The boy in the middle

There are several reasons for me to love this picture.

The reason I am posting it here today is because of the little boy in the middle.  While his PawPaw was searching the internet and his daddy was glancing at a magazine, Bennett was gladly turning the pages of his little book.

He looked so happy.  And felt so secure.  And is so loved.

Creative adrenalin

I think I am running on a little creative adrenaline lately.  I have been overflowing with ideas for cookies to bake, dresses to sew and quilts to piece.

These cookies were for a bridal shower.  I know you can't tell, but they are pink and white.  

This little dress was for Lily for her birthday.  I made a dress for Bella's birthday, too, but forgot to take a picture until after it was wrapped.  The dresses aren't similar, but they share the same silly chicken.

During this overload of creativity, I am sad to say that the bathrooms have not cleaned themselves and the floors have refused to stay swept.  Hopefully, some house cleaning adrenalin will hit me soon.

Chippy spends the night

One day this week when Daryl was at Daniel's house, Daniel brought his chipmunk to Daryl and said, "You can take my chipmunk home with you.  You can sleep with him and bring him back tomorrow."

To understand exactly how generous Daniel was being, you would need to know how much he loves his chipmunk.  And his gecko and his puppy dog and his lizard and Minnie's bear.  These stuffed animals are very real to him.  They get prime seating to watch TV when he is at our house and we make sure they get something good to eat.  Daniel loves all animals.  He is the one who will find a dead cricket in the basement and need a container to put it in so he can take it home.

So, when he offered for the chipmunk to spend the night with us, and away from Daniel, we felt honored.

I called him to thank him for being so kind.

Me:  Daniel, thank you so much for letting your chipmunk come spend the night with us.

Daniel:  Ohhhh, yeah.

Me:  We will take good care of him.  What is his name.

Daniel:  Chippy

Me:  Kitty?  You have a chipmunk named Kitty?

Sarah: (overhearing the conversation and translating the things I don't understand)  He said his name is Chippy.

Me:  Oh, his name is Chippy?

Daniel:  Right.  Chippy is his name in the Bible.

Which only makes sense when you know that in Daniel's family everyone, except Bella, has their name in the Bible.  Sarah, David, Jonathan, and Daniel.  And, now Chippy.

We found out later that the reason Daniel was thinking about sharing something he loved was because Jonathan had let one of his best friends, Joe Kitty, spend some time with Daniel a few days earlier.  

And that is a real lesson to me.  When we are kind and generous and loving, those things get passed around and they grow and multiply into something we never thought about.  It can all begin with something as small as letting someone else love Joe Kitty for a while.

Pecan orchard

Daryl called on his way to work Monday morning to tell me how beautiful the pecan orchard looked that morning.  The ground was frosty and the sun was just starting to break through the wood line to the east.  I was headed out, too, so I brought my camera to capture the moment.  

Pecan trees have a bad habit of dropping limbs - my father-in-law says they are 'self-pruning'.  Since this orchard is not directly in anyone's yard it is easy to let the limbs lie on the ground.  Then when the grass begins to grow you aren't sure exactly where the limbs are so you just cut big circles around the trees.  It doesn't always make for a pretty view.

A wedding will be held here soon, though.  Thousands of pounds of pecans have been picked up and sold, limbs have been removed, and the finishing mower made a round with the tractor.  

The orchard has never looked better.

Movie week

This week started out with a first for me:  I went to see a movie at the theater two days in a row.  Exciting, huh?  Yesterday Lily came with me to see Beauty and the Beast.  I am always a little surprised at how scary a Disney movie can be when I see it through the eyes of a 4 year old..  Beauty is rated 'G', but Lily sat with my hand over her eyes for a little bit.  She said, "Just move your hand when the bad part is over."  

Today, Jonathan saw Chipwrecked with me.  He liked The Chipmunks, but his favorite part of a movie is the popcorn and Sprite.

And, as if I had not been watching enough shows, I came home this evening and watched a DVR'd episode of Downton Abbey.  If you aren't watching that show, YOU MUST!  Rent the first season on Netflix, then  watch the ones playing on Masterpiece Theater on PBS on Sunday nights.  

Watching Downton Abbey makes me think I should drink more hot tea.  And dress up more when I am home.   And have servants to cook and clean house.  And speak with a British accent.

Time travel cookie day

Decorating sugar cookies takes me back in time.

For Ben's first birthday we gave him a Fisher Price barn set. It is the one with the hayloft door that says "Moo" when you open it.  Instead of wrapping the barn for him to open, I used it as a decoration and theme for his party.  I set it out on our built-in china cabinet and laid out the barnyard.  The horse ate out of his trough while the sheep munched on grass in its fence and the farmer rode his tractor.

That was one of my first adventures in icing sugar cookies.  I used gingerbread men cookie cutters and made little farm people to eat :)

That was almost 30 years ago, though, and I am out of practice, to say the least.  These cookies are for a party for Lily and Bennett.  I really wish I had done a run-through about week ago.  I would have made my mistakes on cookies for me to eat instead of on cookies for someone else.  I did find out that polka dots cover a lot of flaws.

