EVERYBODY!!!! It's Time To Do The Happy Dance!

Today I was informed that this week will be my final week of being Nanny at work. Yay. Yay.

People Are Awesome

I found this video and watched it with my jaw on the floor. I can only imagine the blooper video that could be made from the "misses". Please don't try any of this at home because these people are way more crazy than anyone who would ever read my blog. Click the image below to see the video.

see more Epic Win FTW

Flashback Friday # 111

My Girl

Welcome back to my faithful readers. Both of you should enjoy this post dealing with young love.

It has been well chronicled (see Flashback Friday #65,103 & 109) that I was infatuated with Pauline Pershing, my teenage neighbor. It is also well chronicled that she didn't like me, but only had eyes for the neighbor on the other side, Sneaky Crook. I think she got tired of the attention that I was payng her, and decided she needed to do something about it.

We were having a yard sale, and Mom had some of her costume jewelry in it. All the Pershing girls were looking over the jewelry like pirates looking through a treasure chest. They didn't have any money, so I gave them some, since sales were slow anyway. I also had a baggie of home made hard tack candy which I offered some, but only Tess took me up on the offer.

Later that evening I was talking to Pauline when she mentioned she had noticed how much attention that I had been paying Tess. I asked her what she was talking about. She replied that I must like Tess a lot because I had given her jewelry and candy (costume jewelry and home made hard tack, how romantic). She said if I wanted, she could ask her for me, if she would be my girlfriend.

This was going WAY too fast. I had never had a real girlfriend before. I stammered & yammered and finally said "OK".

She left, and a few minutes later, came back with Tess in tow. Tess had told Pauline that she liked me, but I don't think she thought she had a chance because I liked Pauline so much. With me out of the way, it freed Pauline to put the full court press on Sneaky.

The next day I rode my bike into Marengo and went into the corner drug store. I had noticed that behind the candy display was a small display of rings. I had a girlfriend, therefore I must buy her a ring. I plunked down $2.00 for a golden, adjustable banded ring with a red stone. Red because red is the color of love. Tess loved it.

A few weeks later, back at the swimming hole, she told me that she didn't love me any more. I was devastated. I stormed back home, slammed the front door as hard as I could, then turned and punched the wall as hard as I could. It was made of drywall, so my fist should have made a sizable hole in the wall. A word of warning, when punching a drywall wall, don't hit it where the stud is. I dented the drywall, but nearly broke my hand. If you knew where the impression of my fist was, you could see it, but to the untrained eye, it was invisible.

Tess was only the first of many who would break my heart in this crazy little thing called young love.

Do you remember you first "steady"?

Spring Is Here?

Here in Ohio, we are currently in Indian Summer. Temperatures have been in the high 60's-low 70's. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be in the high 50's, which makes this picture so funny:

For those of you who can't figure out what this is, it is a violet. My front yard has lots of little violets coming up, just like they do in the Spring. Oh, I wish.

Sunday Summary

Here's some stuff that happened this week that I didn't get a chance to blog about.


Monday I took "The Boy" out to our local bike path. The two prior day had been very nice, but also very busy. I had promised him a trip to the path so he could get some time in with his chopper bike we bought for him at a yard sale.






I picked him up from school, swung by the house and loaded up the bikes, and off we went. It had been looking overcast most of the day, but wasn't supposed to rain until evening. On the way to the path, raindrops hit the windshield. I told "The Boy" that if started raining we would have to turn back, but a few sprinkles wouldn't deter us. He was fine with that. We rode a mile out, then a mile back (that's two miles for those of you who weren't counting). That's him pictured ahead of me in the picture below. As we were putting the bikes back in the truck, the rain began to fall steadily. Thank you Lord for letting me get that time in with my grandson.



Tuesday we cleaned in preparation for the small group Bible study we host monthly at our home. Wednesday we had it.


Thursday wasn't real good, so you'll just have to use your imagination.


Friday, I took off work (vacation day) and went to my parents house to take out old cabinets & install new cabinets. There was noting wrong with the old cabinet except that Mom is short and can't reach to the back of the counter. There is also limited counter space.


After Dad left to tend to a rental, Mom & I decided to leave the old cabinets and install the new ones at the other end of the kitchen. This necessitated moving out a spare refrigerator and a small chest freezer to the utility shed (which has electricity) and removing the kitchen table (which was actually a patio set). Nobody ever ate at the table, and it had become a catch all.


