Kid for Sale -- 50 Cents

No, not really.  She's too cute to give up.  But honestly, I am SO. WEARY. of toilet training! Just when you think you have it licked, they go and show you who's in control (or not in control, depending how you look at it).  We were doing so well.  No "accidents" (quotes, because sometimes I think it was NOT an accident) in many months.  Then we go to my moms and this child has THREE of them in less than 24 hours!  Two #1's, in which she just stood there, like she had no idea she was spilling warm liquid down her legs, and a #2, which, I thank the Lord, I was not present to witness.  Don't anybody tell me "this too shall pass". I don't believe it will. I fear that somday we are going to have to confess to a suitor that she has a control problem.  Not the usual kind you hear about with married couples. Sigh.... 

 

Bed or Box??

Okay, I know you all are dying to hear from me!  Here I am, escaping from responsibility again, staying up later than is healthy for me or my family. There is much to tell you -- my current to-do list (the last one was so engrossing I thought I would share another one with you), a report on our trip to my folks', plus photos maybe, and our upcoming missions conference. Well, I really can't talk right now, but I wanted to share with you the reason why all little children ought to have their own beds:

 

 

It makes a great toybox!  My 3yo Emily sleeps on the floor every night because she "likes to", according to her, but I am beggining to think the real reason is that she doesn't know where to put all this stuff. I don't know either.... I was thinking I should clean this up and make her sleep in the bed we spent good money on.  But hmmm, sleeping on the floor is not a bad idea.  Maybe the Lord is preparing her to serve him from a hut in Africa, with a grass mat for a mattress! She would feel right at home. 

Home Management Addendum

I didn't get it all done, see below.  My estimated goals for procrastination are in parentheses. It is 10:40 pm locally, and a church night (as opposed to school night) -- I am going to bed so I can get up early and get to that SS lesson that is awaiting me!  We are going out of town for a few days, so I will be boring, don't even check in.  And then we have our missions conference thru next week and I will be in a real dither.  Yes, I admit it, I will probably escape to blog land, who am I kidding, to think I would leave this all alone while I do other, more important, urgent things?!? (Insert pulling-out-hair smiley.)

 

 

Home Management

 

Why is it that “those days” have to happen when you have a million things to do? And why, you ask, am I blogging, if I have a million things to do? Well, because. I was thinking about blog-publishing my to-do list so I could take a break every few minutes and strike-through my accomplishments. But really. Do I need an excuse to blog?? Isn’t blogging one of my constitutionally guaranteed rights, you know, “the pursuit of happiness”? I find slightly more happiness via blogging than I do wiping up spilled milk (Been There, Done That today), clearing the house of smoke from oven (BTDT), cleaning up a spilled vase in the living room (BTDT), folding the never-ending, ever-growing mountain of laundry (BTDT), and planning meals for thirteen for five days (BT, not D with T).

 

 It is the meal planning that has me in a frazzle. I always stress out over feeding people. Do you? I love the people! If we could all just go to McDonalds three times a day I would be okay. As it is, I will be all stressed out in the kitchen, wanting everything (whatever that ends up being) to be perfect, and everyone will wonder what is wrong with the preacher’s wife’s face! When it is all over, everything will have been good and fine, and I will have been suffering high-anxiety for nothing. I know, I know, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” (I am supposed to be the older woman teaching the younger women these things, sigh…)

 

Okay, so here is today’s to-do list, not in order of priority. Yes, I have to put “brush teeth” on the list, so I have something to cross off. This is not for you to comment on and give me sympathy. I don’t want any. I just want a place to record this list where it won’t get lost!

 

Clean bathroom

Vacuum: living room, bedroom, bathroom

Laundry

Kitchen counter (maybe next week)

Degrease stove (tomorrow)

Mop floors (when we get back)

Em’s room (some other time)

Return library books

Kroger’s (when we get back)

Dishes

Iron Preacher's shirt

Supper

Do hair

Brush teeth

Cookies

Find food list

Menu plan

Missions bulletin board

SS lesson (in the morning)

Finish Alie’s dress (??)

