P52 Week 13: Details

You know how they always say the best camera is the one you have with you? Well this last week has been a bit of a blur, and the only camera I had was the one in my cheap cell phone. So, just like the details of my week, this photo of Thomas Road Baptist Church, just one of those details, is pretty blurry.

 

I'm hoping to have a more normal life next week and be back with a real photo.

Be thankful ~

A peek inside Thomas Road.

I've been in Lynchburg for the past few days nursing Abbey back to health. She's been weak, dehydrated, had a severe headache, on two different antibiotics, and last night I actually crushed a bunch of garlic and taped it to the bottoms of her feet before she went to sleep. If you know anything about natural medicine, you know that garlic is the first line of defense against infections. So our hotel room smelled like an Italian grandmother's kitchen. Yum.

Today I finally got her eating some real food. She's a sandwich lover, so she wanted a turkey sandwich from Panera. At lunchtime she ate a half. It took her three and a half hours, and that's no exaggeration. For dinner she wanted the same thing, but ate it in a half hour—vast improvement. AND a pickle. I was amazed.

Then she suggested we go to campus church at Thomas Road, which she normally does on Wednesday nights. And since I'm all about keeping her moving to regain some energy, I said sure. I've heard of Thomas Road Baptist Church for years, but never had the opportunity to go inside. From the outside it doesn't look very big, but then you get inside. We sat in the balcony because Abbey hasn't been feeling well and didn't really want to be in a crowd.  Here's the view from where we sat. The balcony:

Looking down on the main part of the auditorium:

The downstairs was mostly full, the balcony, not so much. The praise band played a few songs, and then Johnnie Moore preached, and it was SO GOOD. I'm really glad we went.

And now we are firmly ensconced in yet another motel watching a really bad episode of American Idol. I haven't watched this show in quite a few years and can't believe how horrific it's gotten. And that's all I'm going to say about it.

Tomorrow Abbey goes back to class and I go home. I'm looking forward to being in my own bed.

Be thankful ~

The rest of the story.

For those of you who wanted to see the whole saga of Mr. Squirrel, who just knew he buried his stash in the planter:

Yup. This is the one.

Nobody's lookin'.

*dig dig dig . . . dig dig dig . . .*

What the . . .

Fer cryin' out loud! Who took my stuff?

Didju take my stuff?

Sorry, Mr. Squirrel.

Be thankful ~

P52 Week 12: Hunger

I just read The Hunger Games last week and now I'm craving the second book and can't wait to see the movie, but since I'm not a midnight-crowd-lover, I'll wait until next week and go to a matinee when nobody's there. I'm just weird like that.

And of course, like I usually do, I procrastinated with this photo. But yesterday I was working at my desk when I spied movement outside the french doors. In the fall I watch squirrels bury their acorns in the planters on my deck. Then in during the winter and spring, they come dig for them, throwing dirt all over the place. Unfortunately for this guy, I just cleaned out the planters and threw all the acorns out in the yard.

Sad day for him. I actually took a whole series of him sitting on the edge of the planter, jumping down in the dirt, digging around, and then sticking his head up with dirt all over his face, looking like "What happened to my stuff?" But alas, only one photo allowed. And this one obviously says he's hungry.

For more "Hunger" photos, go here.

Be thankful ~

Thursday morning nonsense.

Well, it's not completely nonsense. First I want to share this photo of the cutest baby on the planet figuring out he can crawl on his hands and knees. He's so excited about it!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the farm to get our weekly milk and wound up yakking with my friend Kelly for a couple of hours. By the time I got home it was almost 4 o'clock and I needed to make butter, eat dinner, fold laundry, and get dressed for church. So I threw the cream in the mixer, covered it with a towel and went off doing other things. Somewhere in there Ben called and said, "Hey! Meet me at Bonefish for dinner before church. I'm leaving now."

