Gentlemen, start your... paws.

The past couple of nights, the Daytona five hundred has been going on in the attic right above my bed. Except on foot, not in cars-that-are-actually-advertisements, and with mice as the contestants, not weird men in colorful jackets.

I lie down and settle into my pillow when chchchchchchchchchchchc sounds above me. A pause. Then sscchhhssccchhhhsscchhh back across. Then there's a few victory squeaks.

After several minutes of this, I am tempted to go up there and ask who won. I mean, I'm pretty involved by this time. I feel truly connected with the runners, their trials, their dreams, and their achievements.

But runners really isn't the right word. They don't run. They scurry and scritchscritchreallysuperduperfast and bustle, and you can hear their little toenails rattttttaaattttaattt-ing on the boards. That is, I'm assuming it's their toenails. Who would have thought that mouse toenails could make such a very loud, annoying noise?

I wonder if the spectators have little flags to wave for their favorite, or if they sell popcorn on which to snack while the races progress. If they do, I'm so totally going up there tomorrow night. Because popcorn made by germy, fleaish mice? What's not to love?

I feel like a murderess.

Today, I ran over a bird.

Yeah. I know.

I was just driving down the road, minding my own business, when out of nowhere this bird swooped over the road and *thwack* - no more cute little birdie. Nope. Just a pile of feathers and some... other stuff.

I couldn't help it. It wasn't premeditated or deliberate or avoidable. It just happened.

That's the way life goes for birds, you know?

One moment they're soaring above the clouds; the next they're decorating the side of somebody's van with their... selves.

Someone please come mop up my tears. Or not. The floor probably needs to be cleaned anyway.

The Four Musketeers in Action

These kiddos have a blast together. There's nothing more fun than watching them dissolve into gut-wrenching laughter over something completely trivial and only slightly humorous, or watching them play Davy Crockett killing bears, or pretend to be the world's greatest superheroes.

And Isaiah wants to be grown enough to hang with the big dogs. Oh, boy, does he ever want it.




"This is the best moment of my life! I'm on top!"












I gave Lee, Ben, and Phoebe popsicles and instructed them that they were to give bites to Isaiah
whenever he wanted one. (Which is pretty much constantly.) Watching from afar, I saw Ben break off a big piece which flew out of the wrapper and hit the nasty carport floor. Before I could intervene, he scooped it up and shoved it in Isaiah's always- open mouth. But Isaiah isn't Anna's child for nothing. He had seen where that piece of popsicle came from, and he didn't even intend to have that germy thing in his mouth, so he reached in, took it out, carefully returned it to the ground from whence it came and went back to begging for bites. Way to go, Isaiah - do your mama proud.


p.s. Uploading pictures to blogger and getting them in the format I like is a hassle and a headache. So, I'm sorry if the format does weird things. That's just the way life goes sometimes.

Squeak, Squeak.

I keep sticky traps in my room to catch the spiders and silver fish and whatever other unlucky insects scamper across my floor. One stays under my chair and the other under my bed.

But two days ago, coming into my room after having been gone to Courtney's for the night, my toe suddenly hit the edge of something sticky. I was caught off guard and squealed, since nothing sticky is supposed to be in the middle of my floor. Upon looking down, I shrieked loudly, because to my intense surprise, the plump body of a little mouse was firmly clutched by the sticky trap which formerly had resided in all its glorious stickiness under my bed. I'm not sure how, but the mouse had somehow wrestled the sticky trap out from under the bed before giving up the ghost. And how did he die? I'm betting either starvation or a heart attack or maybe a stroke.

Poor little thing.

Wait, what? Poor little thing my foot! What was the varmint doing in my room in the first place? Probably chewing through my books, or pooping in my clothes, or some such unforgivable deed. So, I'm not the least bit sorry he was ensnared by my sticky trap. Not the least bit.

Now excuse me while I go empty my drawers and check for... you know... mouse droppings.

Oh, and Boots and Irene? Hello! Y'all are very much falling down on your revered and essential jobs of killing the mice while they're outside so that they don't feel free to come inside. And no, Irene, I don't care if you have five mewing imps hanging to your fur. You need the extra nourishment of mice anyway. And Boots, being fifteen years old is no excuse either. Okay, maybe it is. If I was eighty something, or however old you are in human years, I wouldn't want to hunt mice either. Come to think of it, I wouldn't ever want to hunt mice. So, that analogy pretty much just crashed.

