i hate war.

HULUGHO, Kenya — A thin, dusty line is about the only thing separating Kenya, one of the Western world’s closest allies in Africa, from the Shabab, a radical Islamist militia that has taken over much of southern Somalia, beheading detractors, stoning adulterers and threatening to kill any Americans or Europeans who get in their way.

A Kenyan police officer stood along the Somali border. Some fear the Shabab might infiltrate Kenya and attack Westerners.

In most places this line, the official international border, is not even marked, let alone protected. In the village of Hulugho, there is simply a tattered Kenyan flag and a cinderblock schoolhouse with chicken-wire windows. Then a meadow of thorn trees and donkey dung. Then Shabab country.

Kenya is widely seen as a frontline state against the Islamist extremism smoldering across the Horn of Africa. Few expect the Shabab to make good on its threats to march en masse across the border. But the creeping fear, the one that keeps the security staffs at Western embassies awake at night, is that the Shabab or its foreign jihadist allies will infiltrate Kenya and attack some of the tens of thousands of Westerners living in the country, possibly in a major strike like Al Qaeda did in 1998.

Last month, Western counterterrorism experts in Kenya sent out text messages warning expatriates to stay away from malls in Nairobi, Kenya’s usually laid-back capital, because of possible suicide attacks by the Shabab. A few weeks later, the group threatened to destroy Nairobi’s “tall, glass buildings.”

The Shabab has already penetrated refugee camps inside Kenya, according to camp elders, luring away dozens of young men with promises of paradise — and $300 each. It has carried out cross-border attacks, kidnapping an outspoken cleric in May from a refugee camp 50 miles inside Kenya. Last Wednesday, in one of its boldest cross-border moves yet, a squad of uniformed, heavily armed Shabab fighters stormed into a Kenyan school in a remote town, rounding up all the children and telling them to quit their classes and join the jihad.

“If these guys can come in with their guns and uniforms in broad daylight,” said one of the teachers at the school, “they must be among us.”

Then on Saturday it happened again: Somali gunmen, widely believed to be with the Shabab, stormed the offices of an aid organization and kidnapped three aid workers from a Kenyan border town before melting back into Somalia.

American and British advisers are working closely with Kenyan counterterrorism teams, but the area along the Somali border is known to be a gaping hole.

-Jeffrey Gettleman :: The New York Times :: July 21, 2009

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I have seen war.
I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives.
I hate war.

-F.D.R.

just ignore the dreadful things they say.

He's so scared that he'll miss
It keeps him in hiding
And restless and wanting
What if for one minute
He's given a chance
And he does something brilliant

heaven forbid.

Take a breath, just take a seat.
You're falling apart, and tearing at the seams.

If you can't feed a 100 people, then feed just 1.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But
the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. -Mother Teresa

crickets singing lullabies.

My grandparents have a lake cabin on Lake Greenwood. My great grandfather built it for my PaPa after he was in a boating accident, in which his friend drowned as he tried to save him. My papa had a fear of the water after that and my great grandfather thought that this would help him move past it. I can remember when we used to take showers in an outside bathroom & when we couldnt flush toilet paper. My dad and my aunt terri grew up spending their summers at the cabin, just as i later would, along with my siblings and my cousin kerri. it has changed a lot since my dad was young. it recently has undergone a "face lift" of sorts and had a new wing added on. it's still the same old cabin deep down at its core. the back porch is still in tact, as is the front. the den and kitchen remain the same, just with new flooring and cabinets. we can flush the toilets now without any worries and there are 2 showers now, both of which are located inside the house this time around.

this is a picture of my dad after he caught a fish. we didnt have a dock then, and now we have two. we were one of the first cabins in that cove, as you can see in the background.


i have a lot of memories from my time spent at the lake, some more vivid than others. i can remember when i learned to water ski as a 6 year old. i can remember bobbing like a fishing lure in the water, white skis with red stripes down the center, poking out like a tree below the murky surface during a drought. these were the skis that kerri and kristin had both learned on. papa had tied them together with yellow rope so that our legs would stay together. we still have them to this day. one day ella, emmy, jacob, & haley will learn to ski on that exact pair.

