View from the rooftop of where we stayed, the Marriott Grand Chateau.

The required shot of the Las Vegas Sign.

GORGEOUS Red Rock Canyon.

Anyway….

Writing about all these restaurants and clubs made me realize I didn’t get out very much while we were in Vegas. Granted, we were only there for a weekend. I think I want to go back, even though I’m not into gambling at all. The people watching was fascinating and I really enjoyed the Cirque du Soliel show we saw. We were there in the fall, and the autumn decor at the big resorts was just breathtaking. This was one scene at the Bellagio:

I could definitely enjoy a trip of just taking in the scenery at the resorts and eating at the good restaurants!

Now, on to what I’ve learned during these weeks of Las Vegas research…

1. 50 grams of Spanish caviar will set you back $225 at the Lakeside Grill inside the Wynn Hotel. That just slays me–I could feed my family of five for two weeks with $225!

2. Appetizer-only restaurants are a big deal. They like to call them “small plates.” Cute. My husband would probably call them “I’m still hungry–can we get a cheeseburger on the way home?” plates.

3. Apparently, pineapple mojitos and Brazil’s national cocktail, the caipirinha are all the rage. I never knew Brazil had a national cocktail. What is America’s national cocktail? Budweiser???

4. Actually, Brazilian cuisine is a big deal at the moment, and there’s even a restaurant called SushiSamba that combines sushi and Brazilian cuisine. What’s next, a Mexican-Mongolian cafe? Scottish-Chinese? African-Icelandic?

5. Another popular Las Vegas menu item is the charcuterie board–an assortment of aged meats and cheeses. Since I had no idea what a “charcuterie” was when I first saw the word, I had to look it up. It’s interesting: the word literally translates from French as “cooked flesh” (from chair ‘flesh’ and cuit ‘cooked’). Doesn’t that make you want to run out and order one?

6. This sounds like a neat idea: Ice Pan Ice Cream. Totally make-your-own ice cream. Sounds kind of like Cold Stone Creamery, but healthier.

7. There are a lot of Steak ‘n Shake restaurants around the country, and most of them stay open 24 hours a day. There is only one Steak ‘n Shake in the entire state of Nevada, and it’s located inside a 24-hour casino. But it closes every night at midnight. That makes me giggle!

8. There’s a restaurant and bar called Gilley’s, where the waitresses all dress in bikinis, chaps, cowboy boots and cowboy hats. Now I’m sure men would have a different take on this, but something about the thought of a woman in a bikini serving me food just grosses me out. I mean, wearing a bikini is essentially the same as a woman walking around in her underwear. I don’t want an underwear-clad stranger serving me dinner. Of course, I can’t imagine that’s a place I’d want to go anyway…

9. Las Vegas might just be the only place in America that offers Happy Hour from 3 to 6 p.m….and again from 3 to 6 a.m!

10. Texas Station and Santa Fe Station, two off-the-strip casino resorts, offer 18-screen movie theaters and 64-lane bowling alleys. The pictures of the bowling alley at Texas Station look really cool. I would’ve never thought about bowling in Las Vegas, but it’s neat to see that Vegas isn’t all gambling/drinking/bikini-clad waitresses–they actually have some family-friendly things to do.

Check out Amanda’s site for more Top Ten Tuesday lists.

Two special anniversaries occurred this winter. One – my 20^th wedding anniversary – I wrote about. But the other slipped my mind until now.

February 8^th marked my five-year anniversary of writing this column. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been writing here for that long. In many ways, it doesn’t seem like it’s been five whole years. But when I look back at how much our life has changed, it almost seems longer than half a decade. Just about everything was different back then.

When I first started writing for this newspaper, I was working full-time as a family assistance coordinator at the National Guard armory in Covington. My oldest, Zach, was a second-grader in private school, and my little Eli was just three, spending his days at a great in-home daycare. We were still trying to knit our family back together again after my husband’s year-long deployment to Iraq.

Now, five years later, I’m a stay-at-home, freelance writing, happily homeschooling mom. My big boys are in seventh and third grades, and my husband still works for the National Guard, but as a civilian. And we’re all kept running and laughing by the little tornado, Jonah, who whirled into our lives 17 months ago.

If you’re new to the Covington News and want to read more about what’s happened the past five years, the newspaper’s website has dozens of recent columns in its archives. My husband, also known as Mr. Web Designer Extraordinaire, has archived all 200-plus of them on my website, aptly entitled “Kari: A Splash of Pink in a House of Blue.”

