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If I took a lot of pictures there would be things to show - but I often leave the camera at home - often? Practically ALways. That requires me to think in order to blog - you do not want to be buried in inanities.

I went to a house church for Sunday worship yesterday and was struck, again, by how PERSonal a thing worship is. We may say it is 'corporate', but how is it "in-corp-o-rated"? How do we DO interaction/intertwining/juxtapositioning. There was some. And more than at my local church if you forget the circle dancers who make up 4 - 7 of us each week. Or was I so wrapped up in my delight at singing praises with a group of friends that I was not aware of the interactions? (I just wanted to DANCE and jump about and wah hoo. Gotta be selfrestrained, not 'cause your bro to stumble' and all that!) There are about 10 under 2s at the house and mums keep babies with them, so there is lots of maternal hormone going around. Babies are LOVELY. I know some of the folk some, and a couple well well, but out of the 30 or so there, 20 are very little known to me and I assume that they are believers on their own journeys. Ah well. I do certainly enjoy getting out of Wilmore now and then and being of encouragement to others. Read "gardening."

OUr house is getting an internal face lift. Carpets and painting. I shall put bamboo wood floors in some places and carpet of 38% cornrubble. Or whatever they call it. In 6 weeks it will be super. Come and see.

Above you see the method of heating a room/section of a room a la Kenya. The metal is a tube, punched with holes, with a screen at the lower end of the tube. The tube is sitting in a saucer (to catch the ashes) and this whole thing is mounted on legs which keep the tube/saucer off the floor. Charcoal is placed inside the tube, lit (never found out how it is ignited) and then placed where heat is needed. It is quite effective and never seemed to be a threat. No flames, just red hot glowing coals.

Secondly there are some kids from the
Maasai village. How many of YOU had
to lug around your
sibling for hours on end? I wonder if Mum had to tell big brother to hold the kid?, or if he just picked him up as a matter of course?

I have enjoyed the Potluck we had tonight for the Wilmore Creation Care group. Twenty-five folk and several kittens. Nancy Sleeth and Matthew were the "guest speakers" though they feel more like plain folk. No celebrity status for them!!! Read the book "Serve God Save the Planet" if you want to see where they are coming from. Nancy wrote "Go Green $ave Green" which is VERY practical. And the daughter (now 18) wrote "It is easy being Green" for younger twenty-somethings to read - geared for College kids. WE MUST get the world to be more consumer conscious (read, 'spend less first world' countries and recycle!! etc) Plus compost, sustainable food products, use both sides of the paper, save water, grow a garden, SHARE TOOLS etc and more etc.

I think I should write something of more depth - a piece of poetry maybe. Tomorrow.

Having too much to say is similar to having not enough. . .you get silenced and in this case I am going to resort to photographs to say my piece. And there seems to be a glitch and the child with "National Geographic" look to him will not upload. Tomorrow.

Luggage, a small church, and a lovely 10 year old girl with whom I made friends, and a little lad whose face was besmirched with flies - and no one swatted them or wiped his face. All these things were more remarkable than I can express. Africa is a place of extremes, and one man being set free from Islam is a good thing. Dear Eddy. We pray that you are growing in Christ. He is second from the right in the picture with the corrugated tin church.

It has been a month since I last posted, and what a month!! Trip to Kenya and on to England. Visits with friends and strangers and spiritual food to feast upon. Stolen stuff that is irreplaceable and little worry about it at all. (Where is THAT serenity coming from?) The zebras are contented - so should I be. Thank you Lord.

On our trip twe were fserved food to eat that would have fed an entire Coambodial village. And that was a difficult part of being in Nairobi and environs - we (eight of us from Great Commission Fellowship in Wilmore) were treated like Royalty and given stuff and taken places where we felt privileged and did not wish to be so honored. We are just Americans who are blessed beyond words and pampered as though we 'deserved' it. Our mission was with Armstrong and Rhoda Cheggeh who are the lead pastors of a denomination in Kenya. Our job: to be at the annual Convention for the Pastors of the churches in Kenya who belong to Fountain of Life Churches. The convention was in a large rural girls' boarding school. Two hundred plus pastors and wives and assorted came to the conference and were fed/watered/prayed for and taught. It was incredible the ministry that went on. In a dusty dry arid desert location with few amenities. You should try it one day. I loved it. Except the potty. Nuff said.

