For Salsa

I have been wanting to post about my sister for a while now, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. Julia is very sick right now. She has been sick for more than two weeks with a mystery illness that it took five infectious disease doctors a week to diagnose. She thought she had malaria, but as it turns out, she has a very rare bacterial infection called brucellosis. Apparently she got it five months ago when she went to Peru, but the symptoms are just now showing up. She's now on antibiotics that should kill the bacteria and make her feel better soon, but right now she is completely miserable. She has a fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash. Please pray that she will feel better very soon.

If you don't know my sister, I'm sorry. You're missing out. She is basically a genius. Graduated valedictorian from our high school and with a 4.0 from A&M in biology. Yep. You heard right. Now, at the ripe old age of 25, she is getting her PhD from the University of Virginia. In pharmacology. I don't even know what that word means. Before too long, she will be Dr. Lemmon. She's involved in her church, works in a lab, mentors high school girls, etc, etc, etc. She's basically amazing. So it saddens me that she is sick and she is halfway across the country. Poor salsa. So this post is for you, salsa, to cheer you up.

When my sister and I were kids, we used to do lots of random and totally bizarre things. Luckily, many of these random things were captured on film, and just as luckily, many of them were NOT. But, in the spirit of self deprication and for a few laughs, I thought I'd go over just a few memories that have a photo record.

When we were little, my mom used to tutor in the afternoons. We were left to our own devices in the playroom. We had a little TV in there and we would watch the daily afternoon line up: Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Gomer Pyle USMC, and The Munsters. If we weren't watching TV, I was making Julia play school and do worksheets. Or Julia would make me play policeman and lock me up in handcuffs under the table. One time I remember trying to make a playground in our play room. I'm pretty sure mom didn't know that we took her wooden chairs, laid them on the ground, and rocked back and forth on them as "see-saws" or slid down the backs as "slides". We also spent days trying to figure out how to hang something from the ceiling to make a "swing". Epic fail.

Captured below is when I was going through my "let's play doctor" phase, and apparently Julia needed some treatment.
This might be my favorite picture of all time. Picture the scene: It's my birthday. We're dressed alike for some reason. I got a jewelry box that played music and had a little bunny that spun around. Julia wanted to play with the jewelry box. I'm pretty sure you can infer the remainder of the scene.

We were always bored on Sundays. When we got home from church, we usually did random things. Here, we decided to "embellish" our panty hose.

We spent approximately 70% of our childhood at Grammy's house. Here, we tried to MAKE dresses out of old fabric Grammy had laying around. Not sure if we were going for the "Little House on the Prairie" look, but we succeeded. We didn't know how to sew, so we actually STAPLED the fabric together to fashion a dress-like garment.

Did I mention that there wasn't quite enough fabric? We made do.

OK, this one isn't funny, but this is us looking cute on Pi Phi bid day. If they only knew what we were really like, they might never have let us in!! Too late now!!!

I love you, salsa, and I hope you feel better soon!