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought Him whom my soul did love,
With tears I sought Him earnestly.
He bow'd His ear down from above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry soul he fill'd with good;
He in His bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in His blood,
And banisht thence my doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I'll serve Him here whilst I shall live
And love Him to eternity.

-Ann Bradstreet

Ann Bradstreet is my new one-of-my-favorites poetess. Her works are much simpler than John Donne or Edward Taylor, (two contemporaries,) yet the same sweet love for God is still very much present in all her works, be it a lament for her fire-ravaged house, a tale of her children, a prayer before giving birth, or a poem about seeking and finding Christ. (above)

I was encouraged by her poems because, although she was busy, busy, busy all the time, raising her children, keeping her house, being a friend and helping her neighbors, in the midst of all we often consider "filler," her faith in God's providence and her love towards Christ shine like the sun. Her poems may center on common things, but, hey, common things are the bread of life, and I always need to be reminded to honor Christ with my life and heart, whether sitting outside in a warm breeze, reading Amy Carmichael, or cleaning the house and having children underfoot and noise bouncing off the wall.

My aura is definitely purple right now.

Taking purple nail polish off toenails is a headache of phenomenal dimensions.

Please do not look at my feet for the next two weeks, or however long it takes the dark rings to disappear. (and yes, I used a q-tip; also more smelly remover than I want to think about, and I seriously depleted Lowell's stash of cotton thingies. Sorry.)

Yes, mama. I know you didn't like the color from the beginning. Now you can rest in the assurance than it will never come within seven feet of my nails again.

p.s. Whoever can name the movie that the "a headache of phenomenal dimensions" quote comes from will receive a virtual chocolate chip cookie. You have probably watched it if you're one of my friends, but if by some wild stretch you haven't, you must come and see it with me, because I will use any excuse whatsoever to watch it again. It's that great.

Greasy Goodness

Tonight, for the second time in my memory, mama fried chicken. I don't really like fried chicken, but there's something delicious about the crisp, fresh, hot pieces sliding down your throat, well coated in grease. As it glides down, you can just feel all that healthy grease going straight to your arteries, and boy, is that a good feeling!

Lee paid the ultimate compliment as he busily consumed about six or seven pieces of chicken and about a hundred homemade french fries, give or take a couple.

Lee: "These french fries are gooder than McDonald's and those kinds of places."

Wow. Just, wow. That right there is a compliment worth having, since this kid loves him some McDonald's.

Well, Lee, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Keep your fingers crossed, and maybe when you're sixteen you'll get homemade fried chicken again.

I'd really rather cough.

The medicine inventors must be smart, right? I mean, they concoct all these different medicines to help people with all kinds of illness. Therefore, they should certainly be able to make a liquid cough medicine that doesn't taste like roots and sticks and chemicalish things liquified together with ruined leftovers.

Calling it "cherry flavored" sure as shooting does not help. Because it ain't.

Anyone with half a taste bud in their mouth can tell that a cherry's cousin hasn't been in the same building as liquid cough medicine. It just makes your mouth get all set for the taste of cherry, only to be assaulted with the taste of witches' brew gone bad.

Do the medicine makers honestly think we're that stupid? Or do they blythely stick "cherry" on the label just for kicks?

"Hey, Jo, let's put something else on the cough syrup bottle!"
"Okay, Bill, what will we put?"
"Oh, I've always liked the way 'cherry' sounds, let's put that."

Yep, that's me - little Miss Pushover.

Irene Adler had her kittens out on the front porch. A very sensible place, in my opinion. (My last tabby cat had both litters of kittens in unreachable, inconvenient places. I got poison ivy real bad after she had them in the woods underneath a fallen tree.)

But, as if she felt my satisfaction over being able to easily access the kittens, (who will get wild and unsociable if not petted and held often,) Irene moved them. Moved them off the protected, safe, dry porch into the flowerbed beside the porch. But it isn't just any flower bed. It's more like a bush/shrub bed, filled with large, prickly, grown-closely-together bushes. Very spidery and sluggy and hard to get to without scraping out an eye.

And I don't really care. If she wants her kittens to grow up total social heathens, that's her problem.

But...

I'm a softie. Always have been, always will. I don't particularly like animals, (especially dogs,) but I hate to see them suffer. Really hate it.

So, every time it rains, I start thinking about those poor wee kits, huddled up together, getting wet under prickly bushes. I wouldn't think about it if 1. they had a really good mother who would lovingly stay with them and protect them from the wet, or 2. if they had an intelligent mother who would move them back to the porch if they were getting soaked. But they have neither; Irene comes and sits on the porch without her kittens, leaving them in the rain. Can you imagine?