One of the hardest things: accepting hospitality. How does one find the courage to serve 'guests' with the food that the children would have liked to have eaten. What is the cultural mandate that says that the fat cat americans deserve to be given the cream of the crop and more besides? Apparently it is the Kenyan culture, and we certainly felt obligated to eat the food set in front of us and bite our tongues and NOT tell our hosts to give the foods to the poor. Isn't it odd? We showed our gratitude with many thank yous and promises of prayers, and were able to bring some monetary gifts that maybe eased the pain for some of the tribal areas in the form of maize and beans, and three bikes for pastors. There is famine in northern Kenya - no measurable rain for 4 years, and crop failure after failure. Children dying from insufficient food. Oh my!

The most wonderful part of the trip was the spiritual conversion of the young man, Eddy.(Below: Second from the right back row) He was the bus driver hired along with the 15 seater, and his work with our group was to drive us hither and yon. Mostly yon. And sometimes with a broken clutch!! Our delight and enthusiasm, our lack of complaining, (I believe) helped Eddy to see that Americans WITH Christ are different from any other tourists. He said "It is because of YOU that I became a Christian!" That is what he said. He was raised by 3 sibling brothers and no parents, and never set foot in a school. We are glad that the Pastor in Nairobi has agreed to be his mentor and bring Eddy into a discipleship relationship. GO Eddy!! The photo is the DAY of his conversion. The man kneeling on the left is the American who preached at that service and led Eddy into a meaningful relationship with Jesus. Eddy had been a Muslim until this picture/day.

The zebras at the top are some of the animals we saw on the Safari that was arranged for us. Eddy drove us through the acres of the Maasai Mara park and found animals for us to oogle at and take photos of. How is one NOT amazed at the variety and massiveness of the flora and fauna? Eddy knew a Maasai at one of the villages and took us to see the extended family. Ooohhh. Ask me about THAT!! It was a National Geographic experience.Here is the picture you have all been waiting for: Phoebe, her young man and his parents, Helen and Colin. "Loooovvvely people" as the Brits would say. We had a delightful lunch and walk around a picturesque British Village - with churhc and river and all. Quaint bridge super panoramic views.

Since coming back to Wilmore I have felt that the event overseas was a kind of watershed for me. Some stuff is "Pre-Kenya" and now it is post. New stuff and new vision. What of? Not sure yet, but new. And exciting. And filled with usefulness. And ministry with you. Be blessed.

I am very fond of my recycled baskets and shoes.Pic of shoes next time maybe. But no blogs till Sept I suppose. Shan't want to hog computer time while abroad, unless at Phoebe's, maybe.

Wednesday I'm off to Nairobi for a mission trip and on to England for a daughter trip. It has been a trip to get this trip together without the 'offerings' or input from tom. I am finding that I can do stuff and be more me-ish as the days go by. The visit with Rosses was a great refresher.

Why don't I take pictures? The rosses have a turtle aquarium and the tomato bits that they feed him have sprouted into seedlings and then plants which in turn now are bearing tomatoes. How 'green' is that?? Good poop them turtles produce.


And ballet under the stars was its usual delight. Antony, Josiah, Anto's Chelcee, her mother, Erika and I completed the party. Good picnic and bevs and we even invited the stranger in front - a single man of indeterminate semi-middle age - to eat our food. He did and then left. Was it too uncomfortable? We did not talk to him or anything. Why do I suppose that everyone would like to do things like I DO?? I believe it is because I am happy with my self and like who I am being in my skin.

Sorry - I am out of posts. Maybe tomorrow. Zane is certainly bummed about it.

Living is always a requirement, but living well is optional. I have chosen to live well. What does that entail? My 'off the top of the head' thoughts include:
1. enjoying the presence first of God, second of His people and then, managing to enjoy those of
differing moral standards, (who sometimes make me want to spit!)
2. 'sowing' into the lives of others
3. being available to serve when it is inconvenient
4. getting stuff (definition? Umm, later on that) done and done to completion.


I have a glaring character defect. Telling you about it (you can already guess it!) may have the joyous result of encouraging me to change! Tah DAH. . . .it is leaving jobs/stuff almost finished and maybe or maybe not coming back to it later to do the last bit. Numberless things are around the house TODAY that need 20 or 30 minutes more to get the last teensy bit accomplished. Do I agonize that they sit there on tables and chairs (yes, a chair is just a shelf you can sit on sometimes) for a few days or weeks and do not see the end? Nope!! Others could not leave things undone like that. ME?? I can. Willingly!