And so began the mad dash to get out of the house in five minutes. I threw on a skirt and put on some mascara. Brushed my hair for the first time that day. Back to the kitchen to assess the cream/butter situation and was greeted with a huge mass of butter sloshing whey all over the kitchen (that's the watery white liquid that's left when you make butter). It was literally running across the counter, mere seconds from hitting the floor. So I grabbed towels to soak up the mess. Stopped the mixer. Dumped the remaining whey and started the process of rinsing the butter with cold water. I never got to adding salt, just crammed the butter in a container and threw it in the fridge.

So today I will salt the butter, finish cleaning up the whey mess which is now under the marble slab the mixer sits on, vacuum the house, and work on editing a manuscript.

But first I'm going to run 3 miles and do Pilates. Because sweat makes everything better.

Be thankful ~

Today is good because . . .

1. It's another day to be alive and enjoy the warm air and sunshine. Remind me of this in July.

2. My husband and children love me in spite of my weirdisms (I think I made that word up).

3. We are having revival meetings at church, where we are enjoying a really good preacher. I say he's really good because not only does he preach well, but he is also a grammar nerd! Just last night he was throwing around terms like "predicate adjective" and "antecedent." That right there is enough to get me on the altar.

4.  I actually bought a pair of shoes today that are not any form of flip-flops. That may not seem monumental to you who have normal feet, but for me, it's more than a big deal. In the last few months I have been in (literally) every shoe store in our mall as well as the gigantic outlet mall an hour north of us. I have ordered two pairs of dress shoes online and sent them back. And you probably remember the running shoe ordeal.

I can't believe I'm going to do this, but just so you know I'm not kidding, here's a picture of my feet, completely un-photo-shopped and without a professional pedicure:

Size 8 1/2 and sometimes a WW will fit, sometimes not. Those knobby things are bunions, which I blame my mother for, and she blames her mother for, and so on and so forth all the way back to the beginning of time. Eve must have had bunions. Contrary to popular belief, they are not from wearing ill-fitting shoes; they are hereditary.

So all that said, you can see why I can't just grab a pair of shoes off the rack and wear them.

However, today . . . TODAY . . . I was in a Payless Shoe Source (Don't even ask me why. I never find shoes there, but sometimes desperation drives us to do unfathomable things.) and actually found a shoe that fits! And is almost comfortable! I'm going to use the Abbey method of shoe fitting and wear them around the house with thick socks to stretch them out a little more. But if I had to, I could even wear them now without too much trouble.

So that makes this a good day.

Be thankful ~

A little somebody I met under the deck.

While I was lying on my bed reading The Hunger Games (Oh, my word. What a book.) this afternoon, I kept hearing a funny noise. Honestly, I thought it might be a young pileated woodpecker, which I've been trying to get a picture of, so I grabbed my camera and went searching. I thought the sound was coming from the bushes in front of the house, so I walked that way, but soon realized it was under the deck. As I came around the corner from the front of the house, I saw something little and brown dart into a drainage pipe, so I backed around the corner and waited. Pretty soon (chipmunks are curious), he peeked out.

We watched each other for quite some time until I started getting a cramp in my shoulder. Obviously he wasn't going to come out with me standing there. He just kept chirping like he was telling me to go away. I'm still on my quest for photos of the pileated woodpeckers I know we have.

Be thankful ~

Saturday doings.

While I was running today, I was thinking (it was 8 miles so I had plenty of time to think) about some dreams I've had lately. I always wonder where in my subconscious my brain gets the ideas for my dreams.

The first one was a couple of days ago. I was talking about running (what else?) with a trainer at the gym, and I made the comment that I'd heard you burn 100 calories for every mile you run. Of course, this made me very happy. Sadly, he shook his head and said that, no, that wasn't true. You only burn 3 or 4. That was a nightmare.

Then last night I dreamed that Man-squared informed me that since his dad wouldn't let him get a motorcycle (which is not true), he was going to get a golf cart. I'm not sure how a golf cart is a suitable substitute in the mind of an 18-year-old guy, but that's what he said.

