Random Musings

This past week we've been"blessed" with little presents left in the driveway. This morning I got quite the list (warning?) before I headed outside. This is one of the two smaller field mice who've been enjoying the goose corn and my garden. Unfortunately it wasn't the bigger field rat. Hopefully if the dogs ever get him they'll drag it under the shed or something. We've also had a dead bird, squashed frog, two unripe pears, a bream, and as of this morning apples (as sides to the mouse, I guess). Oh, and Bobby saw deer eating at the pear tree. Don't they know they're not ripe, yet? Perhaps they were just testing them for me. (yeah, right!) Maybe tomorrow will actually be a presentless morning!

Last night, right as I was about to hop in the bed, the sky lit up. So I did something I haven't been able to do since I was in my teens. I went and grabbed a few extra pillows, made myself comfortable at the foot of the bed, and watched nature's fireworks display. Didn't think to try and snap photos,just enjoyed the moment. It was wonderful! There were times the light seemed to come from under the clouds and illuminated every curve and depth of a cloud mass, then there were times it streaked around and across the clouds, then other times it stretched downward, and occasionally it was just a flash light. There was no rain, just the magnificent display of lights. The wildest lightning (non-scary, that is) that I've ever witnessed was what I dub an "electric storm". We never really heard thunder, but the lightning stretched continuously east to west and west to east across the sky. It looked as if the bolts were chasing each other. That was one of my favorite me...

This morning we went with Mrs. Bryan to an estate sale in Spring Hope, NC. All the items listed I had been interested in purchasing sold before we got there, but we thoroughly enjoyed looking around both the house and the property. If we didn't have a place to live, or if this place were in Walker County, AL or in the mountains, we would seriously consider purchasing the place. The house is a log cabin, with the stair railings and upstairs door frames made from tree trunks and limbs. Every room had either a built in bookcase or corner cabinet (and I love both of those things!) and it had a ramp and level doorway on the first floor! Behind the house was an old barn that had once been a chicken house, a shed that had a small pen and two dog houses attached, and an old cow barn/shelter. The cellar/spacing under the house needed a little work, as did the sheds, (okay, and probably the house, too) but it was an absolutely gorgeous place. I don't think my mother-in-law would l...

Well, by next Wednesday this year will be half-way over. While swimming laps this morning I realized I was listening to Christmas music. The range-of-motion teacher had her class stretching to it! It was quite funny, and also a little startling as someone asked me this past week if I had started my Christmas shopping yet. And for the second year in a row, the answer was no. (For new readers, I'm one of those strange people who normally shop all year long!) This year's project list still does not have anything checked off. And I can honestly say that doesn't bother me. Life has been chock full of exciting, wonderful and even some boring things that have kept me very busy. Some of the more fun things that have happened during the first 6 months of 2010: shopping at a nursery for church plants - I have always wanted to visit the Campbell's nursery on Tryon Rd, and searching for drought-proof plants gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. Even more fun was returnin...

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to spend with my family. There's nothing more pleasant and strange than doing things you did as a child, only as an adult. As a child I always enjoyed working in the garden with my Dad. The only difference is that now I ask questions and discuss various ways to do things while working instead of waiting for instructions on what to do. The only down side is that it makes me wish I were closer so I could help them out more. Another wonderful highlight was the news that my cousin's two teenage girls accepted Christ while at camp! I am SO excited for them as individuals and as a family! One of the neat things from this weekend was the time with my 10 year old nephew and his 6 year old sister. We had what has become the normal "drawing challenge" where we all sit down with paper and pencils and Aunt Monica assigns a topic or item to draw, and the three of us draw it on our own piece of paper. The previous two times we w...

if I had to be a prairie woman in the 1800's, i'd probably die if I had to work outside in the garden every morning, i'd probably die or else be a whole lot skinnier and more exhausted if I weeded my garden on a regular basis it wouldn't look so bad if tilling the earth was easy God wouldn't have made it part of the punishment if my tomatoes don't start ripening correctly i'm going to be one upset person if it weren't for the fact that i have too much to do, i'd be heading to the store for a dr.pepper it's too hot for chocolate are you in shock that i actually wrote that?

Aggression...it's been in the media quite a bit lately. Bob Etheridge reacting aggressively to aggressive "kids" on the street; a NC Republican chairman pushing a critical Democrat and receiving a nose punch in return, and a police officer on the news this morning for slugging a young woman after she shoved him. I know we like to think of ourselves as a civilized society, but the reality is we're actually quite tame in comparison with historical Americans and other countries. It's not unheard of for Japanese and Korean governments to have out and out brawls during governmental meetings, and the US Congress in its earlier years actually had one Congressman cane another. But the real clincher was the Confederate States of America Congress, where members accosted each other so much that it prompted then Vice-President Stephens to say it was a good thing their meetings were closed to the public and kept private "some of the most disgraceful scenes ever enacted b...