Maybe I will get the camera and take a few pics of

Do you "pull stunts"? I did one today! Coming out of a drive way, I realized that I was meant to have picked up another paper at the office from which I was exiting. Bummer! I turned to my friend and said,"Oh, drat! (or words to that effect), I was meant to pick . . .etc" to which she replied, "Well, go back and do it now! No point in coming all this way again!" I had a quick look around, said to Beth, "Gonna PULL a stunt! Get ready!", and we made a perfectly safe and easy non threatening U turn. Glad that I did, since it would have been another $1 00 of gas to return later on and then that would have been a drag. Don't often pull stunts I don't, in cars anyway!

Too tired to really give a good report of the day - circumstances required that I miss clogging - so you know that it was a big thing. Sigh. More in a day or two. I am blessed and there are no worries - and I am delighted to see the Hand of God at work in my family. How does He know what to do?????

I am going to Kenya in August and will go on to England to see phoebe. How nice is that??

Once a year I meet with a friend for whom I have the dearest regard - a wonderful mother of two and caretaker of her 90+ yearold mother. She and her family, (husband and 2 lads) used to meet our family of 2 boys - they are just about the same ages, - until our lads turned to a rambunctious stretching of the law, causing consequences that I (and Marlenes fam) did not, and do not, think others should emulate - Sssoooooo, Marlene's boys quietly retreated into other cliques at school, a few years ago. She and I have kept in touch and have a ritual 4th July picnic here in Wilmore, watching the fireworks put on by the Wilmore Benefactor, R.J. Corman. This is the business that RJ does - righting derailed train cars. His operation is in Nicholasville, the neighboring town, and has done very very, well - one of the bigger employers of the area. He built an airport for the private jet - at right, and has been a great source of funds for this and that. His fireworks display is always fabulous, and he opens his (multi-acre) property for people to park and watch. Marlene and I do not park on his property, since the lines to leave the fields are too long. We park nearby and watch with a picnic and adult bev so that we can leave easily. Our conversations range from poetry, child rearing, adult rearing, and the economy, plus moral issues and the Catholic church or the Protestant church.

One only has a few friends of this calibre in life, and I love being able to pick up just as though there had not been maybe a year between our visits to one another.

How are these relationships built? And what sparks them in the first place? Is there any mechanism for picking the friend and manufacturing the depth of the intimacy? NO!! I choose to say, since my experience has been that such friends are born, nurtured and blossom, even without hardly noticing that it is happening. All of a sudden one can say, "There is a friend who is deeper and more nourishing than the others. Yes!!"

Having guests is the BEST way to get the house in order. Having teenagers is the best way to fight consistency and boredom. Having friends is the best way to do the other two!

I hosted a "Surprise" party for my Kenyan sister, Rhoda, today. I had to fake a minor meltdown to get her to my house! Carol, another friend, 'happened to be' over in Rhoda's town, and they were to come here together, but Rhoda was tired, and said, "I will go tomorrow." So in the end, I had to make another call, and really moan and cry and be out of control with tears and heaves!! That did it! Rhoda told Carol to, "Sure, come here and pick me up - we NEED to go to Miss Aureol's!"

I believe that the custom in Kenya is NOT tot open gifts with others watching over you, but in the US it is done. So I asked Rhoda if she wanted to open her few gifts and we'd watch - "Oh, yes," she replied. So now I know that she is acculturated! Well done Rhoda!!

It was the biggest day of the year for her, and I am chuffed to deathto have been the initiator and host. I would do it again. It is Rhoda and her husband (who is in Louisiana for his job this month) who are leading the missions trip to Kenya in August.

I was a drama and dance major, and have always enjoyed "drama". Do not like war movies or mysteries - get tangled up in the plot and forget who is white hat and who is black hat. Well, as I was researching (read wasting time surfing) Burton and Taylor, I came across "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" by Edward Albee. On Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgxPmheEQT4&feature=PlayList&p=51742BA7D8F4D0F9&index=0&playnext=1

In 13 segments. I watched them all.

