Playing on the Fire Escape

On my wordpress blog, I recently posted about a field trip to TRAHC, Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council, and a display they currently have, entitled Write on Art!  featuring "The Chairs." 

Going to TRAHC was not planned.  Originally, we had planned another outing, and finding the Four States Fair closed until 4:00 p.m., we happened upon the chair exhibit.  Since I have posted several chair pictures on Wisdom, I'll show you what my silly girls did.

And when I say silly, I mean silly. 

Queen Mother (Mom) is watching Kid #5 Mary and friend Rosa.   What do you call that?  They had us rolling with their antics.

When we left the building, the girls asked (being from the country and all), "Mom, what's that?!"  Poor girls.  They'd never seen a fire escape.  Well...you don't see these things in the country!

"That's called a fire escape, girls.  You want to climb it?"  And they did.  See their excited faces?

I love this building.  I'm intrigued by her age, her architecture, her color, her stories.  Please visit their site; they love having visitors.

July 4th Fun

...popping firecrackers...

...eating buffet style...

...enjoying family...

...shaking hands with celebrities...

...guarding the coconut pound cake...

Oh, what fun!

911...What's your emergency?

911...What's your emergency?
                         Ma'am, my closet floor is an inch deep in water!
Where are you located?
                         I am in a trailer house in the middle of nowhere.
I'm showing your location to be nowhere in the middle.
                         Yes, ma'am, that's correct.
What is your name?
                         Does it really matter?  Just send somebody!
What seems to be the problem?
                         Danged water heater is busted!
That IS an emergency!  We'll have someone out there right away!  Is there anyone getting wet?
                         My feet are wet!  And all my shoes are wet!
That's a huge problem!  What brand of shoes do you wear?
                         Wal-Mart and Payless!
Oh, well, ma'am, we can't help you with that.  Sorry.  We don't consider wet Wal-Mart shoes worthy of an emergency.  

Dang it!  Then I called the plumber.  He was out to our trailer house in the middle of nowhere in short order.  Believe me, he knows the way!

Debbie, where did you get this water heater?
                         It's been so long ago, I don't remember, Steve.
We can't find one anywhere in this size. 
                         What size is it?
Thirty-five gallons.  And it runs on a 110 circuit.  How does your family even take showers with this size heater?
                         We can only take two three-minute showers at a time.  Anybody after that
                         gets a cold shower.
*swear word* I'll have to order one this size.  It probably won't be here until Wednesday with the holiday weekend and all.
                         I'll give Rick a call.  He's a genius.

So I dialed Rick's number.  No answer.  He's probably in the court house. 

To you, does this look like a fun-filled July 4th weekend?  With company coming, I think I'll rig up an outdoor shower.  At least, it's hot enough.  That will make memories, won't it.

Y'all have a great weekend.  See you in the funny papers.

You Biscuit-Eater You!

My biscuit eaters - Chris and Sam

As I was saying in my last post, these fancy-schmancy phones are self-attached to these kids.  They can't put these things down!

Kid#3 Jeremiah and my 'son' Chris had both come in from a long day at work.  It was 9:30ish and both were tired and hungry, so I agreed to make them homemade biscuits and eggs.   (Man, I should have negotiated something for all that work in the middle of the night!)  I've been making homemade biscuits for years, so I whipped up some and scrambled a few eggs.

While I was doing so, Chris sat down at the computer to get on Facebook.  When he got up to move to the table, he left his Facebook page open.  So I took his place at the computer, and  he told me to exit his page for him.  I said ok and heard the guys cuttin' up at the table, so I sneaked this message onto his page: 

Hello.   My name is Chris, and I'm a biscuit eater.

I was over here trying not to laugh out loud.  He is permanently attached to his phone, and I knew he would soon enough get a message regarding his Facebook post.  

Sure shootin', a few seconds later, I heard his phone beep.  I looked at him sideways and was shaking with laughter.  He had a puzzled look on his face but didn't respond.   Not five seconds more passed, and he received another message.  And on it went.  I was about dyin' over here just watching him.  He wasn't getting it!

Finally, he looked over toward me.  I was typing away on something else, trying not to bust out laughing.  He said, "Mrs. Debbie, did you put something on my Facebook?"

I said, "Yep, I did."  And you should have seen him make a bee-line to the desk.

"What did you write?" he whined.  So I showed him.  You would have thought I was telling all his love-life secrets or something.   Like I know any of his love-life secrets...

Why can't these kids take a joke?!  Within seconds he had changed his status, but not before plenty of his friends found out he is a biscuit eater!  Horrors!