Personally, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go back and read that much about one middle-aged mama’s life, but hey – it’s free entertainment. Besides, if you’ve read my stuff for a while, you’ve got to be wondering what the rest of the family looks like and what crazy things I blog about between columns. So, stop by www.kariapted.com and see me sometime. On Monday, I posted a bunch of pictures detailing some of our homeschooling antics. Just make sure you read the disclaimer stating that I don’t really lock Jonah up in the cabinet while teaching my older sons.

I definitely feel grateful to the Covington News for taking a chance on a totally unknown writer, and giving me a weekly spot in the paper. I still remember how I felt when I picked up that first newspaper and saw my words and my face staring back at me in print. It was giddiness mixed with nausea and a heaping dose of dread. What had I done? How long would it take before the emails came pouring in, telling me how boring I was and how badly my participles had dangled?

But it never happened. Instead, I found out what I already knew, that this little corner of Georgia contains some of the nicest people in the universe. If you’ve ever taken the time to send an email commenting on my column, know that it’s been saved in a file I call “Writing Encouragement.” I value every kind word more than you’ll ever know. And when I’m facing a big project, or pursuing a personal writing goal that feels bigger than the universe, I go back and read those notes to strengthen myself.

Because writing can be a lonely kind of experience. Everyone is so busy these days – it’s hard to know if anyone is even reading what I’ve taken the time to pen, or if they’d even notice if I faded away. Sometimes submitting a column feels like sending a message in a bottle across the open sea, never knowing if anyone will pop the cork and read what’s tucked inside.

But I keep writing because there’s almost always a story to tell, and if I didn’t write, I’d go crazy. Some would say I’m well on my way to that destination as it is. Maybe so, but I’m glad to know that I’ve got some good people traveling along with me. Thanks for letting me chat with y’all every week for five happy, long years. I hope there are many more ahead.

Time for this poem, I simply have none

But when I heard it was his birthday, I thought, “How fun!”

What a great excuse to jot down a line

To honor a writer so great and so fine!

When he said his own name, Seuss didn’t rhyme with moose–

Nor loose, noose, juice, goose!

But it sounded like “soyce”

Or a girl named Joyce Choice.

But however you say it, this much is true–

Life is much better with Cindy Lou Who

And the Grinch and the Dog who wanted to GO!

All the Seuss stories, I just love them so!

2. Crossing one item off my Bucket List when I attend an art show Saturday night that features one of my pieces. I always wanted to see my stuff in a gallery…this is close enough for me! (Now if I can only convince the hubs to come along…though he’s an artist, he’s not exactly a wine/cheese/silent auction kind of guy.)

3. Launching a new online store with my sister sometime this spring. Look for more information coming soon!

4. Easter! It’s going to be a blast, seeing Jonah toddle around, collecting eggs all by himself this year.

5. An upcoming reunion with people from our previous church. So excited about this!

6. Going to visit the folks in Florida at some point before it gets brutally hot down there.

7. Sleeping a full eight hours again — in one solid block. I don’t expect it’ll happen anytime soon — maybe not even this year. But I’m looking forward to it just the same.

8. Spring arriving and staying a while, so I can enjoy having my windows open every day!

9. Cracking open Zach’s new level of Vocabulary from Classical Roots and learning right along with him. I am such a word-nerd and have been delighted at how this curriculum has gotten my boys interested in vocabulary, too.

10. Getting everyone in bed so I can kick back, watch the shows I’ve recorded on the DVR, and perhaps enjoy a little winding-down “grown-up drink”, as we call them around here.

For more Top Ten Tuesday lists, visit OhAmanda!

Ok, maybe that title contains a bit of hyperbole.

But only a bit. It’s beautiful out today, and where have I been?

Inside. Writing. Typing my poor lil’ ol’ southern fingers to the bone.

Well, except for this particular moment while I’m blogging…I reached a dead spot in an article and I’m procrastinating on fixing it.

Thankfully, I’ve been working beside an open window, so I can at least enjoy some of the delicious fresh air. But if I don’t work, I don’t get paid, and y’all — Mama needs to get paid next week.

Because back when I thought we were actually getting a tax return (before the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge showed up out of nowhere and sucked it all down into the black abyss) I ordered Girl Scout cookies from not one, but two, precious little angels AND I told a friend of my sister’s that I’d take this really great chair off her hands for a fairly reasonable sum.

Yep, I made the stupid mistake of counting my chickens before they hatched. Again.

And that’s in addition to all the little yappy bills snapping around my ankles like a herd of jacked-up Chihuahuas: “Pay me! Grrrr! No, pay ME!”

You know, I don’t have any real desire to be uber-rich. I’d just like to live comfortably enough that something like buying Girl Scout cookies and a flippin’ chair doesn’t send me in to Worryville, hoping I can scrape together enough reserve to take care of those obligations.

