blahwg Award!

Sassy Sasha the Lovable Shih Tzu presented me with this award. According the the lovable pooch, it means 'Your blog deserves to be shot!' Hmmm... I'm assuming that since there is a camera in the picture, Sasha is not wanting to blow holes in my laptop. Of course not! She's way too sweet. Besides, I don't think Anne would let her tiny Shih Tzu near a firearm. Please visit Sasha's blog. She's very photogenic and shares a new adventure every day.



RULES
1.Post the award and link it to the person (or canine) that gave it to you.
2. Choose 5 life situations that could be repeated in slow motion and explain why.
3. List up to 12 blogs and pass the love to them.


MY 5 LIFE THINGS

1. Hugs - Slow motion? Yeah, that sounds nice.
   


2. Kisses - Mmmm...



3. somersaults - Wouldn't that be cool?



4. falling - That would give me time to pull something soft under me!



5. waking up - That's the way I like it anyway - SLOW!

I have a new policy on awards. I will only pass them to one or two, and not to someone I've already awarded. It just seems more special that way. So I would like to pass this one on to Jase at Fool Stop because:

1. He deserves an award. His blog is fantastically entertaining!


2. I would like to see the photos to go with his stories.

If you have never stopped by Jase's blog, please do so. You won't be sorry!

A Special Visitor

Ali hasn't seen Keaton in about four years. They used to play together a lot, but then (two more sisters later) her family got kind of busy...

He lives about twenty minutes from our farm, so Mommy picked him up this morning and brought him here to 'tour' the zoo before having lunch at Friendly's. The two friends picked up right where they left off. Thankfully, I can still pick Ali up and plop her on my mare... Even if she did get on the wrong way! That's Mommy holding Nekoda. Buddy is never far from her side.

Here is a short clip of the duo riding bareback. Well, not exactly riding, but...

It's gonna be a long day. I miss her already! Oh well, she'll be back tomorrow.

Baby steps...

We got over two inches of rain yesterday, so the ground is still far too muddy to be working on the steps; but I had to make a little progress. Ali and I spent about two hours trying to edge the patio while walking around with ten pounds of mud stuck to our shoes! A lot of mud washed down onto the patio and had to be shoveled off. I should have taken a 'before' shot the way it looked when we started today.


The first shot below is from last week, and shows how the ground is up to (actually a little above) the patio level. Ali dug a trench on the right side to hold landscaping timbers as a border to the new shade garden we put in last week. To the left side, the mud had washed down about three inches deep next to the post. That's the area we concentrated our effort on today.

Ali shoveled the mud off the patio (again), while I dug out along the edge with a hoe. We filled the wheel barrow to the brim with mud! Yuck! It probably took three times longer than it would have if it was dry. The gooey stuff kept sticking to the tools. And us!

I found some pretty fossil rocks to place along the edge. Then Ali helped me pick out the perfect stepping stones to lead off the patio toward our fire pit. I think the rocks will stop any future mud slides from reaching the patio. I'll add a couple more later to cut through the garden that will trail down and across to the front garden. I haven't decided what color to stain the concrete. I'm thinking of doing something different. Our front porch is mustard yellow and the sidewalk and steps are kind of reddish brick colored. Of course, this probably won't be until the leaves are changing! I figure it will take me all summer to finish my plan. I don't work very fast in July or August. But anyway, this is how it looks now...Since it's on the west end of the house and is covered by the upstairs balcony, it stays shady until very late in the afternoon. This will be a perfect spot for Ali to sit and read. She'll have company too, because Sadie loves lying on the cool concrete. It's going to be such a pretty little sitting area. And if I lean over the balcony railing far enough, this is what it looks like from above...
It was a good day, topped off with a trip to Wilmington's Banana Split Festival! Ali is going home tomorrow to spend the night. She'll probably be blogging about the festival when she gets back Sunday. We had a great time!

Cardboard Testimonies

I was thrilled to open an e-mail from my church just now. It had a link to the youtube broadcast of last Sunday's special service. You'll find the link at the bottom...

Everybody has a story, and usually it can be told in just a few words. That is the basis for cardboard testimonies. People write their 'before' story on one side of a piece of cardboard and their 'after' story on the other.

Hubby is in this video; He's the tall guy wearing a peach-colored golf shirt. Pastor Gumm starts out the clip with his personal testimony. It was definitely a tear-jerker for me and my prego D-i-L! Yes, everybody has a story...

I was looking for love and acceptance in all the wrong places. One Mr. Wrong after another. I tried washing my troubles and loniness away with booze. It didn't help. It only made me more depressed. Then one night I looked in the mirror and was so ashamed of what I saw. I dropped to my knees and prayed to Jesus. I told Him that I'd messed up my life and I needed Him to show me the way. That very moment, I suddenly felt His presence and have never felt alone since! My life changed in such a humongous way! I don't even resemble that person.

Do you have a story to share?

Cardboard Testimonies

Lazy Day Breakfast Fun

Storms hit in the wee hours and woke up the entire house! We got two inches of rain, so it's a bit too muddy to work on the project. That meant today would be a lazy day. Ali decided she wanted some farm-fresh eggs for breakfast. She likes them under-seasoned and over-cooked. YUCK! But just because they're not full of things doesn't mean they have to be plain...

I cooked her a big flat egg patty with ruffled edges. She added the face! Maybe tomorrow we'll get back to work.

Hate is getting popular.

I'm watching the national news on CBS. They just aired a story about a shooting today at the Holocaust Museum. A man that has a criminal history and is deeply involved in a hate group walked in with a rifle and fatally shot a guard. They reflected on last week's church shooting of the abortion provider.

Statistics they quoted said that hate groups numbered 600 in 2000, but now there are well over 900! And that's just the ones they know about! Let's be clear what we're talking about here... This is not just a bunch of people carrying around their own prejudices and being unkind; These are organized groups with specific action plans. Members of these groups feel so justified in their hate that they describe it as 'for the cause'. Some of these people were raised this way, carrying on the mindset of their kin. Others have been recruited into the groups.

What is it that makes a person hate a group of people so much that, without so much as an inkling of what those people are like, they wish them dead? I'm sure there are probably many that had some bad experience in their past that they blame on the ethnic or religious roots of the offender. But I wouldn't be surprised if most of them never had any personal contacts with the group they love to hate.

This news story came on right after Papaw took Ali to her church group meeting. I wondered if she had seen the story, how I would explain it to her. I'm sure at eleven she knows such groups exists, but could she possibly comprehend the reasoning?

Today's shooter? The news said there was no indication this would happen. No warning. Are you kidding me? He was a skinhead. Not just any skinhead mind you, but a convicted skinhead with a history of hate crimes. This man was old enough to have great-grandchildren bouncing on his knee. How many generations has he inflicted with his disease?

The statistic still scares me. Why the 50% increase since 2000? In an era where we can elect the first African-America President and ethnic groups blend together in main stream society, what feeds the hatred? Let's pretend the statistic referred to something else... What if there was suddenly a 50% increase in teen pregnancy? Or a 50% increase in breast cancer? Don't you think somebody would be jumping all over it, wanting to understand what's going on?