Too Much? Balance?

Please be patient with me today Dear Reader, I know I've written about my pet peeve before but some things have been stacking up towards needing to write about it again, then my good friend wrote a little something and it got me all charged up. Read this and then come back here for my tirade of agreement!


My friend, her family and mine and a few other friends have heard a lot about how we are being overly protective. We are Christians: Christ followers, God listeners, we do have a big tendency to listen to what God says, in His written word and in personal answer to prayer, over what the world or even well meaning friends have to say. But that doesn't mean that what others say and confront us with doesn't eventually wear on us to the point where we feel we need to speak up.


In the past those speak-up times rarely change the mind of those who have confronted us directly or indirectly through others, mostly because those folks are not you my Dear Reader. But they do have a way of encouraging others and encouraging those of us in our circle of influence. I hope that this is one of those times, for her post was for me, I hope this is for her and our other friends.


Overprotective, and balance, two words that drive me nuts and ones I feel that Christians, Christfollowers, should avoid using. Yes, shout out "balance" to the girl hoicking herself up to walk on the top of the stone wall. Yes, inquire, "Is that balanced?" to the person using a scale to measure an important item. But balance in things of soul building or soul destroying nature? No way. Feed on food in moderation but feed on the things of God 'til you think you'll pop and then some more.


Does God call us to a balance between deceit and honesty? Between thievery and earning your wage? Between preserving life and destroying it? Does He ask for a certain behaviour and then settle on the realization that you just can't make it there?


Over? Can you over do it on prayer? How about kindness? Charity? Peace? Not in your self-preserving vision on life, but with Christ's vision. Did he warn us that we could indeed go too far beyond what the Good Samaritan did? Did he tell us that yes, indeed we could do too good of a job taking care of our elderly parents?

So then Paul was lying when he suggested that we pray unceasingly? To imagine that every word out of our mouth, every thought in our head could become captive to Christ, become a prayer to Him, that would be crazy? Paul was just excited and talking about something no one can do?

I do not believe that a life lived in Christ is a call to a life lived in mediocrity. There was, and is still, nothing mediocre about Christ. Simple yes, mediocre never. There is simply doing what is right and avoiding, so as to not do, what is wrong.

When things seem as if they have gone too far, take a second look. Is it really that a virtue has been taken too far or is it actually a sin dressed up to appear as a virtue.


So when folks say, "oh dear, he is over protective," when they hear about or see a father who locks his children up in the basement, beats them when they go outside without his permission, are they actually seeing protectiveness that has gone too far or are they instead seeing a bully, tyrant, hate filled man? A man who is not attending to the words of Christ? What is really being seen is a self-centered person not a protective person. Over protection is an oxymoron, you can not over protect. If you are actually harming something or someone you can not be said to be protecting that thing. Satan dresses up the road he would rather have us travel with all sorts of baubles and tresses so that we are lured into his life of perpetual lies. Look at what something really is not what he says it is.


When you look at a cold hearted frigid woman and the deprived man she is married to, do you pity him because she is too pure? Too Victorian? You ought to pity him because she is not pure enough, if she were actually pure, and not just self-absorbed and drug away by Satan's lies, she would know that God gave her and her husband an amazing gift to be enjoyed and celebrated, to be honored. But when we constantly tell our unmarried children, "don't do that (sex or anything sexual) because it is naughty or nasty" we are indeed lying to them. Sex is not nasty. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. There is a huge difference. So the poor woman who can't bring herself to have sex with her husband because it is naughty is not being pure, not in any way shape or form.

We call women who behave in this way, who do not care for coming together with their husband, who cringe at the idea of sex, a prude. And while that is correct in the vernacular of the word, what we commonly think of the word meaning, it is actually incorrect. Prude comes from prudefemme, "a worthy or respectable woman". We, through our being drug away from goodness by Satan often begin to use terms in the pejorative when they were never meant to indicate something negative or wrong. We, in our sinfulness, do not like worthy and respectable women, we would rather they take it down a notch and be human like us. So we call them a prude, and soon the word and concept becomes distorted and people use it to describe a person who does not have the proper vision of sex and purity.

You actually cannot be too pure. We can speak of gold as being ninety percent pure because it has impurities, because things that are not gold are in it, but it can never be a hundred and four percent pure. Purity can not be over the top.

And so while it may be advantageous for a ring to not be pure gold, to have a certain level of impurity in it so that it can hold up to daily wearing, we stop our analogy at this point because we are speaking of the Christ-like nature that we are to take on. "Follow me as I follow Christ," Paul says. He does not equivocate on this, he does not hold out a here or there where you might not want to follow Christ as he does or where he himself ain't going because it is too Christ-like.


Come on. Can you really take a virtue, a character of God, too far, be too kind, too forgiving, too loving. too faith-filled? Really, is that your answer? Because if you answered "yes, you can be too much of these things" and cite times when perhaps you were taken advantage of, over looked because you were too humble, then I gotta ask, in whose estimation are you looking at that with? Christ's or man's self-preservation?

Can you take something He, God, asks you to do too far? Can you be too repentant for your sins and evil thoughts? Can you listen to the Holy Spirit too much? Or would he just have too much to say to you, ask too many things of you, ask you to do something he knows you cannot do even though you lean on the strength of Christ to do it?


God calls me as a parent, well he calls all parents actually, but yes, I can really actually only speak for myself and demand a certain level of obedience from myself, He calls me to protect my children. That is my job as a parent. That is my only job actually, all else falls under love and then protect. Education protects from abuse and exploitation, training in skill and attitude for work protects from poverty and freeloading.


But shielding from the world, protecting from sin, it keeps my children's hearts for God's work, it lessens the footholds for Satan in their lives, it bends them more God's way and less Self's way, self absorption.

What is my scripture for that? I immediately want to say, there are so many scriptures, from the beginning to the end of the whole of the Bible, that build my understanding of what my job as a parent is that I am at a loss as to which one to cite. Then there is this good one here that speaks of this and this one here that speaks of that, really we could go on forever. But now I have gotten a tap on the shoulder and I know that there is a verse I can cite that goes to the heart of our call, Dirt's and mine, as parents. It is one verse really but it is in three of the gospels and it is Christ's very own words, often found in red:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" Matthew 18:6-7

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. " Mark 9:42

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves." Luke 17:1-2

Some version say be careful. Can you be too careful? Read those verses again, can you be too careful? Really? Care to drown?

I protect ultimately because I love, not because I fear. To acknowledge that Satan is outside our doors, prowling, waiting for his chance to devour and destroy us, is not the same as being in fear, paralysing, poor reaction causing, fear.

Fear and panic are not emotions that bring about care or careful ways. They are in fact ungodly. But often we go to fear and panic after something has happened. Satan has gotten inside our lives perhaps because we have not been previously careful. We have not been filled with care and attentiveness, something has now gone a wry and we panic out of fear of more things going a wry. This is not how we are to behave, we are to at first be care-filled, that when things go wrong around us we do not compound them with our panic and fear.

Misery loves company the old adage goes, the Biblical concept of that would be a little leavening ferments the whole. Do you tell me I am too over-protective because it is too much trouble for you too be likewise with your child and therefore you want me to parent like you do? Is it really my best interest you have at heart or do you just want your whining child off your back? You want to give in, but you want company in your misery and so you ask, beg and then criticize when my child doesn't get to accompany yours to the mall to hang out, or on a road trip with friends, or to a nice little college to find themselves? Or maybe you would just like my child to date a little so that you don't have to wonder if your kid could have actually found a spouse without having to get pregnant first?

