Jeepers

So today was my department’s turn at our Habitat for Humanity house. It turns out that I am

a) not good at hanging drywall
b) not good at working in 90 degree heat
c) a big, BIG wuss

I believe in the cause, but I think they need a lot of support and a LOT LOT LOT more money. I have a raging headache, I itch all over, and I feel really embarrassed because my coworker SENT ME HOME because my face was PURPLE. Purple. Honestly.

My face is back to my-face-colored, but my head is screaming “Why did you try to be a tough person?” and the jagged ball of hurt above my left eye makes me want to vomit or cry, but I’m holding back because, gee, that would make the throbbing and the pain that much worse.

So, the following are not cures for a dehydration migraine:

a) blogging
b) Mandy Moore movies
c) searching vainly for the March issue of SELF so that I can contemplate starting the SELF challenge to lose weight and feel great about myself (only to eat a slimy delicious cheesesteak and loaded fries as soon as I get the plan written out)
d) chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich (though they were delicious)

I wish I had taken my camera with me to the Habitat build so that I could show you how hard everyone worked, and how crappy the conditions are, and how very very red and purple my face got. Ah well.

More about the Georgia visit

I’ve been meaning to talk about our trip within a trip, from Georgia to Alabama with the Georgia contingency of PILs, but you don’t have any of the OTHER stories yet, so I’ll just take my sweet old time and blog about it one little disjointed piece at a time.

My MIL was pretty stoked that I liked antiques and flea markets and stuff, so on the first day just she and I went to Pine Mountain, GA to look at the many little shops there.

It was a very pretty little town.

We ate lunch at a place called the Purple Cow cafe, which displayed local art, had ancient plank floors, had very high ceilings, and had an adorable very old lady ringing in the purchases. Put it this way…by the time she finished ringing in your lunch your lunch was ready. And maybe getting cold. She was very cute, too.

I couldn’t get a better shot of her. People in Georgia and Alabama are a little wonky about strangers photographing them. Just to give you a for instance, I had to do some fancy misdirection thing just to get a photo of an Alabama man’s mullet that, by all rights and purposes, was MEANT to be photographed. I mean, look at it in all it’s majesty:

I was really impressed. I kind of took a shot of our table, and then a shot of the window, and tried to make it look like I was taking a shot of the soda machine while trying to do the wonderful mullet the justic it deserved photographically. Alas, I ended up with a subpar photograph, and I think he was on to me. In fact, my MIL said that she thought the lady sitting with him said “Honey, I think that girl just took a picture of you.” I wish I’d have heard that, because I would have totally fessed up and then asked him to pose. It wouldn’t be hard for me to get across just the right attitude, one of appreciation and awe, to let him know that I wasn’t making fun of him at all. I just wanted to document his fabulous hairdo. So I did document it, but without the benefit of his posing or knowing for sure that I was taking a photo, and if I ever get an email from him demanding that I pay him royalties for putting him on my blog, I will merely explain that I have only managed to earn $.22 (that’s twenty-two cents) in the entire life of this blog, and that I will give him a whole DOLLAR if he’ll just let me keep the photo up. Because I think it’s great that he has that hairdo, and I hope he just lets it get longer and more mullety. It looks good on him and I would tell him that to his face. I regret that I didn’t.

So, more to follow on the trip. I will warn you that while I revere the Mullet Man and am not (I’m not kidding, I’m really not) making fun of him, I’m going to show you some things I saw in a huge antique mall in Alabama, and I won’t be as reverent. In fact, I’d get ready for some irreverant antique shopping with me, if I were you. And I won’t be ashamed.