I've never been a fan of having my picture taken. After this weekend, I never want to see a camera again as long as I live.

Hey y'all!

It's been another somewhat crazy week here in the 'hood.  I really don't know how June manages to post every single blasted day.  I'm in awe of her.

I can't even get through my emails anymore since my internet at work time has been slashed.  I can only get on for a minute here and there or if I eat lunch at my desk.  The partner who does our Friday Afternoon Song has even stopped doing it because he knows those of us who participate who are not attorneys will get in trouble with the way our temporary space is set up.  I MISS THE INTERNET, Y'ALL.  And I don't seem to get online much at home because I'm too busy keeping up with my Words with Friends, Hanging with Friends, Matching with Friends, and Trivie, and maybe I have a gaming problem on my phone.  I currently have 768 emails in my personal email in-box.  Crap!  How did that happen?  Oh yeah....games.  Letha and I have about 47484 Words with Friends games going on right now because I hit something and it just kept sending her new game invites.

I did manage to get my Christmas tree decorated.  I never got it completely straight.  Here's what I did before I posted a photo of my tree on Facebook for those of you who saw it:  I turned it so it's leaning backwards towards the bay window away from the camera.  I also got my mantle about halfway decorated, and I put up and decorated my tiny tinsel tree in the dining room, sort of did some Christmas-y type crap to my dining room table, and put up a bunch of Christmas themed paintings I taught when I worked at the studio.  Oh and the cheapest and ugliest plastic wreath you've ever seen is now on my front door.  I'm hoping it's so ugly no one will want to steal it.  It was given to me for free.  I didn't purposely go out and buy the ugliest wreath in all of Atlanta. 

I decorated my tree late this past Saturday night because I have no life and was home alone on a Saturday night.  Also, I was afraid if I sat down that night I would never get back up due to soreness.  Yes, two Saturdays in a row that I've been in pain.  Last Saturday it was raking and bagging leaves.  This weekend it was standing.  And standing.  And standing some more.  And then hours more of standing.  How in the hell can you get so sore from just standing?   

On Saturday I took almost 50 of my dad's cameras to a camera guy to have them appraised.  My entire SUV was packed with boxes of working cameras, antique cameras that just look good sitting on a shelf, lenses, tripods, filters, etc..  So I made 34746394 trips across the parking lot to take them all in to the camera shop.  And the guy kept asking, "You have some MORE cameras in your car?" and I kept replying, "YES!  There are still some freaking more cameras in my car.  I'm sick of carrying cameras!" 

Then I stood for SIX HOURS having cameras appraised.  He had some chairs, but I had cameras in them most of the day.  Every hour or so I'd sit for about 2 minutes then I'd have to stand back up to repack a box of cameras and move on to the next one.  Then I had to make 34746394 trips back out to my car to load them back up.  I got to his store about 10 minutes after he opened.  He turned the lights out, locked the doors and walked out with me when he closed.  I was there with him for his entire work day, y'all.  And that man didn't charge me a penny to appraise everything.  So gave him about $40 worth of filters, an antique case, etc. for his time.  He is amazing!  If you live in Atlanta and need to have a camera appraised let me know and I'll give you his information.  Apparently he's known world wide so I guess if any of you need his info I'll give it to you, not just those of you here in Atlanta.  He pulled out one antique camera, looked at it for literally 2 or 3 seconds and said, "this one is probably from just before 1920, they only made these for a few years, and it's worth about $50 or $60."  He then looked it up in a book.  It was made from 1914 - 1916 and it was worth around $70.  He has a collection of over 7,000 antique cameras.  He also repairs cameras, sells manual ones (absolutely does not deal with digital at all), and just loves to look at stuff people bring in for him to appraise.

But by the time I got home I could barely walk my feet hurt so bad.  I decided to keep moving instead of sitting down and watching the final quarter of the most sad football game all year (I'm a graduate of the University of Georgia and don't watch football but I still got caught up in the hype this weekend) so I cooked some dinner, cleaned the kitchen then decorated the tree.

Sunday my older brother and I went back out to my dad's to go through MORE boxes of paperwork and crap.  But we found some photos of my biological mom that neither of us had ever seen.  We found a birthday card she had given my dad back in the 60's.  I think it's the only time I've ever seen her handwriting.  And we didn't tell a single person we were going so my dad's wife didn't show up and, while I can't say it was the most pleasant thing to be doing on a Sunday afternoon - going through your dad's things because he has passed away, my brother and I had some good laughs and we have really been reconnecting quite a bit since we've been spending so much time together taking care of this awful business of going through my dad's things.

We also found some documents from our great-grandfather that date back to 1893.  So now there are two boxes of incredibly old paper sitting on my kitchen counter.  And we found some old newspapers from the 1940's including stuff about the war, the front page when FDR died, etc.  There are also framed photographs and some of them we have no clue about but they must be famous people because there were huge crowds surrounding them to hear what they had to say.  One we think is of FDR on the back of a train in Warm Springs, GA.  My dad didn't take those.  But we found a lot he did take.  We're fairly certain a couple of them are from the beginning of the race riots here in the South.  There's one that is possibly from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral.  We're trying to figure out what to do with them.  We're torn between wanting to keep them (but they're printed in a gigantic size and mounted and I'm not sure they are things I'd ever hang in my house) and we've discussed taking them to some sort of Atlanta historical society or something along those lines to see if we can donate a collection of his work.

Anyway, after we went through the attic and basement for yet another 5 hours, I met a friend of mine for dinner.  We both have massive amounts of drama going on in our lives so we had a drama filled dinner and I didn't get home until almost 11:00 Sunday night.  And then back to the grind Monday morning......

And in the middle of all of this, I also had someone staying in my guest room for two nights.

So I think I'm going to stop talking at y'all and go eat a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups while I lounge on the sofa until I fall asleep with my cat on top of me and never make it upstairs to my bed.  Not that I've ever done that before...