More Than A Song

“but it rings and I rise”

Last week was vacation bible school for me and I think I’m just about to recuperate! It’s always fun but I’m usually tired by the end of the week. Most days I might get up around sixish but I don’t have to get out somewhere every morning. This year I might have been a bit more tired because I had a visitor with me……Katelyn came up to see me and attend bible school with me!
Read the rest of this entry »

The spring reading challenge hosted by Katrina officially ended yesterday. It feels like summer started a few weeks ago for us, it’s extremely hot here in the deep south!
I was able to finish all the books I had on my list; not too difficult for me because I wimped out and didn’t include any non-fiction books this go round.
This is what was on my list:
Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate
Mozart’s Sister by Nancy Moser
The Way We Were by Judy Baer
Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
My least favorite of these was The Pact. I didn’t particularly enjoy the subject matter; the stuff about teen suicide and teen relationships was just a little depressing to me at times. Picoult is a good author; I’ve read a few other books by her that I enjoyed more.

Two books that I especially loved were The Help and Redeeming Love, both very different books. The Help takes place in my home state of Mississippi so that interested me right off. I enjoyed the characters and thought the southern dialect was just perfect. I’m probably the last person to have read Redeeming Love but it was oh so good! I was familiar with the basic story from the bible but loved that it was retold with the setting in California during the 1800’s and the Gold Rush days. I wanted to savor it as I read while also wanting to hurry up and finish it! Very emotional story I thought.

I always enjoy doing Katrina’s reading challenges. She’ll host another in the fall so think about joining up then!

Since I just had a few names, it was easy to put them in a hat and draw one out. It was harder to take a picture of it! Here’s Lauren’s name I drew out……..I’ll try to email you and you can let me know your address. I’ll be glad for the postman to bring it to your house!

I’m off to my last day at bible school, thank goodness because I’m a bit tired!

A month or so ago I finished a book I really enjoyed called The Help. The author is from Mississippi and she’s written a novel about life in Jackson, MS during the civil unrest of the 1960’s. A young white woman just out of college wants to become a writer and becomes interested in the plight of the black women who work for white families in the city. I thought the dialect was dead on, not fake as we sometimes read and hear. The characters were well developed and I sort of hated to see the story come to an end.
If you’d like to read this one (the few of you that read here!) leave me a comment and I’ll be glad to pass it along. If there’s more than one person interested then I’ll put your names in a hat and draw one at the end of the week, so leave me a comment by Thursday and we’ll see if there are any takers!

“across the U.S.A”

Last week we went to the beach for a few days, it was our anniversary! Neither of us are huge beach people but I do love listening to the waves and feeling the breeze…..if I had a book and umbrella, even better. We walked on the beach some, read books, hubby hit golf balls on the driving range every day, went shopping some, ate seafood every chance I got and went to see a movie. Mostly relaxing except for the work calls he kept getting each day; this time of year is his busy season and work is hard for him to get away from!

View from the balcony…….it doesn’t show up once I sized this picture down but way off in the distance were quite a few oil rigs. They seemed to be everywhere down there.

One morning we noticed quite a few dolphins swimming/playing in the water close to shore. I took a few pictures from the balcony and then we walked down to the beach to see them even closer. They were hard to catch when they were out of the water!

And yeah, that doesn’t show up well after sizing!

We had fun company over the weekend, more golf was involved! We gave a wedding luncheon for a young couple and I’ve been trying to regroup this week but not having much success getting back into the swing of things. Thank goodness it’s almost the weekend again!

“the tender times we’ll hold in our hearts forever”

Last week Ava Clair had her pre-k graduation and today she turns five! Where does the time go? We didn’t get to be there for the event but my DIL shared some pictures on facebook so I snagged some to use!
She was very excited and proud she got an award……and she was ready to turn five too, today’s the day.

Pretty fun stuff for us to see her smiling face!

When my kids were little they belonged to something called The Best Book Club Ever; every month we got quite a few of these square paperback books. They loved them getting them and read them often at bedtime. Hubby and I read our fair share of them out loud too. Katelyn and Sam visited recently and one day Katelyn picked one out specifically that she wanted me to read to her before she went to sleep. It was called The Wolf and the Seven Kids, not a book I remembered at all. The story was about a mother goat with 7 children; she left them at home one day to go get food at the market but told them not to open the door so the wolf wouldn’t get them. But of course when the wolf came calling the kids were eventually tricked into opening the door. The seven kid goats all hid but the wolf found and ate 6 of them! The mom came home to find one baby goat still hiding so they went to the woods looking for the wolf. They found him sleeping but his stomach was moving around. So she got her sewing kit to cut his stomach open, pulled out her kids, then they put rocks back in his stomach and sewed him back up! When he woke up, the wolf went to the river for a drink but was so heavy he fell in and drowned.
This is a kid’s book?!! I must have read this to my kids but I don’t really remember it. Has it been too long ago? Did having 4 kids fry my brain? Did I pay attention to what they were doing, did I read them anything and never gave it a second thought? Am I a bad parent?
The more I read this one to Katelyn, the more uncomfortable I got; I was unsure whether to sort of change it up as I went along or read it like it was. She didn’t seem to have a problem with it but I felt like a heel for reading it to her! Later when I looked it up, I found it was based on a Grimm’s fairy tale and when I think about it, those all seem to have some of those same characteristics about them. Most kids know those stories and do ok I guess; Ava Clair and Grayson went through a phase of wanting me to tell them the Three Little Pigs story every time I saw them.