See y'all in the funny papers.

Beep Beep Slow the Train Down

Well, hello again, friends!  I haven't posted here since March 13th, and I appreciate my friends who have gone around the block with me.  Thanks, dear ones.

I was reading Brenda's blog about slowing down and gerbils and smelling flowers and romantic things like that, thinking 'how do I slow this train down?'

Do you remember the children's book "The Little Train that Could?"  How the little train kept saying 'I think I can, I think I can...'

And I'm sitting here thinking (that's dangerous!) about how we have stuffed that mantra down our throats and our children's throats, forcing ourselves to go and think and do faster and faster, and don't stop, push, and keep on, harder, harder, harder...

Now, don't get me wrong.  It's good to teach diligence and persistence and perseverance, but as in many things, we have pushed it to the extreme.  Maybe that's the reason why we have so many extreme TV shows and sports and the like.   Extreme people, extreme lifestyles, extreme behaviors, extreme attitudes...

So, I'm sitting here thinking (again...dangerous!) about what has changed in our culture that's created the extremes.  Extreme sex resulting in deviant behaviors.  Extreme sports resulting in death-defying behaviors.  Extreme food resulting in obese behaviors.  Extreme communication resulting in wacky behaviors - like my young adults at home constantly having a form of communication attached to their ears and at their fingertips and in their pockets, never out of reach, becoming communication addicts. 

I mean, the iPhones and Droids have come to the dinner table.  Actually reading a book is now archaic.  Proper speaking is now outmoded.  The proper English vocabulary is passe'.  Family communication is limited to smart-alack blurbs on Facebook, Twitter, and email. 

I don't know about you, but I tire of 24/7 media, seeing on-going political campaigning, Kate Plus Her Eight, public figures getting slammed, and the if-it-bleeds-it-leads stories.

We parents should call a moratorium once a week and at least a week-long activity suspension once a year from the media and the constant pressure of push.  We are media prunes, washed-wrinkled in technology.  

I love the scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where Andy throws her cell phone into the fountain and opts for the simpler life.  How many of us would actually do that?!

Moratorium.

What have we lost?

Real friendships.  Real dinners.  Real conversations.  Real reading.  Real letters.  Real emotions.  Authenticity.  Genuineness.  Integrity.  Honesty.  Character.  Our love for each other.  Our love for God.

I need a vacation.

It's the Process

Hello, good friends!

I'm moving!  This moving process has been in the making, but the kinks are not completely worked out yet.  Yes, I'm going to Wordpress.   It's just a personal preference. 

My new address will be http://dcwisdom.wordpress.com/  If you want to keep following, please come on over.  Or this is your opportunity to dump me like a hot rock.  I won't be bothered by it, but I'll just write you out of my will. 

I'll still be around for a little while, but I will export myself from here within a week or so. 

I've written my first post, and it's a good one.  You will be amazed!   Please check it out.

I'll talk to you funny people later!  :)

Missed Opportunities

Kid #4 Sam is coming home.  How I miss that young whipper-snapper! 

Sam has big plans this summer.  The school he attends sends missionaries abroad every summer, and his group has elected to go to Asia.  He'll be going to four different countries - Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia; yes, he'll be traveling without his mama.  I cannot imagine the experiences and opportunities he will have.

Years ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Brazil.  I got my passport and then backed out at the last minute, afraid to leave my husband and daughter and my country.  How I have wished many times to have that opportunity back!

And in thinking about missed opportunities this morning, my mind settled on the daily opportunities I miss.  When I get all wrapped up in blogging or errands or television, I am missing those times to minister.  Of course, I need to blog.  Really?  Honestly, I choose to blog.  I need to run errands.  Well, I choose to run to Wal-Mart and pick out a new purse and pick up bath soap and toilet paper. 

And I need to turn off the tv.  I don't normally have it on in the day, but in the evening, that monster blasts its spew all over my house.  In the 80's, Rick and I participated in an experiment of watching tv program and rating them.  Then we tried going without tv for a month.  Wow!  It was awesome!  (Why didn't I learn something from that...)

I am reading in Galatians this morning.  Chapter 6:9,10 says (The Message) "So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued in doing good.  At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit.  Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance (opportunity), let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith."

So, I'm making my little list of opportunities to take on a daily basis:

Go ahead and be angry - You do well to be angry -

but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge (meanness).

And don't stay angry.  Don't go to bed angry.