Pack for trip (tomorrow. 2-3 hrs before we leave.)

Give baths

 

Probably item #1 should be to pray for help from on high for all this…!

 

Note added at 8:10 pm.  I am not getting any closer to DONE because the list keeps growing! 

 

Mr. Pointy-Nose Again

 

This story has been around the email circuit for years, but I still laugh when I read it!

Mr. Pointy Nose

 

Once upon a time, there lived a happy family in a great wood: Mother and Father, Brother, Sister and Baby. Father went off to work each day, and Mother planted seeds and tended her garden and loved her children and taught them to read and write. At night, when Father came home, the family sang songs and laughed and played together.

One day while Father was away at work, a knock came at the door of the family's home. Mother opened the door and found a stern man with sharp teeth and a very pointy nose standing on the doorstep.

"May I help you?" Mother asked.

"I am here," snarled the man, "to inspect your home and your children."

Mother was surprised. "Whatever for?" she asked.

"It has been reported," snapped Mr. Pointy Nose, "that you do not institutionalize your children, as is the norm. It has been reported that you spend an abnormal amount of time with your children, and you have been seen laughing with them, and they with you. It has been reported that your teen child is not embarrassed to be seen with you and that she smiles while working in your garden and hanging laundry. I will have to inspect your house and ask you some questions."

Mother invited Mr. Pointy Nose in and offered him a cup of tea. Mr. Pointy Nose pulled a great pile of papers from his briefcase and began asking important questions. "How many television sets do you own, how often do you dine out, why do you have so many books, what do you have against institutions, why do you grow your own food, do your children know who Madonna is, how about Beavis and Butthead?"

Mother was very kind and reassuring: "We have one television set in the closet," she told Mr. Pointy Nose, "and we dine outside several times a week in nice weather. We have so many books because we love to read. We have no personal grudge against institutions -- we simply choose not to institutionalize. We grow food to eat, and of course my children know who the Madonna is. I'm not sure what a beavis is, and while butthead is a rather crude term, I have known a few."

Mr. Pointy Nose seemed insulted by this last statement and jumped up in a huff. "I must speak with your children," he announced.

Mother called Brother and Sister. Baby was too young to speak. Brother was six years old and Sister was 13. Mr. Pointy Nose asked Brother, "Have you ever heard of Beavis and Butthead?" "Yes," said Brother. "We have beavers in the creek, and Butthead is my uncle's boss."

Sister giggled, but Mr. Pointy Nose was not amused. He addressed Brother again. "Do your parents ever yell at you?" "You better believe it!" said Brother. "One time I climbed clear to the top of a 30 foot tree, and Dad yelled and yelled at me to stay up there till he could climb up, too. He doesn't get much time to climb trees, and I think he yelled so much 'cause he was excited at the chance."

Mr. Pointy Nose turned in disgust and asked Sister, "Wouldn't you like to be institutionalized with other children your age?" "Well, most of my friends are institutionalized," Sister told him. "And I haven't been too impressed with it. They can hardly read anything --they don't even like Charles Dickens. And they all hate history and math. I like playing jump rope with them in the evening, but they talk about the most boring things, like clothes and make-up and what's on TV, and... oh -- I know who Beavis and Butthead are. Do you know who Mr. Pickwick is?"

"No," said Mr. Pointy nose curtly. "What sort of music do you listen to?" "Oh, Beethoven is my favorite. Did you know he went deaf and just kept on writing music?"

"No," said Mr. Pointy Nose impatiently. "Why don't you listen to popular teenage music?"

Sister was surprised that a grown-up would ask such a question, but she answered as politely as possible, "Because it sounds simply wretched." "Wretched! Wretched!?" screeched Mr. Pointy Nose. "That is not a seventh grade word! Where did you learn it?"

