Friday post

It is already Friday and it is already the 3rd post of the week. Time flies when you're authoring blogs full time. I feel sort of like Mark Twain, Emily Dickenson, William Faulkner, Dr. Suess or any other great American author of our time.


I recently had a bout of writer's block where I was short on inspiration for my next post. There is the delicate balance of drama, humor and educational material that must enter each post. Then you must intertwine relevant pictures and commentary to complete a masterpiece. So As I Lay Dying* from writer's block it hit me. Where else is better to go for inspiration than William Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak. This place is like Graceland for bookworms and semi professional bloggers.


I know Mr. Faulkner would love to know that I visited for inspiration. He was known around town for being the nicest guy you could meet and loved having unannounced visitors over for afternoon tea. So I grabbed Mama, Dada and Presley and went looking for inspiration.


Presley made himself right and home and made sure he left his mark on Rowan Oaks. Here's a little known fact on the Rowan Oak. William Faulkner created this species of oak trees by planting a mustard seed and standard oak seed in the same hole.


On my way to the front door to see if he was home. No answer today.

Here I am climbing on the roots of the an old Magnolia tree that made its way onto the property.

It was such a nice day, quit cool really. Some would say it felt like a Dry September* while others would say the sun was coming through the trees like a Light in August*.

You might think that's Benjy Compson* with me, but that's just Dada.

We stayed for a quite a while, almost long enough to see The Evening Sun*

I kept thinking this flower was going to produce a Rose for Emily* but it ended up only producing Red Leaves*.

*That part you did not understand...that was a reference to a character or work from Will Faulkner himself, but you knew that didn't you.

Hello again everyone. Post #2 of the week (as promised) is upon us. These pictures come to you from my second 4th of July Parade. This one was host be the city of Oxford on July 3rd. So once again we are celebrating the 4th early. It really does not bother me but I thought it was worth mentioning. If you carry on you will see all the action.


Me, Mama and Lambie are headed to the parade. We were within strolling distance of the square so that is what we did...strolled on up to the parade. Big sunglasses keep out the big sun.
Mama should probably get a pair.


Although it was a relatively cool July day in Mississippi it is always a good idea to stay hydrated and find some shade. You can be perfectly fine one moment and the next minute your taking a dirt nap if you are not careful. Stay thirsty my friends!



Waiting on the parade to start. Why am I behind a iron fence? Safety of course. It was not captured on camera but a boy about my age rode by on a horse the size of Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium. I kept my distance.


Here I am with the camera man while I wave the stars and stripes. Not soon after that a cow came by and handed us coupons for a free spicy chicken sandwich from Chic-fil-a. The camera man was in a good mode the rest of the day. See yall soon.

Ketchup

I have been away from my normal digs over the past week so my blog posting has again suffered. But I am not going to make excuses this time...instead I am going to just ketchup on my posting in the form of multiple blog posts this week. My pledge to you, my loyal (and sometimes rude when I don't post) followers is to give you a new post every other day this week. I am even starting today....a federal holiday. So while you are eating ribs and watermelon I am croping pictures and spel chicken my posts.

I have plenty of pictures so keep up this week.

I worked hard on my swimming this week. This stroke is called the "invisable support stroke". I could stay here all day...the key is to have a support with good lungs. I used Dada this time.

And this one is the "accidently elbow support in the nose stroke".

Enough of the pool, to the back yard we go.

Have you ever cooked on someone elses grill? Did you blame the fact that the chicken was burnt to a crisp on this foreign grill? Did this happen 2 nights in a row to your Dada too? Did you order out the 3rd night?

Big girl slide. Cutest watermelon going down a slide you will ever see.

We had a 4th of July Parade at school on Friday. I guess we should have called it the 2nd of July Parade but I don't plan these things, I just participate. I don't think the Mason household got the memo that we could bring cool toys to ride in. I guess I will just walk.

Here is a rare behind the scenes look at me getting ready for the evening. I chew on a toothbrush while my stylist does my nails, hair and makeup.

Uncle G made an appearance over the holiday. He is a good uncle mainly because I get to do whatever I want when he is around.

On this day last year

This time last year I was just sitting on the bed and smiling. Now I am all over the place and eating bread in the driveway. What a difference a year makes.

Routine

I have noticed that I have some routines that I go through on a daily or weekly basis. If I miss one or if something goes arye it can be quite upsetting. Luckily for me all went as planned this week.

