AARP - Not!

Mr. H got an AARP card in the mail today.

A real one

with his name on it.

He'll turn 50 later this year.

We are so NOT AARP material!

Changed My Mind

I had originally planned on posting today about the Amish Friendship Bread starter I recieved from a friend last week, but I think I'll wait and take pictures of M making it this afternoon.

In the meantime, something caught my eye at the library this morning. I was looking for a copy of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. **not there in the fiction A's.... hmmmm, none of her books are in the fiction section** I went to the computer/card catalog. Sense and Sensibility has the Dewey Decimal System classification of 823.7. 823 is the class for English fiction. American fiction is classed as 813. How long does it take for something to make it from the strictly alphabetical fiction section to the DDS numbered system?

Anyway, I found the book I was looking for in section 823. Naturally, there were other English works closeby: poetry, drama, essays, speeches... As I looked around, this title caught my eye:


I have read a few of Asimov's books: The Foundation Series; I, Robot; The Naked Sun. I liked them all. This one, I had never heard of. I looked it up. My favorite quote from one of the reviews is this one:

"Fans of Asimov's science-fiction generally have little taste for door-stopper books such as Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare or The Shaping of England, and specialists are never happy to see clever outsiders make hay in their fields." (The Tragedy of Isaac Asimov)

I discovered that the book I saw was not the original publication. Here's what it looked like in 1970. And it was published in 2 volumes.

You just never know what you're going to find when you're not looking for it, do you?

Almost February and Other Stuff

This year has been flying by. Sunday will be February already! Where has the time gone? I've been so busy since we got back from our Christmas vacation, I feel like I haven't taken time to breathe.

Several days ago, I read a post by our pastor called 4 Wonderful Surprises . I didn't read it that day but the following Monday or Tuesday. The day I read it, I got one of those notes he mentioned in #1. Thanks, Mel. You made my day!

Every quarter, Today in Mississippi, has a Picture This photo contest. For the 4th quarter of 2008, the theme was It's Great Being a Girl. My eldest submitted a picture of her 2 sisters and it was published. I submitted one of L on a field trip and L submitted one of her sister's birthday party. All 3 pictures were of girls in trees! (We thought we knew one of the girls in another picture, but it turned out to be a different Macy Thornton. The one in the picture even looks like our Macy!)

Yesterday I took M & L to the doctor. L had a sore throat and with strep running rampant in a nearby school district, I decided to do something to prevent it here. M woke up yesterday with her ear hurting after having the sniffles for a week. I called to see if M could come along on L's existing appointment and they said bring her.

Now they are both on a Z-pac (Zithromax) and M has something to take if the ear drum pressure gets too painful. Hopefully they will be feeling great by Friday, as Mr. H and I have a date night planned. We're cooking gumbo and staying home.

I'm ready for my days to slow down a bit.

My Last GA Sleepover

Eleven years ago, I went to my first GA Mother/Daughter sleepover. My eldest was in the 3rd grade, M had turned 3 and L was 7 months old. Tonight, all 3 girls are here and it has been great fun. L and I tied with 2 other mother/daughter teams in the mother/daughter game. I knew her favorite restaurant is Olive Garden, her favorite food is chicken pie soup (we had it for dinner last night), her favorite color is yellow, her favorite school subject is band, and the last time we were shopping together was last weekend with Sr. Mrs. H. We got 5 out of 5. It is a miracle! We usually get 2 at the most. Last year she was in tears at the end of the game. This year we rocked.

When they started getting ready for the talent show, she got out her clarinet and asked if she could play it. I said, "Sure! What are you going to play?" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Can I go in your office to practice?" I was so proud. She didn't win, but I think she should have.

The ladies that put this event together every year are sensational. I don't think any of them have daughters still in GA's. Some are grandmothers and even great grandmothers. Some have infants that won't be in GA's for several years. They do it because they love the Lord and these girls. They come up with games and food and crafts and decorations and photo opportunities that keep these girls busy until 2 a.m. (I suspect some are getting tired and grumpy: I just heard one of them say hotly "You're not the boss of me!" and stomp off --I had to smile.)


Here are a few pics from tonight. This one is my eldest and her buddy since 3rd grade. They are former GA's helping out.

This is M during the singing/devotion time.

This last one is L and Bre. Bre's older sister and M are good buddies, too. Every year there is a photo spot for the girls to take a picture with their mother. One of the things the girls take home with them is a framed picture. If a girl's mom can't come, one of the GA leaders takes a picture with her or she has a friend in the picture. Last year a girl's dad dropped her off, so he got to come in to all the girly pinkness and have a tea party picture made with his daughter. No one is alone in this place.

Now, it is incredibly late and words are starting to blur here. Good night, sweet ladies.

Getting Warm > Being Warm

I learned something about myself yesterday.

First of all, let me tell you something I (and most of my friends) already know about me: I do not like being cold. I have a heater in my office (under my desk, actually) that is on from November through March. At home, where we have stained concrete floors, my bare feet don't touch the floor except during the hottest part of the summer. I have a microwavable heating pad that warms my side of the foot of our bed on really cold nights.

We had one of those really cold nights this week. I took a hot bath before going to bed because I was just freezing. I was nice and toasty warm while I was brushing my teeth. And then I thought about the warmer at the foot of the bed. I love the tingly feeling I get when that warmth finally touches my cold skin. But my feet were already warm.

I realized then that it wasn't actually HAVING warm feet that was so nice. It was putting the COLD feet in a WARM place that was so nice. So I took off my house shoes (unprecedented in January!!) and walked bare foot the short distance to our bed. It did the trick. My feet were cold when I got to the bed and I got that "Aaaahhhh..." feeling when they reached the warm spot at the end of the bed.

In the case of warmth, the journey is better than the destination.

Not Proud of This

Yesterday morning I saw something on my way to work that I was ashamed to see in my community. I don't believe it was a coincidence that I saw this display on Inauguration Day. It was a flagpole flying 2 flags: an American flag and a Rebel flag. Now, it's not unusual to see that combination around here, but this particular arrangement caught my attention. The Rebel flag was above and the American flag was underneath and turned upside down. That, and the poster displayed in the yard with a racist website printed on it (which I will NOT post here) really left no doubt about the intentioned message of the property owner.

I suppose it is BECAUSE we live in a free country that people feel the liberty to be downright ugly. There really is no place for ugliness of that kind. People should have better manners.

And because we DO live in America, where we are free to express our ideas, I guess I'll have to look at it until they decide to take it down.

Letting Go

It had to go.

It had been my favorite, but it was way past its prime.

It was a gift from my eldest, with help from my youngest.

It was beautiful and perfect at one time, but not anymore.

The best purse I ever had was just falling apart at the seams...literally. The beads were leaving a trail everywhere I went. The lining was frayed along one end and so things were disappearing into the black hole, never to be thought of again. It was becoming a liability.

Today, Sr. Mrs. H wanted to go shoe shopping in Mobile. Mr. H was helping a friend move, so us girls headed to the mall. Sr. Mrs. H found the shoes she wanted. I wasn't interested in shoes, but ALL the purses were on sale. I decided to look around. And then I found it. I had seen some like it before, but they were too small. This one was perfect...or should I say purr-fect!