Mother had been in the kitchen preparing a snack of homemade bread and strawberry preserves. When she heard Mr. Pointy Nose screech, she rushed to the living room. "What's wretched?" she asked, a little alarmed. "This child," Mr. Pointy Nose said indignantly, "correctly used the word wretched." "Oh, I'm sure she wasn't referring to you," Mother said gently. "Here, have some fresh bread and jam."

Mr. Pointy Nose looked at the tray in Mother's hands suspiciously, then cautiously took her offering. As he ate he began to relax a little. "You made this yourself?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Mother. "And I helped," chimed in Sister. Then she added, "I'm sorry for upsetting you. I didn't know you had an aversion to that word, or I would never have said it."

"Aversion?" Mr. Pointy Nose sighed. He slumped in his chair and looked at Mother. “How do you ever expect your children to fit into the world if you don't institutionalize them? You encourage them to develop advanced vocabularies and you teach them self-sufficiency. This does not coincide with the new way -- they must follow the new standards."

Mother looked at Mr. Pointy Nose thoughtfully. "I appreciate your apparent concern, kind sir," she said, " but you see, I am not raising children to follow standards -- I am raising them to set standards."

Mr. Pointy Nose looked around in a musing way and murmured, "Yes, yes. I can see that." He left with a bread recipe and an invitation to visit again some time.

Digging for Lost Diamonds

Diamonds in the Rough

Tel Aviv municipal workers rummaged through a mountain of garbage after a resident of the upmarket Bavli neighborhood called to say that his son had accidentally thrown out a bag of diamond jewelry along with the day's garbage. He requested the city's help in finding the diamonds among the rubbish, which had already been collected by a municipal garbage truck. The truck reportedly emptied several tons of trash onto a vacant lot, and the man and municipal workers searched for hours through the refuse, before coming up empty-handed. The garbage was then reloaded onto the truck, and it would appear that the diamonds are now most likely buried at the Dudaim dump in the south of the country. 

   

"Short" tipped me off to this recent story in the Jerusalem Post. What a thing! Imagine losing your diamond jewelry in the city dump because your child threw it in the trash! This writing is not about forgiveness, though it does lend itself to that topic. Rather, it is about losing and retrieving things that are valuable.

A man in Luke chapter 15 lost a sheep. He had 99 others, but even this 1% was a costly possession. He searched high and low for the wandering sheep, and finally, he found it.

A woman lost something more valuable to her than a sheep. It was a silver coin, one of ten. That woman moved furniture, shook rugs, picked up clutter, and swept her entire little house searching EVERYWHERE for 10% of her savings. Finally her hard work was rewarded!

A young man left home and took his inheritance early, throwing away 100% of it on parties and wild living. When he was done having a “good” time he was left with less than nothing! He didn’t even realize it was gone until he was sitting in pig slop. But it wasn’t his money that was truly valuable – it was the home and loving father that he had thrown away. The young man had to humble himself and forsake his pride to get those precious things back. All three of these people realized, at some point, the value of the precious item they had lost.

Sometimes we Christians lose things, too, whether inadvertently or purposely. Many have lost their purity, or their good reputation, or their honor. Some have thrown away their talent; others, a precious relationship. Thanks be to God that we cannot be so careless as to lose our salvation!

If you have lost something that you are now realizing was truly valuable, you will find it just in the exact spot where you left it. You may have to search or sort through a lot of trash to find it, but it is there. Have you lost your fellowship with your Father? He is right where you wandered away from him. He does not change; he does not move. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you,” James 4:8. Did you throw away a talent that the Lord gave you to honor him with? You still have it. Start again where you stopped using it. Ask the Lord to forgive you for counting that gift he gave you a small thing. What about a personal relationship? Did you know that you really can’t serve the Lord properly if a brother or sister has something against you? The Bible says to be reconciled. You don’t have to dredge up the past and hash over details. Just say, “I’m sorry. I have not done right. I know I offended you. I did not forgive you. Will you please forgive me for bearing a grudge?” It is amazing how powerful those words are. Your relationship with that person is still there, right where you left it. Do you value it enough to get it back? People are not for throwing away.