We as a society, including Christians, spend the majority of our children's early years, and a boat load of our money on a career for them that may or may not last about thirty years (and in some cases never get off the ground) yet we spend little time or resources preparing, preserving them for a daily relationship that is to last "until death us do part" not to mention the relationship that will last an eternity.

Bible verse? How 'bout a whole chapter, Genesis 34, a great illustration of where neglectful parenting can lead. This chapter spoke loudly to Dirt and I as we began to take seriously the great honor it was to raise four daughters for God. Not only does it show what can happen to a good girl when she is allowed to hang out with just the women folk in the market place, but it shows that neglectful parenting not only can have consequences for your very own family but many people can be greatly effected. A great many people can be affected by the nonchalant cultural choices we often make with no regard to what God's word may actually say on the topic or where the Holy Spirit could lead you to if you were to only listen first then act, instead of acting first and then listening to the correction through ill consequences.

We are not saying we have done everything right, that we have been as protective as we should have been. We are not saying that we are not the cause of some of our children's sin. We indeed are and for that we ask them and God for forgiveness, and we pray that we are able to find the right road again. But please, do not then ask us to be less careful with their lives, their very souls. Stop telling us not to parent as God has called us to.

Dirt Has a New Group of Students

Each quarter Dirt gets a new batch of students that are working their way through two years of instruction on areo-planes. Dirt is the Power Plant guy, that'd be mechanics for those who don't speak areo-plane.

But Dirt has found that making a person a top knotch mechanic and in some cases inspector, takes more than teaching them how to turn a wrench and where. So Dirt starts off teaching them a little about themselves that hopefully will help them be alert and aware as they put together planes or look over some one's job to make sure the plane will stay up in the sky. Always a good thing even if your not up in the plane yourself.

The first thing Dirt, Mr. Vick to his students and sometimes me, teaches them is that there are a few fairly predictable things about people and those predictable things can get in the way of doing the best job or can get folks into down right trouble. He has this paragraph that he has them read. Then he asks them to count up all the f's that they can find in the paragraph. They usually only find about half. Why? Half of the f's are in the word "of", and unless a person is a proof reader or an editor, their brain usually sees those f's as v's instead. Even when the students are told that they have missed half of the f's and are given a second chance to find them, there are still about half that miss them, and it is not an indicator of smart verses dumb students.

Somewhere in the Human Factors class Dirt brings up marriage, I think he manages to slip it in in that marital relationships often have an effect on work performance, I suppose that your work performance could be affected by just about all of your important relationships but Dirt loves to talk specifically about marriage, marriage is a big thing to Dirt, as his wife I'm kinda glad it is.

Some of the marriage stuff he covers is how guys don't like to talk much, lets say eight words a day worth of talking, and girls love to talk, uh I mean need to talk, something like sixty-five thousand gazillion words worth, and writing doesn't count. Any way, that propensity to few words in men is coupled with the need to solve problems. Problem solving, something men love to do and love to do quickly and with as few words as possible. It is true that not necessarily all men are short on words, we know a few men who seem to have a bit of chick in them when it comes to long windedness, so their problem solving ideas just come wrapped up in a few more words than other guys, but Dirt contends he has yet to meet a normal guy who doesn't immediately go into problem solving mode, but then we don't have lazy friends for too long.

Any way, Dirt tells his students, mostly men, that when they go home they need to be willing to listen to their wife, to hear all about her frustrations and irritations attentively and actively, but, and this is an important but he tells them, do not tell them what they should do about the problem. Actively listen (this means put down the remote or the newspaper or the lap top, and really listen, ask questions, then when she is nearly done, ask her what SHE thinks is a way out of the problem or situation.

He has some students that shine on his information or think that they don't need to apply it, he has the rest of the quarter to "get" to them, but every once in a while one of his students actually takes it in right away. This quarter one did and came back to tell Mr. Vick about it.

This student, we will call him Orlando, came to school the next day beaming. He told Mr. Vick that he felt great, more relaxed than he has felt in the morning in a long time. Then he told Mr. Vick that he used what Mr. Vick told him the day before.

It just so happened that his wife came home in a rather foul mood. Things had not gone well at her work. Orlando said that normally he would listen for a minute, get the gist and then start telling her what she should do, just like what Mr. Vick says most men do, so he stopped himself abruptly and decided to try out what Dirt, uh Mr. Vick, told him to do. He actively listened. He asked her attentive but sensitive questions. He said he really let her talk and talk through all manner of side issues and "stuff."

But because Orlando was attentive and actively listening she got through her need to talk fairly quickly and began the wind down. He asked her what SHE thought she ought to do, and she worked her way through a couple of possibilities, just like Mr. Vick said would happen. At the end of the conversation Orlando said she earnestly looked at him and sincerely thanked him for listening.

After Orlando told Mr. Vick about how it really worked and how thankful he was for Mr. Vick's information he repeated how his day was already going better than his usual days and how he felt so much more relaxed. Dirt and I are pretty sure that Orlando's wife took him down the hallway, as we say around here, that night. Always a win win situation Mr. Vick says.

Mr. Vick is thankful that he learned the things about marriage that he has over the years, his only regret is that he didn't learn them earlier, but he says, better late than later. And he is so grateful that he learned them that he really likes passing the information along to others. The information is good, Mr. Vick isn't living in a fantasy where he just thinks those things are working, they are. I am a far far better wife than I was when we were first married, I could be better but the poor guy doesn't have very good basic material to work with. But ultimately, and I've said it before but it bears repeating, that it is the man who makes a good wife.

Those of us in Christian circles have all heard of the Proverbs Thirty-one Woman and some of us raised our daughters to be just such a gal. But after being Mr. Vick's wife and having the fortunate pleasantry of growing and maturing under his gentle wing of protection and love, I say that Momma Lemuel wasn't telling her son to find the perfect girl so much as she was telling him to be the husband who would have such a wife.

Those active traits and abilities the Proverbs Thirty-one Woman has are not seen in a young bride, the potential is there, that is for sure, but potentials are either developed or lost. His character, as the leader of his family, is reflected in his family, not the other way around. I'm glad I'm not a man, they have a tough job for sure.

Living Among The Window Ledge People

So I've said a few time before and promised an explanation of not having rules especially in departments where some expect us to have rules.

Our daughters, all four, have never dated and won't. Two are now married. Some folks then wonder what our "rules" look like, how it is we "do" that. How do we keep them from dating, what our definition of dating is, when they will get to make that choice for themselves and what the consequences for rule breaking in our house looks like.

They seem to have at least a brain strain or more like a brain fracture when we say we don't have a no-dating rule. "Then they can date if they want to?"

"No."

"So then you have dating rules."

"No."

Eyes glaze over and they shake their head and wonder if we are just being obstinate or silly or knowing us slightly, both.

We see it like this.

We don't have rules about walking on the window ledge when you are in a building five stories up and better.

But we seem to live in a society that once you are above the fifth floor, the only accepted way of getting from room 502 to 534 say, is to climb out on the ledge and walk hopefully to the corresponding window and then climb back in.

