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Showing posts from 2016

start to finish

Disclaimer: I did not finish this project in one day. In all honesty, I did not exactly do it start to finish. In the midst of my semi-organized chaos called a sewing room and calendar filled with holiday events, I've actually both started and finished a project. Yes. That is so spectacularly amazing that it bears repeating: I've both started AND finished a project. Sometime this fall (maybe November) I bought the needed materials for a bench cushion. The kitchen table we acquired from Bobby's aunt came with a bench seat that needed a very deep cleaning. We had guests over for supper one night and the kid sitting at one end kept saying "I'm sticking to my chair!"  Not long after that, a friend gave me a lecture  at our house, and I was sitting in that same spot. When it came time to get up and go to the firing range, my pants were stuck to the seat. It's only that end of the bench that does it. I've cleaned and scrubbed it again, but I'm afra

justification

Top 10 Reasons Why a Quilter who has a room full of fabric and patterns Would Buy a Quilt Kit It was on sale. No, not on sale - on CLEARANCE. It's a queen size. Incredible color selection. The pattern is traditional with a modern twist. It looks really cool. Anyone who sees it will think it is AWESOME. Even my husband agreed it was a great price. 65% OFF! Who needs a reason to buy fabric?! I think I may need intervention here.

and it's over

As of 11am today, the holiday festivities are over. The last of the family that has been rotating through since December 10th has finally left. The wedding was great. Having my family here was wonderful. I feel as if my birthday and Christmas have been celebrated for quite some time. And having Bobby's family come and visit and have get togethers immediately afterward was nice. A small part of me would like to have a few more days to enjoy the decorations and Christmas music before jumping back into the craziness of life, but the other part of me wants to starting putting things away and prepping for the new year. Despite predictions from the road crew that our road would be paved by Christmas, it's still not completed. Personally, I think there's still some work to be done before they start paving. I'm not thrilled with the steepness of our driveway now, nor that our driveway now comes out in the middle of a turn lane. The landscaping has been done on the border of o

a good busy

Well, I still have one more tree to put up. I'm not fighting with our outdoor nativity since our yard is in a state of upheaval (official as of this morning). And then there's the mess/clean-up that comes with dragging things out of closets. And then the official clean-up. I still don't know when my parents are coming for next week-end's wedding. I've about decided it's okay if nothing in the house is clean except the kitchen and their bedroom/bathroom. I spent the day working on bills, running some errands for tomorrow night's kids' caroling activity, shopping for an elderly friend. My plans for the evening had been to do a little cleaning and laundry, but that quickly changed. Bobby's cousin has been in the hospital for the last week. Tonight his wife, who is also a little person, had a massive heart attack. So their 17 yr old daughter is at the hospital with her boyfriend while her Mom is in cardiac intensive care and her Dad is in a different w

December

And as if 2016 has not been a whirlwind enough, this month is here and racing by. I want time to slow down. My camera battery went out over Thanksgiving. I've not only not charged it since I've gotten home, I've also not taken any more pictures. Good things: 1. We had our first service in our new church building. It was exciting, overwhelming, and amazing. 2. Bobby's nephew helped me get the entertainment center put together. 3. The television is installed, and I think I may have figured out how to make the DVD player work. 4. Almost half of my Christmas decorations are up. The Bah-Humbug moments: 1. Realizing my family won't have any time to relax or enjoy Christmas time at my house. ("Bob's Bed-n-Breakfast" as my brother-in-law calls it will open once again for a niece's wedding.) 2. Recognizing that with this upcoming birthday, my child-bearing years are almost over. 3. Having our house rattle and shake half the day as work on the ro