After the cabinets were installed, Dad came home. He wasn't too happy about the table being gone ("I like sitting at the table and eating." "When was the last time you did that? You always eat while watching TV"). I left about that time.


Saturday, I helped move a single mom at our church. Five of us men had all her "heavy stuff" moved in an hour and 15 minutes. "We are manly men" was the catch phrase. She said she could move the boxes throughout the week in her car. I then went to our local Habitat For Humanity Re-Store and bought a counter top for the cabinets I installed for Mom on Friday. After we cut it to size, this is what the finished product looked like:




Mom was ECSTATIC about her new kitchen. After I left, and was a few blocks from my house, I got a call from from my daughter,"The Ogre", stating that Grandma had told her that she could have the patio set if she wanted it. Would I please take her to got get it. So back to my parents I went again and picked up the set. Dad told me that I was right about "When Momma is happy, everybody is happy". I went home, finished the laundry that I had been doing here & there since Friday morning and headed off to the store with my wife. When we got back & put our purchases away, I went to bed.

Today, I am writing this post. We then have Sunday School, Will go out to eat, take a nap (YAY! I love naps) and we have our annual Singspiration tonight, were anyone get the oportunity to sing. Your all invited.

Flashback Friday # 110

Star Wars

Greetings Earthlings and intergalactic visitors. I'm sure everyone who is reading this has seen Star Wars at least once in their life. this post is about the very first time I saw it, when it first hit the theater.

We had read about the soon-to-be-released sci-fi flick in our READ magazine in English class. It sounded like it was going to be great. I kept my eyes open for a nearby theater to advertise it. Finally, a large movie house in Westerville announced it would be running it.

Dad said I could take someone with me, so I asked if we could go over to Aunt Shelly's to pick up Skeeter. When we got there, we discovered that he was working for a nearby farmer. Chawly was still there, so I asked him to come along.

We rode to Westerville in the back of Chuck's pick-up truck (Chuck was Dad's best friend.). We were let off at the theater, with ticket money and a couple dollars for snacks. We then ventured inside for a viewing of one of the best movies that I had ever seen in my young life. Space ships! Laser guns! Aliens! Laser guns! Robots! Who wouldn't want to watch this movie? Did I mention laser guns?

When the movie was over we waited a few minutes for Dad to pick up up (this was before cell phones). Chawly and I spent the time rehashing all the exciting things we had just seen. Boy, Did Skeeter ever miss out.

Dad finally got there to pick us up, and we climbed into the back of the truck. Shortly after we began our 35-40 mile trip back home, it began to rain. Not mist, or thunderstorm, but one of those good ol' soaking rains. There wasn't room inside the truck for us, seeing that there were already four adults in the cab of the truck. A blanket was brought out from behind the seat, and we used that to try to stay dry. Needless to say, we were soaked when we got home.

I saw Star Wars several times after that. I convinced Gattabout to go see it when we visited him at his Army base. He had never seen it before. He actually went to a walk in theater to see it (he preferred drive-ins). Another time it was playing at a drive in when he came home on leave. We watched the two movies on our side of the drive in, then snuck over to the other screen to catch Star Wars again. Later, one of the drive-in employees knocked on our window and said "You can go home now." We had fallen asleep.

I found the Star Wars Trilogy on ebay prior to "Episode 1" coming out for $5. It was VHS, but we still have a working VHS player, so I thought it was a great buy. "The Boy" has seen it several times, and enjoys it just as much as I do every time I see it again.

Do you have a movie that you can see time & time again?

A Trip To The Llama Farm

Yesterday we visited McFarland's Llama Farm for their "Open Barn". The weather cooperated giving us a sunny day in the mid 60's. "The Boy" is old enough to see the sights for himself, so once he got a cookie or two, he was off. "The Girl", had to stay with us (or at least in relative proximity). She loved looking at the llamas & alpacas.

She even got to pet a couple of them, and one of them gave her a kiss. This was taken right after the kiss. It's hard to hold a baby & take pictures at the same time.

There were other animals there too like goats and rabbits. Here is "The Girl" discovering the the fuzzy goodness of an angora rabbit.

By the time we got home, she was worn out and took a two hour nap.