We stand in room 502 knowing that we need to get to 534 and listen to insane people talk about how easy and sort of fun it is to go by way of the ledge. They seem to think we are nuts for thinking it absurd to go about in this manner. They have always gotten from room to room that way, they are fine. Only a few folks fall to their death, and some survive to come up and climb right back out on that ledge.

Sorry, but we think you are crazy. You have perfectly good hallways. Why would you want to risk the fall, the chance that you might not be at the right window, so many other pit falls of taking the window ledge instead of the hallway.

But because we live in a society that refuses to take the hallway from room to room, we seem to have a no-window-ledge rule. Because what do you say when someone starts climbing out on the ledge and looks back at you and says, "Are you coming?"

"No, what are you, nuts? We don't use the ledge."

"Oh, you have a window ledge rule don't you?"

"Well I didn't before today, didn't know I needed one."


That is how we feel about dating. We don't really need a no-dating rule because quite frankly it is as ridiculous as getting from room to room via a window ledge. It doesn't assure you that you will actually get to the room you are seeking and on top of that it is plum dangerous and unnecessary to boot. It is just that nearly everyone in our society climbs out the window and goes along the window ledge.

We firmly believe and it has been proven that God will bring along your spouse when and where you need them. It will be evident, not necessarily just to the couple involved, but to their immediate community. It will be confirmed and known to those who need to know.

If God cares about the hairs on my head, the job I hold, the house I live in, the vacation I take, why would he not care about the second most important relationship, topped only by my relationship to Him? And care enough to bring the person that I need, and needs me, into my life at the appropriate time?

I do not need to entertain myself until then, get to know the opposite sex, and play around with falling off the ledge. This is baggage that gets in the way of the eventual relationship He will bring to me, and is the makings of footholds in my life that allows Satan to climb all over me.

And that is just the stuff that is bad for me personally. Dating also allows for me to defraud others. The people I date, when they think I care more about them than I do, they are defrauded. I can't possible be honest with how little I do care or they would break it off and I would not be able to gain the personal pleasure that I get from having someone to do things with. Having to do things alone or with your brother or your mom or dad, is a pitiful drag and down right embarrassing why would I be honest and make myself have to get through day to day life in that embarassing uncomfortable manner?

I also defraud their family and mine. They become close to me and my family to them, only to loose when we say it didn't work out. They are left with an unusable Christmas gift in the closet when we timely break up in November so that we don't have to do that uncomfortable Christmas, but we aren't really that into one another, thing. They are left with emotions that have no place to go now, or they continue to get together with my ex because for some reason they seem to like them better than me and they waited so long for a brother or a sister and now it looks like they will have to wait even longer and won't that be weird when I finally do get hitched what will they do with my old ex that they still like?

Not to mention the constant danger of slipping off the ledge and plummeting to the death of our purity. Physically and emotionally as well. And it is not enough just to "avoid" actually falling. We believe that to constantly tell yourself you cannot do a certain something, but enjoying getting up to certain edges only to exasperatingly back off before it is too late, is as dangerous to future intimacy as actually doing what you are not supposed to until you have committed yourself before your God and community.

So no, we don't have rules against dating any more than we have rules of walking on the fifth story window ledge.

More later. As always. Please pelt us with comments and questions, it spurs us on.

How the Heck!?! or Quick, Before a Week Goes By!

Warning: Pictures on this blog often have nothing to do with what I am talking about and sometimes they illustrate my words nicely, today they do both.

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One of my favorite posts of recent, (A Flag On the Ceiling and a Promise Kept ) I found had been turned from a post (it actually had two comments) into a draft. How the heck did that happen?

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Bucha know, I think that I will say that that will be my last promise kept. No, I mean that I won't be taking in any more awards or tags for quizzes into my dark secret life.

Mr. Howell would like some of that Otter Pop please.

I don't really deserve any awards and I have no dark secret life. What you see is what you get. But mostly because they, awards and such, take me a century to attend to and I go to bed with that same "you have a paper due in a couple of days" gut ache I used to have when I was a student. Sometimes assignments are not helpful.

Aksel says, "No one goes in unless they come out with an Otter Pop,

and not a banana flavored one either."

But iffen' you really want to know something, ask, I'll tell, eventually. But it will be with a huge long verbose explaination. That I am good at. I can't get through anything without a lot of words. Must be why I'm not all that into Facebook. I don't have bumperstickers on my car and I don't do Faceboook very well at all.

Steph and the boys enjoying Otter Pops

in the Bedouin style tenting I have up around the house to keep it cool.

I will say, that in a day or two I will have a Facebook prompted scathing review of nonsensical and poor use of words. And folks, its not just a word choice nit pick. You say something to kids, young men and women (known by some people as teenagers) and nine times outta ten the crap sticks and it fosters a mess. We need to be mindful of what we set up in young people. Luke 17:1-2, (oh and the warning is also in Matthew and Mark just in case you think it is a fluke)

Mind you I am not talking about being bold with the fledgling adults and saying harsh stuff to them, they often need, especially in this current its-all-about-the-kids culture, to hear that the universe does not revolve around them and they are not Queen or King Bee or a little Prince or Princess. I am talking about words that.... Oh what the heck I said a future post. This one is about catching up (again with the ketchup), the heat wave and garden stuff and other loose ends not starting another one.

King Brug standing guard at Dirt's Arbor Entrance to the Croquet Lawns.

Several of you asked what a brug was. Brug is shorthand for Brugmansia. You know, like Mum for Chrysanthemum. In actuality it is a water guzzling, fertilizer slurping monster as bad if not worse than tomatoes in small pots.

A Brug is a big fat baby when it comes to winter so not only am I its food and beverage slave all summer, but then I have to give it indoor lodging half the year. Sheesh! And since I love to have a crowd around me at all times, tossing roasted somethings here and pouring a porter there, I don't just have one of these I have five.

King Brug's courtier, Peach, actually beginning to bloom

(where's your bloom KB?)

Their leaves are quite holey this year because the uninvited Leaf Hopper Gangs have moved in in record numbers, bikes, leathers and all, but at least this year they will actually bloom outside. Last year I brought them in but didn't tuck them in bed for a couple of months because they had just budded in late September.

Next year's goal, get these lazy party boys to bloom in June or at least July!

If you have been a good "Dear Reader" and read my side board, you will know that I do a lot of "next year..." this time of year. For me August is "evaluation month" and September is actual "sit down and map out next year month" making September the real "New Year," resolutions and all, in my book. (Yes, if it were not for the ridiculousness of current academia Lanny would still be a student. I could address this issue right after I crack the whip on silly numbheaded "we wanna be cool" parents.)

Fragrant Cloud Hybrid Tea Rose in the Lawn Border Garden

Ahhh what better time that one's birthday month to go around and beat the tar out of one's self for the stupid stunts they tried to get away with. Or let others talk them into.
But not all "next year..." s are because of failures, sometimes they are because a "hey, I can do this, I might even get away with doing more" sweeps over you, while attempting to stay honest and humble.

North Garden sweet peas. Taken Tuesday of Extreme Heat Week

The pictures of Stephanie and the boys were taken at the height of our heat wave. It had been building for quite sometime and then peaked mid-week last week. Well this is also a picture taken last week. My sweet peas appreciated the knock down blast and the "now stay off" spritz of Neem oil and Epsom salts I gave the aphids a while back and now they are continuing to bloom with the promise of going all the way into fall.

