Filed under: home life
Anyone who wakes up in my house on their birthday morning gets a French Toast “birthday cake”.
Why?
Because it is the only thing I know how to make.
They also get three kinds of birthday songs. All sung by my dreadful off key voice.
They aren’t allowed to eat the breakfast until the songs are over…. I figure that by then, they will be so hungry and so scarred for life from hearing my singing voice that they won’t notice if I burned the food.
The lucky French Toast Birthday Cake Eater from this morning?
The Doc!
Happy Birthday my sweet love! May your next 28 years be just as incredible as your first!
Filed under: Momma, New Orleans, connection, home life, love, ninjas, rambles
4 years ago today… Katrina swept through our lives and we were never the same.
Everything we knew, everyone we knew, everywhere that was home…
battered
broken
irrevocably and completely changed.
Of everything that happened, I think that watching my own mother disintegrate before my eyes was the hardest to take.
She had always been a strong fort… sheltering herself, my brother, and I from the “other” storms in our lives. She had lived through two incredibly painful divorces, buried her brother and her father, struggled to raise two kids completely on her own with absolutely no money ( and managed to get a college degree while she was at it!), survived life threatening illnesses, and now,
the happy and safe world she had worked so hard to create for herself… was now disappearing before her on CNN.
It is a tough thing to watch your momma unravel. It completely takes away everything that you know of your own life and leaves it utterly chaotic.
4 years ago, she did what she always did after any crisis. She tried to pull it together. She went back home. Helped her neighbors, her family, her friends rebuild their lives. But life wasn’t finished beating her up just yet.
In the years since that terrible day, she has not only lost her home, her job, her life as she knew it… but also her beloved great-grandma, her gallbladder, and the love of her life, Jim. She has also been the most amazing nurse to two cancer patients… her own mother and son.
Now, any one of those things would be enough to break a person into a million pieces. But my mom is no Humpty Dumpty.
She is
the little engine that could… with the soul of an angel and the eyes of the deepest ocean.
She is
a perfect momma… down to the very tips of her toes. I consider it the greatest blessing of my life that she is mine.
She is
strong, sassy, and has a smile and a spirit that cannot be broken.
Because she wakes up every single morning, breathes in the morning air, and decides to keep on going…
this day will never be an anniversary of all that was lost….
It will be one more day that I am reminded of the definition of human strength and beauty…
Her name is Debra Ann.
Off to dreamland,
Bing
Ninja Thought of the Day:
“Why? Because Momma said so, that’s why.”
-Bing and Brad, children of the original Stockstill Ninja Clan leader.
Some days in my world are not all sun-shiney. Some days are just plain hard.
Today was not a bad day, just a really really really (really really) long one.
I tried hard to get things done, and I did. There was lots I did not get done though, and life wasn’t any easier for it.
I tried to make lots of people happy, and felt like I failed most of the time. It humbled me, and reminded me to be more patient with people who cross my path everyday. (I told Mandy and Demi it felt like I was pedaling backwards in peanut butter all day.)
I was tired, too chubby for my favorite jeans, and had the horrible skin of a french-fry-eating 15 year old.
It is days like today that I have to work a little harder to see the sparkles and pockets of light. It is days like today when I have to search deeper for gratitude.
So, in an effort to send myself to bed with sweet dreams… a list of the little things that made my day a good one to be alive.
- Today, I needed patience and understanding and hugs. At least I got the hugs (and they were kiddo hugs so they were extra magical).
- I had lunch with my best friend and together we found the prettiest fabric for the new dance school waiting room furniture.
- Although I did not have time to go home and change into my dance clothes before class, I just happened to be wearing loose clothes and was able to teach my three classes in them.
- My husband and dog, the two most loving and adorable creatures God ever made, were waiting on me when I walked through the doors tonight with kisses.
- Six beautiful words: Venti Soy Sugar-Free Caramel Macchiato
- Realized that in 5 more days, my little brother will have made it to his 24th birthday. A day that we weren’t sure we would get to see.
- Was reunited with a song I love but did not have on my ipod until this morning… “In the Sun” by Joseph Arthur.
- Seeing The Doc’s perfect dimples on the sides of his perfect smile… makes my heart sigh… completely at peace… and all is right again with the world.
Off to dreamland,
Bing
Ninja Quote of the Day:
“The little things are bigger than the big things.”
-little old ninja me
BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!
(and no, I am not preggo- so stop squirming in your seats already!)
First, DANCE PARENTS (aka glorified chauffeurs), check your emails/voicemails… we’ve decided to make your lives a little bit easier! Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday classes will begin 15 minutes later than the original schedule. Since I do not have children to pick up from school, I was unaware of the stress you are under to get to class on time after your child gets out of school. Classes will still last an hour. So, all 4:30pm classes will start at 4:45 pm, 5:30 classes at 5:45pm, etc. This will not affect Wednesday and Saturday classes at all.
