Deer Me

When you look out my kitchen window you see this pretty little table and chairs. I was inspired to put a pot of Impatients on the table so when I do dishes there would be something lovely to look at. The Impatients were a perfect fro of green foliage with a crown of delicate pedal pink flowers all over the top. And then one morning......


I looked out and notice half of the plant was gone. At first I thought in a panick: CUT ANTS! I ran out to investigate and immediately realized that it wasn't cut ants because there were three flowers left, (cut ants would have striped it bare). That's when it hit me......deer!

And then they returned for seconds.

What is YOUR Favorite Scripture?

What is YOUR favorite scripture? I concede how hard it is to pick a favorite verse especially if a person is new to Christianity, but I venture to say that most Christians could pick a favorite verse or maybe even rattle of several favorites. My favorite scripture (for the past couple of years) is pretty much all of Philipians 2, but here is just a sampling:

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

As Christians we are asked to empty ourselvse of our attitudes and take on Jesus' attitude. We are to not regard what we think we are ENTITLED to as a thing to be grasp but instead humbly serve others. Noble aspirations indeed.

Dog Days of Summer

Rusty the Golden Labratriever

I'm a dog sitter. I don't know how this happened, people just started calling me. So I made up some business cards and the ladies at Be Stylin' pass them out for me.

I called my service "Relief Sitter" because I know first hand the relief of having someone really care for my pets when I'm away.
Even though I like dogs now, this was not always the case. Cookie (my dog) is the one who enlightened me about the world of dogs. Dogs like us (humans) and dogs get lonely. So when I go to someone's house I try to go several times a day. If I don't have to spend the night in the dog house I will rent a movie and we watch it together before I go home for the evening.

Latley one of the perks to dog sitting is great views. So I just pretend I'm on a vacation retreat and sip my morning coffee while looking at the view. The dog will usually do it's business, roll around in the grass, chase things that don't exist and return to join me on the porch.
Until lately business has been so slow that I don't even consider it a reliable source of income anymore, so when I do get a job, it's gravy. In other words, I get to spend the money on things I need/want but are outside the budget, like haircare products and little pony Dr. Peppers.

On the downside however, jobs that last more than two days can be hard because I end up suffering from separation anxiety when the job is over.

I Just Called 911

For real....I just called 911!!!!!

Calling the police is nothing unusual for me, well not since, you know, that unfortunate home invasion back in 2002 (give or take a year). I didn't even call them that night. I'm still kicking myself over that one. Who did I call? Well Anne of course. She was the one who ended up calling 911, while I was dodging the knife welding sexual assaulter. And even though I emerged unharmed it was still NO bueno...ugh. They didn't catch him.

Since that fateful night I have called 911 3 time, well 4 if you include tonight. Here is my call log:

I called one night because while watching TV at 1 a.m. I noticed my cat who, lying there peacefully, suddenly became alarmed and looked at the curtains covering the sliding glass door. I looked only to see the shadow of a man swaying back and forth trying to see in the curtains. They didn't catch him.

I called again on a later date because there was a knock at my door after 11 p.m. and the knocker would not identify himself. They didn't catch him.

I also called because my garage door opened for NO reason. The cop asked me if I could have opened it accidentally. NO, that's crazy, how could that have happened? After he left I went back to digging in my purse for a pen. Turns out my garage door opener was in my purse. I DID DO IT! And although I was a person of interest, they didn't catch me.

Tonight I called because while Cookie and I are trying to go to sleep we heard a horrible bang outside...like a boom....like a gun. So the dispatcher asked me to state my "emergency" and as I told her it sounded like a gun shot, I realized I didn't know what I was taking about. What does a gun sound like anyway? So I said, maybe a small explosive, like a fire cracker. Anyway, I think I used enough adjectives to get my point across. In the belief that it is their job to "protect and to serve" I asked if they would send an officer out to parole the area. And they did, I saw him driving behind ACE Hardware with his floodlight blazing.

I wonder if they caught him?

Bowling for Campers

For the past two years Shane Sampson, our local Young Life leader, has arranged for kids to "earn" some or all of their camp cost by particiapating in a Bowl-a-Thon. This year I decided to join them getting sponsors of my own. Shane said we would get paid per pin, counting the best two out of three games.

I don't think I have EVER bowled higher than a 90. As a matter a fact, in the 80's I would go bowling on Saturdays with the "singles" group of a church I was attending. Singles consisted of me, my brother David, my mom, my future sister-in-law Marla, a single mother named Holly and her 6 year old daughter....well you get the idea, we were a diverse group. I think I have bowled twice since those days back at the Branches of Faith, so as far as my game goes, I am not that big a threat to any of my sponsor's pocket books. Let's put it this way, back in the 80's, the 6 year old consistently beat me. I hated her.

So at 5:30 p.m. this evening I showed up at Sully Lanes in Aransas Pass hoping to reach my first goal, which was finding a ball that weighed less than 8 lbs. I found a lovely pink one.

During the course of the night I got two strikes and two spares, however my score for game one was 87. All games from this point on had plummeting scores due to exhaustion. I knocked down 83 pins in game two. And game three was a dismal 53: gutter balls galore!

To my sponsors, I say THANK YOU!

I was able to raise $131.40 for campers.

