Eight Legged Freak

WARNING: If you are the least bit squeamish or have any type of bug phobias, especially of the eight-legged kind, I am giving you fair warning that you should probably STOP reading this post now!

 

No, I really mean it because further down this page there will be pictures that you may find disturbing.

 

Okay, you’ve been warned!

And, also, if you are just here for the Wordless Wednesday pictures, you can scroll down and skip the story - although, you may want to read about the spider you are about to view. This ain’t no Charlotte’s Web!

 

 

Last fall I received a phone call from my dear Sis. I can usually tell, just from her hello, what kind of mood she is in. From this hello, I could tell something was really wrong.  I could also tell that she was trying very hard to not let on that something was really wrong. When her second sentence was, “Uh, where’s your husband”, I knew something was very definitely wrong.

 

You see, as close as we are, Sis doesn’t regularly ask specifically about Hubby; let alone ask about his whereabouts. It is important, at this point, that you know that Hubby works for a major exterminator and pest control company as an operations manager and has access to some kick-butt, bug killing chemicals.

 

Come to find out, that was exactly what Sis needed that day – access to some kick-butt, bug killing chemicals. Specifically for a very large spider that had taken up residence on the edge of her kitchen table.

 

Through her hysterical sobs over the phone she was able to explain that a large spider – no make that a VERY large spider was in her house and she was not able to move or stop watching the spider until someone came and killed it.  One – she was too scared to walk by the spider and two - she was afraid the spider would run off and be loose in her house never to be found and killed.

 

And we all know the only good, large, scary spider is a dead, large, scary spider.

 

To his credit, my Hubby dropped everything and went to rescue Sis from the large, scary spider. I was like a 911 operator, as I kept her talking on the phone until he arrived to dispense with said spider; using his kick-butt bug killing chemicals.

 

I was fairly sympathetic to Sis’ situation, but you know what they say about walking a mile in another person’s shoes or having a large, scary spider of your very own to be able to really understand another person’s situation. In this case it was the latter.

 

Sunday night, after walking the dogs and coming back into the house and having walked passed a very large and scary spider - TWICE! I looked up on the wall of my front porch and saw this…………

 

Don’t look if you are spooked easily.

 

I’m not kidding.

 

 

 

 

When I saw this, I immediately yelled for Hubby and told him to “come armed”. When he saw our un-welcomed visitor, I think his exact words were “holy cr@p”. He has a way with words; especially when he’s faced with very large, scary spiders.

 

My words were more to the point: “Kill it!”

 

 

 

Now I know there are going to be those of you who say “live and let live”, but I do not subscribe to “catch and release” protocol where very large, scary spiders are concerned. I wanted to make sure this “thing” never had a chance to make its way into my house and take up residence on the edge of MY kitchen table.

 

Evidently, that is one thing Sis and I agree on whole heartedly.

 

So, Hubby came to the rescue, once again, and using his kick-butt bug killing chemicals, sent this very large, scary spider to that place where very large, scary spiders go when they cease to be very large. And scary. And spiders. You know. When they’re DEAD!

 

I have a new found respect for my sister’s spider phobia. In fact she told me she probably wouldn’t be reading this post and she most definitely would not be looking at the pictures; too many painful memories of her own large, scary spider.

 

And that’s ok. I understand.

 

I just think it’s really odd that we both had a run in with very large, scary spiders. And neither of us lives near a toxic waste dump.

 

Go figure.

What Do You Want For Dinner?

Every day between 3:30 and 4:00 pm, my husband and I have the same conversation.

Hubby: “Are you ready to have the conversation?”

Me: “I guess? Are you?”

Hubby: “Yeah. So, what do you feel like for dinner?”

Me: “I don’t know. What do you feel like?”

Hubby: “I don’t care? You get to choose because I decided what we were having last night.”

Me: “No, that was me deciding last night. You have to choose.”

Hubby: “How about cereal night?”

Me: “No, that’s what we did last night.”

And so on and so forth. And actually the speaking parts of the conversation are interchangeable based who placed the phone call.

It’s very frustrating that I can plan parties, weddings, holidays; almost any event you can think of, but I have trouble putting together a simple family meal plan week to week. In fact, if I were to ever win the lottery, the first thing I would do is hire a professional cook to plan and prepare my family’s meals.