With interruptions for a) Antony to put a sale on ebay, b) for a snack and c) for a cuppa tea. But what a remarkable play. I went in London to see it on the stage in '67, when it was a couple of years 'old', and we drama students were enthralled. It marked a dynamic change in the staging of stuff. No fluff. No vaudeville. No Fred Astaire or concocted plot with a cutesy ending. This play is the stuff of LIFE put on to the stage. I will not reveal the plot, except to say that the 2 sets of professor couples, one in the 40s age bracket and the other in the 20's, are at the older profs house for an after-faculty party 'get drunker.' All get more drunk and more drunk, and private things are revealed about the 4 of them as the play continues.

An unexpected denouement takes your breath away. I do not know if Albee wrote more stuff, since right after that year of college, I married Tom and never did return to the "drama/theater" scene. I think such plays were called "Kitchen Sink Plays," like Pinter's "Look Back in Anger", since the folk spoke just as you and I would at the kitchen sink. UNHeard of!! Plays before then were unreal, the world of the imagined, and metaphorical or allegory. NOT so after WW2. time to get down and dirty! Enough of fake and fru fru. We needed reality, not like the reality tv of today, - we needed people like us who were in torment or difficulty. The Archers. And saying "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"

And now for something completely different:

When I go to Africa in August I will try to visit the Kenya offices of "Solar Cookers dot org," and see what there is to see. Tomorrow Jesse and I are going to make a cooker and try it and see if maybe the rice I make will be, from this point on, made with solar power. Why has it taken me so long? Well, partly because I intend to use the reflective sheets for the shiny stuff, and it is so much easier to handle than silver paper wrap. I have made a cooker b4, and it has heated and cooked food, but it was cumbersome and clunky.



Photos and sucess? story tomorrow.

The celebration for July 4th is around the corner, and I have phoned my friend Marlene for the annual date that we have with one another. Every 4th, the benefactor of Wilmore/Nicholasville (and the biggest employer of the county) R. J. Corman, spends a lot of money and puts on the best fireworks display for the county. Marlene and I get a meal in a picnic basket and go the corner of the nearby site and watch. It is always AWESOME. You Juanito and fam, go to the river in Grand Rapids and they shoot off pyrotechnic excellences left and right. Well, we sit at the corner of the road and watch the $20K display and are thrilled. Marlene and I do his every year - and phone each other once or twice a year in the other months, around Christmas or something. Our boys played together in the 6th - 8th grade, but then Anto and Joze got too alternative and the friendship fizzled. Her lads now do Marching Band and other normal things. Sigh. I believe her oldest will start college in the Fall.

Another friend came by tonight and sat at the outdoor fire with me for an hour or more. Being a friend is 80% work and the rest enjoyment. However, with Angela, it is less work and more fun. She is doing her part in keeping the friendship alive.

I am very grateful to my women friends who are willing to have me - now a single (imagine!??) - in the mix of their own friends/relatives.

No picture tonight. Ah well. Nor anything philosophical. Watch this space tomorrow. Hugs.

Maybe I have too much time on my hands??

I like to make the things I use/eat/share. From scratch. Rather than buy them ready made:
paper
laundry soap
hand soap
scarves
rags from towels
greetings cards
solar oven,
but no candles as yet. Someone may show me how some day - I did in so a candle make in the pre-Christ hippie days, with someone in Ecuador probably.

I make curtains, and have just put up reflective window sheets using the "Survival Blankets" sold in the stores (to wrap around you in the event of an overnight in extreme conditions.) I heard about this 'blanket' at the CPR class I took. They are $2.79, and are like see through-ish tin foil/saran wrap, and can be used for all kinds of things - solar oven for ex. The fabric is very shiny on both sides and reflects well, and is somewhat see-through from the inside. I have to look outside in the evening to see if they are see-through from outside when the light is on. . . . hmmm.You can sort of see the two lying down blue barrels center right and the condenser bottom left. The package is orange and you see the woman wrapped up in it. Apparently all one's body heat is retained inside the wrap, and presumably all the out temp is kept out - either hot or cold. Like a Thermos. Inside out.

Here is the breakfast for kings:


The flower decoration is the first of the multicolored glads. The eggs: farm grown locally, The basil, and greens from the garden and the potatoes from the night previously. I am harvesting my own spuds now. And they are GOOOOOD.