Don't give the devil that kind of foothold in your life. 1

Let's see how inventive we can be in

encouraginging love and helping out... 2

Guide slaves (I'm reading children here)

into being loyal workers, a bonus to their masters

--no back talk, no petty thievery. 

Then their good character will shine through their actions,

adding luster to the teaching of our Savior God. 3

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk.

Be gentle with one another, sensitive.

Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as

God in Christ forgave you. 4

...dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you:

compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.

Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to fogive an offense.

Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.

And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.

It's your basic, all-purpose garment.  Never be without it. 5

Five opportunites.   Daily opportunities and strong principles to build a good life on.   My kids have called me "perfect," being sarcastic, of course.  I am FAR from perfect, as anyone that knows me well can testify, but I do know where my hope of reaching perfection is, and all I can do is strive toward that mark.  

There are certainly more opportunities I can take, but these will do for today.  Now, if I could just be convinced to stay out of Wal-Mart.

Y'all have a wonderful weekend.

Flea Bag Motel

Howdy, out there!

I just had an interesting text from Kid #3 Jere:   "Hmmm well I just sat on the couch and looked down at my legs and i had fleas all over them."

Poor Flea Bag Millie.  Left all her little friends at the rent house.  So Jere has tossed the flea-ridden blanket out the door, stuck his clothes in the washer, and is vacuuming the flea-heck out of the couch and hardwood floor.  Poor guy.  The things one has to endure in a rent house!

Several posts back, I told you about Kid #4 Sam's wreck in Dallas.  His car is now fixed and on the road again.  Hmmm, that rings up a song in my brain:  "On the road again.  I just can't wait to get on the road again."  hahahahaha

Queen Mother had a follow-up appointment in Dallas yesterday from her radiation treatments and surgery in December.  She is doing great!   I thank the Lord for that good report.

Tonight, the homeschoolers met for the monthly meeting and a marshmallow roast/campfire.  The weather was a little nippage and the open fire warmed our toes and our hearts.

Mary edited this picture herself, so I left it as is.

Very cute!

Las Tres Amigas - Rosa, Mary, Janie

Beautiful girls!

See all you beautiful peeps in the funny papers.

Wordless Wednesday

Paper Roses and the Tulip Tree

How weird, I thought.  I'm walking into Wal-Mart singing, and I mean singing where I could be heard, Paper Roses.   Not blasting, mind you, but if you just happened to walk close enough to me, you could have heard me.

Driving to Wal-Mart, my radio was off.  Walking through the parking lot, that silly song just came to my brain and off I go...

but they're only

imitation

like your imitation love

for me

How random is that?  Have you ever wondered how things just *pop* into your mind?  Do you remember weird stuff? 

Like, I remember one boy named Steve that liked me when I was 14.  We would sit by each other at lunch, and one time on the bus, we held hands.  His fingers were short and stubby, and I remember thinking what a fat hand he had.   He also wore thick glasses.

Or the time in fifth grade when I accidentally kicked our only class soccer ball onto the building's rooftop, and my old teacher, Mrs. Drake, who had wickedly long painted fingernails, came to me in class and pinched the beegeebees out of my arm and was mad at me all day.  She scolded, "I'll have to ask the maintenance man to get on the roof to get the ball down!"  We didn't know things about post-menopausal things back then, but that must have been what she suffered from.

Or the days in junior high when I would sneak my mom's nylons from her bathroom and wear them to school under my fishnets.   At school, I would take the fishnets off and wear hose all day.  Very grown up.   Boy, those old nylons would sag at the knees and only attach with a garter belt.  But I know they made me especially beautiful, if you didn't look at my skinny legs and boney knees.

One summer, my mom actually made my bathing suit from cotton fabric.  It was about the color of the tulip tree flowers.  The top was all right enough, but the bottoms were made like little girl panties, and they held the pool water like a water balloon.  The boys would call me 'water butt.'  "There goes water butt!"

Or the time I ran my bike into a trailerload of canoes in a parking lot.  Don't even ask.

My tulip tree (which is actually a type of magnolia) has opened her first spring buds.  Isn't she beautiful!?  The willow tree has budded, too.  The paper whites are happy along with the daffodils. 

Today, I planted Chinese fringe, camelias, shrub rose, and dahlias while Mary rode her bike around the neighborhood.  Thank goodness, this time she wasn't dog bitten. 

Paper roses

Paper roses

Oh how real those roses seem to be

See you good people in the funny papers.

