If you're looking for a funny blog, this ain't it.

You know those times when you think of something.
And then you can't stop thinking about that something?
Like a specific shirt or pair of socks you want to wear you HAVE to wear on that particular day?
And you search madly, creating a path of destruction and chaos until that something is located?

Just me?
Bueller?

Well, for me, it happens.
I know, I know.
If my life was together and things properly organized, I wouldn't have to go all tasmanian
devil every other day. But that's another story.
Anyway, this highly organized type of search and rescue happens less frequently than it used to. Honestly, I think I give up easier than I used to.

But that's where this blog begins.
On a multiple-day, tasmanian-style search for a picture circa 2003.


I'll spare you the suspense---

I found it.



The whole ordeal began at school, really. My coworker and I were discussing outlets for students to share, and open mic came up. Now if there's something I love, it's a mic. My mind went immediately to a time my high school bff and I sang in the gym. I could conjure up the image perfectly - down to the outfit. And I knew that I could quickly put my hands on it when I got home. So that's just what I went to do that afternoon. However, I was met with an empty photo slot when I thumbed to the page in my now 15 year old photo album.

Enter tasmanian search.
While this comprehensive search was not fruitful, I wasn't done.
The search then spread from Alabama to Tennessee.

Fast forward a week or so to my visit with my parents. I dug into my stack of yearbooks in search of the missing picture. I would have bet my lunch money that it had been featured in the yearbook. Mom, Lydia Claire, and I stretched out across the bed and and began the search. Page after page yeilded many memories, but not the one I was after.
Unsuccessful, I decided to just give up. Sure it was somewhere, and eventually I would stumble upon it. Surely.

Days passed, but I still kept hoping. Thinking. Searching in my mind.
Then it happened. On the quest for another photo, I blew the dust off of my photo box, cracked the top, and there it was. Nestled among other high school era photos was the blurry, taken-too-far-away photo --- just as I had imagined, and just as I remembered it.

We sang "It's the End of the World" by R.E.M. - I can still sing along to every word.

As I held the photo in my hands, I realized my search wasn't over.
It wasn't the photo, but it was the feeling.
Nostalgia.
I had first felt it looking through my albums.
Then again in looking at photos from high school and the messages graffitiing the pages.
And there I stood over a whole box of nostalgia.

The little moments, the big moments, the seemingly meaningless moments frozen in time, crammed in a box, and shoved in a dusty corner. They were all there.
I dug through, reliving each moment. Marveling over the memory.


And it hit me.
What I'm doing now will soon be a moment for my dusty box.
This will be nostalgia someday.
This crazy Friday night will, at some point, be a cherished memory.
All the gymnastics practices, the runs pushing a stroller, the bribes to get one very stubborn 4 year old to go to bed. Nostalgia.

Halloween project to make a costume from a paper bag.
Nailed it.

Dover beach - I was sick, and it was freezing.

No one seen here likes having their picture made.

Lunchroom pals. I always thought 6th graders would be the perfect age to teach. This group proves me right.

Coffee in a cup older than me. Nothing could beat hearing my grandaddy talk to LC over breakfast. I burnt the eggs, and no one wanted the 1/2 gallon of chocolate gravy I made.

It's gotta be the worst best feeling out there.
Here's some nostalgia in the making.