Thursday I will head home. And as is the norm before every trip, the mental packing and sorting has begun. I love seeing my family and familiar sights from my childhood. But I absolutely hate the preparations and somewhat dislike the actual traveling. People think I'm crazy, but as much as I enjoy going places, I really don't like to travel. And not helping is the fact that Wake County DOES have a primary run-off, so I'll be up at 4am the morning after we return and work from 6am until we finalize everything, which is normally between 8:30 and 9pm. So to help me get in the right frame of mind, run my errands and tackle the growing monster of clothes to be ironed, here's my blessing list for today: I'll get a small check in three weeks! My husband has a job. I get to see my family. My niece is excited about us coming. I can see how my Mom is doing for myself. I'll have 24 hours in the next week where I'll be unable to do anything but read or quilt. (travel...

After filing an on-line complaint with Hancocks, the Raleigh store manager called today to see what they could do to make things right. When I told her I thought $10 of store credit would cover the damaged material, she said she'd call headquarters and call me back. They would replace the fabric if I brought it back in. Ummm, what part of "it's already been cut" did she not understand? And $10 is not worth driving back to Raleigh for this week. But I was happy for the prompt response, and she did tell me that they've hired three new employees this month. But I don't think I'll go back there for fabric. Their sewing machine attachments and such are great and they've always been helpful in that area, but I don't have the patience, time, or money to waste on something like that again. Anyhooo, just wanted you to know that their customer service does respond!

One week ago today I came home from the grocery store, opened the deep freeze, and found water flowing off the lid and all the "frost"/ice in chunks on top of the food. Thankfully Bobby was home, and he called his Mom to make room in her freezer while I started sorted thawed, partially thawed, and still frozen into piles. The next morning I began the arduous task of searching for a new freezer, as well as attempting to move the chest out and clean. The broken chest 11 years of dust bunnies underneath it and the new freezer in place! I broke tradition by going with an upright freezer. Everyone I know has always had a chest freezer. They hold more food, for one thing. But I decided since it was just the two of us, that wasn't a concern. Also, I'm tired of bending double and having the blood run to my head for forty-five minutes every year while I empty the freezer to defrost and clean it. Those days are now gone. So our 3/4 full chest freezer totally filled up th...

First cucumber harvest came a littler faster than I anticipated! So I pulled out the trusty old gallon jar and started Mom's 10 Day Sweet Pickle recipe. I'll have to haul it to AL to finish up next week, but that's okay. My bigger quandary is what to do with the anticipated batch coming in next week. Do I really want to haul two gallon jars on a 13 hr drive just for pickles, or do I have any friends who have a gallon jar and want to fool with pickles for 10 days? All you'd need would be the vinegar, sugar, canning lids and rings and a gallon sized jar. I can provide the rest!

Last week a friend and I went to Hancock Fabrics in Raleigh. My usual fabric haunts are Keepsake Quilting (catalogue), JoAnns, and Etc. Crafts. Recently I visited two other quilt shops that I absolutely loved. But since we had a coupon and Hancock's was having a sale, we went there. While watching the lady at the cutting counter, I noticed they didn't have a ruler or cutting guide to get from one edge of the fabric to the other. I assumed (which we should never ever do) that they must have some marking on the table to assist them in cutting. We bought our fabric, I washed it, and yesterday when we went to cut it, this is what we found: Ummm, can anyone tell me how that is straight? And how can you get all the cuts for your pattern out of a piece of fabric when an inch and a half of it is missing? And it got even better: Both pieces of fabric are supposed to be the exact same size. I'm still dumbfounded. Had I not already washed, ironed, and cut four pieces of fabri...

I've sporadically been reading a book about fatherhood that Lifeway gave away last year. (It was written by their new president and his son.) The chapter I'm currently reading addresses the topic of how quantity time actually yields to quality time, in the son's opinion. He claims that most important conversations happened after spending vast amounts of time together. There is something to be said for that. In the father's response, he shares about a time when he missed an "important" event in a son's life: a home run. He was pastoring and working on a degree at the time, and took work to his son's ballgame. While in the midst of writing, he missed the big event. Perhaps I grew up in a very totalitarian regime. We were taught early on in life that 1) the world does not center around us, 2) there are priorities to what we do in life, 3) keeping food on the table and clothes on our back {Dad's job, in other words}, were a top priority. I remem...

