GREAT SUNDAY

It is wonderful to be at a stage of life where Sunday is a day of rest and visiting with God.  Sunday morning starts with Sunday School with Vikki, a very good teacher.  She is leading us through Ecceliastes.  This is the second time this year and there is still new stuff to discover.  She told us up front that this book was from the view point of, "Under the sun" and told of a view of life without God or rather from living just on earth with out a God view.  Solomon wrote the book when he had experienced a life of having everything (on earth) he wanted and found meaningless in that aspect.  Life without God doesn't seem as much fun after all,

We met more friends in church.  Our meet and greet always seems to take longer than we should.  When the music goes on we have to sit down.  Pastor Al gave his usual great sermon.  He talked on focus, the correct focus.  I don't know how he always knows just what we need to hear.

After church we went to lunch with Al and his wife, Dr. Sue and a friend from Korea, Chuck.  We found long lines everywhere except Charles' favorite resturant, The China House.  We always eat too much there.  Dr. Sue enjoyed the Mongolian Grill where she could avoid gluten.  Chuck is visiting for a long visit from Korea and we enjoyed trying to communicate. 

Later, after lunch we visited Joann from our church and sang while we were there.  Chuck was perfect in his English when he sings.  What a nice way to learn a language.  I must pay more attention to the Choctaw when we visit Oklahoma.  The church had made Joann a prayer pillow to help her after her recent surgery.  The members tie a knot in the strings on the pillow while they say a prayer for her.  It is a nice way to focus on the recipent of the gift from the church while they are down..  Yep, I listened Pastor Al. 

We were ready for our nap, but stopped and washed and vacuumed the car and took it to Fort Worth where we delivered it to the daughter of a friend.  It was hard to leave it as there were lots of memories and good times on trips with that car.  Isn't life wonderful, when we loose we remember and that stays with us forever.

Monday, we slept late and piddled with chores and had a quick lunch at Braum's.  What a good place.  We needed the nap to rest up from our day of rest, but Charles found time to work on his paper about the western writing of Robert E. Howard.  We missed the curtique session Monday night at Writer's Bloc since he didn't finish and we were just plain lazy. 

YA'ALL COME

Ya’all come.  And ya’all did this week.  We missed Jacqui but have been hearing from her as she settles in on her very own Marshall Island. Kwajalein wasn’t ready for her and she has not received her shipment from the US with her ‘stuff’ yet.  She has a loaner bike and is getting around, swimming, and getting ready for school to start.

We have seen family this week.  John and Carol brought their great grandkids, Lexi and Yi-yi from Wales.  They are talking well and have an accent (but only when they are in Texas).  Friends from church joined us for brunch Wednesday.  Quiché and fresh peaches.  The peaches are just right this week.  How many of them can we eat in one week?  Bradferd was here for lunch Thursday; chili realanos , Spanish rice, beans, and peach pie.  Yep, more peaches.  Victoria stopped in after work and finished the left-over’s and the pie.  She is planning a trip to the Dominican Republic this fall and found out there is a malaria problem.  They will have their preventive shots.

Charles spoke to his grand daughter, Vanessa, this afternoon just before she boarded the plane for Africa.  She is on a mission trip to Kenya; serving as a nurse on this trip and will be giving shots too.  I wonder if they are fighting malaria too.  She was excited.

The Methodist church has a mission to erase Malaria so we have been hearing about that.  I hadn’t realized how wide spread the disease is.  Safe trip to all our family as they return home and travel to help others.

We made a trip to town Thursday morning  and looked at things in Lowe’s, but we didn’t measure things first so we will sometime this week.  Charles wants a medicine cabinet in his bathroom.  They have so many to choose from that may work instead of the existing mirror.  I’m thinking of a walk in bathtub, but not just now when I’m recovering from closet fatigue.

Monday and Tuesday we had over four inches of rain.  The tank water level is up a little and things are getting green again.  My weed eater is suffering from fatigue too and is taking a little longer to power up again. 

 Just for fun we stopped by the Boys and Girl’s Club resale center to see when we can leave donations from our closet cleaning.  They have a new facility on 377 and I really wanted to look around but we didn’t have the time just then.  I DO NOT need new furniture, I need to get rid of some.  I get a certain twinge when I realize that furniture I got new is now over the age limit of 50 years to be considered antiques.

As it turned out, when Bradferd was here he told us he was looking for a good chair for his room that he could use for TV (and a little sleeping) and to study.  We did get to the Boys and Girl’s Club and they had a nice chair in good shape.  I did end up getting furniture, but it’s not going into the house.  It’s living in the van until Bradferd can pick it up with his truck.  Charles says he doesn’t miss the fall school start up.

Kathy called and said she was getting her classroom ready, but it smelled of fish.  Now how?

I climbed up to change the light in the hall and Charles went up the ladder tonight to clean out a blocked rain drain gutter on the roof and was so into fixing he went on to use the WD-40 on the squeaky screen door.  My Hero.  He was busy this morning spraying the tall grass at the entry with weed killer.  We decided on a diet and also that it isn’t eating it’s not moving around enough.   He did his today. 

The Folklore Society is having a week end program in March that sounds interesting.  I want to go to Kearney, NE to see the bird migration about the same time.  Just so we don’t think we are running away from chores.