Oh, if you are not growing something outside, you are missing such a profound sight of the Lord and His goodness.

beetles and soup

I found a new solitaire - which for the Brits amongst us - Patience. http://www.freeworldgroup.com/games/solitaire/flowergarden.html

and here's a recipe that is for lentil soup that I made:
1 bag of lentils,washed and picked (mine had NOTHING to pick out!!)
50 old peas from pods in the garden that are about ready to be too dry for anything,
organic chicken stock (thanks JJ for donating that to me, in your new 'veggie' ways)
Two garden onions, greens and all
Cook for couple of hours, and let them burn!
Take out the remains that are not burnt
Cook again with more water, ('member, they were burnt 'cos of not enough water?)
Store them overnight in the fridge and then heat again.
Strain out the lentil/onion gubbins,
and add 1 teaspoon of pnut butter.
Serve with chopped basil and toast. BINGO, W

Wonderfully nourishing soup for the family. It has not been my forte to produce food that satisfied the eaters - up till now. Jesse, the house guest/student is very pleased with my fare and there have been a lot more accolades since the house became emptier. I can only assume that my culinary skills have remained the same, but my critics have reduced in number, and I am not cooking on eggshells. I use the juicer a lot more recently too. But apples do not juice well, leaving a LOT of liquid in the mush that remains. Time for de-bugging the plants out there. This one is particularly obnoxious: the blister beetle. Its habits are odd - skittish it is - and very hard to catch. I use tongs and a mug of water with a touch of soap in it to reduce surface tension. Why do the bugs have such good camo? This one must have been placed ON the flower by the camera person! They are attracted to the cucurbit family of plants, and jump off into the ground the minute you start coming near.

Thanks for the comments. More me later.

Is anyone reading this?? You had better say so, or I will stop. That is both a threat and a promise.

The photo above is Rhoda by the cutaway Hazard hills.
I have recovered from the trauma of being at Ichthus for hours at a time - never seeing one band, but hearing several at one time since our recycle tent was at the middle of a triangle of three stages. At times it was unbelIEvably loud. Intolerable actually..

In Hazard I saw bits of KY that I had not seen before. The hills are steepsided and the roads are at the bottom of valleys where there is a stream or river. The river hanks are the places where homes are and sometimes there is a swinging bridege to carry the folk to the other side so that the car stays on this side while the homes are over yonder. I used to say "Well, it is not the boonies, but you can see them from here. . . .!" Now i have to say of Hazard's interior,"Yes, this IS the boonies and you cannot see anything BUT boonies!" Rhoda was visiting clients and i went on one visit and stayed in the car while she did a house call. AmAZINg. The photos show the cut away sides of the mountains where man has decided to put stuff!!

My garden is doing fabulously, and we are eating lots of greens and peas, and the cukes and squash will be ready soon.

I leave for Kenya and England in some seven weeks - Aug 6th. I am getting quite excited and will be able to see what my friend Rhoda and her Bishop husband do when they are not here studying/waiting for their last kid to finish HS. .

of cans and bottles

This is the tower into which the 10,000 recyclable bottles went for the duration of the Ichthus festival - well only the bottles onto which the owners had written their names and cell #s, and then there was a drawing for the winners to receive Tshirts and music CDs and the big prize was an electric guitar signed by all the big band names. The rest of the recycling was placed into large sturdy boxes and was hauled off to the center in Nicholasville. And there was a LOT. I will give figures next time. Several of us ate food that was thrown away - one looked to see how fresh it was. And the amount of consumable materials that was thrown away would feed most of Burkina Faso for a week or two.

On other matters: A friend, Josh Barkey, from our time in Peru, arrived with JJ and we talked about the "old days" in the Yarina Base there. But mostly we discussed our concept of God and how one can only relate to the traditions of the religion of Christianity if one has a progressively maturing understanding of oneself in the arena of spirituality. God does not change, only our realisations and our view of Him do. It was so refreshing to find a man for whom 'small talk' was unacceptable, and with whom one could relate and grow at the same time. Soooper. These men are few and far between. Grow Josh!

Are you too busy? these days I AM. And I will be so until I get back from Hazard. At least, I will be away from 607, and that means that there will be lots to do upon my arrival back here. I went clogging at the outdoor clog dance on Saturday, which always lifts my soul and body. Must hit a meeting soon. Maybe Ii should look in Hazard for one. Now there is a thought!!