Some things, such as purity, are gone forever when they are thrown away. But there is forgiveness with the Lord. You can be pure again in your heart. Forsake those things that have made you impure, and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to wash you in his blood. He is willing and able to cleanse you from “ALL unrighteousness"!

It is a wonderful thing that the precious things we have lost or thrown away don’t have to stay lost. They may be buried in a dump, but they are not irretrievable. Jesus Christ knows the exact place where they will be found again, and if you will ask him, he will help you to get your treasure back. Your story can have a happy ending!

P.S. Thanks, Short!

Slowly Regaining Consciousness...

Wow, what a man! Tells the whole world his wife is "more precious than rubies".  Thing is, and I did tell him this, he should not lie. His response? "I didn't say you were perfect!"  Well then I did feel a little bit better, but still.  Oh my, is the poor man deluded.  But, come to think of it, it's a good thing. What a wonderful blessing that he is happy dwelling with me and sharing life with me.   What a good man I have.

Hijacked

This blog has been hijacked for one day

 

I want to take time on this public forum to say how much I appreciate my dear wife and children.  God has richly blessed me with such a loving family.  Each one of them is a true gem, with my wife being more precious than rubies.  She is altogether lovely, and I thank the Lord for allowing us to share our life together. 

 

I love you dear,

 

Your man

Hack Alert

Have you ever had the strange feeling that a creepy guy is trying to look over your shoulder and get your password or your credit card number or something like that?  I have been getting that feeling today.  For some strange reason I think someone is going to hack my blog.... so if you come say hello and I seem totally out of character, you know what happened. 

*  *  *

My dear husband is not my most faithful, loyal reader (ahem, uh, that would probably be me).  He finally read my post about his two left brains this evening, 24 hours after the fact! And, I am so sorry, but I really embarassed him with my total ignorance where cycling is concerned.  Gracious.  After all the one-sided conversations we have had about bike components, I should have KNOWN a freewheel doesn't go on the front, and that there is no such thing as one with 22 teeth! (I wasn't even going to correct that, because I know that none of my friends have a clue, either, so how could I look ignorant to the "whole world"??) Well, now you know that while he is culturally illiterate, I am cycle-illiterate.  Does it matter?  He is good at all of the things he thinks are important, and I am good at the things I think are important.  Well, no, that is not entirely true.  I am NOT good at a lot of things that are important. Why would I even try to know the things that don't matter?? I'd say we are even, wouldn't you?  Looks like school isn't out yet after all. He is making me take this quiz tomorrow:

A Good Loser

You have heard of being born with two left feet, well my husband was born with two left brains.  His creative/sentimental side is almost non-existent, but he is very analytical, great at math, logic and absolutes. I am certain that while he was sitting in class in high school, during a class discussion on A Tale of Two Cities or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or art appreciation, my man’s brain was somewhere far, far from the classroom.  He was more likely mentally calculating the average record low high temperatures for blue moons in January for odd years in the current century. Or he was figuring out how much faster he could accelerate on his bike, if he put a 22-tooth freewheel on the front, and a 7-tooth cog in the back, raised his seat post ¼ inch, and switched his Weirwolf tires for Panaracers.  He has no cultural literacy.  He would have no idea who Quasimodo is, or even Elizabeth Bennett.

 

In spite of his cultural illiteracy, my man is very smart.  He has a very high IQ. (It is too bad he knows what it is, lol!)  He is politically savvy and numerically analytical. He is tops at chess, budgeting, or map-reading. He is an expert Bible answer man. He creams everyone at Risk and sometimes even Scrabble, and he should be able to beat his own kids at a game of Set, but he can’t, and that is, finally, the point of this post: He just hates losing. 