happenings

Saw a lot of postings today about damage from tornadoes in AL. I've heard my Dad's voice on the phone, but he didn't have time to talk. I assume all is okay in Walker County. Had the opportunity to meet with three former co-workers today for lunch. It was neat to catch up and hear all the things (some good, some bad) in their lives. So much has changed since the days we were all working at the same place. While it's neat that life moves on, sometimes I still miss it. I might have help coming tomorrow night to help with the entertainment center. If not, I might get a little desperate and just start making phone calls. Jobs that require help always make me feel isolated and alone. Roadwork will likely be moving in front of our house either Friday or the first of next week. A part of me greatly dreads it; a part of me is ready to have it over with. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the possibilities of what our yard is going to look like when it'

slipping

Today has been one of those days when the gratitude attitude has been constantly slipping out of my grasp. With the weather front moving through (thankful for the few tiny raindrops we've had), I've had a bad headache. Not a full fledge migraine, but one of those I've taken meds 4x today and then loaded on caffeine before it finally went to sleep. (And yes, I tried resting before I tried caffeine, but when the house is shaking with the blasting and road work going on outside, that doesn't exactly work.) We've also been waffling all year on whether or not to get a new tv. The one we have in our living room is the one my parents bought when I was in middle school. And it still works. But it's to the point I'm having a difficult time finding cords to replace for the DVD player (that actually attaches to our television). The sound was a little crazy on it for about a month. The day I decided it was okay to replace it...the problem corrected itself. No joke. An

half day

Bobby has a cousin who is a little person. He got engaged the same fall we did, and they also got married in 1999, a few weeks after us. They live near us, though like with most of the family who lives in this area, contact is sporadic. About 6 years ago Paul had a stroke. He was the primary driver for the family, and since he was the taller of the two, he did most of the grocery shopping (she's too short to reach inside a buggy) and the laundry (she also can't reach down into the washing machine). So their life was radically upended. Since then Jill has learned to drive again, though she greatly struggles with it. I've watched her drive, and it makes me nervous to no end. So when she asks me to drive her somewhere that requires being on the interstate or somewhere she's never been, it's hard for me to say no. It's truly safer for everyone if someone else takes them. Today was one of the appointments in Chapel Hill. It wasn't too early of a morning, and wh

when progress isn't all that progressive

With all the media hype surrounding the campaigns before the election, there were many fears that the elections themselves would be a little more hostile than normal. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case. One thing I've learned over the last twelve years is that there are two elections where people when turn out en mass to vote. One is always the presidential election. The other is an election where there is a controversial election. So everyone was fully expecting extreme chaos. We did have long lines. The first few days of early voting I was able to work in Garner. We had lines when we opened, and those lines never ended. We "closed" the lines with a line. (When closing time arrives, a worker stands at the end of the line with a sign. Everyone in front of the worker is allowed to vote, which means closing time and finishing time are always two different things.) After seven days in my hometown, I moved to my assigned workplace in a rural town that's a

grass

Today is what I hope will be the last day to cut grass for 2016. The leaves are falling. I'm wearing 3/4 sleeves and pondering pulling on a jacket. The pecans are screaming "Fall is here! Fall is here!" (Okay, they're simply beginning to open their husks which means the pecans are almost ripe and they will start dropping in a few weeks.) There are no insects flying around and stinging me, nor mosquitoes irritating me, and I'm not sweating. It's the perfect time of year to cut grass. And since I mentioned my sister yesterday, I'll mention her again today. Cutting grass always makes me think of her. Growing up, my dad had very bad allergies. Every time he cut the grass, he would barely be able to breathe or talk for the next 24 hours. So once I learned how, I joined my older sister in cutting the grass so he wouldn't have to. On those really hot days, we'd alternate. I'd take two rows, she'd take two. And on we'd go. And after we

a fast update

I'm on limited time so if there's a lot of typos in this post, please know there was no time to proof and I was typing quickly. In case you've not watched the news, there's a hurricane coming this weekend. And to some degree or another North Carolina will be impacted. Which means I'm beginning to field phone calls or messages from folks back home who've never lived through a hurricane but see all the dvestation they cause on television. I've only been through one small one here, so I'm certainly no expert, but here's what my family needs to know: Rain and lots of it, along with a lot of noise. That's what it will mean for me. :) The pond behind our house as both a drain and a spillway. Our house is on the highest point of our property. The hill behind us to the pond is somewhat steep. We're in no danger of flooding. We're more likely to face flooding three roads away at a nearby bridge which is very old, forcing us to drive a diff