Thanks to all the good company.  We love to have you. 

RACCOON BATTLE CONTINUES

I have lost every battle I have had with raccoons, but I was told that if I used a chain to hold my bird feeder that the raccoons wouldn't walk down a chain, and if they did I was to add barbs of wire in the links to stop them. Tonight I hung my bird feeder on a length of chain and will see if they put it on the ground like they did recently. The first time I put the feeder up they unscrewed it and dropped it on the ground. I put it back screwed tight and a couple of nights later they had it on the ground and bent. It is a metal with glass panels and now a little bent. I have been bringing it in at night and that works but is aggravating. We will see.

BLESSINGS OF RAIN

We were blessed with more than 3.5" of rain Saturday afternoon and evening here in Granbury. The pond was refreshed but not filled. We needed the rain on the mulch from the tree trimming last week, so God is good.

VISITORS FROM WALES

Last night we had two young visitors with interesting accents. Lexie, age 5 and her little brother, Ieiun(?) age 2, going on 3. Both have grown up in Wales and have delightful accents. Both are very bright. Lexie hasn't started school but can count to 100 and we showed her how to go on to 200, knows her alphabet and other things. Ieiun can count to 30 and loves to sing. He knows the words to Itty Bitty Spider, a Bumblebee song where he gets stung and others. They loved the cat but couldn't get her to play with them. Little brother helped me feed the birds this morning. He is curious and interested in everything and wants to help.

Yesterday Lexie loved the swing seat on the patio and climbed all over it pretending to be a monkey with appropriate sounds. She will make a gymnast. After taking a bath in the whirlpool tub last night and sleeping on the recliners this morning they left to visit Glen Rose and the dinosaur tracks on their way to meet their parents coming in to DFW from their vacation in Las Vegas. They had slight accents in their speech but were curious about everything. It was reported that they looked at a copper penny and said "this must be your king" because all British coins have monarchs pictured on them. We had to tell them we don't have a king, yet. It was a delight to have them around.

OUT OF THE CLOSET

     I'm pleased to announce that I'm done with the closets, except for filing.  I'm never up to date on filing.   I will put it at the top of my To Do list. 
     During the time I was in the closets, we had the professional tree people come in and clear some of the dead trees.  They did about half, but it was just too hot with over 100 degrees every day.  The head man left one day to finish another job and had a heat exhaustion event.  He spent the next few days in bed recovering while his crew finished up here.
     Charles is pleased he can now drive into the pole barn and park his truck.  We have a huge pile of cedar mulch.  One of the crew used his blade weed eater and cleared the sides of a hill by the road and the back side of the dam; places where I can not mow.  The last day we were up and out very early so I could mow before it got hot.  After some neglect, things are looking a little better.
    I finished a first page review for our Writer's Bloc session.  We will have a much published author there to critique our work and offer suggestions.  Charles has a first page in his head, but getting on paper is much harder.  He is thinking of a Route 66 type story about the adventures of a truck driver.  His nephew, Al,  drives a truck and Charles thinks he has had an interesting life.  Way to go Al, tell it all to Charles.
     During all the other activities we had our regular pest control spray outside.  He found the usual wasp nest in a new place behind an outside light and knocked most of it down and sprayed.  Later in the day I was out on the patio sweeping and a wasp in full battle outfit came out of the little patch of mud and went right for my ankle.  He was stinging me to much I couldn't knock him off, OUCH.  It didn't seem to bother me much except for the pain, but my foot began to swell and is just now going down this week.  It gave me a good excuse to slow down and finish my Johnny Boggs book.  Very good book, Purgatoire;  also, very graphic descriptions of a drunk man in all his stink.  That was the hero.  Good read.

CURIOSITY, LIGHTNING AND KWAJ

We have had two days with rain storms but not much rainfall. Two nights ago we just got to bed during the rain when a lightning bolt lit up the ceiling fan with a brilliant white flash. The power went off but came back on immediately. I got up to set the blinking clock and smelled but could locate no sign of smoke in the house. Nancy said to look out the window to see if there was any sign of fire. There was none. The next day I looked all around the house expecting to see damage but could find nothing on the roof or in the trees around the house. It was scary though.

We woke up to watch the NASA channel report on Curiosity landing and were pleased that it was successful. As an engineer I was apprehensive because of the complicated method of delivery. It had never been tried and looked way too complicated. But it worked flawlessly. A great tribute to the computer aided design and manufacturing that has changed the aerospace business enormously in the past 30 years. I look forward to the scientific tests that will be accomplished, although I completely disagree with the purpose of the tests. We are living out Buck Rogers thinking as we keep looking for the people (bacteria) that lived on Mars. Personally I believe that there are no living organisms in space except from here on earth, but that is part of my other blog on creation science.

Today we got to visit with Nancy's granddaughter who is leaving tomorrow to fly to Kwajalein to start working as a math teacher in their high school. The island is 3.5 miles long and 1/2 mile wide with the major recreation activity scuba diving to look at the WWII ships, airplanes and military equipment in the waters around the island. It was a major battle field in WWII. It is located on the equator with moderate tempertures year-round and rarely sees storms that would flood it. She is looking forward to possibly two years there. At least for one. We are anticipating a lot of great stories from her.