I can’t believe it’s almost been a month since my last post.  Things around here have been busy, and time has flown by.  Lindsay has been doing some free-lance computer work for Gene’s company; working out of the office and from home. The other girls have been battling with their asthma, Hannah’s being the worst. Hannah hasn’t been able to go to church for a couple of months due to her asthma. At times the solitude is hard for her, but the Lord is teaching her many things through this time.

If you have seen the news at all, you are aware of Edouard heading for Houston. We have spent the last couple of days preparing for the storm. They predicted that we would see sustained winds of 60 mph near our house, but thankfully that didn’t happen. There is another band that will hit us later today, but that will not be until this evening.

While we were hanging out around the house I took some pictures, there wasn’t really much else to do.  We had made all of our preparations for the storm, and there was nothing to do but wait wait for the storm.  The first group of pictures are some that I took before the heavy rain began, after a slight rain shower.

The storms coming in causes the girls’ asthma to act up, and this storm affected Rachel the worst. She had to have a breathing treatment first thing this morning, but after resting for a while, she seems to be better.

Hannah and Caroline had a great time playing Nancy Drew on the computer.

Maggie wasn’t sure what to make of the storm.

All Belle was concerned with was taking cat naps.

Hannah enjoyed playing the keyboard.

Lindsay had fun taking pictures of the rain with her new (used) Cannon 20D.

Sarah watched the storm come in.

Tomorrow is Rachel’s birthday, so it will be a very busy day. I hope to start posting more regularly…. again.

Last week we had a six legged visitor us late one night.  When we opened the door to let Maggie outside, this little fella made his way into the house. Rachel was the only one brave enough to let it walk on her.

The girls have developed and interest in embroidery, and have spent many hours over the last couple of weeks stitching away. I keep lots of craft supplies on hand so that when the urge to learn a new skill such as this strikes, I have what they need on hand. I was thankful I had tons of patterns on hand for them when they decided they wanted to start stitching.

I took some more pictures around the yard of the roses; I will only bore you with a couple.

On the 4th we went to the city fireworks display in the parking lot of the mall, along with a couple of thousand other people. The weather was perfect, warm with a gentle breeze. I will end our week on a bang. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

I am doing an online book study with some other ladies on the book Designed to be His Helpmeet by Debbi Pearl. I may write some about what I am studying here… we’ll see how it goes.

We did it!!!! We brought him back to life!  He is no longer in many pieces.

Lindsay put him back together with a new DC jack. That still did not solve all of our problems, so I bought a new power cord. This made his little lights begin to blink and his motor begin to whir. I felt such joy that tears came to my eyes. I admit it, I’m a big baby…. I know it. But I am very thankful that we don’t have to worry about buying a new computer in the near future.

I haven’t posted here in a few days, but I have posted on my homemaking blog.  So, drop in there for a visit to see what we are up to.  I will be back here in a couple of days.

Wilberforce….. going to pieces.

Our feathered friends coming to dinner.

Harmony wanting to have the birds for dinner.

Belle playing in her tunnel.

Caroline playing in the downspout in the rain.

Rachel playing in the shower.

Gene, Rachel & Caroline washing the van.

Photos taken around the house, after the rain. Can you tell I love to see the interesting ways the water plays on flowers and leaves. It amazes me how the droplets hang on… while I wait in anticipation of their dropping.

Gene found 5 Texas Brown snakes while doing yard work. They were very small, maybe 4-5 inches. The girls had a great time holding them before we released them into my herb garden.

A Green Anole Gene found. While Caroline was holding him, he turned from bright green to dark brown, to match her hair.

This gives you a snapshot into our lives for the past week.

I am hanging the black drapes and putting a black wreath on my door, for my friend Wilberforce is dead. He wasn’t with us for a long time, but we loved him dearly. His shiny screen will be missed. He was faithful and traveled with me on all of my journeys. My lap will feel empty without his companionship.

His demise is no reflection on Super Geekette. She did all that she could for him, but his heart was too far gone for Super Geekette’s ministrations. She is going to be working on resurrecting an old desktop that we have, though it won’t be the same. I love to be able to travel with my friend, and will miss the companionship we had as we traveled together.

Take this time to appreciate your hard working friends. They accompany us on our world travels, taking us to sights we have never seen before. They help us to keep in contact with those that we love, and bring music to our ears. Please join me in a moment of silence, as I remember all of the wonderful journeys that Wilberforce and I have taken together.

