hornet's nest

Some things aren't worth fighting over.

Over the weekend, i think SIL#1 and I buried the hatchet, so to speak. I apologized to her and she actually apologized to me. It felt good to get it over and done with. Not that I see us hanging out as BFFs any time soon. We are just different. And we're family. We don't have to be best friends just because we are family. We don't even have to agree.

Things didn't work out as well between Fiance and SIL#1... I told Jason it was like coming up on a hornets nest, and I wasn't one to poke at a hornet's nest.

Hopefully things will blow over and everyone will play nice.

Jason and I went to Needham, Alabama on Saturday. Janie spent the day with Chris, so it was just me, Jason and Si. There's less than 100 people that live in Needham. I'm pretty sure they knew we were out-of-towners...

They have a small park in the town that is centered around the old Walter Wilson gristmill. There is also a log cabin that has been re-built using timbers from old homes that were donated to the town. It's a nice park. Much nicer than I expected for a town of only 94 people...

The rest of the pictures I took are on my flickr page.

Rural Decay

I think most people who come from and live in small towns have a love/hate relationship with that town. 

I love my hometown.

It is where I grew up, and where I still live.  

There has only been a short amount of time in the past 35 years that I haven't lived in here. For a couple of years I lived in SmallTownville while I worked and went to community college there. And I also lived in the quaint community of AnotherSmallTownville for 6 or so years.

But the remainder of my life has been lived in this good, down-home town..

There have been times I have loathed living here. When I couldn't find a job in town (hence having to move to SmallTownville to work after college), when I went through my divorce in 2010 (not so long ago actually), and when I went through a rough time with an acquaintance that decided to slander my name around my lovely little town.

But for the most part, I love this town. I am glad I get to live here now and that I get to raise my children here.

I have been taking pictures for a few years. I think I have been a Flickr subscriber since 2007, so that makes 8 years.  I went through all of the images I have stored there and  made two new albums:

Southography

Alabama the Beautiful

The first one is pictures of various places in the south that I have visited over the past eight years. I tried to concentrate on places that were forgotten - urban decay type pictures. Although most of the places I like to visit aren't and never have been urban by any means. 

So I should describe them as rural-decay.

The second set is of various places all over the state of Alabama. I really thought I had more images than what I found. I now have a mission -- take more pictures!

As if I needed to define a mission... ;)

Meridian

This weekend we went to Meridian, Mississippi. Let me tell you one thing... there is NOTHING worth looking at in between our little home town and Meridian. There's only one town worth mentioning and even it isn't much to look at.

Meridian, however, has lots to look at. I wish we had taken the stroller with us, then I would have taken more pictures of the beautiful buildings they have in downtown Meridian. There is even one that is falling down that is magnificent! Currently a group is trying to restore it (although I somehow doubt they will be able to finish).

Here's a few images of our weekend:

 Then we found this beautiful cemetery. The saddest thing was when I found children's graves... Some of them only a few months old... Makes me hold Si even tighter...

We drove past an abandoned school on the way to Meridian somewhere near Sweetwater, Alabama. On the way back, I got Jason to stop so I could take some pictures.  Nanafalia is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Marengo County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 94.