sooolsa

this is apparently how my nephew pronounces salsa. my brothers call me salsa [somehow sis evolved somewhere along the way], so jay and emily are trying to teach jett to call me aunt salsa. recently i got an email from em saying that he pointed at a picture of me, unprompted mind you, and said "soooooolsa". i fucking melted.

friday morning i will board a plane to go be with my family for the weekend. caroline is getting dedicated at their church on sunday, so everyone's meeting in dallas: hoochie and scotty, kitty and paw paw, even uncle rod. seeing the rugrats is enough to make me happy, but getting to see everyone at once is like christmas. no seriously. it only happens at christmas.

i'll admit that lately i've been in a funk. i was talking to brittain about it tonight, and she asked if i felt better. i said not really. you're supposed to say yes, i feel much better. i cried, thought, prayed, listened to REM in the dark, or whatever it is you do when you feel off, and that solved everything. well that's not the case. i'm sitting here thinking about what i could do to shake it off, to feel more like myself. seeing my family this weekend will help. i know it will. i have changed quite a bit since we all actually lived under the same roof. we all have [except for scotty, probably - that man is a machine]. but even as the years pass and things and people change, family, whether they're pissing you off or singing your praises, always grounds me. they remind me of where i came from and give me strength and confidence for the present.

i will hold/play with/feed/stare at/take pictures of jett and caroline [no diaper changes, though], drink beer with my brothers, talk music/boys/debauchery with my sister-in-law, sneak in a trip to north park mall with hoochie, try and make scotty laugh, prove to paw paw that i'm still a champion hugger, and will probably have to remind kitty what day it is and how old i am now 37 times. can't. fucking. wait.