While looking online for recipes I found a fantastic site.  The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle is a blog all about decorated cookies.  With her help my cookies didn't spread too much and the icing worked perfectly.  If she would just jump on over here and use her talent on the actual decorating, I'd be set!

They are pretty cute, though, aren't they?

Winter strolling

Yesterday was a perfect day to be outside.  I have loved not having so many outside jobs to do every week.     That has left more time for getting some things organized around the house and for some sewing projects.  But when the temperatures are in the mid-70s in January, I just had to get outside for a while.

Our house must be fairly well insulated because there was a chill in the air inside, but the air outside was warm.  When I stepped out, I felt like I just wanted to put a blanket down on a sunny spot of clover and take a nap.

This tree is at the edge of our yard overlooking a steep drop-off down to the creek.  I have always wondered who lives in this hole.  Surely someone does.

I read a tip on how to photograph your animals and it said that if you will make a quiet little sound with your mouth, they will sometimes look at you and cock their head.  Wow!

In the case of my dog, she will cock her head one time, then run away.  To get her to look back at you one more time, you have to make a loud sound with your mouth.  Something like, "LOOK AT ME!"  That method works one time, too.

The log that Shiloh is standing behind is an old pine tree that fell in the woods many years ago.  At this point it is a whole tree of 'lighter wood', or 'fatwood'.  This stump is very hard and full of resin.  When you cut a piece off of it, it smells just like turpentine or PineSol.  Sometimes the smell reminds me of junior high.  They must use PineSol to clean up after junior high kids.  We use it as kindling to start our fires in the fireplace.

I think it is beautiful.

Too early daffodils

We have been having a terrible, wonderful warm spell with no end in sight.

It is annoying to me and confusing to the flowers.

When I was looking through the pictures I took I noticed that all of them are of the back of the flowers.  The only way to see the front of these daffodils would be to stand on a steep slippery slope, but I was afraid of falling into a deep gully.  

I decided a that a different perspective would be just fine.

Happy, rainy day

We woke up yesterday morning to see lightening outside our bedroom window.  I haven't been keeping up with the weather before it happens too much lately, so this was a little bit of a surprise to me.  Before long the rain started to fall.  I had a quick thought of heading off to the basement, but the worst of the storm passed us without any damage.  We did get a lot of rain, though!

We had already planned for Lily to spend the day with me.  I picked her up, we went to the grocery store and  when we got home, I told her that I'd like to get my camera to go back out and take some pictures of the mini-flood.  Her mama is a wonderful photographer so she was very willing to get back out and be my photography director.

"Drive down here.  You need a picture of the water over the road."

"Drive down the road and take a picture of how much water is around those trees."

"Minnie, that is beautiful.  Just beautiful."

 Lily has had a terrible cough and needs a little help to get over it.  She was so cute with the vapor rising around her head.  I couldn't resist this picture.

After our little photography session, we built a fire in the fireplace, toasted an English muffin, spread some butter and jelly on it, and sat down to enjoy our little snack in our cozy house.

It's a happy day on the farm.

The power of one word

I am still going to Boot Camp each week.  The first session finished just before Christmas and this session began on January 3.  I was pretty happy with my results the first time, but I really want to do better.

You see, I GAINED WEIGHT!  No amount of fat loss and muscle gain can make me happy with suffering through boot camp just to have gotten heavier at the end.  I know that my weight is just one measure of success, but I really want to succeed at that measure.

This time through I am doing a better job of watching what I eat and exercising more on the days I'm not at boot camp.  I have started doing the 5K101 podcast again and that should take me from where I am to running a 5K race.

Did I just write 'running a 5K race'?  That just sounds ridiculous for me.  I have been a fairly active person in my life, but never an athletic one.  I have never competed in sports of any kind.  And I have hated to run.  There is something about getting hot and sweaty that really gets on my nerves.  And, besides, running bores me.

I am persevering, though.  On Saturday morning, I dove headfirst right out of Week 7 of the podcast into Week 8.  Week 8 is the final week of training and has a 5 minute brisk walk for a warm-up, then a 30 minute jog, followed by another 5 minute walk.  Before I started exercising I could barely jog for 2 minutes.  That's how bad I was.  This morning, though, I didn't see any reason not to go the distance and jog for 30 minutes.

The jog on the treadmill began just fine.  I felt strong enough to make it at a slow pace, but by 10 minutes in I was getting tired of the whole thing.

Then the power went out.  And the treadmill came to a stop.

A month ago I would probably have taken this as a sign to stop.  After all, this is really too hard for me.  Tomorrow might be a better day to run.  Fiddle-dee-dee - I'll think about it in the morning. (Name that movie.) But, my word for the year is "Do".  My word isn't "Rest", "Relax", or "Easy".

I let the treadmill come to a complete stop before I jumped off -- and I started running in place.  My Ipod was continuing to play on a battery operated speaker and I just kept running.

The electricity blinked a time or two, but after about a minute it came back on to stay.  I got back on the treadmill and finished the 30 minutes of jogging.  I realize how small a thing that is to many people, but for me it is a huge victory.  I started a hard thing, was challenged to quit before I finished, and then stuck it out.

Now, if I don't lose some weight by the end of this boot camp, I may change my word.  But, I might not be able to tell you what it is.