If you don’t have Set, you need to get it.  It is the one game we have found which the kids win every time.  Set is a visual perception game in which, out of twelve cards turned face-up, players try to find three whose three attributes (shape, color, and pattern) are either all the same or all different.  The person who first sees a “set” yells out “SET!” and grabs the cards that make up that set.  The dealer quickly fills in the blanks that were left, and a new search is on.  The game ends when all of the cards have been dealt, and everyone agrees that there are no more sets on the table. The person with the most sets is the winner. Sound easy?  It’s not if you are an adult.  Our grown-up brains see what we are accustomed to seeing.  Kids’ brains see things as they are.

Last night the kids were playing with Dad. I kept hearing children’s voices hollering, “SET!!” and much children’s laughter, but my husband’s voice I did not hear at all. After an uproarious time of yelling, card grabbing, hysterical laughter, and cries of, “I won that round!” he quietly got up from the table, came to where I was sitting, and said, “They creamed me! This game isn’t even fun anymore.”  Will he play again?  I know he will, because he is a wonderful father.  He enjoys hearing his children laughing and exulting in their mastery over Dad, even if it is at his expense.  I am thankful for this man whose ego is not bigger than his love for his girls.

*   *   *

You can play Set online right here.  Be sure to get some practice if you are planning to buy the game for your kids!

 

Romans 8:28

I was enviously reading about Jill Connelly’s little jackpot the other day, wishing I were her. Some people are just always in the right place at the right time. (It’s hard to be one of those people if you don’t go anywhere…) Well, today it finally happened to me! Praise the Lord. I took a friend to the Salvation Army and got a front-door parking spot, which normally is filled with furniture.  I had two of my girls with me and we were not going to get out, but then I spied a nice tote full of Legos on a table right in front of my face!  I jumped out and grabbed those Legos, then went back to get the girls so we could go inside and pay for them.  Two dollars later we went back outside.  In the Legos’ place were now two cases of K’Nex!  We have not played with K’Nex before, but I always thought they looked kind of neat. So we grabbed those and went back inside. Three dollars later we went back out. I was pretty pleased with myself (as if I had anything to do with getting that blessing for my kids). It's nowhere close to Jill's deal, but it's a start, huh? Romans 8:28!

 

I'm Still Working on It...

Do I know what I am doing?  Of course not.  Remember, blogging was going to be a learning process for me so that my brain didn't atrophy.  Last night, after a whole bunch of HTML trial and error (12 yo computer guru was in bed) I made great progress on my template.  And then, while I was uploading stuff on Photobucket, my modem quit transfering data!  You know what happened next -- the SAVE CHANGES button for my template would not work.  It was the Lord telling me to get to bed, that Saturday night is not the night to stay up late messing with blogging vanity. So rather than reconnect the antiquated dial-up and start over (and undoubtedly stay up till all hours of the night), I obeyed and went to bed.  Good news -- since we have no violin teacher currently, we are going to use the money we would be spending on lessons to get DSL!  Yippee!  This is supposedly so that my daughter can watch master lesson videos online and teach herself, but I know there will be lots of other advantages, not the least of which will be blogging improvements.

 

Tonight God has not told me I have to go to bed yet , so here I still am at 11:00 pm. The night is young! I have not been able to work out the sizing inconsistencies with my little cacti over on my sidebar. The images are all the same size, so I'm guessing is has to do with the code somehow... that is not something I am likely to figure out on my own.  Will have to wait til the guru is available.

ATTENTION!!!

If any of you have a good hands-on Bible curriculum or Sunday School curriculum for preschoolers/kindergarteners, or if you know anyone who might, PLEASE let me know.  Preferably something that does not take a whole lot of teacher prep. We have a class of three busy little creatures who need to be DOING something while they are listening, and our current material is not keeping their attention!

