"Grapes" (otherwise known as "Breakfast")

This morning, like most, I was eating my fruit and I noticed how beautiful the grapes happened to be naturally arranged. Just at that moment, Emily reached to take one. I have to admit that I slapped her hand away and told her to hurry and turn around (so that I could use her jacket as the background), because *this* is what I saw:



Beautiful. I love it when things just fall in place like that. :) (the picture is the straight out of the camera shot, since GIMP is not installed on the Mac, so I'm stuck for now. :)

Misc. info from the day :)

Today I woke up and checked my blog to see if anyone commented. When I saw that there were no comments I was surprised and sad: doesn't anyone read my blog? for three days?? And then I remembered: OH! I put on comment moderation!! So I checked. Three!! Thank you for commenting! You made my day! :)

I turned on the comment moderation because I am concerned I might be missing some of your comments; comment moderation was turned on for anything 2 weeks old or older, but sometimes I don't look that far back. Now I'll know for sure I'm getting each and every one. :)

On some of the blogs that I comment on, the author of the blog will reply to me by email. I am going to try to do that. It makes me happy that they have read my comment and appreciate it enough to "talk" back to me.

Yesterday Emily got to go watch her schools version of "Cats". She LOVED it! I didn't have much time to talk to her about her favorite parts, since it was so late when she got home, but I'm looking forward to the discussion later on this afternoon. :)

Josh's car got hit by another car during his morning commute yesterday. He had a beautiful, shiny black Nissan Altima, a gorgeous car, but yesterday morning as he rounded a corner he saw all of the traffic at a stand-still. He stopped okay, but noticed the car behind him wasn't slowing down. He turned his wheel all the way to the right, so that when the car hit him he wouldn't hit the car in front of him but instead just go off the road. That is what happened. He sent me a picture on my cell phone. His trunk was smashed, and turned right side in. They have no hope of saving his car. He is staying optimistic, saying that he only his muscles are sore and that he was getting tired of that car anyway. lol! He went to the ER and got some flexeril and ibuprofen 800 mg. The doc released him from work for a week with his note, but Josh asked him to change it for just one day because he "has bills to pay". He'll stay home today but is planning on going in tomorrow. I certainly hope that he feels ok on Saturday. I am so thankful that he was safe!!

I called our mechanic about our car yesterday, and he said that he still hasn't gotten the car to die for him. He said that he will keep it through the weekend and take it on drives. He needs to drive it far and long, otherwise I don't think he is going to have success.

A raccoon visited out house night before last. I'm planning on writing the story on JumpingWriteIn.blogspot.com later on (I'll let you know when it is there :), but I'll copy and paste my status and comments from fb as a summary:

Oh my goodness I am tired this morning!! At 3 a.m. I got woken up to my chickens going cRaZy, so I went out to check on them armed with nothing but a flashlight and I see a HUGE raccoon the size of a medium sized dog sitting in the corner and eating one of my chickens!

I told Steve to get a gun, but he came out with nothing, saying that we could kill it with a pitchfork or a shovel. He took the pitchfork, but when he wasn't *doing* anything I told him to give me the pitchfork. I went over to that raccoon, lifted up my pitchfork, he turned around, came toward me and hissed and I ... ran away and told Steve to get him. LOL! What a sissy little girl I am! I thought I was totally She ra, but no. Sad realization.

And the poor chicken he was eating was STILL ALIVE!! I thought it was dead! When the raccoon ran away, I went over to it. It was bloody on the back, and the neck was bare and bloody and there was bites out of its back, and it lifted up its little head and made a little groan. Poor thing! I think I would have been able to kill that stupid ole raccoon had I have known it was being eaten alive! (or maybe I'd feel like a worse sissy girl for not killing the raccoon. Maybe it is better I didn't know.)

Next time I'm going organize a group armed with pitchforks and shovels and we'll sing the song that they sing on Beauty and the Beast about "not coming home 'til its dead! Kill the beast!"

Alone I might be scared, but with a mob I can do anything!! ;)

I remember seeing one for the first time at a state park in Tennessee and thinking that they were so cute! Now I want it "dead! Good and dead!" I did feel sorry for my poor little chicken. :'(

A lady responded with this story:
"I dated a guy in high school that loved to go "coon" hunting! That was His idea of a fun date. I told Him he was going you know where for killing such darling poor defenseless little animals. So He brought me a coon once in a cage and said look I didn't kill this one just so you could see how sweet they are. I was like ooooh it is soooo cute can I hold it? So I start walking up to the cage and it starts freaking out and hissing and biting the cage and I am jumping back screaming "aaahhhh kill it! kill it!"

LOL! That was just how I felt about that mean ole raccon!!

I hope that you have a terrific Friday and weekend!!

Wordy Wednesday :)

I found a really cute hairstyle today while I was looking up any specials going on at Standard Optical. Look at this:

(image removed. the link changed and the haircut is gone. bummer.)

I think it would look terrific on Emily, and I think I would love it too! Hmmmm....

Matt needs glasses, so that is why I was looking in the first place. In the past month or two he has noticed that his vision has gotten worse. It makes me sad, because glasses are *such* a pain. I wore contacts for a very short time and loved it, however the doc said that my eyes were making lots of new blood vessels because they weren't getting the oxygen they needed. Bummer. So back to glasses I went.

Last night Steve & I went and cleaned my friend's chimney. What a mess! I had no idea that I'd come home looking like Bert from Mary Poppins, but that is just what we both looked like. Chim chiminy chim chimimy chim chim cheree....

Josh and Aiden came down to visit yesterday, slept over, and have been here today. It is fun to have Josh around to visit with, and of course we love having baby Aiden around!

Tonight I'm hoping for a long walk, but I'm feeling way more like a long nap. ;)

Jared went to a Speech and Debate competition last weekend and won 3rd in Impromtu and 3rd in Congress. On Sunday I made him don all of his metals and I took a picture.



Our car went in the shop on Monday. It is dying again, even while we are driving it on the interstate. It is very disconcerting. But get this, the mechanic can't get it to die for him. So we are waiting for the car to act up so that he can know what is going on with it.

Amber has had to get a ride with a friend to school every morning and then arrange for a ride in the afternoons while the car is in the shop. Steve has ridden in a ride share van. I have played chauffeur to get them to their rides every morning. It has been good to get up so early, but boy am I beat by the afternoon! 6:30 comes too early (especially when you go to bed late!), is cold, and is very dark!

So our plans for the week are to get Matt into the eye doctor, get our car out of the shop, and get me more sleep at night.