In my two gallon sprayer I put in a splash of hippy dish soap, two and a half-ish tablespoons of Neem oil and a couple of tsp. of Epsom salts. I had blasted the the aphids hard with this (turn the tip of your sprayer to stream like your kitchen spray bottle in a water fight) and then went back over the whole plant with a lovely stay-on-the-leaves-you-great-little-solution misting spritz.

Princess Elizabeth Sweet Pea perfuming the North Garden
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I only did this because the sweet peas were heading south (no offense you southerners) before they really wanted to. And it was all the aphids' fault. My brugs may be holey and not blooming but the not blooming thing is from them not getting sun early enough in the year and not being fed steak and eggs for breakfast, two double deluxe cheese burgers and fries for lunch and a baron of beef for dinner every day.

And the holey thing isn't all that crucial. I'm not raising them for exhibition. So I would rather let the leaf hoppers think that they are safe and hopefully the lady bugs and lace wings will come in, knock their pompous rears off their bikes, and arrest the lot of them, while leaving a few to snack on later.

I do give them a spritz of Epsom salts. It helps their cell walls and bad bugs don't like crisp vegetation. Another reason to suspect them as evil greasers. Remember the bad guy in Ever After (1998)? The guy who hauled off Danielle (Drew Barrymore), when Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (Anjelica Huston) couldn't pay her bills anymore?

Pierre le Pieu?
Yeah that guy. He is who I think of when I think of nasty plant chomping bugs. Or slugs. Or...

Last Friday's harvest from the North Garden

So the sweet peas keep a coming and I am reminded that even in a summer like this one (slightly unusual for us, doncha think) they are not all that hard to keep blooming. They are one of my favorite flowers and I was glad to hear that a fellow at the flower market in Portland told my sister (a non-professional wedding flower doer) that more brides should carry sweet peas. I could not agree with him more.

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So my flower garden will always have sweet peas just in case there is a lovely bride who may need the perfect bouquet and not have the bucks to hire a zillion dollar florist. One of my secret dreams (that really isn't a secret) is to have Vicktory Farm and Gardens be used as a wedding place by people who understand what a wedding is. One of the other not-so-secret dreams is to own a tavern with a farm near by.

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Back to the sweet peas, I have always attempted to grow them but often succumb to some foil or another. Usually it is defeatism at the hands of moles, yeah I know they are suppose to be omnivorous but funny how I lose my just planted pea seeds to fresh mole tunnels.

If they, moles, aren't eating the seeds and it is really herbevorous voles coming down the mole tunnels then all I've got to say is Grahame missed by not having a vole in his story and Lobel should have done Mole and Vole instead of Frog and Toad, 'cause my two fellas must be a knock out communicaten' team!

Hmmm

Did you see what Janie saw in the harvest shot?

Speaking of moles?

I'm beginning to think that Dirt now has pet moles or has formed a coalition with the enemy. I never see them in the lawn anymore. Only in my gardens. And I really have a hard time with the Ratters going after them in my gardens. They may go after them on the edge or in the lawn, I don't mind, but the Ratters are about as mindful of my plants as Dirt is. And trust me, that ain't much!

" You know, you could have called on me. I've gotten them before you know. You didn't need to waste your time setting this trap. I could have gotten it and shook the living daylights outta it!"

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I think Dirt is sending them to my gardens so that I will let him keep his lawn and desist in edging farther and farther into his domain. Mmmm.

Well Dirt, you are stuck with me, my fat... and my flowers. Your mole coalition will not deter me. I heard you say that you like my flowers, yes, I had to eaves drop to hear the compliment, but it was there all the same. I know how you really feel. Not unlike sleeping under flowery, billowy white sheets and comforters, you like what I bring to the party.

"I think I will sink into depression"

I waited too long to harvest my garlic, (some of it is in the basket here), we got over thirty pounds but only one batch of softnecks were worth braiding, the others went into net sleeves like the hard necks.

Thirty pounds outta get Dirt at least to Christmas before I have to buy it from Cash n' Carry in large food service sized boxes. In the middle of winter there is a certain constant odor in my bedroom. (He smells like a hippy-girl-massage-therapist, minus the patuouli oil of course.) I'm glad I don't have an over zealous fear of burning a candle while I sleep. The off beat snoring is hard enough to sleep by, then you add nut job radio playing all night long and the smell of garlic drenched pores and I am driven to the couch, which really only last about a half-hour or so before I realize I can't sleep there either.

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I am not married to my best friend. I like my best friends, every single one of them. But I would not take all that from them, trust me.

Unmarked Lily in the Lawn Border Garden

And no best friend of mine would be able to step on my twenty blossom Casa Blanca lily as it begins to emerge from its winter slumber and live to tell about it let alone continue to be my "best" friend. Dirt and I friendly and pals, no doubt. But best friends don't marry, men and women marry, and the bond is far far beyond that of best friendness.

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If my best friend and I "break up" I am free to have another, quite frankly in my world I have scads of "best" friends, I am not monobestfriendous. But I do not have such a loose connection to my spouse. We are now one. We were the moment, the very split second we said, "I do." Neither one of us can sever that bond, no court of law can, no amount of miles can. It was a done deal twenty-eight years and ten months ago.

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Saved and replanted "Easter Lilies"

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It doesn't matter what he sounds like or smells like; it matters little what he says or doesn't say; it doesn't matter if he has grown too much in a direction I chose not to or too little in an area I did; it doesn't matter if he changed and is no longer the man I married; it doesn't matter if he still is the man I married and not the man I thought he would become; it doesn't matter if he makes a hundred little mistakes or one giant one that even the Pope might say was too much; it doesn't even matter if he made forty-sixty zillion kabillion of those giant mistakes.

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We are one.

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We will always be one. Until one of us departs and goes to heaven. And then when we are both there we won't care that the other is there because all we will "care" for is the face to face presence of Christ our Lord.

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Oh wait, this post is about the heat wave and gardening.

Jackie O's Lipstick Abutilon

Container planting takes lots o' water. And when something takes lots o' water it takes lots o' feeding. Fortunately not everything in containers at Vicktory Farm and Gardens is a out of control thirsty hunger tyrant like the brugs. Jackie is very pleasant and very thankful for her daily portion of water and weekly feeding.

Petunias in flower pockets growing slowly for the end of September at the fair.

This flower pouch thing though, I'm not so stinking sure about. The verdict is out on this one for now. Jackie gets to stick around 'cause she is easy going, King Brug and his buddies are still on because they are eventually handsome and exotic. But these flower pouch things are a lot of nusince. I will do them again next year with some modifications in water and fert. delivery but if they are not performing better, read that, easier, then replaced they will be!

What is this?

I really enjoy participating in Fishing_Guy's weekly "What's It?" game. Well, that is when I remember to get over there pronto on Tuesday's. And while I am no master at macro lens (my camera matches my ability - limited and small) I thought I could toss this one out there and perhaps stump a few of you.

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Hints? Come on, do you really need one Dear Reader? Okay after that rambling yappy post I suppose you are a little tired.

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Remember this was taken durring the hottest days we have seen in the PNW in a lifetime (Jim Foremanesque hyperbole there). My dad loved watching Marcus Welby M.D. and he, Dr. Welby, was always seen eating a type of this at the end of each show. And now with all those hints and the full picture I really must insist that you hit it square on the nose, flavor and all.