Anyone remember what the sermon was about Sunday morning? Or did you forget already?  We had a good message from Matthew 14, about Peter walking on the water. A point I liked is that the Bible says Jesus "stretched forth his hand and caught him".  I wondered how far away Peter was from the Lord when he cried out, "Lord, save me!", but really it doesn't matter.  If he was right next to Jesus, his arm only stretched a little bit, and if Peter was twenty-five yards away, Jesus stretched his arm out a lot.  But in either case, no matter how close or far away you are from the Lord, his arm will reach you. You are not too far away to be saved.  Praise the Lord!

 

Template Contortions

My template has needed an overhaul for some time... those dark colors were getting to me.  You can see I am not a real explorer with styles and all that -- I just like to do what is safe, and even then it scares me! (What if I mess it up and can't fix it?!)  I still have a few corrections to make, so bear with me.  I wonder what these new colors look like on your monitor... monitors seem to have their own personalities!  (And I hope it's legal to use this picture.  Credit at the bottom of my right sidebar.)

Just So You Know

After I did all that moaning about how incredibly hot it is here, my wonderful Lord sent an arctic front to the Mohave Valley   God is so good to me -- makes me feel just lousy about my grumbling! To think I could be (and AM!) so consumed with my flesh’s comfort! We have had three days in the 90’s, sooo pleasant!  Just about every time I get on this computer for the sake of blogging, I think A fool's voice is known by multitude of words, and, In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin. I think you can find both of those verses in Ecclesiastes.  Anyway, I displayed my foolishness and my bad attitude by posting my complaints for the whole world to see!

For those of you who doubted my claim about the hot pillow, our bedroom is on the west side of the house, and our bed is against the outside wall.  These homes are barely insulated, and on a good July day we can get it up to 130 degrees on our veranda (well, yes, with the thermometer in the sun, but so is that wall!).  So yes, that makes my poor pillow very warm to the touch. That was not an exaggeration posted in the NOT-exaggeration category!

 

And, some of you will be happy to know that after I bragged about our scarcity of mosquitoes, I have not one, but TWO mosquito bites in my arch, and they are driving me crazy. (I won’t tell you all that the entire time we have lived here, we have never seen a rattlesnake or a black widow spider, because I am afraid what will happen!)

 

When I mention my warm state, I am really only speaking of my local area.  Arizona has a diverse climatology, and it isn’t all like this.  We used to be the hot spot in the nation regularly, until probably the tourism board of our town decided that distinction wasn’t drawing people to our area.  So they moved the official thermometer.  Now we are only second or third :o)

 

One last thing – no, I guess it really doesn’t get cold here as cold goes. We might be in the 50’s here on a “cold” winter day.  HOWEVER, those of us who are used to being slowly toasted like a marshmallow all summer long FEEL like it is freezing cold in the winter!!!  Our JCPenney store has all the same winter gear than yours does – coats, mittens, hats and scarves, even flannel sheets and electric blankets  And yes, we use them!  We can tell who our snow-birds are by the fact that in January they are dressed like it is June back home!

 

Okay.  I promise now, this is my last post about the weather.  I’m tired of hearing me talk about it too!  Ecclesiastes 5:3!

(Poster from www.allposters.com.)

Okay, I Only Slightly Exaggerated!

No, the water is not quite that cold, and it does warm up a bit as the summer passes. The river, on the other hand, IS that cold since we are close to the dam, and it stays that way!

Here are some NOT exaggerations:

*Stepping outside the house really does feel like you are standing in front of your open oven door.

*You open your car door, buckle your seat belt, and steer the car with an oven mitt or other some such protection.

*There is no such thing as cold tap water. Praise the Lord for automatic ice-makers! All laundry is hot or warm water wash.

*A cold shower burns until the water that is in the pipes that are between the street and the house is used up. For some reason (?) they are buried about 2" from the surface here, and exposed during high winds when the dirt blows away.

*You take a water bottle EVERYWHERE, and so do your kids.

*You pray not to have your car break down or get a flat.

