Kimber J.

Being one to never turn down a challenge, I accepted the extension from B and then raised the ante on him. Of course, he fell off the wagon on the fourth or fifth day of Instagram's #photoadayaugust. I had initially chosen my own calendar of random shots to post, but the one he selected was a bit different. (and by a bit, I mean a whole lot) Thus enters the ante raise here: I'll do TWO. Brilliant, I know. I even remember the conversation I had with Mikey about how B thinks he is just so clever; I'll show him who's boss. After realizing B had quit the challenge, I spiraled toward the obvious - he had, once again, duped me. Agh! So infuriating. It's impossible to get the best of this guy, and I seriously don't know how A puts up with all his crap. ;)  Anyhow, a couple days ago I had to come up with a picture for ARROW. The night before I had to post it I was steamrolling through some ideas trying to be clever with it; nothing was coming to mind. I am irri...

ONE:  I am constantly searching for something great. Anything will do: a cute and personal coaster, new and better hairspray, practical shoes that don't look maw-maw or gnaw seven layers of skin off, effective but not dangerous fiber therapy, shades that fit my giant head but don't fall down my "Jones trademark" nose, anything great. I seek out needs and try to imagine the thriftiest, most unexpected solution possible.  TWO:  Iced water with lemon wedges and a straw will always be my favorite cold drink. Everything else is just superfluous nonsense.  THREE:  I prefer savory over sweet. Always have, always will. Until you put a wedding cake generously frosted with fondant icing in front of my face, and then all bets are off. Fondant icing is my one true food weakness. All my other "favorite foods" I can more or less be talked out of from time to time, but if you try to take away my fondant icing you are very likely to lose a hand or an eyeball. J...

There were hundreds of people swarming the entryway; it was orderly chaos at its best. Families came together in waves to stand in line to enter the enormous building. Framing the double-entry doors at the front of this building were two 30-foot islands of shrubbery. Each island had 4-foot walls of stone and brick built up and around them to house, protect, and display their exotic plants. The massive, yet very plain, doors were open and hordes of people eventually filtered themselves inside the building one family at a time. My family was dispersed throughout the collective group of people. I could see each member, but they weren’t together like the other families. Mikey’s family was waiting in line just behind us. There were families from all the different eras of my life: Mt. Houston, Berean Baptist School, Pentecostal Church of Humble, Six Degrees, Grace, and The Oaks. There weren’t any of my extended family members, just the core seven Joneses, plus Mikey and his family....

As is the case in most American homes, Saturday and Sunday are the most coveted days of the week. Saturday is generally when homeowners maintain their investments with cleaning or up-keeping chores, while Sunday is reserved for quality family time. As I’m writing this I realize just how “1950s” this actually sounds, and I wasn’t born until the ‘80s. Anymore there’s rarely a day or even an afternoon devoted to building relationships inside a family unit. Instead of mowing your own lawn on a Saturday morning people usually hire a lawn service to do this for them so a few extra hours of work can be squeezed into already overloaded work schedules. For me, the weekends are still my favorite. It’s when I get to share every breathing moment with the love of my life. Lately his work responsibilities take him away from me during the week. Call me silly (or if you are my sister you will just roll your eyes because you hate the word "silly"), but, nevertheless, I set a tim...

At this moment I can’t exactly recall what inspired me to contemplate all the things that make me happy. It seems like it was a riveting reality TV show, but I’m still not exactly sure. However the inspiration was spawned I got to thinking, and, as it turns out, the most challenging part of this list was putting them in sequential order. Once I gave up on the organization of it all my thinking/writing process started flowing much more smoothly. That made me happy…no pun intended. Nonetheless, here’s my list of ten things that make me happy. #10 – Sirius XM radio – It is remarkable that someone found a way to categorize music, play it continuously, and never interrupt the playlist for commercial ads. Of course there’s an annual subscription fee, but nothing is truly free anymore. Having to pay for it isn’t fun, but Sirius XM radio makes me happy. #9 – Shellac – Nail polish was a taboo topic when I was a kid. I even remember having the plastic caps that had long red and...