I can make decisions all day long about other aspects of life but trying to decide what to have for dinner each night just about makes my head explode. So, that’s where you guys come in. Help keep my head from exploding by sending me your favorite dinner ideas. Remember to keep them simple, because after I work at the office all day, the last thing I want to do is come home and try to put together a complicated meal.

I know my family will be appreciative of any ideas you may have, because they’re really getting tired of cereal night.

The Cookie Jar

I come from a large extended family. My dad had 11 brothers and sisters and my mom is from a family of 4 siblings. This translates into a whole lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My mom and dad’s families are even more deeply enter twined due to the fact that there are marriages between the two. Now I’m not talking about anything illegal or immoral here. I’m talking about small town relationships where you end up with double first cousins because brothers from one family married the sisters of another.

Anyone who has ever studied geneology or lived in a small town knows what I’m talking about. The rest of y’all probably have the “Dueling Banjos” song from Deliverance stuck in your head and haven’t heard a word I’ve said anyway.

Let’s get this train back on the track before we have a really messy wreck!

Growing up we often spent 1-2 weeks out of our summer visiting with our extended family. It would begin with the family reunion, which is the third Sunday of every July and will be that way until Jesus comes back, then we would take the next week and go camping or just hang out at various relatives houses.

Sis and I call it “front porch sittin’. It’s where you just sit around on the front porch drinking sweet tea while the older folks reminisce about the “old days” and the youngins’ play on the dirt bank out back or in the pond on the side of the house. And if we’ve told them once not to get their shoes wet in that pond, we’ve told them a thousand times. But inevitably someone “accidentally” falls in and not only gets their shoes wet but their whole body.

One of my favorite places to go, as a child and as an adult, has always been my Uncle Calvin and Aunt Blanche’s house. And for many reasons. There’s the food. Oh, goodness there’s the food. I’m talking about biscuits and gravy, sausage, eggs and grits for breakfast. More fresh beans, corn and tomatoes than you can shake a stick at. And they all come right out of their garden. And did I mention the fried okra? I could eat my weight in the fried okra and have tried to on many occasions.

Then there’s the love. There has never been a time when I have not felt completely at home while visiting their house. I’ve slept on the floor, the couch, air mattresses and if you’re one of the lucky ones, on one of the guest beds. But it doesn’t matter because we often stay up late into the night telling and retelling stories and laughing until we cry or pee our pants - which has happened. Not to me, but to a couple of my aunts who shall remain nameless, because I don’t want my Aunt Jo or Aunt Kitty to read this and get mad at me.

 

But I guess the real reason I’ve always loved going to my Uncle Calvin and Aunt Blanche’s is the cookie jar. Aunt Blanche has this cookie jar that she has had sitting on her kitchen counter as far back as I can remember - which is back to when I was around 4 or 5 years old. The cookie jar is a symbol of consistency for me. It has always, and I mean ALWAYS, had cookies in it every time I have ever been to their house, and one of the first things I always do, after the hugs and hellos, is go to that cookie jar and get a cookie or four.

I love that cookie jar. That cookie jar is a symbol of love, because I know my aunt loves her family enough to always have fresh cookies waiting for us when we arrive. Sometimes they are vanilla creams and sometimes lemon creams, but it is always full.

God’s love is like that cookie jar.

His love is consistent. He is always, and I mean ALWAYS, there for me. I never have to wonder if He’s going to show up or if He’s listening to me. He just is! And He is always. He is the epitome of consistency.

God’s love is fresh and new every day; just waiting for me to reach in and take a handful of what He has to offer. I know that He cares enough for me to provide my every need. He knows what my needs are and that sometimes my “needs” are really ”wants”, and He helps me to see the difference.

I know right now, without a doubt, that cookie jar is sitting on the counter in my Aunt Blanche’s kitchen, full of cookies. And I know right now, without a doubt, that my God loved me enough to sacrifice His Son so that I could have eternal life.

And that beats vanilla cream cookies every time.

This Is How You Remind Me

I take so much for granted.

I just expect to wake up each morning after having slept the night before. I automatically pull clothes from my closet to wear. And as I leave my house each morning, I don’t think about it not being there when I return in the evening.

We ran into some friends at dinner the other night who live in our neighborhood. Their house was struck by lightning this week and burned to the ground. They lost everything. They escaped with their lives, the family dog and a few family photos.

