You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

~Mohandas K. Gandhi

it's all in the family

think george and nancy were the only ones to tackle guitar hero with a seriousness rivaled only by professional musicians?

think again, my friends.

(don't let my cousin's smile fool you)

we play nicely with (some) blood relatives

our cousin and her family came early the other night so chopin josephine had not yet been taken to the kennel where we decided she was better off with numerous little people about our house for the next few days. after three hours of pleading, i decided that i could get the dog from down the hill and, if i carefully held her, the kids could at least pet her because she really is so cute and soft. wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, chopin came inside, sniffed the children while they stood quietly, then laid down sweetly and let everyone calmly pet her. i was shocked. after about 5 minutes she let out a quiet growl, without a nasty face, and was then escorted back outside after being lovely in every way.

since chopin was not at the house today, our attention turned to roxie. after being bribed with numerous carrots, apples, and alfalfa, roxie came out of her cage and played with everyone the majority of the day. and i can't imagine it is easy being petted by 6 hands all day long. my cousin's youngest baby is 2 and she and roxie had a lot of fun contemplating each other while the rest of us watched happy feet. roxie also very sweetly nibbled off travis's hang nail, which he decided really had been bothering him. what loving pets are in the bell house these days!

uno, dos, tres

first day







second day











third day







flowers for you

backlog

i have been sickity and doing a lot of this:


so i've not been posting but i have tons of lovely posts so i'm just going to post a ridiculous amount today. hooray.

you don't know what you've got til it's gone

the appearance of my stomach is something i tried to get over at age 10. i missed having a smooth, normal stomach but i loved my scars too. and since then, i've tried not to think about it much. i take pictures before each surgery just for documentation purposes; however, the post-10-year-old holes have only added to my stomach's landscape. unfortunately, it turns out that i was really attached to my belly button. it always hurts to poke inside it and sometimes i get really obsessive about cleaning it thoroughly but, on the whole, i guess i really love-love-loved it. today i came to terms with the fact that, for better or worse, its composition has permanently changed. my belly button is now more squinty and the skin under it is a weird new valley of tension. clearly, it is a small price to pay for healthy nancy but since i'm a shallow, selfish sort of person (bummer, i know) i really miss the way it used to be. i feel like even if it did have surgeries through it before it still appeared the same. and i'd had that belly button for 25 years and always kind of liked it. outies be damned, i'm an innie all the way. farewell old belly button, you were well loved. hello new belly button!

expressive silence

this post is in honor of my 3 hour drive today without a cd player:






who can i call?





this sucks.






i'm sleepy.