Two days ago I sat across from the love of my life and expressed to him my frustrations with attempting to prioritize my passions during this glorious, much- deserved, and long-awaited summer break.   As a teacher for the past few years I have experienced the wonder of summer in a whole new manner than when I was a kid. Those childhood summer breaks were filled with church camp, swimming, and sleeping late. These days I sleep until just after dawn, build something, write something, or spend the afternoon with my nieces and nephew. It’s definitely an age-appropriate change, but change nonetheless. This summer, particularly, I’ve been plagued with the inability to sort through my thoughts and projects in a way that would make sense; a way that would lend themselves to their level of importance in my head. This battle is impossible because the level of importance continues to fluctuate with my moods, level of inspiration, supplies available, or time. I keep this running ...

The anxiously awaited summer break is here! In fact, it's week 2 of 11, and I am mindlessly bored. What puzzles me most is the place in my head where I stored mental notes of all the things I wanted to do this summer while attempting to stay focused on the 51-ring circus called my classroom - that place in my head is vacant.  I can't seem to recall a single thing I planned on doing. Or maybe it's that I finished everything I was looking forward to in the first 12 days: spend the day shopping with my sister-in-law, spend the night with my sister, grill fajitas and swim at Potter's, get a pedicure, layout by the pool, exercise more, clean out the apartment for a garage sale, organize our closets, make a few paintings/crafts/furniture, and spend a week with Mikey in Baton Rouge. I'm in the midst of the Baton Rouge thing, but that pretty much wraps up my list. Now for the next 9 weeks...

I saw a poster the other day of Marilyn Monroe. The caption at the bottom stated: "Proof that you can drive thousands of men crazy even when your thighs touch." As I look at her picture my mind began racing with all the comparisons I could make between Marilyn's body in a swimsuit and my own. Her legs and arms are more tone. She has beautiful blonde hair and pouty red lips. Her fingers are slender and point. Her trademark beauty mark just above her mouth that only accentuates her feminine face. The list could go on for miles. Then I read the caption once more, and it prompted me to a section in her biography where it talked about her low self-esteem. I was shocked to read that a famous sex icon such as Marilyn, renowned around the world as a man's fantasy didn't see her own beauty. We could all see it, but she couldn't. If the camption on her nearly bare body picture read "thousands of men" sure she should know she's beautiful. I would imagine th...

TWENTY-FOUR (2006) -           Working for my uncle as his personal assistant still. -           Desperately working towards improving by 2.1gpa from community college at LeTourneau University . At the age of 15 it was really cool to tell people that I was a home-school student taking dual-credit classes for college hours. At 25 and still not a graduate of anything, that story about being 15 doesn’t sound so fantastic. O, well, I did finally graduate soon after turning 26 with 117 credit hours to spare; those extra hours didn’t apply to my degree plan since I had changed my major so many times. -           Living at home again. For a while I lived with Papa and Grammy. My parents were renovating our house and I saw no need in continuing to subject myself to construction, workers, debris, and the general annoyance that is an interior designer guy who re...

Last night as I caught up on reading a friend's blog I came across an entry that was written to herself, to her "younger" self from her "wiser" self. She recorded some of the things that she thought her "twenty year-old" self could have benefitted from if her "thirty year-old" self would have told her sooner. Being the time-travel junkie that I am, it was quite fun to read. (Kristine will probably disagree with me.) Either way, her entry prompted an organizational scheme I've been trying to conquer in regards to documenting the highlights of each year in my twenties. It's no secret that I am rounding the corner of twenty-nine; thirty is staring at me square in the face daring me to blink first. My writer's block came into play when I couldn't decide how to present that decade in writing. I had been toying with the idea of making ten separate articles, but then I got nervous. What if I didn't have enough in one ye...

The buzz word for 2012 seems to be order. A myriad of definitions come to mind when I think of the word “order”. Alphabetical order is the sequence of my student files at school, personal files at home, debit and membership cards in my wallet. When I place my order at a restaurant I expect to receive exactly what I ask for. That doesn’t mean that I will occasionally have the opportunity to suffer through whatever nonsense the “chef” or “barista” thought I should have instead of what I requested. When I was a little girl I would order my toys into different categories: large to small, large in the middle and tapering to small towards the ends, by shape, by color, etc. When we were kids, Cas and I created a game in the Dillard’s dressing room while mom would shop for eternities. We each had a quarter and there were other coins that we would divide up evenly. The object was to “flick” your quarter and hit your opponent’s larger coins first, then move on to the smaller ones. There...