I talked and talked to young people at the ichthus festival and found that nearly all the kids (read 12 - 25) were congenial and delightful. At least five (of 8000) had used their bodies as art canvases and had managed to cover 50+% of their bods with tattoos. Mostly religiously oriented. Hmmm. My concern with tattooing is that there is staph all over our bods ALL the time, and Hep C too. If we stab ourselves intentionally 40,000 times per sq inch, one of those 2 horrors will enter in and infect me. Sure thing! So I will remain stabfree and my lads and Phoebe have pretty much done the same. A teeny tattoo is to be found on phoebe's ankle, tasteful and fishy.

The strawberry that is above should have come from MY garden but it is from the store and I love strawberries. Mine are from a leftover patch in the garden and the results are minimal, though tasty, Sluggy year. Caterpillars on the brocolli too and in the heads of the bursielles sprouts. I will start taking a stampcollecotre tongs out side in the early AM and a jar of soapy water and remove the little blighters into the wsater. RevENGE.

Start writing Miss Aureol

I have inherited Mummu status with a family of Kenyan origin. The mother and father came to Wilmore about 7 years ago for the seminary, and are both finished with Doctorates and Masters in counseling. When I was told that my friendship had escalated to substitute mother hood for all the 5 children (30 - 14) I asked what my duties and responsibilities were - was I now expected to pay for the wedding dress? or educate the youngest at my expense? No, I was assured - it was honorary and pragmatic. Should a kid be stranded at a ball game - the ride left without them - or the trumpet be left at home and needed for the lesson - I could be called upon and of course I would run to assist and be the transportation for child or instrument. Thank God! And the parenting goes both ways. MY own children can now call upon Mummu Cheggeh for emergencies and so on. It is a cross cultural, mutually-inclusive beneficial arrangement. i love it.

I spent the last three days with Rhoda Cheggeh. We drove to Hazard, KY and she attended to some Hospice work and I lounged around in the hotel room. I had been 'instructed' to start my Memoirs. the names of the book are various: From High to the Most High is one. there are others. I wrote 6 ms pages. We'll see. There is another three day excursion of the same nature next M - W, June 15 - 17. I am to get chapter 2 and 3 done then. Hmmm

Ichthus is this weekend. You can sit on the back deck and hear the music. I have been every year (13 now) as a volunteer in one capacity or another. This year I am a recycler (one of 30 or so) and I will spend 12 hours during the weekend gathering bags of trash/recyclables, sorting them into glass, plastic and cans and transporting them in HUGE skips to the Nicholasville recycling facility. It will be exhausting and I will talk to about 300 kids/adults about the benefits of recycling rather than dumping stuff in the landfills. Last year there were 300 million drink containers - well at least 35,000. Fifteen thousand kids and adults attend Ichthus, so that is only one container a day per person. Less. And we hauled them all off the 40 acre property. It was GREAT. Pictures next blog.

Our church service today was extremely challenging - Lazarus and JC raising him from death. My notes indicate that:
Point 1. God/Jesus doesn't come as fast as we want him to. (It took 4 days, and L was then dead)
Point 2. There are purposes to pain. We must use it and believe that God thinks we are able to profit from delays. Jesus wept/was angry/loving and we can be too.
Point 3. JC confronts the obstacles to our healing. He had to get Lazarus's stone rolled away and Martha objected - "He'll smell by now!" Jesus does not mind our stench - He is there to fix things.

I shall be in the hills of Southern Kentucky for a day or two. I plan to do some writing of memoirs - at the insistence of my hostess, who will be at a conference all day and in the evening will critique what I have done. I might go to the hotel's gym too. That would be good.

What a day! 1. Pulled up daffodils at a friend's neighbor's house and scored half of the "take."
Then 2. Arrived to look at a long trailer at a house and the parents of the kids playing in the garden homeschool the family and I could just TELL!!!! How does one KNOW?? And they were planting a small table-cloth sized garden with 4 tomatoes and a few hills of something which has not come up yet. So I told the mother about my compost power point and will email it to her.
Then 3. The hot water heater under the house burst and we have no hot water until i get a whole new system. Will they want it to be "code?" Nothing in the house is up to code. Will i be evicted?
and then 4. I am just sitting doing nothing and the time is 10:12 already! Am I boring you?? I am boring myself.