Dear Reader, I pray that you can unmistakeably see the working of God, His mercy, His grace and His miracles in your life and through your life this week. I have seen great things these last few days. I've become free-er in Him every moment. And more a bonded servant to Him each second of my journey on the race. I feel I can race no faster than I am right now. Yet I feel I can not not race faster than I am at this moment. My joy could not be greater than it is today. Until I tell you tomorrow.

Ad Addendem

Please note Dear Reader, that in the post where I exposed my fond desire for a Dear Grandmamma, I did my best to point out that it isn't just Dirt that is in need of extra care. I am most likely the household's largest slob and project spreader-outter. It is just that when you add the dear man to the full day daily mix it does indeed get deep around here.

I'm not a very good conventional wife, I like to lift heavy objects and I like to do it out-of-doors. This has never been a complete disappointment to Dirt as he has all along appreciated that I desire to give a hand and flat out be the one to do some of the out-of-doors tasks. And that I am fairly capable of dealing with weights of more than five pounds without having to call him over or crush something in the process is a big plus in his world. So what if he has to eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner sometimes? Although a steady diet of such is rather a bummer, I actually am the first to tire of not having "normal" suppers like my mom always had. Oh wait, I'm the mom now.

He says he married me for my .. let's call them sturdy yet shapely.. thick ankles and my mom's apple pie. He has repeated that and never wavered. He says that when he saw my ankles he knew I would never go lame. (He has skinny wimpy ankles and has "gone lame" often.)

The only problem with his reasons was that he made an assumption that if the mother could cook (and enjoyed it, day in, day out, morning, noon and evening) so did the daughter, ooops. My mother was nearly dead before I could roll a pie crust and get it to the pan, and so was I with the frustration of trying. I became very fond of cake. And I am certainly fond of cooking, at times horrifyingly passionate even, but the key is "at times." If I am consistent in anything, it is my inconsistancy. There isn't even any rhyme let alone reason to my inconsistent moods.

Oh, I cook when I don't feel like it. I'm not saying I am such a dud that I won't. The food from those moments is however perhaps two components away from making a good pesticide. It sure as heck is at the very least "just food" at that point and not life-sustaining love in the form of a culinary delight.

Outside is where I wanna be. I do not however, do anything mechanical any more, well obviously mechanical or at least maintainence on the car. (The word maintainance could be the dead give away, maintainence is not a project.) It is why I married a mechanic. Well that and the fact that my dad was a mechanic.

So actually, if our Dear Grandmamma could please add changing oil, filling window cleaner dispensers and a myriad of other car maintanence sorta stuff that I'd prefer to block from my brain, I am sure Dirt would appreciate that also. It would free him up to learn to make apple pie before the last of his girls leave.

My Daughters Crack Me Up

The other day our youngest Vick Chick, Anna Banana, Peanut Butter, maker of phenomenal pies, bread, dinners and more, all from scratch, was going to make the dinner of her daddy's fond desire, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. She does the best grilled cheese of anyone I know, it is an art form. That night the sandwiches were wonderful as usual, the tater tots baked to perfection. But the soup? It was a bit strong tasting.


"Anna," I say to her, "What did you do to the soup?"


"I don't know! It's awful isn't it? I even added a little cream to it, and it is still awful."


"What kind of soup did your daddy bring home?" I inquire, knowing that she has on occasion used the store bought tomato soup out of those cool hermetically sealed boxes, but the can she was unfamiliar with.


"It was that nasty canned stuff. I had to use three cans" She says.


"Did you add a whole can of milk for every can of soup?"


"No." She replied indignantly, "It didn't say to."


Knowing that this is also my incredibly impatient child, at times over the top impatient, I asked to see said can because in her favor it may not have been the can I thought it was.


It was.


Give the girl a sack of flour and a couple of apples and she turns out a beautiful pie or with a little yeast a nice crusty loaf of bread, give her a bag of peas and some quick instructions while you work in the garden and she has a lovely hearty soup waiting for when you're done, but she has no time for a stupid can of tomato soup.



Then there is Bettispaghettie, Betti-kins


Betti-kins aka Elisabeth (not pronounced like Elizabeth) is my oldest at home girl.


Sometimes her humor surprises the heck outta me because she is so dog gone quiet most of the time. But her father is rubbing off on her more and more and she is beginning to make up songs about whatever she sees or is doing at the moment.


The other day while she was suggesting to her little (nearly taller than her) sister that the dogs needed tending she came up with this song and it soon became the anthem for the weekend. It is sung with a little western twisted tune (where'd she come up being such a western music person I'm not totally sure but in my need to place blame I might look in a hedgerow somewhere).


Give the dogs food and water,

It will change your life.

Never let your mother or your daughter,

hate your wife.


Now I don't care who you are, but that is downright funny to hear being sung by a gaggle of girls in the back seat of a big fat Ford 350 diesel dually going to the feed store to buy some hay and chicks.


But then if you think about it no truer words were sung. It isn't good for a man to allow his mom or his daughter to have ill feelings towards the woman he is married to.


I think we forget what that word married means. In cooking you can put a stew together hastily and bring it up to a hot and steamy temperature with some quick heat but you will be able to taste the full flavor of the individual ingredients if eaten separately. However, if you take the time to marry the flavors then you could never again completely separate out the different components as if they were separate foods on a plate. They are married, now one, inseparable. The meat essence has oozed from the bits and melded into the softened carrot chunks and the carrot fragrance has infected the potato, nothing can be separated from the other, not completely.


With stew it takes time, but through the miracle that God has created in human marriage it only takes a moment, a moment of a vow, an acknowledgement and the two are one, never again completely separable.


It doesn't take years of dating, a lengthy engagement or a big wedding, it only takes what the community accepts as an understanding of marriage and it is done, forever. One shot. You are married for the length of your life. You cannot get the other out of your skin, children or no children. They, the children, are not how you become one. God proclaims the married as one, not two living together until the children come; they are in fact one, one right now and one forever.


If the mother hates her child's spouse, she hates her very own child, for now the two, her child and another, are one flesh and always will be. The idea of a mother hating her child isn't healthy; for a mother to hate her child's spouse is to hate her child and that is crippling to a mother.


So the husband in Bet's song can't allow that to happen not just because he loves his wife but because he loves his mother and if his mother hates his wife, she hates him and if she hates him she does damage to that thing inside her that is a mother. She would be denying what she was created for, motherness.


When Jesus takes the thou shalt not murder thing to a whole other level with His Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5) he showed how our ill thoughts and words towards another is right in there with murder. Solomon, the wisest man, knew that a mother could never murder her own child without causing herself chaos and degradation. Connect the two.


Somewhat similarly, a daughter cannot be allowed to hate her mother for it will do her damage and her father cannot let that happen for it is the father's job to keep his daughter from harming herself. To hate her mother would do just that, harm the daughter. She came from this woman, she cannot stand in the kitchen with her hands on her hips, level her face to her mother's and scream her hatred for her without causing untold damage to herself. She hates her mother? She may as well hate herself. And as we know from Jesus' lesson to hate is to murder. Self-hatred is suicide. Self-hatred by the way is not the same as self-denial or self-control or selflessness, not in the least.


