "so little time, and so much to do!"

I'm excited about.............the wonderful Daughters of Destiny conference we attend every year in the mountains of NC!!! 11 day countdown!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and not to mention the other whole host of events coming up...:)

I'm working on...............sending out save-the-dates for mine and Matthew's graduation and finishing Biology and Algebra 2 before December 8th.

thanks to somebody, I had un-erasable answers in my study guide. whoopsie! :D

I'm loving..................watching Cake Boss and Psych on Netflix every couple nights a week, this (on-the-average) cool weather we've been blessed with, having a nice fall wardrobe to get outfits from, my comfy hoodie/vest, Pinterest-inspired fall decorating, desserts, and fashion, and an awesomely packed October.

I'm hungry for................the caramel brownies Anna and I came up with this afternoon. Oh. and I really want to try out these apple cider caramels

I'm watching..................Rach make up her bed, because as she says "I cannot leave my bed unmade for the whole day." and "I would not want to be a hotel maid..." ;)

I'm smelling..................Vick's! what?--Vick's?! I have no idea why....0.o

I'm laughing about..............the explanation to the latter. :D

I'm wanting................to be able to make it out to the annual Life Chain event at the Beach on Sunday. To get the last few necessities before camp, and for the weather to cool off and stay that way. :)

I'm looking......................

slightly worn-out, tired from watching kids all day, and....that sums it up.