today

Happy Friday. It's thundering. The type of thunder that is so continuous we're not sure if they're blasting down the road again or if it's the weather. It's raining. A torrential downpour, then just a soft, steady rain. And I'm sick. Again. I don't know if it's allergies like before, or a cold, or what. And I don't care. I just want it to stop. I'm thankful it's now, the one week I have off before my schedule picks back up, and hoping it's cleared up before my next class next week. I'm not sure if they'd tell me to go home or not if I show up with a bass voice and watery eyes. Like the last umpteen years, my temp has dropped well below normal. I have the routine conversation "well, maybe your baseline temp is below average" with people like my husband and nurse and dr (and for the record, it's not). If I were to go to the dr today, which I won't, the nurse would stick the thermometer back in my mouth and say

taste buds

Dr. Pepper is the drink of choice for many people in Alabama. In college, I tried drinking coffee for a week. I was totally miserable.  Every morning, I tried a different suggestion from someone how to make it drinkable. None of them worked. By Saturday, I decided there was sweet tea, milk, hot chocolate and Dr. Pepper available. Who needed coffee?  So imagine my surprise when I discovered that my non-coffee drinking husband also dislikes Dr. Pepper. WHAT? We both dislike coffee!! How could he not savor a Dr. Pepper? He claims it tastes like medicine. A few years ago I wound up with a cherry coke. How, I don't know. Bear in mind, I don't like cherries. My husband does. Being the loving and gracious person that he is, he said if I didn't like it he would trade with me. (He normally drinks water and avoids soft drinks like the plague.) But once I tried it, I found it was very similar to Dr. Pepper. I had him try it, and he totally agreed (which meant he didn't like it

perspectives

A few years ago after a Bible study a lot of the group continued to sit and talk and simply relax. One of the ladies felt like she was being mistreated by her boss. She was always given extra tasks or asked to assume responsibilities that no one else was asked to do. She felt it was unfair. As she was listing off some of the extras (she worked in a cafe for a plant), I was in flashback mode. My last year of college I was a shift manager at a fast food place. One of my many duties was to ensure that certain cleaning jobs (extra duties) was assigned and done properly. We were inspected by company headquarters once a quarter, and 3 of their 4 visits was ALWAYS a surprise visit. When I handed out those extra assignments, I had three things in mind: Who will do this job without making a bigger mess? Who can quickly do this job so we don't impede serving customers? Who will do this without the most drama? In essence, I wanted the best person for the job. Use the teenager who griped and c

scrappy

One of the patterns Quilts of Valor quilters often use is the Carpenter's Star. It's nice, has a different look with different colors, and while fairly simple to piece it looks elegant. It also works well as a group project, which our local group has been doing a lot of the last two years. Last fall, in an attempt to use up some scrap fabrics and get ready for a group project, I stitched all my scraps together to use for the basic blocks. It turned out even better than I hoped, and I was quite pleased with the result. I think our group and our longarm quilter did a great job in putting this one together. We often don't get to see the quilts awarded to the veterans, but I do hope to see this one presented.

framing

The house/farm that is considered "the homeplace" to the Bob Bryan family sold this year. It had been in the family for almost 200 years. Even though the house is obviously not that old, it is the house Bobby's Dad grew up in. The new owner is a developer who is going to tear the house down and put in a subdivision. The large oak trees near the house are going to be left, and there will be a roundabout placed around them. Bobby's siblings got permission from the new owner to go in and remove some of the fireplace bricks, doors, cabinet shelving, and door frames. We might have taken more, except we didn't want to take off all the doors and leave the house totally exposed (and we were all short on time the one morning we did work). My brother-in-laws graciously took down two door/window frames for me. The one I'm about to show is from "the parlor" or "the sitting room" that Bobby's aunts always talked about but which I never saw until a