I dream of a day that I can choose what I want to write, and when, and for whom, and not have to spend a gorgeous Saturday on boring “pay the bills” writing. But of course, I feel horribly guilty for complaining because heaven knows there are many people struggling much more than I, and it truly is a blessing to be able to work from home doing something I find easy and most of the time, enjoyable.

Ah, that I — that all of us — could learn to be content.

“I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.” -Phil. 4:12, The Message

1. He puts up with me. I know, you all think I’m just this sweet, easy-going, lovely person (HA!) but nobody, and I mean nobody, sees all my warts, weathers all my moods and still loves me unconditionally like my Donnie. Somebody — give the man a trophy!

2. He proofreads my column every week and tells me it’s good, even on those weeks I know I’m submitting something mediocre because I didn’t have time to polish it.

3. He almost always says “yes” when I ask if I can pick on him in my writing, and doesn’t get offended.

4. He changes dirty diapers, and always has, even though each time, he’d probably prefer to have an unmedicated root canal.

5. He keeps up with my blog stats (I forget to) and Googles my name, then calls to tell me how “famous” I am and where I rank alongside Michael Apted when he searches our last name. He is my biggest cheerleader.

6. He loves his family. Everything he does is for us.

7. I can’t elaborate much about his job, but he has always worked hard to take care of us. I have never had to worry about having a husband who won’t work, or who skips from job to job. He’s willing to put up with a lot sometimes, to give us that stability.

8. He acknowledges that all good things come from the Lord, and that he is just a steward of what he’s been blessed with.

9. Three of my favorite memories will always be the look of purest love in his eyes as he held each of his newborn sons and we marveled together over the gifts we’d been given.

10. His hands. They are big, strong, beautiful, manly man-hands. I love the way his hand feels in mine. I remember being in church a few weeks after he deployed to Iraq, being asked to hold hands with and pray for the person beside us. The man next to me grabbed my hand, and his felt bony, damp and weak. And I started crying because I missed my husband. I missed the strength I always felt when I held his hand. I still feel that strength — I love that I can trust it will be there for me, always.

Ho-Ho-Ho-HUH?

Please take a moment to go visit my friend Alicia today and read this blog post about a book I can’t wait to read on the real story of the life of Saint Nicholas.

I, too, have been reluctant through the years to include a lot of Santa-themed activities into our Christmas celebration, in an effort to remain honest with my children and focus on the birth of Christ.

But jolly ol’ Saint Nicholas is not the evil guy many evangelicals make him out to be.

Check out the link above, then consider buying the book from Matthew. Personally, I’m looking forward to payday so I can get a copy of my own! (Not that it’s that expensive! It’s just that my own Santa-giving has left me broker than broke! LOL)

Of course, I often miss the mark and leave my readers wondering what kind of medication I’m on and where can they get a dose of those crazy pills. But most of the time, word research is as pleasurable to me as a hot bubble bath or a chunk of milk chocolate melting on my tongue.

Well, almost as pleasurable.

Today, as I pondered this second installment on the subject of thankfulness, I struggled to find words that express how deeply I hope to raise grateful children.

The world works hard against my goal. I can’t be the only mother who looks around and feels dismayed over the selfishness that’s permeated our society. I see it in the people speeding past me in the emergency lane during a traffic jam, and in the perfectly healthy taking up handicapped parking spaces. I hear it in adults whining like children, in countless requests unpunctuated by a single “please” or “thank you.” I feel it from people demanding my best but unwilling to give anything in return.

I read it in the news last week, in the senseless deaths of local teenagers killed by their peers and in three thieves who valued stolen goods more than the life of the unfortunate man who stumbled onto the scene of their crime.

It’s always been there, of course. Any student of history can attest that most of the wrongs humans have committed through the ages have been rooted in selfishness.

But is selfishness really the opposite of gratitude?

My thesaurus lists the following as thankful’s antonyms: thankless, unmindful, careless, forgetful, grumbling, critical, faultfinding, dissatisfied, grumpy, moody, discontented.

Maybe discontented is the word I’m looking for. And I can’t quite understand our complaint.

Has life ever been so easy? My sister and I reminisced the other day about when we were kids and our dad worked out of state. Once a week, mom would drive to Atlanta so we could talk to my dad for a few minutes on a friend’s free WATS line. Long distance was too expensive for an average middle-class family, so we gladly made that weekly trip to hear our precious father’s voice.

That’s nearly unheard-of today. Most people can contact just about anyone, anytime, for practically nothing. And maybe that’s part of the problem. When things become too easy, it’s human nature to disvalue those things—including relationships with those so easily accessible.

Working hard for something makes us more thankful for it. And I’m afraid that we’re so busy making life easy for our kids that we deny them the pleasure of linking work with gratitude. We’re more concerned with creating their happiness than in developing this vital part of their character.