A Visit to the Graveyard and Some Texas History

I always thought that people that visited graveyards were weird.  They are, you know. 
Especially people who travel great distances just to see where their ancestors are buried are in their own bubble.   Have you ever talked to those sorts of folks?  You know, the ones who go on and on and on about their frightening escapades through the cemeteries? 

My pastor recently told our congregation a story from his teenage years.  Bro. Bill and his best friend liked to wonder through the cemetery going from his house to his friend's house.  One late evening, they were walking through and noticed a bright light shining out from behind a very large marker.   They had the fight or flight thing going on; one of the boys fainted and the other took off.  They later learned of a big brush pile being burned somewhere beyond the marker.

When I was in high school, a group of us girlfriends bound and blindfolded another girlfriend and took her to the black cemetery in town and dumped her.  It was her birthday.  A few minutes later, we turned the car around to go find her, and she was hightailing it up the road, screaming all the way.  I'm sure her therapist has attributed all of her life's problems back to that one incident.

Anywho, Rick and I went to visit my dad today at the cemetery.  Actually, he's not really there.  Just his earth suit.  I sure miss him.

This massive magnolia tree is probably one of the oldest trees in the county - probably even the world! 

Underneath the tons of branches are markers that date back to the early 1800's.  One such family was the Lumpkin family.

In 1988, my dad and mom purchased their homestead and fifty acres from my dad's aunt, which was a fraction of land previously owned by my great-grandparents. 

But, back in the mid-1800's, the Lumpkin family owned the land.  And here's the rub:  My sister married a Lumpkin whose ancestors were prior owners of Mom and Dad's property. 

The old water well still exists where the Lumpkin home once stood.  Interesting, huh?

Thirty years ago, I didn't give a whiff about information found in a graveyard.  Is it just me?  Or does history seem to come alive when one gets older?   Is it the appreciation of life and legend?  Or is it knowing that the old bones in the wooden boxes indicates a life fully lived in another time?

1803.  Thomas Jefferson was in the White House.  He ordered the expedition of Lewis and Clark.  President Jefferson acquired the Lousiana Purchase from Napoleon for $15 million.   In Tejas, the settlements were sparse and miles apart with friendly Caddo Indians in this area.  Then began an inpouring of Irish, Scott, and German settlers wanting to purchase cheap land from Spain who required all new land buyers to convert to Catholicism.

Settlements and small towns were being established.  In 1844, the King of Spain heard of Texicans wanting independence, so he sent Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana to quell the unrest.  Santa Ana won the famous Alamo battle (yeah, like, the Spanish outnumbered the Texicans 400 to 1!) and chased fearful Texicans to San Jacinto.   That's when Sam Houston entered the picture.  A small, loosely formed band of Texicans that SA had just run over just about brow beat Houston to lead them to fight old SA.  The Texicans were out for blood!   And not theirs.

I love this story.  Such a picture of a chicken.  War was somewhat different back in those days.  Respectful, even.  The Spanish are famous for their siestas, and Santa Ana required at least a two hour siesta every day for him and his troops.  Siestas were also reserved for his 'manly time' with local mulatto women.

Sam Houston, knowing that the soldiers and Santa Ana himself would be off duty for siestas and 'manly time' in mid-afternoon, slipped his troops across a bayou at San Jacinto, launching a surprise attack on the Spanish camp about three o'clock.  Santa Ana came to the door of his tent with his pants down (really) and turned and ran chicken.  Just left his troops.  He was later found a few miles away at a farm house dressed in some dude's farm clothes, hiding in some bushes.  Such a picture of bravery!

He was then marched back to camp and tried, even offered an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with the president.  At the end of negotiations, the old bas coward fully surrendered and told his men to walk home.  That's a long walk from Houston to Mexico.

And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Glorious Spring Is Almost Here!

This day was perfect!  Perfect wind, perfect sun, perfect temperature.

And we worked like banchees!

Rick cut up a fallen tree and burned brush piles.

And I raked and raked and raked.  And when every single body part hurt

(except my ear lobes), I got out the camera.

I never get tired of this view.   One day soon, you'll see Jane out here.
She's beautiful!

A good day's work.  Tomorrow, we'll rest.

And then, on the way back home, I saw one of my favorite people in the world,

Lori, and her new husband, Paul.  I've known Lori since she was a wee one.

They live in my larger neighborhood across the railroad tracks 

 and were out walking.   Aren't they cute?!

While Rick was finishing his work, I came home and put some supper

together.  Rick came in, showered, and now he's watching Andy Griffith right now

while we're waiting on the Mexican rice. 

Ol' Barney's giving us some smack.

Y'all have a wonderful day of worship tomorrow.