Random Musings

Prior to a few weeks ago, if you had asked me "What is a hot spot?" I would have responded with any of the answers below: Any place near the equator, or close by it. An infected mosquito bite, or any kind of insect bite or cut. A popular restaurant or gathering place. In one of the recent issues of World Magazine, there was a brief sidebar about the sun of our solar system, and how for the first time ever, during the month of August of 2008, our sun did not release any hot spots. (Evidently hot spots are small balls of gas.) There is also theories out there among scientists, both Christians and non-believers, that this trend will continue until our sun burns out. It's not a popular theory, especially with the whole global warming mantra being the current trend, but nevertheless it is there. Could it be that the whole global warming concept is nothing more than a screen to blind everyone to the reality that the sun is actually waning/aging and there will come a time as...

A week or so ago we stopped at Mrs. Bryan's house so Bobby could help her with some things. After a few minutes, I quickly realized what was going to be "just a little bit" was going to take quite a while, so I headed to the computer room and surfed the net - something I don't get to do very often. While there, I found the coolest web site. http://www.logstairs.com/ For those who don't know me very well, I like bears. My favorite staircase on this site has bear pawprints carved into each step. How original! But I like all the staircases this company has done, as well. One of my crazy idiosyncrasies is that while I hate steps and heights, I LOVE wooden staircases. At the Governor's Mansion in Raleigh the staircase is wooden with the most intricate carved details in the wood. When we went to BJU's art museum a few years ago, my favorite thing out of the whole museum was pieces of old church furniture: a choir railing, pulpit, chair, etc - and they all had...

Yesterday Bobby came in from getting the paper and informed me that the dogs appreciated the mums. Sure enough, I go to the front door, and one of my two pots is totally empty, and there are yellow, white, and red mum bushes shredded and scattered across the front lawn. I even took a picture, but when I came home and started to post, my computer wouldn't connect to the internet . DOT actually scraped the road (which it desperately needed) and in the process hit the phone line again so we've been without a phone until 4:30pm today. YEAHH ! I love it when things go as they are scheduled and are actually repaired. It's nice. As for mums, I guess we'll just stay with one empty pot this fall...

My freshman year at Cordova High School, I walked into freshman English (Mr. A's class), and was shocked to see the board covered in a list of swear words. Evidently I wasn't the only one, and the laughs and titters began as people filled the room. As the tardy bell rang, an older gentlemen walked in and hung up his hat. He was wearing cowboy boots, dress pants, dress shirt, and a bolo tie. He quietly called roll, asking each student about older siblings or relatives who had attended Cordova . No one talked out of turn. We received our textbooks, went over what items were needed for class, and then went over class expectations. The last expectation was that we would use language appropriate for professionals. After all, that was what we were in school to learn to be. Mr. A (short for Mr. Alexander) then proceeded to go over each slang word on the board (without saying them), explained what swear word it represented, and why it was uncouth and inappropriate for a student of ou...

The only thing I knew about prunes growing up was that they were shriveled fruits my Grandmother ate when she had "going problems" as today's commercials call it. Needless to say, I was not the least interested in trying them, and don't think I ever have. Perhaps that was also why I always so intensely disliked the word "prude." It sounded too much like prune. If you look the word up in the dictionary, prude is actually a very good thing: a good and virtuous woman a woman who is excessively concerned with propriety and decorum a woman is extremely modest I don't think any of those things are bad (okay, maybe the "excessive" could be), and yet the word prude is always used in a derogatory way. Today I had one of those "aha" moments where I realized no matter how much I dislike the word, I could easily be classified as a prude. My mother was a "let your yea be your yea, and your nea be your nea " quoter. Words were not to...

I have never perceived myself as an aggressor. In high school, I did find it strange that a person who found himself in a fight would be punished just as much as the one who started it. That never seemed right to me. I saw a big difference in defending yourself and picking a fight. But not the school board...a fight was a fight. And when we went to war in Afghanistan after 9-11, I didn't have a problem with that. We were defending ourselves. When we went to war with Iraq, I struggled inside with that quite a bit. Two different countries, two different situations, two totally different scenarios. I wasn't comfortable with the whole concept of preemptive aggression (get them before they get us). Until today. Within the last month, we've had two unusual occurrences. We found a dead hornet in the garage. Then one morning this week we saw this on the bathroom window: It was about 2.5" long. Bobby says it's a hornet. Maybe it's a mutant yellow jacket, I don't kn...

whoever said exercise makes you feel better obviously never woke up two mornings after

Saturday night (in China) and Sunday night (in America) were the dates for the yearly Moon Festival. Based on the lunar calendar, it is held on the night of a full moon when it is supposedly closest to the earth. There is a legend of a woman with long hair and a rabbit that is told, but I don't remember all the details. What?! You thought it was a man's face on the moon! Well, it's not. It's a woman and a rabbit. And forget all those silly stories of the moon being made of cheese. It's not. Everyone knows it's made of rice . To celebrate this wonderful festival, sellers/bakers lining the streets selling - what else? MOON CAKES! Traditionally moon cakes are round ( you know, they represent the moon!), but the insides are as varied as their colorful wrappers: bean paste, nut filling, peach, apple, etc. Some are delicious, and others - well, let's just say everyone has their own tastes. So you buy moon cakes, you give them to your friends, ...