Need some more dots to connect? Commandment five says, honor your father and mother. In Ephesians it is pointed out as the first commandment with a promise. The promise is for a good and long life; “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”


The promise is not just a cookie that God gives for being good but a natural consequence in God's magnificent creation. And we know that a certain amount of time isn't really that same amount of time in God's perspective. Even in our own minds time can change; a good time, a happy and joy filled time is as productive, worthwhile and seemingly long even if it is shorter in actuality than a miserable retched time where regrets and disappointments live at the end.

If you hate yourself by hating whom you came from, who's DNA you have making your hair curly or your eyes green, then you are not going to live a good long life; it will be short and miserable even if you live to ninety-six.


So it may very well have been a silly spur of the moment Bettikins song but it is very, very true.

Sayings and Stuff

Beware dear reader my funny side is in a storage locker right now and my grumpy, introspective, foreboding, sack cloth and ashes side, is hung out today for all who wish to see it, endure it more likely. Quick, swing right past here, don't even glance down, if you just want to trollop through today having a gay old time.


Bumper stickers drive me crazy, reader board sayings... My jaw tightens, my teeth clench...

Okay, not all the time but most certainly more often than not, though I get what they are trying to say, I find them short sighted, narrow minded or plain foolish (not in a kicks and giggles sort of way more in a moronic sort of way).

Sometimes quotes are very good. I have a few favorite quotes myself. But sometimes, sometimes quotes can be as frustrating for me as a bumper sticker.

The item, bumper sticker or quote, could be what is true for the majority of folks but ought not to be. Or true in a sense but not the sense it then gets used for, abused for. Not unlike the bumper sticker, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven," while in a sense it is true I find it to be a load of crap.

Why? First off, forgiven is not a small matter as "just" implies, and secondly, forgiveness doesn't end with being forgiven as "just" indicates.

Because it is on a bumper sticker or some one's chest, it clearly announces straight away that the person sporting it does not care to be reminded that they may have offended a stranger, neighbor, sister, brother or God himself. Because after all, Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. Way to hold out that light in a corrupt and depraved generation. Woo-hoo! you go girl! Sista


Some quotes are like verses from Scripture, full of wisdom and guiding insight.

Some quotes may be insightful but they sure as heck should not guide us, these are often quotes of humorists. I read such a quote today. "Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that".--Unknown.

I'm sorry for the unfortunate reality for some people in that. I'm sorry that people see that as truth but do not see the scorn. The kicks and giggles we get at our inability to live like God desires us to. Our severe lack of accepting of His good gift and being content with what has been given, not resignation, but truly content.

I know dear reader, you're shaking your head right now. You are saying to yourself, "Oh Lanny, lighten up. No body lives by these clever, humorous sayings. They are just funny little light things."

I know, I'm a down right wet blanket kill joy aren't I?

But if something was not true would it be funny? Aren't things funny, make us chuckle because they could be true, usually for some unfortunate schmuck true most of the time?

Should we really find humor and a quiet little chuckle in something that is a sin? Yes, I said sin. Our discontentment is sinful and no less so in this very quote. The man or woman who was so indecisive as to covet his neighbor's plate is coveting his neighbor's spouse, that would make it, what, sin number 10?.

There oft is, unfortunately, truth in a quote such as this and we should be able to look at these and see the truth and the shame and be humbled into change, whether it be personally or be charged to make an impact that would change it in some one's life. They, poignant quotes, should spur us on to love and good deeds, not guffaws.

The restaurant quote is unfortunately an acceptable reality in a society where even though everyone signs up for the wedding vows that speak of "'til death do us part" they have a back up plan. But I dare say our response ought not to be kicks and giggles and a "good for the goose good for the gander" approach. But it ought to pull us up short and ask us, "Do you feel that way?"

If you do you better get it straight in your head, you better begin praying that the Holy Spirit imbue you with contentedness, godly contentedness. You better start praying and saying that while that used to be you it is not anymore and you are so glad you did not order what your neighbor ordered because you know that what you did order really is just what you needed and wanted. And maybe while you are at it you ought to confess and repent to your chicken Marsala that you really wanted it and not the veal parmigiana.

And if that isn't you in that quote, be bold, make it the cool thing to do to stand up and say; you never wanted anything but what you agreed to, the Chef prepared for you and the waiter brought you!


Okay, I'm done, you can take your hand off your bumper sticker now.

Have a great day! No really, I mean that!.

Apologies

"'I apologize' is the same as saying 'I'm sorry', unless you're at a funeral" Demeti Martin.

But I am not at a funeral so I will just say, "I apologize"." First to Mrs. Palin for spelling her name wrong in oooh Wait, Did You Just Reveal... . Spelling like a frog on acid, again.

Second, for any offense or confusion my last post Did God Say? may have caused. . I was attempting to point out that God's hate for divorce is from the very moment of the joining of the man and wife in what ever ceremony that causes them and others to acknowledge that they are man and wife (I really cannot hear that phrase any more without having Princess Bride flash in my head).

Yes, when children are involved it increases the saddness, making it even more evident that you are ripping flesh apart and that the violence effects more than just the couple. However, this morning, prior to my leaving for the hospital I was confronted with the crazy notion that a young married couple's parents wished that they had not gotten pregnant early in their marriage, four years, because now divorce would really be off the table until the children were grown, and that was most unforutunate for their son whom they had hoped would come to his senses. These are Christians, I speak of and to, who believe in the Word of God. If they did not believe in the God that hates divorce I would have no beef with them on this.

Yes, I like children. I like them so much I have a few. But everything good we do in this world is not for the sake of the children. And everything bad is not bad because it happens to children or children are effected. God is grieved when we sin, even if there are no kids in sight.

It is this kind of muddled thinking, 'it is bad only if the kids see', that is causing this nation some real problems.

Cheating on taxes, or whatever fraud you do, isn't bad as long as the kids don't find out or is acceptable if you don't have any kids yet.

Calling your wife a four letter word isn't bad as long as the kids don't hear.

Calling your husband an idiot is okay as long as the kids don't hear.

Watching a movie about illicit love affairs isn't bad as long as we rate it R and leave the kids at home.

These are the muddled thoughts of our culture and the list could go on and on and on. And we all contribute to it, I will be the first to raise my hand on that. But what I need, what my God says I need, what he has provided for me in the form of Christian companionship, which includes my husband and children, is someone or someones who will gently tap me on the shoulder and ask if my thinking hasn't gotten muddled. I need someone to love me enough to pull my head out of the fire. (Jude 23) And what I need is the humility to take the correction without wanting to point out their muddled thinking. Because the truth is the truth even if it is spoken by a donkey, or a jack ass, as the case may be.

So my apologies if I was too strident with God's word earlier and my apologies again if I only made things worse here and not helped one bit and you are still offended. Sometimes Dirt would like to ban me from reading certain books of the Bible or at least many chapters, I read them and then it is "look out for the wailing, gnashing of teeth, sack cloth, ashes and greiving for men's souls". My close friends are nodding yes indeed, aren't you?. I feel bad mostly because I would not wish that my strident behavior ever malign the word of God. Titus 2:5

Did God Say?

Was God quoted in Malici as saying "I hate divorce when children are involved," "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment when children are involved," ?

