Like Fish In A Barrel

My sister has a contract on a house that needs a lot of work. One of the most interesting...ummm...issues...is that the inground pool has fish in it. Real fish. Big enough to catch with a hook, as evidenced by the photos below.  (You might be a redneck if......you buy a house with a stocked swimming pool?)

Pawpaw (my daddy) and Alina (my neice)

Cole's bream

Casey caught his first fish EVER!!  (We kept looking at the picture and saying, "Where's the fish?"

Here it is!

Riiiiiiight!

Cole had to bring his catfish home, so it's swimming around in a bucket on my front porch.

For those of you who are curious, our theory is that the fish washed into the pool from the creek  nextdoor when our area had some flooding last spring.  And to answer the second-most frequently asked question: they'll probably keep fishing in it for now.  It's too cold to swim anyway!

Blogging and Potato Peel Pie

Preface: OK, I have been thoroughly shamed into picking the blog back up. I apologize for being a slacker, really.

Yesterday I drove my dear friend Bethany 2.5 hours to meet a friend she made in "Blogworld" (meaning she had never met this woman in real life). I didn't think it was crazy at all.

It reminded me of the book I just finished reading: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is written as a series of letters written as a result of a sheer coincidence between people who start out perfect strangers and end up being the very best of friends. Framed by World War II and the Nazi occupation of the unique little Brittish island town of Guernsey, it is a wonderful mixture of poignant sad moments and hysterically funny ones.

As the digital era takes over, fewer people write letters....but after yesterday, I realized that, in a lot of ways, a blog serves the same purpose: to connect and inform.

So here's my "letter" for today: connect with someone-send them a letter, a card, an email, or....write a blog!

(Oh! And read the book, it's great!)

Praying Simply

I posted the following story on my Facebook, and then this awesome guy honored me by reposting it on his blog. Glenn Hatcher is responsible, in part, for making my husband the fabulous man of God that he is, and I am honored to have him call me his friend. Rather than repost the story here, I've included a link to Glenn's blog, because I think you should read a few more of his blogs. The richness of his relationship with Jesus is inspiring, and he is so smart! Check him out!http://kingdomreflection.blogspot.com/2009/08/praying-real-simple.html#links

Star Trek

We went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. It was fantastic!

My husband and I love Star Trek (or almost anything sci-fi), but we were kind of bracing ourselves for having our hearts broken. All the ads with "This isn't your father's Star Trek" and sexy ads made me worry that they were going to ruin it. **Slight spoiler alert** But the only sex scene is the one you see in the ads, and it doesn't go any further and is almost just as short as what you see in the ad, anyway. (I did still cover my 12-year-old's eyes.) The characters were great, I definitely hope they make another one.

I think my husband says it best:

"Star Trek was awesome! Even better than I thought it might be! Just the perfect balance between old and new, special moments to special effects, twists on the story line that satisfies “true blue” Trekkies, enjoyable to those that don’t even know a Tibble from a Tricorder, and also allows endless possibilities for additional movies. Perfect!"

Oh, The Things They Say...

I bought Maddy an adorable new sundress, and within an hour of putting it on, she had gotten her lunch (peanut butter) all over it. So, being the resourceful gal that she is, she took it off, turned it inside out, put it back on, and declared, "It's CLEAN!"

I was laying on the couch watching TV last night, and Maddy said, "You need to go to bed." After I told her she wasn't the boss of me, Cole said, "Well, Daddy is the boss of you." Hmmmmm... I explained, "Daddy is kind of the boss of me, yes, but he doesn't boss me around or talk ugly to me." After the slightest of pauses, Cole replied, "He did one time."

We were at my sister's, splashing in the wading pool, when Maddy suddenly got out of the pool and started to strip off her swimsuit and announced, "I want to swim with my body."

Here are some of my favorite things Cole says regularly:
"Are you kidding me?"
"Are you tinking what I'm tinking?" (No, that's not a typo, that's how he says it.)
"Dang it."
"Seriously?"

His Hands Blog

Hey His Hands has a blog now. You should check it out. I added a "donate" button, so if you have lots of rich friends, send them a link, tell them how wondeful I am, and tell them I need money for camp. (o:

'Being His Hands'

Introducing....

I just realized i haven't posted anything since my "grumpy" post. That's not good. Especially since I haven't been grumpy at all.

So let's get you folks caught up!

Let me introduce you to the newest members of our family: 'Alice' and 'Ruby':

We've been searching for a kitten since December. How rediculous is that? Anyway, I posted a 'wanted ad' on MoodyYardSales.com, and someone in a vet's office called and said they had two kitties without a mommy. I'm still surprised Casey let us get them BOTH, but they are so sweet. The kids adore them. They look almost exactly the same except Alice has a little pink on her nose. Their temperments, however, are very, very different. Ruby likes to cuddle and doze, and while Alice has her moments of calm, but she mostly likes to explore and have adventures. And plan the occasional sneak-attack.

Although I spent the first week exhausted from trying to keep the kids from loving the kittens to death (literally--Cole was intent on carrying them around at perilous heights in various containers, and Maddy seemed to think their little neck was a handle.), they made it through in one piece, and the kids have learned how to carry and show affection to them correctly.

Maddy fell asleep on the couch and the kitties curled up on her and went to sleep, too.

I came home from the store to the scene below. Casey says Cole swore he wasn't sleepy, so he told him he could just read on the couch. I didn't know it when I took the picture, but the other kitten is under the blanket next to Cole.

This is Ruby snoozing in my clean laundry.

As we speak, Alice has climbed up onto the back of my neck and fallen alseep while I type. Now I need to go to sleep, too!