Saturday

I updated my quilting page (see the tab to the right) yesterday. 

Saturday we drove to "Little Washington" (Washington, NC) to attend my niece's high school graduation party. While in SC, she was enrolled in a program that allowed students to take more classes than normal so their senior year of school they could take classes at a local community college for credit. Ellen had been heading that direction when her family moved to NC, where things are very different. She ended last semester only needing two classes and the county's required community service/research paper to graduate, but the school wasn't offering those two classes and was unwilling to work with her to allow her to graduate a year early. My sister teaches in a charter school, and the principal there graciously allowed her to transfer, take the one class they offered, leave school to do community service and work on her project, and take the last class online.

But then the mission trip Ellen signed up for last year, which wasn't a problem on SC school schedule, became a problem as NC public schools don't end until June. So Ellen decided she didn't really have a heart connection to her class or the school, and so she was skipping the graduation ceremony for her mission trip. As my brother-in-law said, "It's not like she's dropping out or taking a cruise or something..."  So they had a big party for her to celebrate instead. And the evening her "classmates" walk across the stage, she will have already had a week of training in Nashville and will have been in Uruguay for 2 days. I'm more than a little proud of her.

And here's Ellen Marie with her quilt. (For more pics, visit the quilt page.)

old yet new

It's late spring/almost summer, so it's to be expected that turtle sightings are beginning. We saw a small one on the road last night en route to church, and today, we realized this not "old hat" to everyone.

Buster pawed it, tossed it, spun it, sniffed it, carried it around, jumped away from it, and then left it in one of his small hiding spots. We were watching him as he later searched for it, to no avail. I think he's a bit baffled as to where his new "toy" went. As huges as this dog is, he reminds me of a cat whenever he finds a new or small item. On the flip side, it's quite entertaining (as long as it's not a mouse). So what do you do when you find a turtle?

pics

My nephew has an aversion to having his face posted on the internet. This was his creative solution. :)

Monday Madness (on Wednesday)

Today has been Monday, again and again and again.

My nephew fell on the trampoline, breaking both bones in one leg. He's in a lot of pain. They'll be x-raying the next two weeks to make sure the bones are staying aligned. If not, he'll have to have a plate inserted.

I had another encounter with our dog, so I now have another bleeding cut on my arm. My joke to Bobby that it's starting to look like I'm a cutter is no longer funny.

The goslings discovered they can poke their head out of the fence...and into the garden. Two of my green bean plants are stripped of all their leaves. :(

After taking some relatives to social services (for the second time in 2 weeks because they didn't take all their paperwork the first time), they found out their adopted daughter may not be totally adopted. I'll explain more on that one later. On a side note, they jokingly called me the "dwarf taxi" today. Not quite sure how I feel about that one, although it's partially true.

And somewhere between the house, the post office, and BJU, a very important form is missing. I think we've got things worked out enough that things will be okay without a lot of work on my part, but I'm more than a tad aggravated with it all. There's simply no way I left that form out of the box (or I'd have found it during the gazillion times I've cleaned the kitchen table since mailing that box), but there's no way I can prove it. I will say that the both they and the Iowa company people scoring the tests are being very gracious and accomodating about it. On the up side...it was just a form and not someone's achievement test lost!

And that is just part of the day.  Dark is approaching, and I need to lock the chickens up. I'm thinking an episode of Duck Dynasty is in order tonight.

laughter

We just got home from the funeral of a long-time friend. Well, it was actually a memorial service. His funeral will be in his hometown tomorrow, but the family held a memorial service here in Garner at the church they've attended for the last 50 something years.

Mr. Jack worked at the US Dept of Agriculture in Washington DC for many years. Like many people, he was gone during the week and commuted home on the weekends. Several of his co-workers spoke at the service today, and one had us all in shocked laughter.

Like most conservative Baptists, Free Will Baptists are tee-totalers. The speaker made the comment that he didn't know why he and Jack were friends, but they always had been. He laughed about how Mr. Jack would choose a restaurant that served seafood and sweet tea, but no alchohol, and how he'd always try to get it changed to a different restaurant. And of course, Mr. Jack didn't smoke, either and this paticular friend did. He shared a lot of other work and family memories, but this one about alcohol, which he referenced quite a bit throughout his talk, had everyone both shocked and laughing at the same time.

Saying goodbye is never easy, and my heart hurts for my friends and the adjustments that are ahead of them. But I'm so thankful for the positive memories they've had over the years, and how blessed they are to have had a husband/dad who taught them the truth, whether they've accepted it or not.

Mr. Jack wasn't perfect. He never pretended to be. But he was a good friend. I hope when it's my time to go that people will remember my positive traits much more than my negative ones, and that my family will find healing through memories that bring laughter. After all, Proverbs says laughter is better than medicine, right?

sunshine

Last night on the news there was another clip about how tanning beds cause melanoma and how the cancer numbers on the rise among women in the 20-30 bracket. I've heard this all my life, and my parents were never thrilled the summers I had a nice tan (and I used sunscreen, most of the time).  My younger sister started visiting a tanning salon once she got a job, and had been doing so for several months before my parents found out. My mom was apoplectic.  Fast forward 20 something years, add two more melanoma bouts for Mom, and she's just as vigilant about how dangerous a sunburn can be. Every time my sister has to have a spot removed to be checked, my Mom starts preaching a sermon to all us girls about getting too much sun (or for my sister to get rid of her tanning bed).

But there's a catch. My Vitamin D levels are scary low. As in, last year I had to take rickets medicine for several months and I now have to take a Vitamin D supplement in addition to a multi-vitamin. It makes me feel old. So this spring/summer, my goal is to spend at least 10-15 minutes outside, in the sun, in hopes it will help. My arms and face are getting tan (or else my freckles are finally meshing), my legs aren't, and my neck just seems to stay red. I know that when I see my Mom, she's going to have a fit.

And that's okay. I can bear in mind that she loves me and is concerned, is fearful of what may come, and patiently smile and listen. Until she spots a red highlight, which I get from her and the sun, and she'll start to mess with my hair and offer to put in a perm for me which drives me absolutely insane.

So I'm enjoying the sunshine, checking all moles periodically and reviewing my ABCs of melanoma pamphlet, and rejoicing in today and the breeze and sunshine. If you've not ever seen what the ABCs of melanoma are and you a) have someone in your family with skin cancer or b) have a skin type the freckles or burns easily, then I urge you to google it (or visit wral.com).  It is one of those things where ignorance is not bliss.

the wee ones

This was going to be the spring that we didn't incubate ANYTHING...at all. NO mess, no roosters, lots of extra time....and then we lost four hens in a month. One of them was one of our Easter eggers, and I had actually gathered eggs that morning but not refrigerated them yet. When we realized she was gone that evening, I just took all the eggs, including hers, from that day and pulled the incubator out.  Only two of the nine hatched, and the green egg that started the whole process began to hatch but never finished. :(

 

But of the two that did hatch, one of them has this thing about sleeping in the food bowl. Even after moving them outside to the brooder box with the ones we bought, it continues to do this.

 



Tuckered out...

and the one huddled by the waterer was the first born of the two

So life is always full of surprises and some of them make us laugh.