Arkansas Report

Back from Arkansas and actually I got back late Sunday night. Have you ever been so tired though that when you sit in a quiet room you can almost hear the buzzing in your head? That was me all day Monday. Yesterday was running around and now today almost feels like I’m living my life again.

The trip was actually rather surreal. Going through my grandmother’s things and then selling them wasn’t exactly pleasant. But it did put the kernel of the idea in my head that I need to get rid of an awful lot of my own “stuff” after doing this. Grandma’s house was always neat as a pin, so it wasn’t that at all. It’s just that I now know that there will be somebody that has to go through absolutely each and every little thing, up to and including opening each piece of paper to determine what to do with it, and I hate to do that to my kids! :)

As the photo shows, the theme of the four days seemed to be coffee, in all shapes and forms. When Danette (my cousin) picked me up on Thursday our very first stop was the Starbucks drive-thru near my house. And amazingly we turned the four hour drive into a seven hour drive with all our stops! We stopped once at a casino on the way and she taught me how to work the machines. Of course I didn’t win anything, but she did and was kind enough to treat us both to Starbucks inside the casino (she also taught me how to order regular coffee there – who knew?) – and then on the road we went again. Shortly thereafter we spied a really nice Goodwill store so we swung in there. It really was nice, but I didn’t find any treasures.

In the midst of all the tears this weekend, I also came away with some phenomenal memories. Some of the things make me laugh every single time I think of them, which is way cool:

• Hearing Danette’s 3 year old granddaughter Mackenzie through the cell phone saying “Hello MeMe!” and watching Danette’s entire face light up with joy.
• The two of us laughing each time we’d let Grandma’s back screen door slam, simply because it sent us back in time to when we were much younger and did the same thing.
• Going to dinner one night in a nearby town in a barn that the guy had converted to a restaurant – awesome comfort food! On the way there Judy (my aunt), Danette and I were sitting in the backseat and we broke out into Cher’s song “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” as we rode round the “mountain”.
• Saturday night the four of us (two aunts, two cousins) got into our pj’s and climbed up on Judy’s bed to look through really old photos and hear stories of days gone by. Slumber Party! :)
• Discovering just how alike Danette and I are – even down to how we fix our coffee! We really are “sistah cousins”!!!