I have a bedtime routine that among other things includes making room for me in the middle of all my buddies. It gets sort of cramped in my crib sometimes but we all get along most of the time.

Then I have a morning routine where I have to unload all my friends into my Mama's arms before I exit the crib. This take a while as it takes her several trips to get everyone out.

Then there is my daily pink routine. I try to make sure I have pink on at all times, even if I am not wearing pants.

Then there is my Thursday afternoon routine of riding the recycling to the curb. Just trying to make the world a better place for my grandchildren.

Finally I have developed a new routine that I call my Carbtine. I have a piece of bread each morning on my way to school. This is sort of like my appetizer before I eat at school.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Working for the Weekend

Everybody's working for the weekend...and that includes me. All that work pays off from time to time and I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor. So as usual when Friday rolled around I hit the Square for dinner, the pool for some sun and fun and the Farmer's Market at Plein Air that included a kids day this time. Monday I hit the books again but until then see what all I enjoyed during my 2 day hiatus.

Robert took me out to Proud Larry's Friday night. Larry is very proud of his cheese sticks. I guess he should be because they were delicious but I had to bring my own side of goldfish.

I attempted to pay, it is 2010 you know, but Robert would have nothing of the sort.

I checked the scales Saturday morning. I was feeling good and I was looking good. The scales confirmed my suspicion that I had room for a chicken nugget or two if needed.

So off to the Farmer's Market at Plein Air we went. Besides the normal arts, crafts, music and produce, this week included a Kid's fair as well. Balloons, lemonaide, Moonwalks, children's music, face painting, petting zoo, hot dog eating contest, chicken guessing, corn growing, catfish pond fishing, children's catapult and a girls v. boys live canon fight. Girls won of course.

Ok, maybe not all of that was not going on...or maybe it was. Come on out next weekend and see for yourself.

Here is a hint as to one of the activities that did take place. Try keeping your mouth closed when you are having this much fun. Not very easy.

We had another CENS (Church, Eat, Nap Swim) this Sunday. If you see Chuck Sherman this week please pass on this advice that my parents enstilled in me. It is not polite to point.

--Mims out.

Sunday Funday

It seems I am apologizing more and more these days for the increasing rarity of these posts. I have a legit reason this time. I have been grounded from the computer for the past week for growing up too fast. I also was not allowed to read the Wall Street Journal on Sunday or go to the pool by myself this week. I personally think my parents are being unfair cause I have tried to quit growing like they asked. They used the old "Because I said So!" excuse. I don't like that excuse...never have.

I kept it casual this Sunday for church. I went with my pink dress with little baby girl frogs with pink bows in their hair.

After church things got crazy. We started off with lunch and then a quick nap. Then after that we were off to the park. I'm not talking about your normal park with a slide and a swing. I am talking about Oxford's very own world renowned and smoke free...Avent Park. This place is a super fort, quadruple slide, multi-swing, wood chip covered, dinosaur containing towering playground that must have been created by one of Walt Disney's descendants.

Avent Park, which I now like to call Crazy Town, is broken into 2 sections. One for infants and babies, and then one is for kids like me. I'm leading Daddy (I call him Daddy now instead of Dada, another sign of my maturity) to the swings. I quickly found out this section is for small people, so we did not stay here long.

I'm not sure if I am in a rocket ship or just a lookout tower here, but either way its cute.

There was fire at the fort so we had to take the evacuation slide. This happened 4 different times. Luckily, there was no damage.

Strolling through the town square.

No fire this time, just fleeing from the dinosaur.

It was not just me and Daddy getting in on the fun. Mama got in the swing of things too.

Since it is almost June and we are in Mississippi it was a bit warm, so I cooled off back at the house with my first ever ice cream sandwich. I really enjoyed it, so did my shirt and face.

We're not done yet, then we went to the pool to continue to cool down.

I know I am just in the baby pool in these pics, but don't worry I was all over the place, including the big pool. I am headed back for a cookout on Memorial day with friends of the neighborhood.

Now I know this picture is a little out of context with the rest of this post, but I could not pass up on this opportunity to show Uncle John Rea and me relaxing at the hotel room before Uncle Wilson's wedding last weekend. We were sharing juice and cookies. Also, since Uncle John put a bow in his hair, handed my dad a camera, handed me a cookie and said "take a picture of this and put it on the blog", so like I said, I could not pass this up.