I felt utterly helpless and devastated for them. I actually felt like crying. The wife and mother of the family smiled and said through the entire experience they had been blessed and reminded of what’s really important. She was comforting me and telling me everything was going to be okay.

When I asked how we could help, all she asked for was copies of pictures I might have of her children from community theater plays our kids have been in together. Obviously, I want to do more. I want to bless this family as they try to rebuild their home and their lives.

I want to thank them for reminding me that everything we own can be stripped away and we can still have all we need.

Philippians 4:19

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Summertime and the Livin’ Is Easy

Our summer here is almost over. I know. It’s early July, but our boys will return to school in 3 1/2 weeks.

I remember as a kid that summers seemed to last forever. The days were long and hot and filled with all kinds of simple, childhood adventures. We played in the woods behind our neighbor’s house where we would build forts, play hide’n’seek and have imaginary wars.

We picked blackberries. We hiked down to the train tracks so we could walk along the railroad ties, rode our bikes and had sleepovers in the backyard playhouse our father had built for us.

We caught lightening bugs, played in the sprinkler and laid on the driveway late at night counting the stars. There was hardly a day we stayed inside, unless it was raining and then sometimes we played in the rain.

My heart aches sometimes as I long for my boys to know those simple days of summers gone by. I want them to know the innocence and simplicity of how things used to be.

I want life to be easy for them. I don’t want them to suffer or to have to endure hard times, but I know they will. They will be faced with tough decisions. They will have to learn to deal with the pain of broken hearts and they will have to look disappointment squarely in the face and know how to respond.

They will have to be men. And that is never easy.

It’s A Reader’s Digest Condensed World

When I was a kid growing up we received two magazine subscriptions in the mail: TV Guide and the Reader’s Digest. Each one was eagerly awaited and my sister and I would even fight over whose turn it was to do the weekly crossword puzzle in the TV Guide. I knew more useless TV trivia back in the 70’s than I care to admit to.

There were fewer fights over the Reader’s Digest but it was a favorite none the less. I loved the jokes and stories that folks sent in for the columns such as “Laughter the Best Medicine”, “Life in These United States”, “All In a Day’s Work”, and “Humor in Uniform”.

There were suspenseful and heart wrenching stories to be read under the “Drama In Real Life” section and I still credit “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power” for my strong verbal score on my high school SATS.

They also had a book club known as “Reader’s Digest Condensed Books”. This is where they would take  classic pieces of literature and “edit” them for length and content. Then they would bind 3-4 of these “condensed” books together in one volume and deliver it to your door for $9.95 plus shipping and handing.

I’m talking about classic novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “A Christmas Carol”. I’ve always been curious about who got to decide what chapters Harper Lee and Charles Dickens should have left out the first time around. Not to mention Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance”. That book was turned into an eleven and a half hour mini-series on TV for crying out loud. How do you condense the Battle of Midway?

I think Reader’s Digest was unknowingly setting the tone for today’s way of life. Everything we do, read, listen to and communicate is in a condensed version.

• Teenagers text in a “condensed” language (idk, my bff jill? jk. lol)
• We download music from iTunes and add it to our “condensed” library of 5000 songs on our iPods.
• We “condense” our television viewing by TiVoing our favorite shows and fast forwarding through commercials.
• And if you miss any episodes of your favorite shows you can get the entire season “condensed” on DVD and you can catch up in a single weekend.

It’s a fast paced world and if you’re not able to keep up you might find yourself eating everyone else’s sweetened, condensed dust.

O Beautiful. The World Stands Still.

I’m back home after a little Fourth of July getaway break to the mountains. We rented a cabin with my husband’s sister and brother and their families. This cabin was definitely different from the cabin I stayed in a few weeks ago at Summer Youth Camp. This was the kind of roughing it I like. The kind with flat screen TVs, hot tubs and internet access.

Ah - the simple life!

Actually, I spent most of my time sitting in a lounge chair in the middle of the river that ran beside the cabin. It was so relaxing. The only thing that would have made it better would have been food and drink delivery service to me in the middle of the river. Oh, wait; I had that. It’s called having three boys who don’t really mind waiting on their mother. Especially when she’s bribing them with everything on earth she can think of. I just hope I don’t have to make good on that pony.

