Moving Day!

Hip hip hooray! It's moving day! :0)

A Mosquito...

...is trying to pierce my laptop. Ok, so it is a warm mass, but I still think someone was sleeping through "Victim ID 101."

Yum

We went to a farmer's market today, after running a few errands, like having the power for the house changed to our name, and bought beautiful tomatoes and fresh yellow squash!

Since my haloscan comments have gone AWOL again, I took the opportunity to switch on blogger comments.
I'm sorry about the lost comments, hopefully blogger comments will be stable and I won't have to change systems again!

Update: Sadly, it wasn't as easy as I thought. Automatic turn on of blogger comments didn't work due to some html issue. I tried to manually fix it but couldn't, so I changed templates!

It feels like it might rain.

Update: But it didn't. ;-)

Notes from the

Nefarious Goggled Creature

which comes out of the

Depths of the Pool

(sounds like a book, doesn't it?)

My goggles are good. They keep water out of my nose and eyes and keep my eyes from being irritated by the chlorine in the pool water.

However, they do have one problem. Since they’re a mask type goggle, when you move your lower face you lose the seal and water goes up the mask and up your nose and into your eyes. Not good.

Why would that be a problem, you ask? Why would I need to move my face while under water?

Well, you see, I’m not so good at keeping a straight face. When I tickle someone, for example, I have to smile. So when I zoom from the depths, or at least the deep end, to come up and tickle some small persons toes, dangling temptingly in the water as they lazily float in the tubes, I can’t help smiling. And then I get water up my nose. I’ve had several aborted attempts to tickle feet because of that. *sigh*

And they floated along, oblivious to the danger they had escaped!

Beauty

I stumbled across a beautiful post over at The Deliberate Agrarian today.

Here is a taste:

"Of course, it is normal for people to lie on a beach, but I am in my garden. Men do not recline on the earth like this unless they are physically sick, or, perhaps, mentally ill. An ambulance or police car might arrive on the scene. I might be taken away for closer examination.

It is a bright, but overcast, morning. The clouds are fluffy and dense. I open my eyes and gaze straight up, through my sunglasses. But I do not see any clouds. I see continents. I am looking down from the heavens. These foreign lands are milkwhite and dapple-gray against the bright blue oceans."

Older news. But it's still funny.

Star Wars Fans Injured with home made light sabers.

They both survived. In our family we often ask small ones "Did you learn anything?" Let us hope they did.

In other news...

I got glasses yesterday. Last Thursday I had my eyes checked.

Eye doctor: "So, cover your left eye, and tell me what the lowest row of letters that you can read is."
Me: "Um... I can't see any letters. Only a gray blur."
Eye doctor: "Oh..."

So now I have glasses. They're a little odd still, as the doctor warned they might be. But overall it is good. :-) And I haven't scratched them yet.

Summer

Summer is here, officially here.

Fireflies, fireworks, and fires for marshmallows. Rain storms bringing a blessed breath of cool air.

Warm muggy days filled with slow trains going by, and we run to watch them, standing, sticky but happy, by the tracks, waving at the engineer. They almost always wave back, smiling. When the cars (Sante Fe, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific), have all passed by us, the ding ding ding has stopped, the waiting cars, if there are any, have gone, we walk slowly back over the grass and clover of the field and find our water glasses.

Some days, like today, we go to the playground, and sit on the swings. It is really too hot to swing, though, so we halfheartedly kick our feet and stay hanging over the same patch of white hot gravel. The pool beckons from the other side of the fence, calling to us. “Come, swim! Be cooled off!”

The pool is treacherous, we know by now. Entire days spent in it give sunburn, headaches, ears full of water, red eyes, and wrinkled toes. It is best to save the pool for the sweltering heat of the afternoon, and it is still morning now. We wait, and sit in the shade, and drink ice water.

The mother cardinal has been sitting on a nest. The eggs hatched out a few days ago. Quiet peeks have so far not resulted in being dive bombed by angry birdie parents.

Yesterday we caught two turtles. Their stubby back legs reminded me of pictures of dinosaurs. The turtle we caught first escaped while we were swimming, and the search for it found the second turtle, smaller, but still interesting and still able to bite my brother, which it did.

Summer is here, definitely here.

"Eighty-eight cubic metres of card-index," said Mr. Foster with relish, as they entered. "Containing all the relevant information," added the director. "Brought up to date every morning." "And co-ordinated every afternoon." "On the basis of which they make their calculations."

~ Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

I was flipping through the copy of Brave New World that I got at the local Goodwill (5 books for 95 cents!), when I saw this. 'Card index?' I thought. Took me a minute to figure out what they meant. ;-)

Toad's list has blown away...

...and Frog sensibly suggests that they chase after it.

"No!" shouted Toad. "I cannot do that."

"Why not?" asked Frog.

"Because," wailed Toad, "running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"

My seven year old brother was reading this to me this morning.
I smiled sheepishly when he read this part, because sometimes I, like Toad, write a list and try to hold to it despite changing circumstances when I ought to be more flexible! ;-)

The Son of God Goes Forth to War

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood red banner streams afar:
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below,
He follows in His train.

That martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky,
And called on Him to save.
Like Him, with pardon on His tongue,
In midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong:
Who follows in His train?

A glorious band, the chosen few
On whom the Spirit came;
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
And mocked the cross and flame.
They met the tyrant’s brandished steel,
The lion’s gory mane;
They bowed their heads the death to feel:
Who follows in their train?

A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of Heav’n,
Through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be given,
To follow in their train.

This is one of my mother's very favorite hymns, and one of mine as well. We sang it this morning in church, and one of the little boys requested it during the practice time after church, so we were able to sing it twice! :-)
The tune at Cyberhymnal isn't the one it is set to in the Cantus Christi, but I recognized it from a different Psalm. ;-)