Hillbilly Hotdog

You're looking at the outside of part of the "dining" area, and yes you are seeing correctly- that's a bus, decorated with just about everything. Shovels, mirrors, Mrs. Santa, old radios, etc. 

This is another part of the place. There's a sign just above where the man in red is standing that says "order grub here." There are other hillbilly jokes around the place, but I didn't take pictures of them. 

This is inside the bus you saw above. Notice the writing all over the place and the original bus seats.

And we couldn't leave without leaving our mark on the place. I didn't vandalize- it's encouraged! They provide the sharpie! 

In case you are wondering, here are a few of the things you can order: (copied from the menu) 

Hillbilly hotdog- deep fried beef weenie with homemade chili sauce, mustard and onions. 

Taco dog- the weenie is covered with 4 jalapenos, nacho cheese, crunched up nacho chips, homemade chili sauce, lettuce, maters, picante sauce, sour cream and shredded cheese! 

Barnyard bird dog- Fried chicken on a hot dog bun, with American cheese, pickles and bbq sauce. 

You can also order Hillbilly Double wide burger or single wide burger- 15 lb and 5 lb respectively. On the Double wide there are 24 cheese slices, 24 maters, 2 heads of lettuce, 2 whole onions and 2 pounds of pickles!!! 

AND you can try the "Home-Wrecker" - a 3 and a half pound loaded hot dog- eat it in 12 mins or less and you get a free T-shirt :) 

(in case you're interested, there are franchises available) hillbilly hotdogs 

:) 

On the Road

Well, we left the city Thursday night and took the train to NJ to stay with Jay's aunt and uncle. Then Friday morning we rode with them to WV to surprise Jay's dad for his 60th birthday party. He was surprised! Success.

My parents also came up from VA for the party and spent the weekend here. If you've ever watched "Diner's, Drive-in's, and Dive's" on the Food Network Channel you may have seen a little hotdog stand in WV (near Huntington) called Hillbilly Hotdog... just wait until you see the pictures (I'll upload them soon). The "dining area" is inside 2 OLD school buses, it was quite an experience and I've never seen so many different ways to serve a hot dog :) I wasn't so daring!

One of the things I'll always remember about Memorial Day weekend is that 6 years ago I totaled my car on the WV turnpike while on my way to visit Jay before we were married. It was one of those times I can truly say God's hand was covering me and I'm so thankful for his protection. He has blessed me in so many ways.

I'll share pictures of our weekend soon :)

Punctuation

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. 

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

From the book- "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynn Truss. 

I'm an English teacher and a lot of the students I have suffer from the inability to use punctuation or use it correctly. I wish I could make this book a requirement; it's a "zero tolerance approach to punctuation" which I think is great! I also wish punctuation was the only problem, but most of the time the grammar is worse. That's when I would like to recommend "The Elements of Style." 

I should share some of the hilarious mistakes but somehow that just seems wrong. There are days I really struggle to keep reading the essays they turn in. That's when I wander over to facebook and blogger instead! 

(I am in no way suggesting that my use of punctuation is always correct... I have the book for a reason.) 

Love 146

I want for nothing, yet so many are starving, without jobs, a roof over their heads or someone to care for them. I often forget that I live in luxury compare to so many around the world. People struggle to live on pennies, to find food, clothing, shoes etc. I am reminded that my voice can be heard, and yet some people, even children, are given no voice whatsoever.

Our church has just begun a partnership with Love 146, an organization working to end child sex slavery, exploitation and trafficking. According to their web site- “2 children are sold every minute,” and “UNICEF now believes that the number of children trafficked annually is 1.2 million.” Love 146 is working to end this through aftercare and prevention, going directly into southeast asia. One of our pastors recently took a trip and saw these brothels where children are forced to “work.” It breaks my heart to think of children as young as 7 and 8 being sold, pinned with a number, then made to “serve” up to 20 clients a day. It’s something we don’t want to think about, it’s something I want to say doesn’t happen, but the truth is, it does.

I often find that I distance myself from things like this. Why? Because I cannot imagine the possibility of it and because I ask myself what can I really do about it? These social injustices sometimes feel so big and numerous, and I feel so small. I realize there are a lot of things I can do right now- support, pray, raise awareness. I know this is not an uplifting topic, but this burden is too heavy for one to carry alone. The organization needs our support, these children need our love.    