How does one do it - my computer now has "lost" all my favorites since a friend put two other accounts on to the start page? Now I am no longer 'the administrator' (and that was who I used to be) and I am all aflutter. Now I am 'aureol', and the administrator has gone! I cannot access the favorites and I will have to re-do all that stuff. If YOU, (the one or two who might read this in the next couple of days,) know what to do, please CALL me!!

The rain tank is 3/4 full, thanks to two or three very enormous but short-lived cloud bursts, separated by 40 minutes of sunshine. Only in Kentucky!! Won't need to water the garden till Friday.

Looking for my pictures and it is alllll gone!! Oh dear. They should not let me alone with a computer. Where are my pictures?? Horror of horrors. Miiiiiiike!!

I like Freecycle. If you haven't signed up for the one in your region, may I suggest you do so, and do it now! One of my first 'takes' was a set of vertical blinds that Nancy Sleeth put on the Jessamine County Freecycle. I went to her house and we chatted in the front yard for about 45 minutes and her husband joined us. THEN that next Sunday, Matthew attended our church and I invited him for lunch, and our families became friends. THEN I come to find out, in the 18 months that have followed that first encounter, that these dear people are on the Christian Environment Circuit, doing more in a month for "God's green" than I could do in six months of hard labor. And they have written books and do speeches in important places. And they are just ordinary people with a passion. Nancy was the one who encouraged Carol and I to start Wilmore Creation Care. No less! Here is the logo that we have selected and the business cards are coming soon.
Some of our accomplishments: local eggs available to the community from a farmer within 5 miles; beef slaughtered and divvied up to those same folks; squiggly light bulbs all over the place; drying lines where there were none; compost piles and worm farms (I think I am the only one growing worms in the garage for the 'castings' actually, but I hope to promote the activity since it is an alternative to composting my peelings!)
So here is the bin and its contents:

Sorry, wrong picture set. Just omit the link - dunno what I did! And dunno HOW to undo it either.

I have, in the past, allowed others to do some of the running of my life. I suppose that is one of the perks of having a significant other - they do some of the stuff. Well, the most adult (?) of the s.o. has gone and so I am now the one to run my life all but single handedly. I mention this only because I want to explain a phenom I am noticing recently. . .a place where I am shining!! READY?? Unaided, I ordered the $40.00 coupon to buy the converter box for the tv, went to the store, paid my 60 bucks less 40, and now have the box in its box to install. It is not hooked up yet, but I looked at the instructions and it cannot be that hard. Plus, a teenager could do it and there is one of those handy around here somewhere. So, you SEE, where before I would have just said "We must get one of those boxes that they say we need!" and waited until s.o. bought the one of HIS choice. Me? I just went to Radio shack and bought the first one the fellow showed me. Simple. Quick. Fun!!

Here are some pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/getEmbed

Which is the oddest waste of someone's money. But it must have been fun to research HOW to make a giant Reynolds wrap curving bean to display in Chicago. Did your tax dollars and mine subsidize that?? If you live in IL it did I suppose.

This is how it is done: Get a son, a big tank and some leftover wood and ask for the tank to be placed so that the rain will fall into it. Then get some kind of tubing to go from that big hole at the side into the garden, allowing it to gravity feed. Took about $50.00 and 8 solid hours of work. Took two days actually!!!I think that it is jinxed and maybe it will not rain any more until September. Vamos a ver. Very secure and sturdy.

I read yesterday that: (we are in the period of David, King of Israel)

Benaiah, son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab's best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.
2 Samuel 23:19-21 and 1 Chronicles 11:22

I had not known that there was snow in the Old Testament. Could it be that perhaps Ben was in a place high up - are there mountains nearby? - or somewhere close?? and I am wondering how the other translations fared. This is the NIV. I will go and check. Hanga-baht a mo. Or should I say, "BRB"? BRB.


They ALL say that it was a snowy day. Hmmm. KJV and Amplified too. Hmmm. My mum once (1974) made Tom take a macintosh to Israel even though it was July and I am sure that there is not even any RAIN in Jerusalem in July, and certainly NO SNOW!!, so why should he take a mac?? But that was partly because Mummy did not have much international perspective. Not a world travelled woman. Wise, but not travelled.


JJ is putting up a platform for the 200 gal raintank that I have. I hope that there will be another rainstorm before the summer drought hits. Maybe I am jinxing the weather getting it up this late in the year. No matter. It will be there for next year anyway.