i can remember playing hide & go seek outside at night, cards on the porch, board games at the red diner table in the kitchen. i can specifically remember my sister cheating at cards & my MaMa being the most competitive person i have ever encountered to this day. the image of my MaMa making grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch is forever etched in my brain. white bread & lots of butter, best i have ever had. the best part was falling asleep to the sound of crickets singing. it's all you could hear for miles. that and the lapping of water against the dock.

going to the lake was never a vacation for Papa. it was actually the exact opposite. in most pictures, you'll find him in the background chopping down a tree, cutting the grass, or fixing something. other than that he spent his time driving the boat, pulling us on the tubes and skis. in his down time he just worried about us around the water, making sure we had life jackets on & that we were safe. one day a guy drove his jetski down into the cove and was cutting circles. i was in the water playing and the guy got a little too close to me for Papa's liking. next thing i know, papa is on the dock with a shotgun in his hand. needless to say that boy left the cove and never came back. what a rebel papa was. on top of all that, he looked just like James Dean.

this is a picture of ryan and i fishing at the lake off of our neighbors dock. i have apparently caught a brim, a prize one at that, and i am showing it off. the shirt i am wearing actually says myrtle beach on the right chest of it. mama bought it for me from waves or some other redneck souvenir shop. Papa and dad taught us how to fish. whenever we would run out of worms, we would use fried bologna, like dad did when he was little. everyone would always get papa to unhook their fish so they could throw it back, but i liked to unhook my own. that was the best part, in my opinion. i have a scar on my right thumb from a fish hook. it's my favorite of all of my scars, which might sound odd, but i like scars. i think of them as permanent stories that go with you everywhere.




“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake.”
-D. Ackerman

bonnie & clyde.

this is the day that i met grier caroline parrott.

i met her on top of the parking garage @ belmont university in nashville, tn.
i had moved there for the summer to live with my sister & neices while my brother in law was in TX on a 6 week business trip. on top of the parking garage, you could see the entire skyline of downtown nashville & it was beautiful. jacob, grant, beans, & grier came to nashville to visit emily jelley. we met on top of the parking garage, piled into the infamous road-trippin mercedes & headed to bread and company in green hills for lunch. this is also the day i introduced grier & beans to fruit tea. amazing. grant & jake thought it was nasty. this was the summer that grier transfered from USC to Anderson. this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. i can still remember the first thing i said to her was "i love your sunglasses!" and she replied "i got them at this store called urban outfitters." and from then on, we have been inseparable. she is now one of my best friends in the entire world & i cannot imagine life without her. she keeps me blogging. she is the reason i learned to laugh agian :) we learned from each other and the messes we had made of ourselves. we were destined from the beginning. i love you virgil :)

You know what you done there? You told my story, you told my whole story right there, right there. One time, I told you I was gonna make you somebody. That's what you done for me. You made me somebody they're gonna remember. -bonnie & clyde

march memories.

i was looking through old pictures the other day, ranging anywhere between ones taken during college to others taken of me as a 3 year old. i then pulled out a box where i had stored a large amount of pictures from middle school and high school, as well as my scrapbook. i decided that during the month of march, all of my blogs will feature a picture and the memory i have from its composition.

here is the first edition.


this would be the 3 original housemates of 515 @ the first party ever held @ 515: the infamous Red & Green Party. We used to watch Laguna Beach religiously and they had the black & white party. we decided for our christmas party, our theme would be the Red & Green Party. Yes, everyone wore red and/or green. This was just the beginning of 515's party track record. the rest will live in infamy. if only those walls could talk. this picture was taken of the 3 hostesses, dated december 2004. dont lie...you know we look good.

If all words are cameras,
Hold still.
Shutters slide to unveil
Fingerprints of angels
And a language made of film.
-sleeping at last