Bryan Rd Elementary School

One evening last week we took a walk down the closed part of Bryan Rd to look at the school and all the developments. Even with the closed signs up in the road, we still had to dodge quite a few vehicles. I'm not sure what all the drilled holes in the road are for...testing for rock? Prepping to remove this section of the road? Supersonic sized moles? They go down quite a ways and are spaced along regular intervals from where the school drive will begin to a ways past Mr. Goodrich's driveway. The view from view from the road (as opposed to the shots from our yard). "The mountain" (it's what we call the huge mounds of dirt they created at the end of the Elem. Sch section of property) seems a little smaller these days - maybe because it has grass, maybe because part of it is gone, or maybe we've just gotten used to it. Fire hydrants! And there's more to come. :) But I don't know why they're yellow, unless they just wanted a cheerful c

kitchen update

Before:   After: When I first saw the color on the wall, I thought "Oh no! I didn't go as dark as I wanted." But I think it looks good, and I'm ready to start putting things back where they go. Well, let me reword that. I'm putting things back in the kitchen, and I'm playing with where things go and purging a few items. :)

book reviews

There's an online forum for missionary women and Christian women who live and work overseas. I know two of the women who helped create that wonderful online community. Even though I'm not working overseas anymore, many of their posts still resonate. One of the many fellowship venues they offer is an online book club. They read 3-5 books a year and have online discussions. I've never participated in a discussion or small group since I'm not truly part of the community. But this past year one of the discussions on a book they read jumped from my "books I want to one day read" list to an Amazon purchase. Yeah, I know. I sometimes ignore the book and fabric moratorium I placed myself under. So... A City of Tranquil Lights by Bo Caldwell. I LOVED reading this book. Even though the time frame is years before the China I knew, so much of it still resonated. I cried and hurt and nodded my head and laughed some as I read through it. And then I get to the end, read an

the crazy side of chaos

It seems life is a lot like a hurricane. There's the eerie quiet before the chaos, the chaos, a total peace, total chaos, and then just a mess. I've been trying really hard not to over-commit (something I'm bad about doing) and am working on reserving more time at the house for things that need doing. And yes, I'm aware of the irony here as I'm typing on my blog instead of prepping for my lesson in a few hours. Back in May I called a painter. He came out, looked around, and in a month was supposed to e-mail an estimate and time frame for coming. We never heard back. He didn't respond to text or phone. The second painter we called never even returned my initial phone calls or e-mails. So finally in August I gave up with going with private people and called a painting company.  They were scheduled to send a carpenter out this week and a paint crew next week. Yesterday I got the phone call that due to the rain, they can't do their outside project this week

sausage balls

My niece is getting married in December, and for the reception they are having typical holiday finger foods. I volunteered to make sausage balls, and maybe one other item. Since my sausage ball recipe does not have a "yield" amount on it, I decided I'd make a batch for gathering and see just how much it made. After all, I need to know how many items to buy when the time comes. So I spent yesterday afternoon making sausage balls and deviled eggs for a luncheon we were having during our  Quilts of Valor group today. I learned my recipe will make 60 decent sized balls, but they were also very dry. I told Bobby I may try another batch in the next week or so for something else and experiment with the recipe to see if I can make them better. I'm debating whether to try a different sausage or to simply cut back on the amount of Bisquick. December sounds SO far away, but it's really not. I know if I don't get this done soon and organized in my mind, it will be her

not all bad

Tuesday we met with some workers and contractors and Wake County Dept of Education staff to discuss all the stakes in our front yard and what they meant. I'm a visual person, and I'm having a very hard time processing what our yard is going to look like when all is said and done. It's a bit overwhelming. I don't like thinking about all the hours we spent researching and planning, then planting, watering and pruning. It's not like you can just replant a new tree when that section of the yard is totally gone, and fruit trees take 3-5 years after planting before having a strong enough root system to truly bear fruit. I still need to call the underground fencing company and see how much they'll charge to redo the fence line, which is hard as we're not exactly sure where our new property boundaries will be. I hate seeing stakes in our yard, daily reminding me that we're losing almost 1/3 of our front yard. Not sure how the dogs will react to losing that much

