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.

Words are one of my delights. How about 'peregrinations' or 'peripatetic'? Or tintinnabulation'? (Only one of these words have I used recently and then was asked to define it!) And today the headline on Page One of the Jessamine Journal said, "Vandals wreck havoc at Ebenezer Cemetery." So I telephoned the paper and explained that people "WREAK havoc, or they WRECK graveyards." The poor fellow could only say, and I quote, "Right. . . right. . .ahh." Not even an "I am so sorry - that is awful, I will speak to my proofreaders!"

(Slaps forehead) What IS the world coming to??

On a lighter note: Mama Rhoda is asking me to go to Hazard next week while she is doing Hospice stuff, and I will be two or three days in a hotel with a laptop. She is urging me to write my memoirs!! By the pool. Shall I do it? I will try.

In Kentucky the strawberries are practically a WEED, and the growing of them is easy. In Staffordshire it is a different matter. Uncle Mac had them in the greenhouse and knew when to take them to the great outdoors. Lands, he probably WON the best of show with 8 matching berries on a white plate. Every year! Well, when I first got a batch of strawberries to bring to the dinner table in Kentucky, I thought of myself as the BIG expert gardener, who deserved a laurel crown of asparagus leaves. I had not found out yet that the berries are EASY to grow here and that Joe Bloggs and his uncle could do it, eyes closed, and produce healthy and lovely berries. It is just the climate and the soil that does it and the person is rather inconsequential. BUUUUMmer. I was ready there to give myself a couple of hearty pats on the back.

Josiah is growing a bit of garden as a school project and will be writing about the experience. here he is at the task. We now have a few Mortgage Lifter Heirloom Tomato plants donated by Tom Tomato, a very kindly gentleman who is an avid gardener.

Here is a good slogan : "If I control the outsides, and ignore the insides, I get no results." Think on that for a while.

I have always enjoyed having a fire, whether inside or out, with a preference for the later. Here in the city limits "one" is not allowed to have open 'burns', (as they say in KY,) so I have a metal bushel basket, about 4 foot around and 3 foot deep. It is filled with soil and that has compacted down and it has become my fire pit. Think big hibachi. If the "fire police" come around and there is a fire at my home, they will see that it is contained and quite safe. I put an old oven rack on the thing to make a grilling surface and have heated up many a left over stew or rice and beans. The kids will eat something cooked outdoors that would get a 'yuk' if it was on the kitchen table. This evening's fare was spuds and cauli boiled together and soup with garden greens, while a chicken was roasting in the inside oven. Yummy, and we ate outside under a tree.

Two seminary students were tragically killed in a car accident, and the town of Wilmore is grieving. Young men, both from India, with young wives, but no children. We can only say that God is in control and wonder how He will enable the families to be comforted. Prayers help.

I met another set of strangers last night (Sat evening) at a wedding of a local lad and his lovely German bride. (He is awesome too.) My German [4 years of HS] disappeared after I became fluent in Spanish, (not enough room I suppose) but I gallantly strove for recollection of 'greetings and small talk German,' and some returned, to the delight of the Bride's parents and Aunties. I shall have them over for dinner before they return to Germany and in the between time I will go to some "Brush up your German" website.

At the reception, I challenged one young fellow, a stranger, "What will you be doing in 5 years?" and he found it a penetrating question. "Maybe finishing my PhD," was his considered answer. At this point he is a HS English teacher, and very frustrated with the system AND the kids. I would be too. "Hands up those who wish to learn something today." Oh. Sadly I don't see any hands. Sigh.

strangers and gardening again - my passion

I love talking to strangers and turning them into friends - nothing I do really, except engage them in conversation. I sat waiting for a friend in a meeting (I was her moral support and not in the meeting) and another 2 people were waiting in this office complex for other stuff. We spanned the globe in talking - about Britian's Got Talent, Simon Cowell, earthquakes, red tape, bad news, babies, being a grandma (I was it in that dept,) starting your own business, bedpans, you name it. Gardening and rising prices too. We did not touch on politics, since I know that that is a cultural nono. I was made to do 'cold turkey' anything. I was given a flat of flowers, (mostly petunias) having asked the nurseryman if he would donate flowers to the Wilmore Community Garden. He called them 'distressed'. Just a matter of making the request. Ye have not since ye ask not I suppose. I asked and I got. thank you Lord. So, on Sunday they will go in to the flower beds and prettify the area in front of the veggie garden. Last year's Community Garden was a great success, and the extras (lots of it) fed many local families in distress. Uncle Mac would be proud of me. The garden is the brainchild of WilmoreCreation Care.

Recycling and crashing birds

Having been a founding member of Wilmore Creation Care, I take great delight in the monthly meetings that are scheduled and arranged by the Steering Cttee. This month a woman came from an office in lex and she told us (again) the figures of the recycling in our area. I was hoping for more in-depth about how to get businesses and schools to join the recycling craze, and just what is the nation doing as a whole? I believe that 15 hundred plastic water bottles are tossed (to trash and recycled) every . . . . hold on. . . . .second. IT SAID so!!! Every second. I have not and will not buy water again. that is OBscene. The tap is fine and a canning jar is a suitable vessel. Or a peanut butter jar.

Birds are finding their way in to the extension of my house. One a week or so. Starlings have built a nest in the inner eaves, and there was supposed to be a guy (in March) coming to stuff batting in to the holes and chinks of the roof line. He never showed up - partly (i must admit) because his friend has the long long ladder, and it was not available. It probably will be after about 3 weeks when the birdies have fledged.!! But I have to wonder how the bird tells his children about the day that he could not get in to the sky - an invisible barrier held him back!! Sad really, since he would fly clearly into the sky - but the glass in the window was solid and caused a minor concussion every time the fellow crashed in to it. One bird was so 'out of it' that I was able to pick him up, take him to the deck, and lay him (was he dead??) at the threshold of the door. Not dead. Merely stunned and after a count of a fast 3, he was up and off. Relieved i am sure, that reality had resumed.

language and the school grad

I had a spiky haircut about 6 months ago. Now it is too long to look anywhere near decent, and I am going to Kenya in 10 weeks. Time to decide what to do - I had it all permed into a frizz. Will I look Kenyan?? I will look better at least.

Picked up a hardback book at a friend's house that has a missing spine and faded paper. Started reading it as I was waiting for the dog (I was a sub for a dog sitter that morning) to do his business. It is a 1954 published book and appears to be a mystery novel about multiple personalities. BUT, and hold your hats: The language would bewilder a 2009 high school grad.: MULTI syllabic words, and convoluted phraseology. Let me give page one. Help!! It is upside down. Find a way to enlarge it and read it like that (- my brother John taught me how to do it, so I know YOU can.)

What do you think? English Language teachers please teach our kids. Please, please.

I had forgotten that I have a blog!! Duh!! (Over 60 and technologically challenged.) Who helped me get it started? Hmmmmm, maybe one of my sons? thanks son.

I have installed a new keyboard on my c'ter and have had to remove a button or two: caps lock and"sleep" because i was continually finding myself going to a screen I did not want. Still trying to remeber to find the keys I use in theri new places.

Gardening is a wonderful hobby. Now I have the 20 tomatoes to put in, 10 of them done already, and since 'tom tom' (a local gardener) has given me the 30 heirloom plants, they need to be placed and nurtured. I am also growing brussels, chard, onions, herbs aplenty, kale and potatoes, and have salivered all over the place thinking of the delights of the harvest.