 

Check out the Love 146 web site- watch the media videos- and pray for the millions of children, and others, being exploited and trafficked around the world. 

Mother's Day

I know that a lot of people will claim that they have the best mother, and maybe somehow we’re all right. My guess is that moms are meant for certain people- It’s just the way God tends to work. I always knew how blessed I was, even when I didn’t say it. Since becoming a mom I’m even more aware of how incredible my mom is.

There’s so much I could say about her, but I’ll try to be concise.

Somehow she’s managed to live amongst a lot of frustration. What I mean by that is two fold- first my dad can easily be frustrating (some may understand what I mean by that) and second since meeting my dad she started working with their family business which is now run by her and my 2 oldest brothers. It’s a rental business, so between constantly going to court to have people evicted to the shear pressure of dealing with people, it can be very hard. I never knew how hard until I got older and could understand.

My mom has a big heart. I’ve seen her compassion for people and I’ve seen her sacrifice for others.

She is patient. I think all I have to say is that she raised Brady and I- both difficult in our own ways. J There were a handful of years in high school that my mom will admit were our difficult years. I struggled with things and I truly believe that I chose to be angry toward the one person I knew would always love me no matter what. I wish I hadn’t gone through that stage, I wish so many things about that time of my life, but I am so blessed because my mom was there through it all- even when I thought I didn’t need her.

My mom is strong. Even before her battle with breast cancer I knew she was strong. She’s taken care (aka spoiled) my dad ever since they’ve been married. More recently, in the last 7 years he’s been through heart surgery, 3/4 years of dialysis, a kidney transplant and I don’t even know how many hospital stays. She’s been there for EVERYTHING. If there could be one thing I wish for her, I would wish that she didn’t remember the 3 days after the transplant. It was a nightmare.

We don’t make things easy for her either. I live in NYC- I’m far away and I know she’s always a little scared of what could happen and Brady is a police officer in Washington DC- also very scary!

My mom is loving. Just ask her 8 grandchildren- who have spent a lot of time at Nanny’s house (James is the only one not close by). She loves every one of them with a special kind of love and treasures the time they spend with her. She attends as many baseball, basketball, soccer, cheerleading, volleyball games as she possibly can. What breaks my heart right now is that she has a great-granddaughter who she doesn’t get to see and a granddaughter who has chosen to walk away.

Apparently I can’t be concise when it comes to describing my mom. She’s always called me her rock, but what she doesn’t know is that she’s the solid ground our whole family stands on- without her things would be so unsteady (Please know that I am not, of course, putting my mom in the place of God by saying she is our solid ground.)

So, today I celebrate the wonderful mother God has given me. Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday. I love you mom!!   

What a week!

We've had quite a week! It started off not so great because James was not feeling well. It's time for the molars to come in, and boy did those bottom ones give him some trouble. He had his first fever and the poor thing just couldn't get comfortable. We tried orajel, teething tablets, tylenol, motrin and prayer. Some of those at least allowed him to rest but at times I felt like we were back to the first weeks, waking up throughout the night, seemingly unconsolable. I felt so bad for him.  

He would lay on the floor, then roll over and lay on another spot. He had a fever for a couple days then he had his 1 year check-up with shots and a finger prick. The next day he broke out in a rash which seemed to spread all over, but we found out it was because of the fever earlier in the week. In any case, he finally seemed to be getting better and just the last day or two started sleeping regularly again. 

My friend Hanna came for a visit, so since James was on the mend, we decided to head to the Bronx Zoo. It was very fun, and James actually enjoyed seeing the animals. This is Jay and James riding the monorail. 

He really enjoyed looking at the fish and watching them underwater. 

Inside the children's zoo, they sat in a birds nest

and climbed through the log. At first he was a little unsure about it, but he watched a little girl go through and decided it was safe. 

He also liked sitting in this play tree

and putting on fox ears.

We went inside the butterfly garden and it was very cool. Unfortunately this is when James decided to take a nap. You can't tell from the pictures but there were butterflies everywhere! 

In this shot, you can't see them very well, but they are all over the place! 

Then we rode the carousel, and James was a little unsure about how much he actually liked it. 

Overall, it was a great zoo trip and we look forward to going again.