a whole new world

With the opening of a new high school one mile away and construction next door to us for an elementary school, our world has been slowly, and yet rapidly, changing.  For several weeks in July, no matter which of the three routes away from our house we took, this is what we saw: And this view from our road is about to no longer exist: The section of the road past our driveway is now closed to the public and is being re-routed and prepped for paving. The section of the road shown above will be paved in phase 2, which we think is scheduled to be completed before the year is out. We're hoping to find out more this week about exactly what impact that will have on our property. In the meantime, my car battery is dead, my first poll worker training class is Saturday, and the chicken pen needs some work. Life never stops.

Gatherings

There's a group I joined in January called "Gatherings" where everyone meets to work on a chosen quilt pattern. I've only been able to make half of the meetings so far, and I'm woefully behind on my blocks. A few people are piecing their tops together. But that's okay. I'm doing what I can as I can. Like so many other things, I'll finish one day. :) Hopefully by the end of this month I'll have at least one more block finished!

spider

I about had a heart attack one day last week when I closed the chicken house door, turned sideways, and saw this: It's the largest spider I've ever seen. Bobby said they're common in gardens and they're harmless, outside of the fright they give everyone when they first see it. He saw them a lot in the fields growing up. And I don't know how he did it, but he made it disappear for me. :)

Labor Day

I had planned to spend Labor Day, well, laboring. Our grass needed cutting, there was laundry, election work, church stuff, and other things we needed to take care of. But we had a pleasant surprise of family we don't see very often showing up to fish. So today has been a bit of a whirlwind trying to get caught up. My yard doesn't look great, but it's not a jungle. And the last load of laundry is in to wash now, and a lot of my paperwork stuff I'm going to take with us on our trip, so I'm just not going to stress about it. But here's a few snapshots of yesterday's fun: Uncle Bobby and Annie Annie offered to trade her Mocha for Little Dog. If we ever have to get rid of our dogs, I know who is getting them. :) Sophia, who was really reeling in the bream, and her Granddaddy Paul. Gentrie, who will reel in a fish, but not touch it or get near it. But she's a great cheerleader for everyone fishing! Annie was interested in anything BU

Where has the time gone?

Earlier this summer we hatched about 19 eggs. (Same old story - broody hen snatches up all the eggs and it's too hot and too long of her sitting on them to eat but we need to make her stop and we're left with 10+ eggs that wee need to do something with so we incubate them.) Chicks hatching (seems like an eternity ago) Chicks in brooder box...and we had some of the cutest ones! Pullets and Cockerels running around At stage 3, when we moved them to the little hen house, we hit our first snags. At first we only let them out with supervision, but as they grew we felt like they need more time to roam and graze. So we began letting them out more. And they started disappearing. No feathers, no mess. Just no birds. One day it would be one short. The next day two. Then one day the birds were inside acting terrified. Not long after we left them locked up and came outside to see a hawk sitting outside the door staring in...trying to figure out how to get one. We lost 10 te

my poor mom

It's not overly clear or visible in this photograph, but my legs are COVERED in band-aids. (I'm the one on the right.) And I hated them.  But what I did love doing in the summertime, was raking up mounds of leaves and making small "houses".  Basically it was a waist-high maze that was the outline of my pretend house. And leaves, especially old wet ones from the previous fall, are excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes. (As was the pond behind our house.)  As long as I can remember, I have been a food magnet for mosquitoes. And their bites leave HUGE whelps. This particular summer was exceptionally bad. And when things itch; I scratch. Scratching creates scars, which I scratched. And that summer, which seemed worse than any other, my mom, in her desperation to get me to leave all the bites and scabs alone, slathered me in band-aids, forbid me to take them off, and placed any and all leaf piles around our property (which was very wooded) on my list of restricted pl

