Random Musings

I sadly realized today that my "free" weekend isn't quite as free as I would like for it to be. Elections for Wake County are next Tuesday, meaning I have to read the election official's training manual before then. I think I can skim through it in an hour or two. I intentionally didn't sign up to work the help table, so that's a whole section I don't need to read. And of course, there's the "love me" book that our ladies are reading at church. I think our first meeting on that one is in 2.5 weeks. I'm actually at the beginning of Chapt 3, so I'm not to worried about having the 6 read in time. Not yet anyway. AND it's the first Saturday of the month, so I'd like to make a quick trip to the "hazardous" landfill to dump off all these empty and half-empty paint cans that have been hanging out at our house for um, well, several years. I did wash a few windows and siding today, though I've still to tackle the ga...

When I had my painting fiasco a few weeks ago (where what should have been a 2 day job turned into a week long nightmare), I used some of the extra orangey-brown paint on one section of the kitchen wall. Yes, just one section. The backsplash area behind the stove was absolutely atrocious and no amount of cleaning was helping, so it went from white to dark. When I pulled the tape away from the outlets and wall edges, it also pulled some of the tape away. :O( I've briefly looked at the tiles in Lowe's, quickly trashed the advertisements claiming tile is out and tin is in ( not for my kitchen!!!) and even briefly entertained the thought of painting something on paper for directly over the stove, covering it with Plexiglas, and then just touching up all the edges with the dark paint. But while we were at the Southern Home Shows, I saw these custom tiles a family makes. The husband creates the ceramic tiles, the wife paints them, then he refires them to finish them. Of course, cust...

Yesterday while we visited the History Museum to see my sister-in-law's cooking demo, then on to the Fairgrounds for the Southern Home Show, approximately 4,000 people gathered in Durham to observe 112 organizations put on the 25 th NC PrideParade . After reading the article in the News & Observer, then going on-line to view the PhotoGallery of the event, I went to the group's website where they proudly displayed the parade's sponsors: Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Capital Chrysler Jeep Dodge (in Garner) WholeFoods Market The Duke Center for LGBT lifes Mitchell Gold+Bob Williams Legends Nightclub AARP Food Lion Chapel Hill Visitors Bureau The Capital Corral Raleigh Greater Visitors Bureau QNotes Weaver Street Market After tonight's lesson where one of the many points discussed was not only God's love but also his holiness and anger, it was interesting in a sad way to see the number of churches involved as well as the misinformed Jesus impersonator ...

As a teen, one of the very few things I liked about the Bible verse "...wonderfully made" was that I could be absolutely exhausted at night, and yet when I woke up in the morning I would be totally refreshed. It was as if God had made sleep to be our body's charger for our energy cells. As I moved through college and abused my body with too little sleep and too many work hours, that quickly changed. Maybe it's old age. Perhaps it's simply overdoing it, but regardless, my body no longer recharges overnight the way it used to. This morning was one of my " owie " mornings where my body whimpered for more sleep and creaked and groan with every move. After sitting through an hour and a half seminar this morning, my body definitely needed some movement. It was overcast, but nice outside, and I figured my hour break before the next seminar was perfect for walking the hilly sidewalks where Wake County holds its election officials training. If I can do 30 ...

When I was a teenager it bothered me greatly the number of "hypocrites" in the church. What disturbed me even more was how sinful we believers were even after salvation. I yearned to be totally sanctified (without dying, of course). I didn't get the whole point of the war with our spiritual and fleshly being, thinking that salvation should not only wash us clean but keep us that way as well. (Yes, I know that's not even possible with clothes, but I'm just telling you some of my thoughts from a few decades ago.) So imagine my surprise when I get to chapter three of the book being read by the CBC Ladies' Book Club. ( Because He Loves Me by Elyse Fitzpatrick) The thought of us stealing Christ's identity was both a surprise and enlightening. On the one hand, it's both neat and exciting that we identify with Christ enough for people to call us "little Christs" (what the word Christian actually means), but at the same time it explains why people g...

For the first time ever on the Bobby Bryan farm....our chickens laid an egg! Not that I'm excited or anything.

parents are wonderful things!!! One of the blessings of a childless home is the quality time I can spend with my parents as an adult. In college I remember being embarrassed to call and ask for help with things, and now nothing pleases me more than being able to work alongside my parents. The last day they were here I actually felt well enough to work outside, and thanks to Dad and Bobby, the chicken pen is now TOTALLY finished!!! Dad measuring the open door (which we'd been covering with half a sheet of plywood). Dad with Mom, the Queen Supervisor. And the finished product!