*The inside temperature of your car may be over 180 degrees in less than 20 minutes.

*You park where there is shade (IF there is shade), not in the spot closest to the door!

*The morning sun is hotter than the late afternoon/evening sun.  It is more direct.  By late afternoon the entire landscape has warmed up, so there is more of an enveloping feel to the heat. It is even pleasant!  That morning sun feels like a laser burning into you.

*If your pillow is leaning agains the wall, it will be too hot to put your face on at night.

Having said all that, I will say I am very thankful that I never even SEE a mosquito (probably they can't survive here!), and that I rarely break a sweat, and that when I get out of the shower, I don't feel like I need another one before I can even get my clothes on :o)  ...Not until the monsoon kicks in, anyway...

For those of you who are confused, "Mohave" is spelled with an "h" on the east side of the Colorado River, and with a "j" (Mojave) in California.

Roasting

And I don't mean the kind you do in the oven. I posted pictures of us at the lake a few weeks ago, here. The last time we went was happy. Well, we went to the lake again today. But I was not excited about this excursion from the time my husband mentioned it last week. I did NOT want to go.  The idea of sitting in 110 degrees and no shade just really did not appeal to me, water or no.  Besides that, the area where we like to put our stuff down is a long hike from the car AND the bathroom. (I am shamed to admit it, but I told my three year old that if she had to go potty, to go in the lake!  ) My big old ugly SELF was really challenged today.  I went, but with the grumps, which means my meek and quiet spirit lost the battle. Again.  See, I told you I was selfish -- remember my post  about God giving me only girls? After writing that, I thought about the things that really make me mad (like my kids crossing me) and realized that the only reason I ever really get angry about anything is because I don't get my own way. How pathetic!  Well, now that I understand that, I am really working on it.  Until this afternoon I thought I was doing really well. I HAD to go along, because if I didn't, Emily would be heartbroken.  If I don't go, she doesn't get to go, either.  Daddy can't swim with the bigger girls in the deep water AND play with her in the shallow water at the same time. So if Emily goes, I go, and if I don't go, Emily doesn't go either. Not too fair to her if I stayed home.  So I grudgingly went along, refusing to smile or be happy even if something funny happened (one reason why I could identify with Ida B!)

Well, my sweet husband who loves me no matter what kind of snit I am in,  pulled me out of my frump. He was just kind to me, which made me feel terribly repentant. And when I got into the water with little Emily, her arms tight aroung my neck while I took her into "deep" water, I got a warm feeling all over .  I almost decided right there and then not to give up any opportunity to do that with her, because she is growing up so fast!  My baby!

So anyway, the point of this whole post was to help you to experience Lake Mohave in June. Here is what you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2. Put a bucket of ice water on the floor in front of your oven door.

3. Take off your shoes and stand in the bucket of ice water.

4. Now, bend over from the waist a bit, like you are going to check on your cookies, and open your oven door for about 15 seconds.

Feel that hot wind in your face?  Are your feet numb yet?  Next month you can do this again, only set your oven for 500.  It will be hotter then.

The Library Stack

R

 

Oh no! I missed a few!  This is our library stack.  I find books all over the house, all the time, and it drives me crazy, but I should count my blessings that my kids are readers, huh?  Even the "baby".  That is both a blessing and a curse.  With the ability to read comes the desire to know, and that was Eve's problem, wasn't it. We are blessed to have two libraries relatively close-by, and more blessed that they will cheerfully do inter-library loans for us. I do have to say I am dismayed at the ever-increasing number of books on the shelves that have to do with witchcraft and magic and that kind of stuff.  A lot of times I won't take the librarian's recommendations. Each cardholder has a 15-book limit, so... 4 people, times 15 books, times 2 libraries equals... 120 books!  Sometimes I have to put the overflow on my DH's card!  Whew. But it looks like this was a low week :o)  Do you ever have to take your books back in a laundry basket?!?