thankful

This past Saturday I started my temp work with the Board of Elections. I am SO thankful that my schedule is very organized and reasonable. Unless I need to fill in for a different trainer, I should only have one class to teach each week and one class to take each week AND they've given me several days in a row off before early voting starts. Starting Oct 27, I'll be working every single day until Election Day. And the day after that? I plan to crash. As I get older, I wonder how many more years I will keep doing this. It's not a difficult job, I enjoy the interaction with people, and it's a great public service job. And yet, the hours on election day are c.r.a.z.y. I'm trying not to focus on the future or what's ahead, because it's constantly changing. But for now, my goal is to be the best Help Table trainer I can be, and be a fair and kind supervisor on election day. People always turn out on Presidential election years, and this year has been a record tur

sheer genius

When I was a child, I would beg for Mom to let me stay with Dad at work while she shopped for groceries. I would have been 4 at the time, as I was not in school and Dad had not yet become a preacher. He was a pharmacy tech, and the pharmacy where he worked at the time was behind the grocery store. It's name was Geriatric Pharmacy and it always bothered me to no end that they spelled his name wrong on the door. (His name is Jerry, and I was convinced it was named after him.) Thanks to a game called Chutes and Ladders, I knew how to count to 100, and my older sister had taught me to count by 5s. So Dad would let me help him "push pills".  Medicine came in these HUGE bottles, and one of his many jobs was to drop two/three pills (depending on the order) at a time into a machine that looked like a huge rotary dial machine, and it would seal them into little packets. Dad would hand me a large bottle. My first job was to count out 100 pills. When I finished I would turn a

helpers

Last winter our neighbor recognized that a persimmon tree near his mailbox would be destroyed when they started construction or paved the road this year. So he saved quite a few seeds.  Earlier this week, some of Bobby's great nieces and a great nephew came over and helped me plant the seeds into cups. I didn't get pictures of the action (or of one saying "Mom painted my nails last night" as she refused to get near the bag of dirt. Did I mention she's not quite 3?!) or of the final result, but I'm hoping in a few weeks to see sprouts. At that point the sprouts will be replanted into larger containers. Hopefully by next spring we'll have decent seedlings.  Most kids know which room in our house is the "toy" room, and they tend to gravitate toward it. Their grandmother told them to pick up, and I couldn't help but laugh when I walked in the room later that evening and saw this: There's not a toy in the floor. I've not bothere

coming changes

About ten years ago, a small section of the farm that bordered our property was sold to the Wake County School System. We've known since then that both an elementary school and a middle school were going to be our neighbors. We also knew that when that happened, this view would change: I know nostalgic people think I'm crazy, but I'm not an overly huge fan of living on a dirt road. The state does "maintain" the road, meaning that when the potholes and washboard effect get too bad they scrape it (and almost always cut our phone line) and add new gravel (which teenagers drive through super fast and sling everywhere). But that is not all that often. And we don't get a whole lot of rain, which means we have an incredible amount of dust. Sometimes in the summer it seems to just hang in the air. So I always thought I'd be glad when the road became paved. But then ten years passed, and the layout of the school property changed, as well as requests from

moving out of summer

With the crazy humidity we've been having it certainly does NOT feel as if we're moving out of summer, but as back to school posts are showing up on Facebook news feeds and the tomatoes in the garden are fading and drying up, I have to accept the reality that it really and truly is August. This year seems to be disappearing before my very eyes. And August means it's time to start transitioning from the garden to the fruit trees. The hard frost we had back in April/May (I can't remember which, just that it was bad and very late into spring) killed almost all the leaves and bud on our trees. Even our pecan trees took a horrible hit. So we weren't expecting much produce from our trees at all. Last week I started seeing squirrels running across the road with apples and pears in their mouth, so I had to admit to myself it is time. Yesterday I picked one bucket of both apples and pears (together), which is the lowest amount of fruit our trees have ever yielded. I've

