Odd Afternoon

Today has had its odd moments. And the day started off very much like other Saturdays: mowing the grass.

After lunch I took a new book out to the swing on the front porch. It is "The Calder Game" which is the 3rd art mystery book by Blue Balliett. I read a lot of children's books. I like to know what my kids are reading. I've read the Harry Potter books, the Series of Unfortunate Events books, the Twilight series, the Spiderwick Chronicles (except for the 5th one, which I can't find)...

...where was I? Right, reading on the front porch swing. Well, I dozed off and decided to lay down on the swing. I didn't sleep very long before the telephone rang just inside my bedroom window, waking me up. Someone else answered the phone, so I didn't get up. Laying there, I picked up the book, holding it straight up over my head to read. I had heard a humming bird several times while I was outside. Suddenly, the hummer was right there at my hand, hovering over my head. I guess he was attracted by the red book. He was an inch from my hand! If I hadn't twitched, he might have landed on a finger.

I went back to reading the book. It has been so nice outside the past few days: wearable temperatures and very slight breezes. In a few minutes I noticed the wind picking up, WAY UP. The little pecan tree at the end of the porch was waving left but the one 10 yards away was leaning right. I looked across the road and those trees weren't moving at all. I thought maybe I had fallen back to sleep and was dreaming when L walked out the front door and one of the plants almost fell on her. She had a shocked look on her face. "Is a tornado fixing to start?" she asked. We watched as leaves and grass swirled in the yard and moved west toward our neighbor's carport, right past Mr. H's new weather station. We ran inside to check the reading. It had just recorded a 46 mph wind gust! How cool was that!!

Then it was time to take L to a spend the night birthday party. I knew where the road was, but hadn't been there in several years. There were balloons attached to stop signs and I just followed them: TO THE WRONG PARTY!! But the nice thing about living in a small rural area is that you know lots of people. The party I pulled up to was a family reunion of some church folks I knew. In fact, M had gone to a birthday party yesterday afternoon for one of the girls on the porch (not at that house, though, because I would have noticed being at the same house.) Mr. Mike pointed me in the right direction and we made it to the right party just a few minutes late. However, we forgot the sleeping bag in the car when I was distracted by hunting for Sunday shoes, so I'll drop it off a bit later when Mr. H and I go to a friend's house for them to plan their bike trip.

It turns out that 4 or 5 of the girls at the party will be picked up at 9 in the morning to go to church, our church. The mom of the little girl whose party it was remarked that she needed to check out this church. I hope she comes. It probably won't be tomorrow, because she'll still have quite a few girls at the house, but maybe the next week. I'm proud of all those parents that made a point of letting their daughters spend the night on a Saturday night on the condition that they be ready for church the next morning.