I hate Drama

And yet I seem to have a lot of it in my life lately.

I’ve always been a bad sleeper.

Hard for me to get to sleep, and then I very often wake a couple hours later and can’t get back to sleep.

It’s been worse lately.

I’m hardly sleeping at all.

And, I’m one of those people that needs sleep to function.

So, I’m not functioning very well….

Kinda on autopilot.

I think it’s stress related….

I have too many decisions, and I’m second guessing other decisions, and I don’t have any answers!!

I think my brain just goes into overdrive and won’t shut off….

And I KNOW I can trust God with my life..

but He won’t just TELL me what I am to do.

Like, clearly. 

With a voice booming down from heaven.

Ah well.

I am fine, really.

My van is falling apart.

Just when in for an oil change and tune-up, ‘cause it needs an Emissions Test.  

Long story on that one.

Turns out it needs a tie rod.

Like, in the worst way.

”Unsafe” was used to describe it.

And a new battery.

There’s something wrong with the one in there.

I knew that, as I can’t keep the doors open for any length of time or the battery is dead.

All this to say, way bigger bill than I anticipated.

Isn’t that always the way?

I was over at Mom’s this afternoon, to help paint her living room.

It’s gonna be purty….

It wasn’t all work though.

When at Mom’s there is always sitting on the deck

and sipping wine and talking.  

The only “socializing” I get.

I didn’t get any pictures of the painting, or the kids in the pool, or any of the cool stuff.

But I did get some.

My Poppa

My baby brother.
I used to change his diaper.

Hunny, the neurotic dog.
She’s the daughter of my JRT, Freddy.
Her Mom was a Cairn Terrier.
She’s about the size of a rat.

Baby brother, and awesome Brother-in-law.
From Creekside fame.

My beautiful sister Linda.

Not a very flattering picture,

but the best of all I took.

She’s very hard to get a picture of!

Some of Mom’s deck flowers.

And the moon.
The moon was gorgeous.

And last nights sun set was amazing.

It was HUGE!

We were leaving soccer, and I thought at first there a huge neon sign!

Quin thought it was a stoplight.


Huge and bright and amazing.


Before I could get stopped and pull out my camera it had sunk quite a lot.

It wasn’t quite as impressive.



But it still is pretty.

Just seeing God’s creation like this soothes my soul.






Verses in my life right now.





Phil.4:13
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

 

 

 

 2 Cor. 12:9

 He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Dance, Nathan and Crazy Weather

Emma had tryouts tonight for the Competitive Dance Team.

Not as stressful as it sounds.




She was on the team last year, when she was five,
and I think she’ll be on it again this year.

She’s six, after all.



And has another year of dance under her teeny tiny belt.

The exciting thing is that she is also going to take
Classical Ballet and Lyrical.

Exciting because those styles are where her heart is.


She’s very bubbly, and loves to put on a show, so that makes her good for Cheer and Jazz.

But she loves to be beautiful, with beautiful, flowy movements.



She’s also going to do a Hip Hop routine with her two cousins.

Sure to be heartwarmingly hilarious.



It will be an exciting year next year.

A Nathan story.

I don’t post enough of them.



He was killing flies today,
one of his favourite jobs.

Walking around and wacking them with the flyswatter fills some testosterone need.



Anyway.


He calls to me,
”Mom!  This fly isn’t dead and it’s crawling around with it’s gizzards out! “

(He means guts.)

”What should I do?!?”

I said what I always say when he kills a fly,
” Get a paper towel and clean it up and put it in the garbage.”
(Yet another use for paper towel.  Man I love that stuff.)

He replies, '”But she’s (?) not dead! Oh, poor little fly.”

I look at him at this point, probably giving the dog look,  and he says,

” Her (?) gizzards are out and she (?) can’t fly, but she’s (?) trying to.”

(Not quite sure why he thought it was a she.)

I had to go stir the lunch at this point, and when I reappeared
I had grabbed a paper towel and was going to clean up the little fly body.

Nate says, “ Oh, that made me sad.  Poor little fly.”

I said, “Yes, but they poop everywhere and carry diseases.
It’s sad, but it should live outside and then we wouldn’t have to kill them. 
Where did the fly crawl,
so I can wipe every spot so we’re not eating off a table full of fly guts?”

He starts pointing, here, and here, and here, and finally says, “basically this whole side of the table.”

I was like, “Wow, that was one determined fly.”

He said, “No, I just had to keep wacking her, ‘cause she was suffering.
So she went here, and here and here.”

So I disinfected the whole table.

And lest you think Nathan has gone soft, I caught him later
using a tack to spear through the bodies of other flies.

I asked him, “ You were so sad over that fly with the guts hanging out suffering,
why are you now stabbing them?”

He says, “Well, their guts aren’t hanging out.”

Ahhhhhh.







Male logic.

Okay, it being Wednesday, I have some scenic shots from the trip to Dance tonight.

And here they are.

We have these windmills all along our coast of Lake Huron.
Quite the controversy over them as well.

The moon was up at the same time as the sun.
Emma thought it was cool, and wanted me to take a picture.
So I did.

See the nasty little storm clouds?
We had quite the day here in Southwestern Ontario.

We had an earthquake.


NEVER remember that happening.

I didn’t feel it.



And we had a tornado touch down.

That has happened a few times over the years.

Both of these occurrences are quite rare.


And they happened on the same day!


Crazy weather.

This is the sun at the same time as the moon pictures.
Just the other side of the road;)

The following three pictures were taken right after each other, of the same spot, just with different settings.

Well, this first one I was zoomed in more.

Ooops.
Four.  I mean four pictures.
I can count, really.

And we also saw these….

And their home.

And that’s it!

Scavenger Hunt, Sunsets and Wildlife

Today, as I was readying my front flower bed for the year,

 
Quin came up and asked if he could do a scavenger hunt. 
And if he could have some Clementine's for the “treasure.”

I said sure, happy that they would be entertained.

They were, and left me alone for, like, 20 minutes!!

I didn’t realize till tonight how involved it was.

Check it out:
The map..

And the directional compass is right, by the way, in relation to our house.

If you look closer at the map,
there’s hints like this.
It tells you where on the property the clues are hidden.

The clue’s were numbered….

And once you found them all, it spelled out where the treasure was!!!

In the sandbox he had buried a box with the Clementines,
and marked a big X.

Cool, eh?

Nathan and Emma loved it.




We went to dance in Goderich tonight,

and I brought my camera with me in the car.


One of the blogs I like reading always posts amazing pictures she got
while out driving, and I decided I should do it too!!

 

By the way, you should totally check out her blog.
Gorgeous, amazing pictures.





Anyway.

As we were driving up, the sky was amazing.  The sun was breaking through a point in the storm clouds, and the rays were shining down….

You know.


But, I was late leaving and couldn’t take the time to stop.



Boo.



But, on the way home, I did stop.



And got some good sunset shots.



The light was reflecting off the storm clouds, and it looked like they were on fire.

Pretty gorgeous, eh?

We also saw these:

Can you see them?
Deer.
I know the picture’s fuzzy, it was dark and the kids were bored and would NOT stop shaking the van.
But if you look close you can see them

Every Wednesday we do a count of the wildlife we see on the way home.

Tonight the count was low.
These two deer and one raccoon.
And one dog, trotting down the road.



Last weeks count was 3 deer, at separate intervals,
4 raccoons,
5 cat’s,
and 3 bunnies.

That’s more indicative of what our counts usually are.

It’s funny, ‘cause the kids know not to fool around and distract me while driving home…

“Shhhh!  Mom’s gotta watch for DEER!”

And that is all for tonight.