Servanthood is enjoying others and making them think that you are doing them a good turn, - or whatever they need at that moment.

I was pondering words this morning in the moments before getting out of bed. Transport, portfolio, carport, export/import, passport and other porty words. It started with 'portfolio'. Folio = Latin (I suppose) for leaf. (Feuille in French and hoja in Spanish.) Anyway, a portfolio is a leaf - carryer, since port = to carry. Ergo Porters at the train station, and transport = carry over a long way, and pass port = to carry me passing over borders - you like??? And then import and export - to carry it IN and to carry it OUT. Super.

Port - able = carry aboutable. Too much port = carry me to bed. Ahh, it breaks down eventually.


I have inherited 150 flower pots from a person whose nursery/greenhouse business has been 'consumed' by the building of the new dual carriageway (divided highway for the Americans amongst us) from Lexington to Harrodsburg - it stops by Wilmore. Mr B has been ousted and I am the lucky recipient of his left overs. There may be more stuff, I should go over and see. It is a devastating event really, since there have been Bfamily residing there for decades and his dad probably owned the land and they made their living in nurseryman fashion. So sad what progress does to us all.

Be blessed y'all.

Frederick Delius thought that 'It is only that which cannot be expressed otherwise that is worth expressing in music'. I agree and have often said, "If I could say it with words, I would not dance it." So I was watching "So you think you can dance," on Thursday and the last two dancers were terrIFic. Natalie Ried, and Somebody else - a lovely, (bad choice of word,) ummmm, splendid, black dancer who used a marvellous work of music, (which I could not identify, tho' maybe you could), but which was majestic and noble. He danced superbly, and had the judges IN TEARS. Just what dance is meant to be about. I LOVED it and have it on YouTube if you want the link. All you have to do is get the words Natalie Ried up in the search box, I guess.

And now for something completely different.
My grandkids are the sweetest and best. Houston (now 7) said as he was near the greeting cards aisle, and the Get Well Soon cards, : "If I made a get well card, it would say 'Get well NOW'!" See??

I am enjoying the learning curve of the blog and knowing that there are many out there who are so savvy as to make me look like a kindergartner. No worries. I do not feel intimidated. I am not inferior. I am able to compete with the best and find the answers according to my own abilities. Other times I ask a young adult - a 20 something. They usually know!







Another picture to delight those who are gardeners or aspiring to be so: I make my raised beds out of used stuff! The spuds are surrounded by odd bits of particle board that will last about 2 or 3 years. This other garden is made of half bits of bricks. It measures about 4' by 3'. There are three kale in the middle and six gladioli which are in front and behind the kale. A compost used to stand there and that made the soil underneath nice and yummy.
I aim to lose about 20 pounds - a stone plus for the Brits out there, - (who may, by now, be using grams and kilos??!) before the Africa trip (August), so I am eating less and exercising MORE. Simple plan. Ask me in a week or two!

What are these gummy bits doing on my peaches? There are several fruit so besmirched. Not good enough. I need to find the answer and if there is a solution, (barring poisons) I will use it.

Now my next job is to find, and then buy the converter box for our TV. It seems that there are options. . .and then there is the $40 coupon which I just received in the mail. Lovely. But how on earth am I to select the "correct" box for my house? Hmm?? Are they all alike? Do they need different cables to set them up? Is there a teenager who can do this without complaining? (Rhetorical qu. Eveyone knows the answer to that!)

There is a Morris Dance group in Lexington. I will find out more and go, I htink. And tomorrow I will make flags for the church in Nairobi.

Man to friend: "Why do scuba divers always fall backwards out of the boat?" Friend: "Because if they fell forwards they'd still be in the boat!"

D'j'u like that? It made me laugh, anyway. Need laughs. At the midday aa meeting I went to there was lots of laughter, though none of it could be written about - you had to have been there! It is vital to remember that 'recovery' is ongoing and continuous and an alcoholic is only ONE drink away from losing it all. the rest of us can have a couple of glasses of wine and be FINE. Odd isn't it?

I am preparing for a trip to Africa in August. And to see Phoebe. She is such a lovely thing! I look forward to the trip and am preparing a bunch of colorful flags to take and leave with the church in Kenya, after having taught a workshop on Flags in Worship. My Kenyan "daughter," Cellestine, will learn sewing as we make the flags. Sunday.