I played Fannie Farmer this spring and summer. And I've learned a few things that I plan to do differently next summer. For instance: Plant my rows further apart. In trying to keep my garden close to the house but outside Lucy and Linus' underground fence, I made it a tad too small. Even though my plants grew fine, it made it very hard to weed without stepping on other plants. I also encountered this: Notice the okra is only 2" in the first photo, as opposed to the 7" and 10". The smaller okra tastes better, but since my okra plants were so close to my peas, I couldn't get on the back side of the plants. We didn't know these pods were there until they shot up even with the top leafs of the plant. Oops! I also didn't know okra would grow at the bottom of the plant. For many weeks I've only been checking the tops. Next year I'll know. 2. Plant the cantaloupe away from the peas and give it plenty of room. I only planted a few seeds, knowing how ...

I like today's kind of shopping. Our first visit was to a place I'd never been before, but saw advertised in a catalogue. Called the Logan Trading Company, it's a gardener's haven with a wide variety of items to tie up your time and cause you to daydream. Like their products, their prices are out of this world, but it was well worth the time to drive to downtown Raleigh and browse. And they had everything, from the serious to the whimsical, from indoor plants or patio and terrace things to outdoor dig in the dirt and make a statement plants. I was totally intrigued. And of course we followed it up with a visit to Lowe's (in the midst of trying to find a gas station under $4 that still had gas). I did buy a few plants there, and browsed through several sections gathering even MORE ideas for projects that I really don't have time to do, but I left with that " ahh " satisfied feeling. Sometimes I think I like looking and researching a project even ...

Evidently, it's been a very long time since I mailed a package overseas. I made the trip to the post office this morning. (Did you know they open at 8:30 instead of 8am?) Mailed package #1, then hauled the big one up there and said, "Surface, please." The postal worker looked at me, laughed, and said, "I didn't think you had been in here in a long time, but we stopped surface mail a year ago." I thought a minute, then asked what my options were. Turns out, an 11 pound box has one of two options: 1. Priority mail, which costs $60 2. Express mail, which costs $80. I brought the package back home with me. If I divide it into smaller packages of 4 lbs or less, I can send it air mail, which will get there faster AND will be cheaper than the rates she quoted me. But it still aggravates me that to send my friend coffee or cleaning sponges or highlighters, the postage will cost more than the products themselves. There's just something inherently wro...

I'm not a coffee drinker. I tried it once when I was twelve, and a time or two in college. The last time I tried it, I decided it was silly to force myself to drink something I absolutely detested. I'm not even crazy about its smell. (Which was bad, considering I had to make the coffee at two of my jobs in college.) Today I had the privilege of coffee shopping for a friend. We were cooking buddies in language school, and kept in touch even after we returned to teaching. She was maid of honor in my wedding. This summer she stayed in China instead of coming home for the summer break, and so was unable to stock up on those nice things that we can live without but prefer not to. So I offered to send a care package, and she gave me her list. And number one was: coffee. I never dreamed there was so many different flavors of coffee, much less brands. I was almost tempted to buy one of every flavor, but stuck to the list she gave me. After all, if I sent someone to the store...

Several weeks ago a family friend of ours was summoned to the place where his son works. A boy who has bullied and attempted to bully their son throughout high school had come by and paintballed his car. The paint washed off easily enough, but the blasts left little dents all over. The parents wanted to call the police and report it; the son wanted to call the boy's Momma. His parents were trying to reason with him that this was a criminal offense and needed to be addressed as such, as well as claim insurance on the car, thus involving the police. The son's response was that this boy had been in jail before and it wouldn't matter, but calling his Momma would. I don't think the parents were too convinced that calling Momma would make a difference, but it made me laugh a little. In this 19 year- old's mind, nothing would get through to this boy or put him in more trouble than telling the Momma. And to a small degree, I think that may be true. Granted, I agree...

I Christmas shop all year ‘round. I like the hunt; I like trying to find bargains of gifts that are useful and wanted. And of course, I like the challenge of shopping during the season itself, provided I’m not in a rush to be somewhere. I didn ’t start wearing make-up every day until second semester of my freshman year in college. Some days I still forget to put it on. I have an overactive imagination. I hated, hate, and will hate running. PE teachers were never my favorite in school. My husband and I are a lot alike. We share similar philosophies and viewpoints on most things, leading some in our families to claim we are hard-headed, stubborn, and opinionated. I’m not sure whom these similarities horrify more – my family or his. I work better with looming deadlines hanging over my head, which is the total opposite of my “get-it-done” husband.

It's official. We are in the fourth act of 2008. So here's the list of what I hope will happen: The demise of the following characters: the garden - while my tomatoes and okra are still gleefully putting out; it's time for the peas to be mowed under; and unless I develop a wild urge to plant turnip greens, broccoli, or lettuce, by the end of this month I will plow the whole thing up and mulch it. apples - while my target goal was to finish off all the apples before this month, I didn't quite make it. But Lord willing, by the end of the week the remaining two buckets will be tres finis and I will be glad! living room painting - another Aug project, but hey, it's officially started! muscadimes - two buckets down, and we're not counting how many to go! the 2008 presidential election - three REQUIRED training sessions between now and the big day; I'm hoping our laptop doesn't crash like it did during the primary the birth of new characters: pears - oh...