Childhood Books

God is America's King, She thought: Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their conscience. No king bosses Pa , he has to boss himself. Why (she thought) when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone ele who has the right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lit up by that thought. This is what it means to be free: It means you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of liberty-" The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and libterty. Then you have the right to be free."

-Laura Ingals Wilder, Little Town on the Prarie (My most beloved and treasured books of all time)

Lauging with Lauren

I just got off the phone with Lauren, a friend from Tallahassee that I have not spoken to in quite sometime. I do not have a beautiful, flattering photograph of this beautiful, flattering young woman, but I must say we had some beautiful, flattering times together back in the hick, redneck bible-belt and sorority girl filled land of Tallahassee, Florida. (I mean no offense by any of these terms by the way)

We had a deep and meaningful discussion together about the atrocities of facebook. I asked her if she prayed for hours by candle light for my feelings on facebook. She responded with an "Oh, Jo Anna I miss you. I don't even know what to respond to that but I miss you."

These conversations are what makes Laughing with Lauren so great. I miss that too:(

A typical conversation with my spouse

Isaiah and I had been driving already for a number of hours. I was being lulled to sleep by the droning of our car on the pavement and the faint sound of the radio, when the song: "Raindrops keep falling on my head" began to play. I smiled, because logically, that particular song makes me smile. I sort of rolled over, just enough to hear Isaiah casually say "The man who wrote this song tried to kill my father." I looked at him with my eyes half shut. "oh" I said, then I turned and went to sleep. He kept on driving, and that was the end of our conversation.

(This photograph was taken on a rainy day in Glacier National Park, Montana, on top of a trash can.)

Let the fun begin

Isaiah and I have had an interesting and exciting past month or so. It all began with this:



I made this cheeseburger for Isaiah and Benjamin James, who came gladly to my rescue after I was exhausted from photographing Luke and Lori Hamilton's wedding on July something or other 2008. They had a pot-luck Barb-q and I was oh so hungry but oh so busy to eat.

But, in all, boys are usually hungrier than girls and they seem to forget to eat if girls don't tell them too or if they aren't having food made for them. So, I gladly made them these cheeseburgers and they both devoured it, and I took a couple of meager bites.

Photographing weddings can be fun but it also leads to potential exhaustion and hunger, and sincere and incredible business after the event is over.

None the less, this event (the wedding) marked for Isaiah and I the beginning of a month long wild adventure. Most of which involved no sleeping, high volumes of interactions with other people, 104 degree heat and lots of fun and good times.

I can't wait to share more about this adventure, but I must wait for now. I have saved that project for a later period in time.

Hungry.

Isaiah and his Baby Brother Benjamin are bringing me a pizza. I truly and unconditionally hungry at the moment, but amazingly enough, I am so tired that I don't believe that I can get out of this chair and get up to eat the pizza when they come. Maybe I will sit here all night and continue to ramble on about ridiculous thoughts for the sake of me having to not get up out of this chair. So here I will sit, hungry and sleepy, and never get up.

And anyone who reads this will either be bored, delighted, or confused. Or all three.

This is the first time I have really been truly and unconditionally hungry since June 15, 2008. On that dreadful day, the temperature exceeded 103 degrees.

On that dreadful day, and also the dreadful day after that, I stayed outside in the wretched heat the entire dreadful day (minus my exedus to the REI for air conditioning) and supported Isaiah and Andrew at their show.

Sitting here, on Sunday afternoon, the temprature is below 85 degrees, and I could never ever be more happy, sleepy, tired, hungry( in the most fufilling kind of way), and thankful for the people that love me in this life. God has his ways of showing his his goodness that are beyond our comprehension, beyond our understanding and not the way we always want him to show us his goodness. For this, I am thankful.

I am sorry if this doesn't make a whole bunch of sense. But maybe I will write something more sensical tomorow.

Good night!

This is my grandmother. Her name is Nila, otherwise "Tita." I don't know why that we call her Tita, I am sure that there is a great big story behind that.

When I was a child, I would visit Tita, and this woman set me loose in the Grocery store and told me I was to get whatever I wanted. I did not EVER have this luxury at home. An hour later I would come back with my cart full. Full of Cheese and Chocolate.

We had such fun visiting my grandmother. She rose early every morning and made us breakfast: Chocolate filed and Cheese filled Croissants, Bacon, sausage, baby bell cheese, eggs with Cheddar Cheese, Easy Cheese, and everything else that you can imagine that could possibly give you a heart attack at the age 10. Boy was I happy.

Grandma would take us to the beach every day, and then to Aunt Audry's pool.

Now I am all grown up and have my own life and live on the other side of the country, where the is no beach and people do not believe in eating easy cheese. Somehow when I look at this photograph, I feel as though I have captured the essence of Grandma. I almost can hear her voice and feel the way it feels to get a hug from her.

And I can almost smell the beach.........

I miss these people.