A 99% Completed Project!!! My broken frogs, propped in the corner where they've resided...quite a while. My multi-use kitchen table (aka workstation). Cutting the frame for the cement. The base and feet remnants of the bottom frog. After pouring the cement dust 3/4 into the frame, I pieced poor froggy back together as best I could, then covered him to his calf in more cement dust. Then I added the water, which moved some of his feet pieces. At this point he is still standing. (I haven't painted his frame yet). I fear I may not have pushed him down into the cement mixture far enough, but time will tell. Who needs to finish a project when you can just start new ones? :O)

This has been a week for irritation (in more ways than one!) First , I'm still fighting this cold. Second , this on-going health care debate. The left's not going to agree with the right; the right's not going to agree with the left, yet there's a whole lot of middle ground to be covered. And what does almost everyone do? Yell and scream and fight about it! Third, I had to deal with my one of my pet peeves while sitting in a waiting room this morning...people loudly carrying on personal conversations on their cell phone (even though the sign in the lobby asks them not to do so). Did she really think we were going to jump up and clap because she disagreed with her child's teacher's policy that younger siblings cannot be brought to the school to watch play practice, even if it was ONLY for an HOUR?! Fourth, the whole Taylor Swift/ Kanye West episode...how rude can America get? Fifth , Serena Williams...since when did anger or popularity make it okay to cu...

This morning during a game at the baby shower, one of the objects we were asked to "discover" in our purse was a $100 bill. A teenager actually had one, and joyfully pulled it out. I was telling Bobby about it when I got home, and we were laughing that we were a few years older than her before either of us had ever SEEN a $100 bill, much less touched one. My first experience with this HUGE bill (am I dating myself or what?) was at the age of 17 as my first job as a grocery-store cashier. A lady handed it to me to pay for her groceries, and for a minute I didn't know what to do with it. Was it for real? Did such a bill really exist? I turned to the older cashier beside me who was training me and as discreetly as possible held it up to her and shrugged. She started laughing and nodded her head yes. I quickly learned that around the first of the month I would receive many of such bills. My mother always payed for groceries with a check, so I was totally clueless pe...

This past week during a shopping trip at Target, I passed an aisle that had children's stepstools , and it made me laugh. During the first week we had our little friends staying with us, they were flabbergasted to discover that Mrs. Monica was missing some very important household items. One was a stepstool . "You mean you don't have one AT ALL? Then HOW are we to brush our teeth or go to the potty?" We improvised with some little chairs I have. It didn't turn out to be the safest route, but it worked for the time. The second week, I was informed I needed a new refrigerator. Ours makes funny noises sometimes, so I fearfully asked "Why?" I get another one of those "Don't you know anything this is SOOO obvious" looks with the response "Refrigerators are supposed to have a place for ice and water on the front. If you had that we could get our own drinks without asking." It's funny, but they were the second family this summ...

The computer is in; the walls are painted; now I just have to find and load drivers and software...but e-mail and interent is up and running!!!! WHOOOOHOOOOO!!! Pictures will be soon to follow!

It's Wednesday, and the News & Disturber has their weekly recipe section. I've always had a policy if there's more than two ingredients in a recipe that I have never used or heard of, then it doesn't go in my "to try" pile. For the first time ever, today's edition actually has multiple recipes I want to try, but with a set of new questions. If you've never tried a spice before, and it's supposed to be the highlight of the recipe, is it worth spending that much money on a spice that you might not like and ever use again? Bottles or boxes of spices aren't exactly cheap, you know. (Can you tell I don't try a whole lot of new recipes?) AND, if a recipe calls for white wine, how drastically would it alter the taste if you used white grape juice or chicken stock? Answers anyone?

Sunday night I felt strange. By Monday morning I knew it wasn't anything I had eaten but a bug. :O( Today is better. I've actually done some laundry and made a mess of painting. But that's another story. When I was a child, one of my uncles would tell us girls that if we talked around a centipede or millipede, our teeth would rot out. And he would then promptly point one out. Needless to say, we not only immediately hushed, but we also clamped our hands over our mouths. Years later, I saw the "See no evil; hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys, and immediately thought of Uncle Charlie and his prank (which to us 8-10 year old girls was the Gospel truth!). Fast forward 10+ years to the clearance aisle at Michael's, where I found a bird feeder/watering statue whose base consisted of frogs doing the "See No Evil..." motions! It stood in our front yard near Bobby's ramp for several years, and then it became an on-going battle with the dogs. ...