To all others, if you would like to sponsor me

"after the fact" feel free

to send a check made out to Young Life.

You can put "camp" in the memo!

Labrador of Love

Yesterday on the way to Sonic, I saw a Labrador unattended at Walgreen's. Later as I was leaving Sonic (Dr. Pepper in hand) I saw the little guy trotting up the road. He was definitely out on the town unattended, so I nabbed him. My thinking at the time was this would be an easy rescue because he has tags.
We got home and I found out his most current tag was dated 1998. But not to worry, they were issued by a local vet. So I called the vet at his house and he said, he doesn't keep records back that far. RATS!
The vet suggested I call the local paper and more often than not pets are reunited with their owners without ever having to put an ad in the paper. Being that it was Sunday, this meant I would have to keep Bo (that's what his name turned out to be) over night. Cookie was NOT happy.
Bo, a black lab, was still very young. Obviously those tags were a lot older than he was. You could tell he was being trained to hunt. He would sit on command and shake your hand if you asked several times. What a sweet boy. I knew his owners were worried.
So today I was able to connect with his owner by calling the paper. They came to retrieve their Retriever and there was a joyous reunion. I was rewarded with 18 fresh eggs from their very own chicken coop. And from the way they talked, when it comes to their eggs I have unlimited access.
Now get this twist, when she opened the back door of her SUV Bo AND Cookie jumped in and laid down ready to go.

It's Kitten Season

Spring is in the air and you know what that means, puppies and kitties galore.
And if there is a kitten to be found, somehow I am the one who finds it. I'm doing my part tomorrow to prevent over population by taking in all my impregnable kittens (Buttons and White Kitty) for a spaying. AND Bo, who has the potential to impregnate, will not escape the knife either as he is going in for a neutering.
I have not discussed the procedure with the "kids" so as far as they know, tomorrow will be just another day. But we all know it will be a day that will change them forever. Uhhh, Bo's changes more visable than the others....if you know what I'm saying.
Pray for me as I have to have them there by 7 a.m. And then pray for them, as I cannot afford the "pain package" that the vet always tries to push on me.

So the top picture is of Buttons and Bo (Bo in front).

Buttons is in the sink.

Bo is curled up with the White Kitty.

What did the fat lady sing?

As you learned in my previous post we had so much "rummage" donated to Young Life's Yard Sale that it was spilling out into my drive way and yard. Well now that it is over, all I can sing is, "exhaustion is just another word for nothing left to move!"

Young Life Committee members and some high school kids work Thursday night pricing and setting up. At the end of the evening what we weren't able to cram back in the garage we "hid" in the back yard.

Shane and future campers hard at work!

Friday night however we had to set up for the next day and leave it out all night ready to go. To prevent pillaging, Shane and 4 high school students set up the mattresses and "camped" out guarding the stuff.

My hope for the sale is that we would raise $1,000.00. That's enought money to help sent two kids to camp. Saturday morning a barage of buyers bought enough of our junk to send five kids to camp. We raked in $2,500.00.

I had a great time and am so thankful for the help that Shane and the committe gave me (esp. the last three days). Please click on Cat's Photo Albums in the links at the right of this post. I have a lot of great pictures of the event and I want you to see the faces of the people that helped me.

One Man's Junk...

Denise wants me to post again, but I am busy....very busy. My garage, that I worked so hard to completely clean out, is now busting at the seams with "rummage". I am comforted by the fact that none of it is mine.

During the garage sale I had with Shane and Cyndea about a month ago I got the bright idea that we at Rockport Young Life should have a rummage sale to raise money for Young Life campers.

So the committee heard my idea and unanimously agreed that we should do it. We set the date for April 21st, 2007. I then sent out a mass email to all the donors on our mailing list. The stuff started pouring in. I guess when they got my email they began cleaning out every nook and cranny of their homes. I started receiving, clothes, bedding, furniture, household gadgets and appliances, lamps, rugs, Papasan chairs (3), garden pottery, art work, books and the list goes on.

What started out as a trickle turned into a flood of rummage. There is no room in my garage to park my car or even walk for that matter. As soon as I organized an area and cleared a space, some generous soul would stop by and fill the hole. It's incredible.

People would much rather give away their junk than throw it out. Here's an example, I was sorting donated items yesterday and found in a bag some pant legs.....not pants, just the legs. Why is it so hard for us to just throw it away?

Someone donated this questionable book. The pictures are too risque for a Christian organization to have laying around, so it's not going in the yard sale. I will however offer it to the highest bidder here on-line. I promise to mail it discretely in a brown wrapper.

LOL - OUT LOUD!

April Announcements

I want to take a moment to bring to your attention changes I have made to my side bar. In doing so, I lost things, like my photo album. But I quickly retrieved it and it now appears in "links".

And since I am talking about links, I suggest you go see who I like to check in on every now and again. Some of my favorites are: Farm Girl Fare, New Life Emerging, Mini Smith, and the NEWLY added Scrappin' My Life Away (my friend Denise's blog). Denise took me on a scrapbook store shop hop on the 4th day of Catherine. At the end of the day I had spent 25% of my grocery money for the month on PAPER. It was great fun and the paper made into tasty sandwiches.

Oh and by the way, today is Denise's birthday. She probably wants you to know she is younger than me, but I want you to know it is only by fractions.

Happy Birthday Denise!