My Heart Is Here

Bean and Bugg were visiting and Bean decided he wanted to make a book.

Ahhh, sweet music to this Gramerly's teaching heart.

As I've mentioned before, he is very young for kindergarten, left-handed and a boy, so I was worried about the whole writing thing.

He wanted to do the cover and then he wanted me to do the title page.

So here it is in all its glory- How Do Minnows Live

He sounded all the words out himself on the pages he wrote.

The "help with Gramerly" is about the sweetest thing I have ever seen. You have to be a grandma to get that I guess. Do you see my curly hair?

Now my turn and he illustrated.

This was his page. Our gigantic pooch, Arwen, was spayed and has to wear one of those horrible collars that she hates. Do you see her there beside him in the creek with her collar-crack-up!

Proud co-author of a non-fiction book on minnows.

Look for its release on Amazon.com-tee hee

Well, I took Bean's picture, so I had to take Bugg's as well. She's doing stickers with her Pappy in her beautiful Mommy crocheted dress. She made a glitter book, and Bean wrote the title. Trust me, we are all a-glitter at the Gramerly's house.

Oooo-An Alien Species

What is it?

Too bad you can't touch it. Whoa, it's so weird. It's like a sea anemone growing on the end of my cedar branch.

I know what it is- do you?

Well, I didn't when Handy Man brought it to me, but I told him I'd look it up. He said, "How will you look it up if you don't know what it is?" I replied, "I'll just type in "orange thing on cedar tree," and I did and there it was.

Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Lois

Yesterday I went to Florence for a Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Lois party.We missed Aunt Bett, her sister, but she was stylin' in the outfit Bett sent her.

SZQ baked her favorite cake.

We none were sure Kaye would be able to make the trip, but she did and Aunt Lois was so glad to see her.

It was a good day.

In other news, this is my first garden produce of the year. It was yummy.

Twenty Six Long Miles

1st Lt. completed his very first marathon today. Way to go son!

This my first also, as a spectator, of course!

I've been trying to walk a couple of miles a day in preparation for our vacation. We're going to DC and I want to be able to walk as far as I need to walk.

I haven't been walking on weekends though, because I'm too busy hauling chickie poo, planting, hoeing, weeding, digging etc. I ended up about 15 blocks from the finish line today, so it turns out I had a nice little stroll after all. It was breezy and overcast, so good weather for walking.

Hmm, is that my boy in the long sleeved blue/gray shirt right in the middle, behind that first row coming in?
It is him! Woo hoo, look at you Mr. Marathon Man.

You did it! Across the finish line you go!

Do you remember when you could go to meet loved ones at the airport and walk right up to where they walk off the plane? It was quite an emotional place to be. Marathons are kind of like that. People yelling, screaming, crying, waving. Wives joining husbands, husbands joining wives, kids joining parents to run with them the last block. Teams and couples hauling it in, hand in hand. I think I would have been glad to be there even if one of them wasn't mine. But one of them was, so I was yelling too!

Looks like the marathoners just missed some mighty nasty weather moving our way.

Now, I'm off to see the third graders from my school make their First Communion, and my Michelle pose for prom pictures.

Spring Bathing

I picked up Bean and Bugg yesterday, and after a trip back to my classroom to see my just hatched chickies, we headed home to play. Pap got a new cart that attaches to lawn mower and took the kiddos for a ride. I was watering the garden, where I'd recently transplanted cabbage, spinach and brussel sprouts, etc. When Bean returned he could not resist the pull of all that wonderfully tilled dirt. Missy Bugg soon joined him.

I told the kiddos about how people used to go all winter without bathing. Bean wanted to know what they bathed in. I told him a tub just like this one. He responded, "And if they didn't have one they just went to the creek?"

Yep, probably so.

1st Lt came to get them with a container of Wild Turkey from his first shoot earlier in the day. I've been trying to figure out the best way to cook it. I believe we've settled on smokin' it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Monday Morning

If you can and will , please join me in prayer for a friend who begins chemotherapy.
I'll call him Big D.
I'll be praying that all those potent chemicals go straight to that tumor and away from the biggest part of him, his heart.

Joy in a Bottle

Remember Jim Croce and Time in a Bottle? I was thinking of that song today when I was swinging Buttercup. I wish I could bottle her joy. It is so full and so all-encompassing over something as simple as a long ride in the "Weeeeeee!"

She starts asking as soon as comes through the door. Her next request is for "Bap," but her Bap was at work, so I had to do.

Then, Bap came home. The whole time he ran in to change his shoes she'd point to the house and say, "Bap, shoes." I would say again, "Yes, Pappy had to change his shoes, but he'll be right out- (dang-it Pap, c'mon).

Finally the beloved swinger of the "Weeeeeee" arrived and the look on that little face says it all.

Here he comes!He's gonna do it.

"I'm so excited," tiny hands clasped

together in anticipation annnnddddddd................................. we're off!

"Yes!"

"Isn't my pap just the greatest!"