Or did Matthew and Mark quote Jesus as saying, "and the two will become one flesh after the baby arrives,"?

Ahhh I didn't think so. The correct verses are:

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. Malichi 2:16

Matthew 19:3-9 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Mark 10:3-12 And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” In the house His disciples also asked Him again about the same matter. So He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

If we are not allowed to change the written Word to fit our circumstance or culture, why do we change it with abandon in our hearts?

People get all worked up over verb tenses and proper translations when it is hardly recognizable that there is any difference from the original intent yet in our hearts we completely rewrite the word of God until it is hardly recognizable as the word of God and that's okay, we support one another's complete foolishness?!?!?!.

Attend to the Word of God and lean not on our own understanding and if a good friend is subverting the word of God love them enough to step in and show them their error, but be careful lest the doo hit you.

oooh Wait, Did You Just Reveal...

Personal hypocrisy? Well maybe, but did I say I was perfect or Dirt?

So in case you didn't smell the toast burning I will point out what may have gone undetected. I will even try to explain it without coming to my defense, I will let God do that, or discipline me, which ever.

I mentioned in my last post My Old Fair Job that I had a, gasp, job.

"But what? You're a stay at home mom. You said Mrs. Palin would not be a role model for your girls."

"Yep. And if we peer into my recent past you will see that I worked two days a week at the local hardware store just before my second daughter's wedding."

"How do you justify that?"

"Well I don't, but let me try to explain how Dirt and I came to be at peace with it."

The two different jobs, one only lasting two weeks each year, got my family a little extra spending money for two celebrations.

Neither job was necessary because Dirt and I were living beyond our means, we have credit cards for that, *joke*. The reality that it was not necessary is a big one, Dirt and I knew that we would not feel we were in the position to fudge on principles because of a job that our family had to have. I would not "have" to stay late with the boss alone because my job depended on it, I would not "have" to work if my family started to get out of whack and children became disobedient because I was at work.

Neither job put me in an authoritative position over a man or men. Not that Dirt and I feel that it is wrong intrinsically, Deborah in Judges was not condemned for taking a authoritative position, not like Onan got a "sin" named after him for his actions. It goes more to the point that Dirt and I recognize one of the footholds Satan has in my life from past sin is a twinge of feminism. If I, Lanny Person, had a position of authority over a man I might have to put way to much spiritual energy into not coming home wearing pants. *figuratively - I do wear them literally* I absolutely do not boss my husband around, nor should I. I put my two cents in frequently and it even causes him to change his mind but Dirt assures me it isn't because I am being bossy, just more capable of seeing the bigger picture or the detail in that instance, for which he is thankful because I have occasionally saved time or money or both. I am after all his helpmate and that isn't just to hand him wrenches although that is one of my favorite things to do for him, really. But this is a line that couples, with the help of close godly friends, need to figure out for themselves.

Neither job was a career that I had invested a great deal of time or money into developing. We feel that it is very dangerous for women to enter into a field of interest that would cause them to feel that they had to continue in it even when circumstances pointed to their need to stay home and unplug from the work world. This can easily be seen when a young woman has racked up big debt for a college education so that she "has something to fall back on" (as if God wasn't enough to fall back on). Not only does the young woman have the debt to cover but then, even after it is finally paid off, she and others around her may wonder why you would spend so much time and energy on something you don't really use. Because really even though motherhood is a tough, hard, thankless (by some), brain draining job, you can do it without a college degree, my grandmother and many, many, many (generations of many) like her would agree.

Remember here folks this is all to explain Dirt's and my seemingly inconsistent positions, or hypocrisy. Not to tell you you are wrong if you don't believe like we do. If the Holy Spirit chooses to work on you like he did Dirt and I years ago then I would of course recommend that you listen to Him instead of putting him off for years like Dirt and I did. If you are not seeing it and think we are whacko nut jobs, that's okay too, really, I won't bug you, I won't even say "I told you so" when one of you has an affair, physically or emotionally or your children are a mess, not that moms working causes that or anything.

But for now I gotta go visit a young friend in the hospital who is only at twenty-seven weeks gestation.

I'll pick this up later but I might want to post about fun frivolous things first, like the backhoe digging out the ponds at this very minute - What a great sound! But if it was a neighbor's sound, now that might be a different story.

Dirt on dirt.

Tag? I'm It? Family Secrets? Not No More!

Kathy tagged me and I believe that I am to tell five things you do not know about me. Which could be very different from telling five things you might not know which then could be an extremely short list - five things to be exact. But I am going with the first interpretation only cause I am feeling very writy.

Since I am writing to such a mixed crowd of people, some have known me for over eighteen years, some have only known me here for months or weeks, and some somewhere in between, I am just gonna let 'er rip. When you have discovered your five things you didn't know about me you can be done. (There may be things on this list that you knew but did you know I knew, and isn't that the point of getting to know someone? There are things you may even have guessed about me but did you know them for sure?)

When I am done I will not be tagging anyone else 'cause I doubt I have five people who read this who have not already been tagged by this whole thing but if you feel like playing along and you haven't been tagged then by all means "tag, your next" .

I love and worship one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I have loved him ever since I can remember. When I was just a little first grader and experienced my first Lenten season of being in Mass everyday and every Friday going through the Stations of the Cross I marveling at what Christ had done. I felt so close to him. I loved to gaze upon the pictures and crucifix that depicted His love for me, for man. And I was amazed, every day amazed. I know that I became a Christian sometime before that point in my history.

I really enjoy living on a farm not to far from where I grew up. I don't even mind that we have only rented and that we have no "family" home to pass down. Who knows, Dale, our landlord and his wife Norrine, could possibly die tomorrow and we would be without a house for ourselves or our animals. But that is really okay with Dirt and I, we are confident that God will have something in store for us that we cannot even imagine.

While I do not have a conversion "experience" that I can recall there were times in my life when I wished I could fake a new one so that I could have one to talk about but most of all so that I would not feel so crushingly horrible about my hideous rebellion toward the God I loved and desired to follow ever since I could remember.

I spell like a frog on acid. That's wierd doncha think. Oh wait, that word is "wierd" because it really is weird, even though the w is not a c, nor is the ie pronounced as "a" as in "neighbor and weigh" But I have no excuse for stolve, or most of the zillion other words I cannot seem to bring myself to spell correctly.

I am forever thankful that God's mercy and grace extended to me as a believer even after I committed every possible sin, most of them many times over, in just five years between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. I was a murderer, a cheat, a marriage ruin-er, a liar, a God deny-er, a fornicator, a parent dishonor-er, an idol worshipper, a thief. And not in a sermon-on-the-mount sorta way but in a ten commandments sorta way, but God had reconciled me to Him, not just positionally, eternally, but here on earth yesterday and today. I may stumble but I know longer wallow in filth and vomit.

I like apple pie, I didn't as a child, but I do now. I also really enjoy mincemeat (lots of whip), pecan (warm, lots of whip), cherry (warm with ice cream), any berry especially huckleberry on Thanksgiving, pumpkin (lots of whip), sour cream raisin, lemon meringue. I like to make banana and coconut cream and I'll eat them, but not excitedly.