'tudes

We're nearing the end of a study at church on our attitudes (mostly the sin of negative and complaining attitudes). The first week and this week of the study seems to have been the most challenging. - We lost phone/internet due to construction stuff in our area for almost 12 hours...again. - Some friends of ours are facing some really tough stuff right now, and there's not much we can do but listen and pray. - They're surveying for the road, and we now have stakes up through the middle of our yard. Grumpy me actually pulled one up out of the middle of our driveway so I could go to the grocery store. We've yet to hear from one official person about easements, right of way, payment, etc. They just showed up this morning and started staking up half our front yard and a good chunk out of the far corner. - I'm not feeling great again. So in the midst of all my grumpiness and negative mindset, I am trying to count my blessings (we're getting a paved road, I got

summer

I only planted 5 things this year: squash, peas, green beans, tomatoes, and peppers. My pepper plants and peas have not produced. The chickens demolished one of my squash plants and a 2nd dried up. The third is producing, but not a whole lot. My green beans, which my husband tolerates, is doing quite well (for the small amount of plants we have). And tomatoes are just so-so this year...

Why do I even bother?

The mat in our garage has desperately needed to find its new home in the garbage can.  So I finally broke down and bought a new one. Around 9pm I swept out the garage and put the new welcome mat in its place. Around 8am the next morning, this is what Bobby found: What? Us? You think WE did that? By day 2 the rug was in big chunks, missing half of the word, so now all but the little pieces are in the garbage can. We are going rugless for the time being. They are now in the process of destroying the mats on the front porch, so they'll be the next to be discarded. I hope there will come a time when we can have rugs again, but the foreseeable future has no welcome mats in store.

the "greatest" generation

When I was in college I had the opportunity to work for a lady from my hometown. She grew up during the Great Depression. For months, I thought the woman was crazy. Then on a trip home I was telling my Dad (who knew the woman) about her and some of the things she did. He laughed, and then started sharing stories about relatives the same age as her who did some of the same exact things (recycle coffee grounds - as in you use the same grounds for five days in a row and only add half a pinch of new days 2-4 and on day 5 drink it with milk, etc) This month I've been assisting Bobby's aunt, who is almost 91, in cleaning out her house as she moves this week. As we packed up the kitchen, I removed the towel from the dish drainer and found this: Yep. She had washed her Styrofoam and plastic pieces. My grandmother used to do that, too. I simply can't imagine what life was like during their formative years that they absolutely waste NOTHING. Every time I wash dishes, I can hear

engagement party (a catch-up post)

The weekend before Father's Day we had the privilege of going to Washington, NC for my niece's engagement party. We had a good time. Instead of a placemat, each place setting had a small card with a pen. Each person was to fill out the quiz, and then after the meal and all the sentimental, parental comments, they went over the answers. I don't know her fiance Kevin very well, so I had to guess at the answers based on what little I know of grown-up Ellen. One of the funniest things was when Kevin stood up to do his part of the "thank you for coming" speech. Ellen had commented to Kevin early in the evening (as the crowd became bigger than expected), "Oh, look Kevin. All these people came just because they care about us so much." Kevin's response was, "Oh, no. They only came for the free chicken." Regardless of why people came, it was wonderful to share in their "official" announcement. Sometime between now and November I

one bite

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I love the above African proverb. The first time I heard it was in middle school. I thought it was dumb, along the lines of a first grade knock-knock joke. You know the kind, where the kid comes up and the joke makes no sense whatsoever (Knock-knock. Who's There? Orange. Orange who? Pineapple.) but the kid doubles over in laughter and then says "Isn't that the best joke EVER?"  But then I reached adulthood. And now I get it.  So today I'm just going to share one bite of life. Not quite two weeks ago Bobby went to get the oil changed in his van. The young man decided to squat and drive with the hand controls (as opposed to using the folding chair I keep in the back so I can drive with the foot pedals when people block us in). Bear in mind this vehicle has zero resistance steering (meaning the slightest touch makes the wheels turn) and one hand control manages BOTH the brake and the gas. While Bobby is