Therefore, guess who feels the need to go squishing through the rain, partying with the slugs and other slippery, gross insects who I'm sure are dropping down on me the entire time I'm over in that part of the "flower bed" rescuing half drowned kittens?

Me. (Or I, if you wish to be grammatically correct. Which I do, but "I" just doesn't have the same oomph that "me" does in such a situation.)

And it's rained often since she moved them. It didn't rain so much and so hard when she had them warmly curled up on the porch. Oh, no. She doesn't leave them on the porch after I move them, either. Next morning, first thing, if the rain has stopped, they're back under the prickly, spidery bushes. To stay until it rains again.

Tonight, as I was sitting here at the computer, looking up recipes for cream scones, I heard it begin to pour.

"Whoa!" thought I, "it's raining cats and dogs out th... ohmywordthoseblastedkittensaregettingdrenched!"

Into the closet I dashed, grabbed a raincoat, (I will go out in the rain for them, but I will not get soaked for them,) a flashlight, and ran out to scoop them up, tripping over Irene all the while and chewing her out under my breath. Okay, not under my breath. Out loud. I've gotten good at scooping all five up at once so I don't have to go back a second time. Of course, they squealed and howled like I was sticking pins in their eyes, but I told them to hush up and be glad I cared about them, since their errant mother obviously didn't.

But the dear little things were mewing pitifully, and they were soaked, and I'm glad I went.

I guess.

How sweet... ummm... excuse me?

Last night in church, Ben, who was sitting beside me, picked up my hand and began to sweetly rub it back and forth over what I fondly believed to be his cheek.

However, upon looking down, I discovered he was drawing it back and forth, back and forth, over his nose. The part of his nose where the you-know-what comes out.

Yeah.

Children are like roller coasters; one minute you're soaring on pure sweetness, the next you're plunged into the depths of grossness.

Uh, what?

Doesn't it strike you as a wee bit ironic that on Labor Day, schools are closed, businesses shut down, and grilling is far more common than working? Ironic. Very ironic.

Something to help us look to Jesus as we prepare our hearts for Sunday -

Fair is the sunrise;
Fair is the sunset
Breaking in fire upon the sea.
Jesus is fairer - Jesus, Thou Fire of love;
All praise to Thee, Lord, praise to Thee.

Fair is the blue light
Brooding on the ocean,
Fair the bright wonder of the sea.
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is brighter;
All praise to Thee, Lord, praise to Thee.

Fair is the racing wave;
Fair is the flying foam,
And the pure glory of the sea.
Jesus is fairer, His glory purer;
All praise to Thee, Lord, praise to Thee.

Fair is the ocean
Dreaming in the moonlight,
Peaceful, the quiet, shining sea.
Jesus is fairer, Jesus more peaceful;
All praise to Thee, Lord, praise to Thee.

So, we Thy children
Offer Thee our praises,
Join with the music of the sea,
Own Thee the fairest, own Thee the dearest,
Sing and give glory, Lord, to Thee.

-Amy Carmichael

...and we had fun, and we played, and we tickled each other...

I kept my three year old niece, Charlie, a few days ago. She is an adorable elf full to the brim of words, giggles, energy, and a remarkable ability to locate water outside, no matter how well hidden. No kidding. If we put a bucket of water on the roof, in a few minutes Charlie would gleefully dash by, soaking wet, dragging the empty bucket behind her.

When the following conversations took place, we were sitting outside on a quilt, I doing my schoolwork and she ostensibly doing puzzles; really she was chattering to me.

Charlie: "Oh, KK, look at the birds! They're eatin' grass!"

Me: "Yeah! Why don't you go catch them?"

Charlie: "Oh, okay!"

(gallops down the yard towards the robins - they fly away.)

Charlie: (coming back sadly) "I couldn't catch 'em. But if I had a helicopter I could."

Well, yes, Charlie, you probably could. Or they would be killed by the helicopter blades. Either one.


Charlie: "I want to be a kitten when I grow up. What do you want to be, KK?"

Me: "A mama."

Charlie: "Silly KK, why don't you want to be a cat?"

I don't know, Charlie. I guess I just don't aim as high as you do.


Later, when she had gone poo-poo in her panties and I was cleaning her up:

Charlie: "NO!! KK, don't pull my panties down!"

Me: "I have to, Charlie. We have to clean you up."

Charlie: "NO! The poo-poo will fall out!"

Me: (unthinkingly) "I'll catch it."

Charlie: (with delighted interest) "In your hands?"

Well, that's one way, I guess.