If they lose or break their belongings, we buy new stuff instead of making them earn the replacements. I recently read about some schools eliminating “F” from the grading scale. Where else in life is the option of failure eliminated? How is this even close to reality? It’s sad how good we are at teaching kids to expect more than they’ve earned.

It’s hard, but I’ve felt convicted to edit my own life responses in order to honor the work/gratitude connection. I’m a homebody who hates housework—you can just imagine the grumbling I’ll have to reign in this week.

But instead of complaining about a busy calendar, I can express thankfulness for friends to spend time with, opportunities to learn, and access to good medical care.

Dirty dishes are a reason to thank God for the food that they held. Raking leaves isn’t backbreaking—it’s an opportunity to be outside in the glorious fall weather, giving the kids a chance to jump in huge piles of God’s colorful confetti.

Some say that gratitude is a habit, and I tend to agree. No matter how the thesaurus says it—thankful, contented or satisfied—it’s my job as Mother to help my family never forget the thousands of ways we are blessed.

I’ve put off writing this column for a couple of months. I haven’t wanted to tackle it because it was too big, too emotional and felt nearly impossible to write. How do you explain in just 700 words mourning over someone who loved you wholly, purely your entire life? I still don’t know how. But since today is her birthday—her first one in heaven—I’ll try.

Had my sweet grandmother, Honey lived to see today, she would’ve been 88 years old. She passed away on August 4th, in her bed at home, just as she wanted, after her failing heart stopped beating and finally released her soul.

She was ready to go, had been ready for a long time. She was so uncomfortable and hated being frail and needy. It was always her pleasure to serve others—she hated being served. It made it difficult to care for her at times; the strong will that made her such a hoot to be around when she was healthy tested everyone’s patience near the end.

And I hated that because that wasn’t my Honey. As hard as she fought us, I knew she fought herself even more inside, wanting to be the independent soul she’d always been, distraught that our lives had been shaken up and rearranged to take care of her.

Mere moments after she died, I stroked my fingers along her thin, wrinkled arm. It was still warm. But I felt strangely, unexpectedly disassociated from her body. What lay there before me was no longer her. It was like holding an empty seashell.

My beloved Honey was free. She was back to who she was before she got sick, only better. And I didn’t cry until I thought about her and my grandfather together again, in a cozy corner of heaven, with Benny Goodman playing as they danced. And those tears were happy ones.

Sadness ebbed and flowed in the days following her death. But my overwhelming sensation of joy that she wasn’t suffering anymore softened the edges of grief. Can you feel true joy when someone you love dies? I didn’t think it was possible, but now I believe it is. It had been beyond difficult to witness her pain. I could only celebrate that she didn’t hurt anymore.

But now some time has passed, and I find myself trudging through the harder part of grief. That’s the part where I’m reminded on a pretty consistent basis that the rest of my days on this planet will be lived without this very special person in my life. And it’s hard.

Honey was my soft place, literally and figuratively. It wasn’t until after she passed that I realized my only childhood memory of being held was in her arms. I know other people held me, and often—parents, relatives, friends. But I distinctly remember one afternoon with Honey, at their old brick house in Atlanta.

I was about three, and she wanted me to take a nap. I didn’t want to take a nap. Now, as an adult, I realize how exhausting small children can be, and poor Honey probably needed a nap considerably more than I did. She scooped me up into her arms and reclined back on the sofa. I stretched out on top of her, belly to belly, my cheek nestled in the center of her chest. She was pudgy then, soft and warm. I remember the sound of her heartbeat thudding quietly in my ear. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I’m sure she didn’t move until I did. I do remember feeling safe, and comfortable, and of course had no way of knowing that she would always be those things to me.

For 41 years, I knew I had a soft, welcoming place to land, no matter what. But now, it’s gone. I can’t quite get used to that.

I thank God a thousandth time for sending our baby Jonah, because my intense grief over facing the next few months without Honey is softened by the joy of anticipating his first real holiday season. Last year, he was still a tiny little bundle, but this year he’s going to trick-or-treat, eat Thanksgiving turkey, open Christmas presents, and giggle and play with his brothers. It’s going to be so delightful, experiencing anew the wonder of the holidays as seen through a toddler’s eyes.

But, oh how I wish my Honey was here to see it, too.

A yellow cat sits upon a dark purple chair. A royal blue blanket lays upon the chair, as blue hydrangeas in a vase atop an ancient table dance in the breeze from an open window above. Out the window, there are mountains, each their own unique color. And the only thing you hear is the sleeping cat’s purr.

It makes me smile that one of my favorite people wrote so beautifully about one of my favorite paintings.  I love that kid!