Second, my photography website, www.bingphotography.com , is now back to normal. Some mean old hacker got in there a couple of months ago and caused a whole bunch of trouble. Google and Firefox put us in internet jail by not letting people enter our site. It is squeaky clean and safe (we check it twice daily just to make sure it stays that way.. no suspicious activity for over a month now). I contacted the internet gods and they finally pardoned us! So, go surf all you want! (And thanks for stopping by!)
Third, we should be ready to move into the new dance/photography studio sometime this week! YIPPEEEEE!!! Wanna see a sneak peak? (the walls have been painted since I snapped these photos, and they are starting on the floors today!)
And the outside… this place is HUGE! WOOT WOOT!
Off to enjoy the sunshine (from my office window, haha!)
Bing
Ninja Thought of the Day:
“One does not truly turn left into an alley or jump down from a 12-story building or run up a wall. Direction is subjective.”
-from the Ask a Ninja Handbook
Filed under: New Orleans, dance studio, friends, home life, love, ninjas, photography, rambles, sunshine
Summer is my favorite.
I love the heat and the humidity. I don’t care if it is 102 degrees, as long as I don’t need a sweater just to go outside, life is good.
I love the playgrounds full of dirty, sweaty, smelly children who are glad to not be behind desks. No one can celebrate summer better than a kid.
I love fireflies and dinner outside with friends and the smell of sunscreen and pool water.
Since I am at least semi-grown-up, I worked a lot this summer. Since I am semi-not-grown-up, I loved my work so much that it felt like play.
Some of the highlights from my sweet summer:
Dance Camp. Two of my favorite words… all rolled into two fantastic weeks!
(note to self… don’t leave your dance camp shopping list alone with the teenagers…)
Showed some NIT’s (ninjas in training) how things are done….
Taught Sherrie and Aaron how to drive while taking photos (a necessary ninja skill)…
Loved on my friends’ babies so much that I decided I must have one of my own….
Had many dreamy conversations with The Doc about said babies over sushi and sweet tea….
Moved a dance studio with some amazing helpers…
Joined a quartet on Bourbon Street until they discovered I was only lip singing and kicked me out…
Had beignets and chickory coffee at the one and only Cafe Du Monde with the fabulous women of Ballet Bootcamp…
Walked the streets of a city I love….
Add to this many evenings eating hummus and yelling at the TV at the Hayes household and there you have it…
summer… bing style
With only minutes left on a strange and wonderful two-and-a-half months, I find myself looking for the rewind button.
However, I do get my dance kiddos back tomorrow for what is already proving to be an amazing year..
I’ll take it.
Even if I have to eventually wear a sweater.
Off to dreamland,
Bing
Ninja Quote of the Day:
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
-Dr. Seuss
Disclaimer: For the most sickeningly sweetest mush on the internet, follow the second star to the right and straight on till morning.
What do you get a husband who has been a husband for exactly three years (yesterday, Aug. 5th actually) and is really really really good at being a husband?
(Notice I like that “h” word… it took some getting used too, but now I am so in love with it I just say it all the time!)
How about a memory?
This is the great thing about photographs…. they are physical visual representations of life changing moments.
Moments that live in 1997.
Moments that live in tiny southern towns on dusty country roads.
Moments that started it all.
I recently traveled back where-it-used-to-be-home to seek out and photograph those things that held the history of Bing and Doc.
A couple of those places still existed, right where we had left them. The rest were swept away by Hurricane Katrina.
This was my gift to him… the keeper of my heart…
The school bus where we knew from the first glance…
The bike trail where we rode and rode, hoping the summer would never end…
The place our bikes finally stopped and we kissed for the first time while the mosquitoes bit our legs and his eyelashes tickled my cheek.
Off to dreamland,
Bing
Ninja Thought of the Day:
“Everyone has photographic memory, most just don’t have film.”
-Superflyninjaguy
“Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams.”
-Douglas Jerrold
I truly, down to the tips of my toes, believe that Kennedy Hayes must have been kissed by thousands of fairies when she entered the world 5 years ago.
The evidence of this lies in her tiny fairy voice, her red cornsilk fairy hair, her sweet little fairy ears…. and, most importantly, her light, impish, cheerful, and inspired way of being in the world.
May the fairies never leave you, sweet Kennedy. They will dance on your shoulders and put sparkles in your eyes as long as you believe in them.
Off to dreamland,
Bing
Ninja Thought of the Day:
“When is a Ninja not a Ninja? Never, because she is a ninja.”
-The Ninja Handbook
Filed under: Uncategorized
They are everywhere.
Gurgling and cooing at me in grocery stores.
Drooling all dreamy-eyed at me in restaurants.
I see my husband looking at them longingly and my heart goes pitter-pat.
What has happened to my brain? When did I start slooowing down when passing the baby isle at Target… just so I can catch a whiff of baby powder? When did I start day-dreaming of holding a tiny warm bundle that has The Doc’s green eyes and dimples and my blonde curls?
One thing is for sure… I’ve got it bad.
These guys aren’t helping either…..
Off to spread some sunshine!
Bing
Ninja Thought of the Day:
“Move the lake, then eat the fish.”
-The Whut, loony ninja master, Ask a Ninja Handbook