I used to love the song from the Tom & Jerry cartoon " Jeepers, Creepers...where'd you get these peepers? Jeepers, creepers...where'd you get those eyes? " And I could tell you where I got my eyes...from my Dad. I have Mom's hair coloring and freckles, Dad's straightness of hair, eyes, build, and I have an unusual blend of their skin tones. Mom wore/wears contacts; Dad wore glasses. We all knew we'd wind up wearing corrective lenses of some sort; it was just a matter of when. Mine started early. But there are some things about my eyes that I get from both sides of the family: color-blindness, and now the possibility of glaucoma. My maternal grandmother had it, and now my Dad does as well. My husband will most likely one day be senile, and I'll be blind. Won't we be the pair?

Coming in from the grocery store (and in a hurry, of course), I quickly grabbed the bag of meats to throw in the freezer and was greeted with a gush of water off the freezer lid and all the ice from the sides in large chunks inside the box. Our freezer had died, and foods were in sundry states of meltdown. Thankfully my mother-in-law had just enough room in her larger freezer, so I loaded up every laundry basket I had and hauled everything not melted to her house. The semi-melted food piled up the refrigerator (looks like we'll be eating vegetable soup this week!) and three poor little bags didn't make it. They probably needed to be thrown out anyway, but the other was a bag of bread rolls from my month-long experiment with friendship bread starter. Let's just say the chickens will be nicely fed tomorrow. Meanwhile, we've got some decisions to make about a replacement freezer. Do we upgrade, downsize, or revolutionize? More to come.

When you sweep off a rug, is the rug being cleaned or the broom?

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun' Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun' Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun' Oh, hear the word of the Lord. I was thinking about that song this morning when I got up. Strange song, about as strange as the Bible story it originates from, but the verse that connects all the bones together into the skeleton is a great reminder of how our bodies are uniquely put together. And when one thing gets out of whack, parts, or all of us, suffer. Several years ago I had a muscle between my neck and shoulder tighten up to the point I could not turn my head. I had several visits to the chiropractor (my first and last experience!) before giving up and seeing my regular doctor. Since then I've had sporadic flare-ups, sometimes brought about by lifting somewhat heavy objects, other times by hours of repetitive motions. For some reason this morning, it was exceptionally bad. And it makes me think...if my spine were straight this muscle p...

WE ARE FAMILY! Mother, brother, sister and me! (Does anybody else remember that song?) I've been thinking about the whole concept of family last night and today. Last night's study mid-week study hit the first part of I Peter 5, and when we got to the part on pride and humility, we discussed how those characteristics impact the body of Christ. My mind has gone a step further this morning and is pondering the ways those two small things drastically enhance or destroy an individual family as well. I think every family has that one person (at least) that you sometimes struggle inside at the thought of either having to play with them or playing nicely. (My Chinese students often used the verb play, even for adults, and it was always took me off-guard, but the more I think about it the more if fits.) That particular person doesn't do things the way I do, or enjoy the same things I do, or remember events the way I do, and sometimes my life is a little less stressful if they...

Before I got married, there were nights that I either had no motivation nor energy to cook. I suppose those were the nights that I needed meat and veggies the most. Instead I went for my favorite comfort foods: Dr. Pepper and chocolate chip cookies (or the dough itself). Sadly, I haven't had that for a meal but once since I've been married, and sometimes I miss it. Another totally unhealthy food that I enjoy(ed) was KFC . It ranks second to my Dad's fried chicken. It seems we had it at family reunions or church socials, and maybe that's why I considered it so special. The last few years it seems to disagree with me. I just assumed it was because we were trying to eat healthier, making my stomach unhappy with the good ' ol greasy stuff. But then I've heard from several other people that ever since restaurants switched to the no trans fat grease, they've had a hard time eating fast foods. It makes me pause and wonder if perhaps my stomach is not the ...

Last year Bobby asked a fifth grader about the show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" This fifth grader gave him a strange look, a shrug, then replied "I don't think those are real questions. I've never heard of some of them." And there you have it. Some days I feel as if I'm on a reality version of this game show, have used up all my cheats, and still have questions left on the board. For example: First grade gardening: A potato plant is ready: a) when it flowers b) when it reaches 12" tall c) when the potatoes show up above ground d) when the leaves wilt Second grade Animal Care: Grooming a dog consists of: Third Grade Math: If a sale coupon is valid May 28-31, which is Friday through Monday, will this coupon be valid on Tuesday or Thursday? Fourth Grade History: True of False: If the North Carolina red berry is the strawberry, and the North Carolina blue berry is the blueberry, then the NC black berry must be the blackberry. Fifth Grad...