In other family-type news, Mike is back from his deployment safely, and will be in the states until sometime next fall. Abbey is heading back to school today so she can spend all day tomorrow studying. Man-squared is out fetching tools for Ben, who is pulling the seized motor out of a friend's truck with said friend. I am cooking and nursing my sore feet, and Pete is running around terrorizing neighborhood children and sharing his dog hair with the world at large.

And now you're all up to speed on our exciting weekend.

Be thankful ~

P52 Week 11: The "Eyes" of March

 
This is really going to be a stretch in the interpretation department.

When I think of March, I think of spring break. (And while we're on that subject, why is it that, when two children go to colleges in the same state, their spring breaks can't coincide? Why must they be in two different weeks?)

Anyway, Abbey has been on spring break this week, and unlike most college students, she likes to come home and stay here. She doesn't want to go out, doesn't want to socialize, doesn't even want to go to the gym. She pretty much gets a book and shuts down for the week.

So this week she's worked on some school work, but yesterday morning she started reading The Hunger Games and literally only stopped long enough to eat a few times. She finished it around 10 last night and said her muscles were sore from being so tense. She told me not to start it unless I had all day to read the whole thing because I wouldn't be able to put it down.

So here are the "eyes" of March:

For more P52 interpretations of this week's theme, go here.

Be thankful ~

Quick update on this sunshiny Wednesday.

Because I know you care, I'd just like to let you know I have finally made peace with my Nike Vomeros. It took a couple of weeks and a good long run, but I've decided they really are okay.

Also, I think it's significant that my daughter Leah sends me cell phone pictures of grammatical and spelling mistakes she sees. She's a girl after my own heart. Yesterday I got two from her. The first one was in a waiting room where she was getting her car worked on. I hope they fix cars better than they write.

Her caption was "No. No it doesn't. *facepalm*"

The second was obviously in a bathroom somewhere. (Sorry it's so fuzzy, but that's what you get when you buy cheap cell phones like we do.)

The caption for this one was "How long is a scond?"

Also, don't forget that today is National Pi Day. I'm going to celebrate by running 3.14 miles (actually a little more than that).

Be thankful ~

Weekend recap.

It was a sunny, warm weekend here in Northern Virginia, and we took advantage of it.

I started my Saturday bright and early with an 8-mile run—my first—and it went surprisingly well. I started in a big shopping center (where the half marathon will start) and wound my way through a local college campus, did a loop through the historic section of town, crawled up Hospital Hill, and back to the start. It was my first experiment with GU, this little packet of thick, gooey carbs that you're supposed to suck down for quick energy on long runs. I will never make that mistake again.

I was about an hour into the run, just passing the high school track where practice was underway, when I decided I'd better nourish myself for the long climb up Hospital Hill. So I tore the top off my little packet of GU, held it to my mouth, and squeezed. I stopped running and stood there on a public sidewalk in stunned panic. I wretched a little but managed to maintain my self-control while energetically depositing a mouthful of lemon-flavored slime the consistency of firm bacon grease on the sidewalk. I'll have to find another option for carbing up on the run.

Anyway, I made it up the dreaded, infamous hill despite my lack of GU and with only two walk breaks.

The rest of the day was spent hauling a motor, shoveling horse manure, cutting trees and splitting wood, and doing laundry. While Ben was pulling the trailer out of our backyard to go pick up the motor, he very carefully maneuvered the truck around the bucket of ashes that was sitting at the end of the driveway. What he neglected to account for, however, was that the trailer tires are a little wider than the truck tires. My ash bucket has been remodeled:

So now it's Monday and I've already done my short run. I'll be doing laundry (does it ever end?), enjoying the sunshine on the deck with Abbey, and shopping for a new ash bucket. Happy Monday!

Be thankful ~

Lumberjacks R Us.