Truthfully, (when they weren’t waiting on me) the boys spent a great deal of their time swimming and paddling up and down the river in a kayak/canoe thingie. I don’t know what it was, but it floated. And they also spent hours swinging off an old rope swing and jumping into the river below. You know the kind of Tom Sawyer stuff that boys just eat up and don’t get nearly enough of in a world full of computers, video games, Disney Channel and texting.

It was a nice chance to re-charge our batteries and spend some time enjoying family and lazy summer days.

Now that’s the American way!

“If you smell something good, it’s me!”

More summer re-runs! This post was originally published in October of 2006.

 

With three boys it seems impossible sometimes to spend any time alone with them. I’ve always tried to make time with each one by going on little “date nights” with them. My most recent date was with our youngest, J. We stopped by DQ for a little ice cream and then went to do a little Halloween shopping. We were looking for costume ideas and I knew that he would be disappointed if we came home empty handed. We finally ended up at our favorite place, Wal-Mart. Of course he found the perfect Ninja costume, but only after a long discussion about whether we should get the red or the blue one. He held them both up and asked me,”Which one looks best with my hair?”. We went with the blue.

My baby is growing up way too fast. I can tell he’s watching his older brothers and starting to imitate everything they do. On the way to school the other morning he tells me, “I’m wearing deodorant, mom. So if you smell something good, it’s me.” I had to turn my head and bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. There is a girl out there somewhere who will join him someday on a real date night and I hope she will appreciate the fact that he smells good.

“Mom, you need to slow down. The speed limit is 30.”

This post was originally written in November of 2006 and since I’m taking a little sabatical from blogging over the next couple of days, I thought I would turn to summer re-runs. And besides the topic still applies 2 years later.

 
I was driving my youngest to school the other morning when he glanced over at the speedometer in my vehicle and told me I was driving too fast. Okay, I guess I was. It seems lately that there is a constant sense of urgency in my life. I feel like I need to rush everywhere I go and that there is not enough time in the day to accomplish the things I need to do. The truth is I have the same amount of time as everyone else in the world has. 24 hours. I have 24 hours each and every day to sleep, eat, work full-time, make sure the kids get to school on time, do laundry, cook, clean the house, volunteer, drive the boys back and forth to their extra curricular activities, spend quality time with God, my husband, children, friends and family, grocery shop, assist with homework, read, study, and the list goes on. I guess there are some things that I could cut out, but it’s hard to know where to begin. And did you notice that I was missing from the list? When do I fit myself into my busy schedule?

I’m praying that God will reveal to me where and how I need to simplify my life. In the mean time, I’ll try to be a better steward of the 24 hours I receive each day and I’ll try to pay better attention to life’s speed limit sign.

 

 

 

Mustang Sally

About 3 weeks ago, our oldest got his driver’s license; a major milestone in the life of a teenager and of his parents.

A few weeks prior to getting his license my husband and my dad took M out car shopping. Now don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not like we have money just laying around burning holes in our pockets or anything, but we had agreed to help him by matching him dollar for dollar on the purchase of car.

It’s hard for teenagers. You tell them to get to a job so they can earn money to pay for a car, but how are they supposed to get to this job without a car? It’s a vicious cycle.

Anyway, we helped him purchase a 1993 Ford Mustang. (Which he has named Sally. I know. It’s a ”guy thing”. Or so I’ve been told.) It’s nothing fancy, but you’ve never seen a happier boy in all your life. He has a Mustang! And that’s all you need when you’re a teenage boy.

Now, when you’re the mother of a teenage boy who has just started driving, you need a whole lot more! You need patience, strength, faith and a little Valium wouldn’t hurt either. I promise if you’ve never prayed before, you will do more praying as the mother of a new teenage driver than ever before. I know what I’m talking about here.

And it’s not that M is a bad driver. In fact, for a new driver, he’s pretty solid. But he has that teenage boy bravado that says, “I’m invicible.” And I’m trying to let him know, without damaging his confidence, that he’s fallible. It’s a fine line for a parent to walk. I want him to enjoy his teenage years and I want him to enjoy the freedom that having a car affords a young man during this time of his life. At the same time I want him to learn how to handle the responsibilities that go along with that freedom.

So he drives and I pray.