Here is something else you may not know, about me. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no one is un-redeemable, and it is heinous for any Christian to believe that any unbeliever or screwed-up-believer is beyond God's loving hand. I trust my God and I know my God can do anything, absolutely anything He chooses to do. But for any one of us to write someone off, to give up on someone, to say we have said enough, prayed enough, waited for long enough, been in pain over for far too long, think that they are beyond the touch of God, then betcha by golly wow we better be darn glad God does not think the same of us.

I really, really like commas; and semi colons are just too cute not to use a few each day!

I love my husband with the love God instilled in me to have for Dirt. I love my sons and daughters with the very same love from God.

My mother, bless her constantly-challenged-but-now-resting-with-God heart, was an English teacher who could write in Latin (of course there was no one in my world who could verify that what she wrote was correct but I believed her). She was awesome and very sought after for her talents as a teacher, a teacher of teachers in a field that she co-authored and later as a story teller. She would be bursting at the seams over this year's election, and busting with pride that finally her daughter was voting the right way (but still sad that I have not yet grasped the art of spelling or the capability of writing a decent, readable sentence)

We only have eight cats at the moment.

I dislike the phrase "in-law". God knit first Eric and then Mike and someday, God willing, two more men into Dirt's and my heart as if they were our very own sons. So how can I call them "in-law" when it is hardly the "law" that put them in my heart? Aside from my feelings even is the fact that God made Eric one with Steph and Mike one with Michelle, when I love one I love the other, the two can not be separated ever. I do however understand that I am very weird and no one understands when I say I have two married daughters but no sons-in-law.

We have nine dogs and it is the first time on this farm that the dogs out number the cats.

I suspect that my father would be busting out of himself over this election. He would have been wild over both McCain and Palin. I could almost hear him cheering with me as I listened to both speeches.

Mis-spellings are not the same as mis-typings where my fingers forget who they are and think they are a different finger or one of my "clever" fingers rushes ahead of one of my slower fingers. As clever as those fingers think they are it is interesting that they make the same mistake of arrogant impetuousness over and over again. (You may not have know that I think of my fingers as nearly separate entities, you may have guessed or you may not be surprised but did you know?)

My father owned four small businesses and was a consultant to others by the time cancer made him stop doing everything including living here on earth. During his life people often said that he reminded them of John Wayne, which always pleased my dad as he enjoyed the comparison. He was a hard working man, who never asked of his few employees what he wasn't willing to do himself. He had huge permanently stained hands, hands I thought all real dads had. He wore jeans that he cuffed.

I had a blue room as a girl, when I wasn't being shoved off to the sister in the yellow room. But when they had both left for college I resided in the blue room. Which I loved until our house was burglarized and the look out creep stubbed out a cigarette on my head board and one of the creeps defecated on the floor of the yellow bedroom.

I don't believe the death penalty should be used in any circumstance, in spite of how I feel at the moment of hearing about some horrific crime, see the statement above where I say that there is no one un-redeemable, and perhaps you'll understand why, but then maybe those two are totally disconnected for you, that's okay.

I have three brothers and two sisters. Did I mention we were a Catholic family? Just seven kids shy of a visit from the bishop or cardinal I can't remember which. Most of us married, all of us have children. I was the youngest but the first grandmother among my siblings. Their children were all waiting to finish college and save enough for elaborate honey-moons. Did I mention we once were a Catholic family?

I like horses, especially their fragrance. I like gardening and flowers for those fragrances too.

My mom's yard was featured in Sunset Magazine. My father hand dug most of our Christmas trees which he later planted in the yard. Not to mention all the "green" deer he came home with from hunting trips, no need to skin those "deer" just plant them. So my folks' house and yard got the write up but my dad had already passed by then. But I guess for him and where he is that was really small potatoes.

In some of my past gardens I have even grown my own dried beans. Did I mention that I live in the Pacific Northwest, the wetside? (pat of the back please)

My eyes are hazel, my hair used to be blonde then it went dark and now it is grey, not dyed. I'm 5'6.5" I have big feet and even larger hands.

My mom is from North Dakota and my dad from Okanogan County.

I scream when I unexpectedly see mice, although I don't hold my scream for as long as I used to, which used to be about five minutes (maybe they could die by being screamed at). Mind you I am not afraid of them and would even play and hold them (if I was sure they didn't have rabies (I read Ol Yeller)).

My folks were very aware of the hardships of the Depression. My mom witnessed first hand how finances destroyed the people she loved. She and my father worked very hard to ensure that that would never happen in their own family.

Dirt, my husband, has had his nickname ever since he was little. It has to do with being a catcher and the dirt sliding down his face from putting the catchers mask back on and then it stuck because of signs that would say: "fill dirt wanted" (Phil pronounced fill, get it?) But I like the signs that say: "Clean fill wanted." He works in aviation mechanics (he teaches it) and consequently always smells like my least favorite fragrance - fuel. Did I mention that one of my father's businesses was a service station (ask your dad what those are) and a fuel oil delivery service. Loved the dad, loved the station and the trucks, hated the smell.

I am really pretty cranky (a nice polite term) that we de-regulate the banking industry under the guise that everyone should own their own home, 'home ownership after all is what make this country strong' (gag) and now we are bailing people out right and left and the final straw for this camel, we, the government, are taking over the main idiots in all this - oh wait, no, the main idiots are the bright boys who deregulated the banking industry, gee golly who are they related too. So much for that "small government" promise eh? Small where you want to be small. Oh, but lets not call this welfare! Okay I'm done (for now).

I have eaten Lutefisk. And I am still alive.

My grandma worked for Scoop Jackson. This same grandmother was raised in a soddy in South Dakota before her family permanently settled in the Okanogan Valley.

I have told my daughters that if they have a problem with their spouse they may come over for a cuppa sumpin, a Kleenex or two and then I will send them back before the sun goes down because God hates divorce and to rip a body in two is a very violent thing indeed. And woe to the man, or woman, who for what ever earthly reason willingly, knowingly participates in such violence.

We had a daylight basement, on the back side of our house the basement was half exposed. There was an exterior door from the basement on that side of the house and my folks always referred to the walled in area that served as the entryway as a bilcoe or maybe bilcole. But as usually I can not find that term anywhere in the universe. My folks had a lot of names for things no one else had.

I believe that it is possible (but not probable) for the spirit of a dead person to "visit" you, but that it is entirely wrong, wrong, wrong for a live person to "bug" a dead person.

I am positive that my father planted barberry bushes outside my brother's windows for a reason other than landscape effect. He should have planted them all around the house, and in my brothers' car and at my school and…..

What we call intuition God calls discernment and it is a gift He gives to us. To bad we don't listen better to it.

One more "political" thing, Sarah Palin will not be a "role model" for my daughters, there are very few women who are, unless they are mostly at home with their children, single and working selfishlessly for the Lord or abandoned single moms working and fighting for their children in a cold hearted world. So I have some friends who my daughters are pointed to and people like Mother Theresa or some saints in the past (catholic concept here but not necessarily canonized). People in politics rarely ever move to "role model" in my brain. But that doesn't mean I won't vote for them, even vote enthusiastically. Unfortunately for my children their very own mother doesn't constitute as a role model for them. They darn well better do a darn better job than I have, even recently. Even non-role models can do things for us and teach us things.

Dirt is on vacation and so I have one more hindrance to getting things done.

I am verbose but then that is obvious by the time you got here. So on that note I end.

Kathy I hope you learned five knew things - it is hard to do for someone I have known for almost twenty years.