Since it's Saturday and not raining, Ben and Man-squared are out cutting trees. This time it's in our own backyard. We've had a dead tree out there that needed to come down, plus the one blocking it, and another that's keeping sun from the garden.

The first one was little and came down easily, but the dead one was bigger than I realized. For some reason, I always get nervous when I hear the chainsaw going and have to watch to make sure no one gets hurt and it doesn't fall on the house or deck, not that a tree ever has, which Ben is quick to remind me. Anyway, I heard the saw start up for the dead tree and stood watching. First Ben cuts a notch facing the direction he wants the tree to fall. Then he cuts into it from the back, and the tree falls toward the notch.

In theory.

(Hang on. The saw just started again. I need to go watch and worry. BRB)

(Everything's okay. See? Worrying really does help! Now back to our story.)

This time, however, it didn't quite go as planned, and the saw got bound in the tree. That means it stopped and the weight of the tree had it pinned in there. In case you're unsure about it, that's not a good thing. And it was sooooo close to going over, the tree had already started to lean a little.

So Man-squared got out the sledge and started beating on the tree trunk, trying to make it fall. That's when I sprang to life with my camera. (It's my number-one coping strategy.)

(My word, the muscles on that boy!)

Timmmm-berrrrrr!

And now it's on the ground and I don't have to worry about that one anymore.

Be thankful ~

P52 Week 10: Be Still

You know what they always say about March: in like a lion, out like a lamb. This March is no exception. In the first week it's been super windy almost every day I've gone running. At times I'd like to be able to say, like Jesus did, "Peace, be still."

For more Be Still photos, go here.

Be thankful ~

Pete, be still. Isn't that a Bible verse?

I was playing around with my camera today, trying to take a photo representing the theme "Be Still" for tomorrow's P52 post. You already know how much Pete drives us crazy pacing around the house all the time. Well this morning Man-squared took him to a huge open field and let him go. He said Pete ran until his sides were heaving and his tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth, and then ran some more. So here's Pete, finally being still:

Be thankful ~

A craving for home.

If you've been reading here any amount of time, you probably already know that I am a Jersey girl. (Please don't associate me with Snooki.) I wasn't born there, but I did spend the majority of my growing-up years living on the Jersey Shore (they don't call it the beach there—it's the shore) about two blocks from the ocean. That's why I drone on and on about going to the beach for vacations, loving the sunshine and sand and salty air, etc.

But the second-best thing about New Jersey is the food. We grew up with pork roll, real Jewish rye bread and buttered hard rolls for breakfast, and crumb cake. There is nothing like a crumb cake from New York or New Jersey. Honestly, people in the rest of the country don't even know what we're talking about. Entenmann's doesn't count—it's the Yugo of crumb cakes (my apologies if you drive a Yugo). You might recall me writing about our good friend George, who occasionally sends us a crumb cake from Mueller's Bakery in our hometown. He reminds me of the verse in Proverbs that says "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."

Well last night I was really craving crumb cake, and where do you turn when you don't know where else to turn? Google. So I googled "New York Crumb Cake" and it turned up 254,000 results in a quarter of a second. I went with #5 and it is incredible. You can find the recipe here.

 

The only thing I would change is the amount of vanilla. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons, but Ben and I both think it's way too much. May 1/2 teaspoon.

It's not Mueller's, but it was certainly good news from a far country.

Be thankful ~

Change in the weather.

You know how they always say "If you don't like the weather in (fill in the blank), hang around for five minutes. It'll change."? People said that when we lived in Memphis, Jacksonville, Norfolk, and now here in Northern Virginia. Anyway, I have photographic proof that it's true in NoVa.