The other night we watched America’s Got Talent and this little cutie came on and sent me to tears.

This song sent me to tears for several reasons, the first being that she is just so cute!  In addition to her absolute cuteness, this song has a very special place in my heart.  In the summer of 1988 my life was in a great deal of turmoil.  That is the summer that we found out about Sarah’s physical disabilities and deafness.  On top of that Gene was promised a job at a new company, and the day after he quit his old job, the new company called and canceled their offer.  The man who ran the company said he was a Christian, and even went to church with us. Gene explained the situation to the man and the predicament he placed us in, so he hired Gene… for a couple of weeks and then let him go saying he didn’t have any work for him.  We lived in Haughton, LA (a little town outside of Shreveport) at this time, and I had a brother who lived in Dallas.  My brother offered Gene his couch while he looked for work, and until Gene could move the rest of us over.  For 8 weeks Gene lived in Dallas while the girls and I lived in Haughton.  Every night Lindsay and I would watch An American Tail together, and this song would make me feel better.  Whenever I hear it or see the movie, I remember that incredibly hard time.  I also remember how God used a simple song in a children’s movie to bring comfort and encouragement to me when I needed it most.

Lindsay has done it again, and yes she is my techno super-hero!  Tonight she successfully replaced my hard drive and no content was lost.  My computer even runs faster. In the next few days she will try to make me more of a geekette by installing Linux. I am so pleased that we averted the crash of my hard drive and the potential loss of data.

Three cheers for Lindsay!!!

Most of my month has been dedicated to organizing and minimizing.  We have been doing some major organizing in the girls’ room, and are almost finished.  We re-arranged it and went through everything they own, organizing and de-cluttering.  I hope to share all that we have done on my homemaking blog in the next week or so.

I have many ideas going around in my head for posts, but have been too busy to write them. I hope to get to them soon. Lindsay and I have spent a great deal of time examining the collapse of many families that we know, and trying to get at the root of the problem. I may share some of my thoughts on that, as well as a couple of other sticky topics.

I have been working on my photography, a little, over the last few weeks. I need to make time to study it more, like Lindsay has. Fortunately, she shares the knowledge she gains with me. The two pictures are an example of this. I have been using my manual focus (mistakenly thinking it was macro) and kept getting fuzzy pictures like this one.

After changing to the macro setting, it helped sharpen the picture tremendously.

My dad gave me the idea of making a bird feeder with the base of a planter.  I bought and inexpensive dish and put some river rocks in it to keep it in place; after this I filled it with birdseed.  If you build it, they will come, and boy have they.

I also made a bird bath using the same method. The birds also like cat food. Here is a group of doves that decided they want cat food instead of birdseed.

This is one of our neighborhood cats, whom we have named Prince Caspian.

He is very vocal, and likes to tell us exactly what he thinks.

That should catch you up somewhat on what has been happening around here. Have a wonderful day!

Well, the weekend has come and gone, and so has the cold I picked up along the way. We ran from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, but had a lot of fun along the way. Kelli arrived about 11 Friday morning. The girls were so excited to have her here. After lunch we began baking, and baked for hours! I didn’t realize how hot 8 hours of baking would make the house. We baked 3 batches each of Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies. We also baked two cakes for the birthday guys who would be at the reunion. Erica and Dan arrived at the airport about 11pm and arrived at our house near 12am. We had snacks and then iced the cakes. We ended up going to bed about 2am.

Saturday we up bright and early, and our first crew was at the park by 10am. They began setting up, while Gene came home with the van to get another load of stuff. We set everything up and people began arriving about 10:30am. We had a great time playing volleyball and spoons. The best part of the whole thing was just getting to spend time together. We had hot dogs and fixin’s for lunch. After the fun at the park we went to the mall and took a group photo at Bass Pro Shop. We ate dinner at the mall and then went to see Prince Caspian. We arrived home about 11 pm, took baths and fell into bed.

The next morning we had a breakfast of pancakes, sausage and orange juice. We had 16 people total at breakfast (which includes our 7). I also made lunch to take to church, and we left at 9. The last of our friends departed from church and we headed for home. We arrived home from church at 3 and all crashed in the bed for a while. By this time my cold was in full swing, and I was coughing quite a bit.

I am finally beginning to feel better, and I am so thankful. Though, being the kind and thoughtful mother I am; I have shared the cold with the girls…. who shared it with me originally. I told them, I don’t want it back… and I hope they remember that!