Hi Tanya!  *waves*

It’s not been easy learning to balance family, work, and school.  Though, it’s not been terrible either.  Mostly I am working on time management…time management, and prepositional phases.  I start working towards bedtime at about 3:00 in the afternoon.  NO joking.  So, I have to be mostly done with homework by the time the kids get home because once they hit the hay I won’t be far behind them.  We are all sleeping well.  That is fo’ sho.

I won’t abandon you readers, but posts will be less frequent.  There’s lots to talk about, just less time to do it in.  So, stay tuned for a 5K @$$ project update, and all the latest about how the 50,000.00 suplements I’m taking  a day are affecting my (once) malnourished self.

My mom owns 43 acres of land in a small, rural community out in the middle of Nowhere, Tx U.S.A.   She inherited the land from my late Grandfather. He mentioned before his passing, an old “black” cemetery somewhere on the property.  When we were going through my grandfathers things several months after he died we came across an antiquated hand drawn map of her property.  The map, we assume, had belonged to my great-grandparents and possibly someone else before them. We aren’t really sure of the origin, but on the dusty, yellowed, paper we noted a small rectangle in which was scrawled “negro cemetery.”

No one we knew of had ever seen this supposed cemetery.

But, last week while out riding four wheelers, my cousins found the the place by chance when one of them wandered off the path.  So, two days ago we took the kids on a hike through the woods to check it out.

The  graves where marked with huge iron ore rocks.  Some of the rocks where piled in a heap on graves, and others were marked with a single large rock for a head stone with a smaller one at the base. You could scarcely tell it was a cemetery.

Only one simple tombstone stood, reading : M. Spearman Born 1897.  Died Jan 2, 1917.  Gone but not forgotten. It was broken in half, and barely ledgable.  I am guessing this person was the last to be buried here, but there is no real way of knowing.

Hulking tropical plants that were clearly placed on the grave over 90 years ago had somehow survived, and thrived, through crazy East Texas weather.   Aside from the one tombstone, the plants were the only thing that seemed out the ordinary.

Massive pine trees had shot up all around the cemetery, and had grown right through many of the graves.

As I stood in this once sacred place where all those men, women, and children were lain to rest, I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that in a mere 91 years all of them were forgotten.  Who were they?  I imagined they lead lives of back breaking work building the (now abandoned) railway that runs through my mom’s property.  Some of them were likely slaves in their lifetime.  I whispered out loud “a black man may be the next president of the united states.  I wish you could see it.”

When we sited a tiny grave encircled in small rocks, it was obvious it was a child’s grave.  Thoughts of a funeral precession through the thick, hilly woods filled my brain.  I could almost hear the soulful hymns, and wails of these long ago people.   I could see them here dusty, and threadbare from a grueling day of work at the smelting factory, or in the fields, as they turned out to bury a precious member of their tiny community.

Now this place is just a blip on the radar.  Almost unrecognizable to the unknowing eye that it is anything other than an ordinary part of the land.

It forced me to think of how we all are just passing through, and the physical of this life dies and turns to dust, sooner or later.  We can fight it, but that won’t change the fact that one day our bones will be forgotten.  All of the things and stuff we work for will be gone, but not our words, knowledge or legacy.  The unknown people in this place are only unknown to me.  I feel positive that they all left a part of them in this world with their living actions; a part of them that lives on in their ancestors today.

This truth stared me down.  It made me question what lineage I will leave.  Will it be a legacy of  the physical that will soon be nothing?  Or will I live a true life fighting for what I believe in, by constituting generational knowledge that will outlast the physical and live, possibly forever?

Chew on that.  Think about it.  What are you leaving behind?   Are you spinning your wheels for the big house, the car, the clothes, the stuff? Or are you leaving something real?  Something worthy?

The reason for this neglect?  We’ve been a little preoccupied with Aaron’s birthday present.

It was then that I ugly cried and ran out of the class with my limp arms swinging from side to side, trailing off with “I hate math and I hate all of you!” decided to go see the school councilor and beg my way into fourth grade math for grown ladies a lower level math class.  As it currently stands, no, I am not smarter than a fifth grader, but I am working on it so look out world!

Offer:2 logs of Hamburger Meat

Posted by: *********

Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:06 pm (PDT)

I have 2 logs of hamburger meat i didnt seperate and now its to much
for us to use in one setting free to whoever comes to get it .

—————————————————————————————————————-

But really what would one say?  “Hi, I’m Jennifer.  I’m here to pick up your unwanted frozen meat chub. “

Everyone was seen off to school this morning. I am officially a stay-at-home mom with no kids home for approximately the next four hours.  Then I will be a full time college student mom.  In those four hours of luscious freedom I plan to do laundry in peace, and catch up on my trashy reality T.V. shows because I am exciting like that.

There was a “pitty” party in the cafeteria complete with donuts, coffee, and Kleenex for the buckets of tears to be shed by heartbroken helicopter moms of new kindergartners.  I was invited in by a teacher, but declined because I will be hosting my own pitty party at the auto shop later this afternoon when I pick up my van.  I’m sure I will see my mechanic rolling around on the ground in my enormous pile of cash as I pull out of the parking lot.   But I digress…  Me?   I felt like doing a cartwheel on my way out of the school house doors and yelling “so long suckers!!!  Mu-hahahahahaha!!!!”  If Mr. T was there I would ask him to say “I pitty the foo’ who don’t take advantage of thier tax dollars hard at work.”  Aaron and I high fived in the parking lot.

I kid.  I kid.

But but we did high five in the parking lot.  Next to the first time Jack understood “bring Mommy the remote honey” this is one of the best days of my life.

Do we go vintage, but non-space efficient:

The tin lunch kits only fit a plastic thermose (which kill your kids slowly you know…you DO know this right?  Come, to the neurotic dark side with me.  Please?!  It’s lonely here.) They are too small to fit reusable sandwich and side containers.  I’m not down with plastic sandwich bags either.  They Cost a lot, and cause massive amounts of non-biodegradable waste.

So, then there is the bento by laptop lunch.  It’s attractive to the eye, reusable, and was brought to fame by vegan lunchbox, and even has it’s own groupies, but…

I’m just not, not, N-O-T, gonna drop 80-100 bones on lunch boxes that have a 99% chance of getting lost sometime during the school year and don’t even come with drink bottles.  That’s extra.  Like 10.00 extra which = 30.00 extra when have three kids. Again, no.

There are these Vinyl bags (which I also have a collection of,) but the get gross, smelly, are hard to clean and also kill my kids slowly with lead. Some boast “lead free” and “safe,”  but how can I ever trust you again lunch bag manufacturers?  Fool me once…

So, we settled on these:

Cons:

They are made of plastic

there is no, there is no place for a drink and they won’t fit in a traditional lunch bag (I’m gonna have to sew some up I think.)

Pros:

I don’t have to use baggies again.  Everything has a compartment.

I can lay them all out and quickly make an assembly line of healthy lunches without having to fiddle with multiple containers, or bags.

The were 3.00 each at Target

They have a neat utensil holder on top

I get to experiment with the yummy and aesthetically pleasing world of bento lunches:

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of lunch box madness when next week we will discuss drink holding implements…duh, dunn, duhhhhhhhhhh!!