The view out my french doors at ten this morning:

And the same view six hours later:

Today was a run day—I was supposed to do three easy miles. When I woke up this morning around seven, it was already snowing, but I had heard yesterday that it would only snow a little. I stayed in bed until quarter to eight watching it come down and waiting for it to quit, but finally decided I'd better get my lazy butt up and eat and get dressed. I put on my long running pants (I've learned I'm much more likely to actually, you know, run when I'm already dressed for it.), and went to the kitchen to get my daily dose of granola and yogurt. I sat eating and reading email and facebook, still thinking it would at least slow up some.

Eventually I realized I'd better get out there and run in case it kept getting worse, which it did. I ran a quick two miles in the subdivision, and stupidly forgot a ball cap to keep it out of my eyes and off my glasses. By the time I got back we had two inches on the ground and the flakes were huge and coming down fast.  Within the hour we were up to four inches and it finally started to slow down. By noon it had quit completely and the sun was out. At four this afternoon it was all but gone. Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and in the 50s, and on Thursday it's going to be 70°.

Be thankful ~

Beeeeep. This is a test of the emergency mom-cast system.

Mom-casters in your area have devised this system to bring you news and information in the event of a grammar emergency. If this had been a real grammar emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for the most current instructions.

It's National Grammar Day! In honor of this momentous occasion, I'm sharing what are, in my opinion, the top-three most-aggravating grammar faux pas, in no particular order.

1. Using an apostrophe to make it possessive. Just like there's no apostrophe in hers (something belonging to her), there is no apostrophe in its when you mean "something belonging to it," as in The cat chased its tail. It's (with an apostrophe) means "it is."

2. Using your when you mean you're. This might be the number-one grammar error I see on facebook. Your is a possessive pronoun that means "something belonging to you," as in Your pencil needs to be sharpened. You're means "you are." If you're using these words interchangeably, your grammar skills also need to be sharpened.

3. Using the phrase if I would have known. This is so very wrong. What you are referencing here is something that you wish had happened in the past. Would throws a little future spin on it, and that's not what you mean. You should say if I had known.

(Yes, I know there are four, but I just can't stop without mentioning this last one.)

4. Of is not a helping verb. There is no such construction as would of or should of, no matter how people say it. It's would have, should have, could have.

This concludes this test of the emergency mom-cast system.

Go forth and write correctly.

Be thankful ~

Richard Scarry strikes again.

When I went to see my grandbabies in January, I took them a couple of books. Among them was this one:

When my kids were little (and even when my baby brother was little), Richard Scarry books were favorites. Apparently they still are, because Bean would sit and let me read this book for hours.

Then today I got this photo from Deb:

Button loves it just as much. :) I have another one for them next time I see them. It has stories about Officer Flossie, Mistress Mouse (who does auto repair and drives a tow truck), Pickles Pig, and Goldbug hiding on every page.

Be thankful ~

P52 Week 9: A Great Leap

I keep waiting for the weekly assignment to get easier and so far, it hasn't. This week was a serious trial since I live with a 52-year-old man and an 18-year old son, neither of whom wants to leap while I take a photo. Man-squared did offer to jump off the deck at one point, but we need him to keep working if we want to have any chance of paying the tuition bill, so I nixed that idea.

Then my neighbor very conveniently developed severe abdominal pain which called for a trip to the ER, meaning I got a visit from Princess Petunia this afternoon. It's been a while. Since the last time she was here, she's learned to talk (I have not yet learned to interpret) and she's developed quite an opinion, which she shares willingly.

After the initial cry-fest which included a minor barf on her blankie, we ate some lunch, put the blankie in the washer, and went for a long walk that I hoped would wear her out enough to induce sleep in a strange bed. I took my camera and snapped about a hundred photos in that one mile, some of which I may share at a later date (especially the playing in the mud puddle ones, but not the part where she sort of fell in—her mother reads this blog), but I was most excited to have a subject who was willing to leap while I played with my shutter speed. That girl jumped so much I think she may have shin splints tonight.

And it was a beautiful day for it. Thanks for that bit of cooperation, P!

For more Leap shots, go here.

Be thankful ~