I discreetly put the book away and later we did stuff like this:

I hope I didn’t ruin my kids or her reading her that book! I might need to read the other books around here and decide whether to keep them or toss them.
Tents in the dining room, chasing the train, popsicles outside, going to the park…..all that makes up for reading a story like that doesn’t it? I sure hope so!

Has it been a month since I posted?! There’s been a lot of things happening and nothing much going on at the same time, if that makes any sense. Lots of little things but nothing too major for my family. My google reader is out of control and I seriously need to cut back on facebook! We’ve had some time with the kids and babies lately so that’s been fun; maybe I’ll post some random pictures. I think I’ve finally found a dr./eye dr. that might know what’s wrong with my eye but will know more next month when I go back. We don’t have anything big planned right now for the long weekend, hubby will probably have to work some of the time.
In the meantime while I try to catch up, take a look at this plant for me. It was given to me and I have no idea what it is.

It looks pretty right now but I’m not very good with plants, and really no good if I don’t get some instructions! There was no tag to tell how to care for it or identify it. So if you know what kind of plant it is or what it needs to survive please let me know! Otherwise it might not last long around here.
What’s new with you?
Hope you have a great memorial day weekend!

Easter weekend was baby Henry’s first birthday…..I can’t believe it’s been a year since he was born! We drove to Houston for the party and to celebrate Easter with them as well. Hubby and I picked up David in Jackson so he could go with us; he’s not been to Texas to see his brother in quite a while plus we were thrilled to get a visit in with him too. Friday we played some and even flew kites for a while. Saturday was party day and getting ready…..we had a fun time and the food was all good.

Here’s the birthday boy with his daddy.

Click through if you like for the rest of the pictures.
Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t mean to wait so long in between posts……there’s no one answer, just too many different things going on at once. I’ll see if I can do a quick review instead of the whiny, boring long version.
* We had company to get ready for…the girls came home for the weekend with families and boyfriend in tow so lots of cooking and cleaning. But fun times!
* More cooking to do for friends that needed meals plus sewing for some new babies
* I got sick……sinus/cold, respiratory stuff with one eye that will not quit watering. Around here mostly it’s called the delta crud.
* Went to the dr to get treated and had bronchitis. Got a shot and 3 meds to take.
* The shot was pure heaven for about 24 hrs and then it wore off….the antibiotic was ok, the antihistamine made me too groggy but the cough medicine with codeine did a number on me. I was sick as a dog; I must be allergic and I won’t be testing again to see if I have the same reaction!
* We made a trip to TX to see the kids we haven’t seen since thanksgiving! Picked up the other son we haven’t seen since Christmas so he could visit too. Plus baby Henry turned one on Easter so there was a party also! Hopefully pics tomorrow.
* Drove home in horrible thunderstorms
* Got bits and pieces of bad news through the weekend. So there’s already been two funerals this week with food to make for both families. More people in the hospital and probably two more funerals by the weekend. Sad
* One eye will NOT quit watering and it’s driving me insane. Plus it’s made red, scaly places under the corners of my eyes, so not attractive! I went to the eye dr and she thinks it’s allergies, all this stupid lovely pollen blowing in the wind here that won’t go away. So now I’m on an antihistamine eye drop and have some antibiotic cream to put on these raw places under my eye. It hasn’t stopped yet but my eye feels like it’s watering slightly less than before.

Really it’s all good though; what fun would it be if there was nothing going on! And it beats the alternative as they say. I’m just not motivated to be on the computer much and now I’m overwhelmed with too much email and google reader bursting at the seams.
Life is good and I love spring anyway! We’ve had a full few weeks and a nice Easter….how was yours!

Late last week I had a visit from a sweet little three year old! Her daddy (my son in law) was out of town working so my daughter and I decided at the last minute that Katelyn could come visit me for a few days. She’d been asking her mom to go to my house, which makes me feel good but I bet she asks to go lots of other places too! I picked her up from her day care one afternoon and we came back to the boonies where there’s not much to do for fun. I’ve discovered however that it doesn’t take much to satisfy a three year old!

I can hear the train whistle from my house, so we jumped in the car to look for/chase the train, easy entertainment. We saw it sitting on the tracks waiting to load up and then when it started moving again we would follow it for a bit. We played with lots of old toys around my house (that probably need tossing soon) but the marble works run was a big hit this time. We walked to the bayou to look for ducks, played outside with balls and chalk and went to the park 3 days.

Two mornings she asked me to make pancakes for her and she gobbled them up. She ate most everything I fixed her and she loves corn on the cob!

One day she saw something taped to the inside of my cabinet door and asked me about it; years ago I saved a jello brochure about making jigglers. That was on the door to remind me that there are egg shaped molds way in the back of the cabinet so we pulled those out. We made jello eggs 2 different days and she loved doing that. I had forgotten that I actually kinda like jello!

Oops, we ate most of them.

I did a little sewing while she was here; things her mama “hired” me to make for baby gifts and mended a gown for Katelyn. She has given up her afternoon nap unfortunately but she does have to stay in the room and rest/read for a while. I must have worn her out though because on the way home to meet her mama I was talking to her, getting no response and turned to find this:

Katelyn was exhausted but happy to see her mommy!

I’ve been a little scarce while I had company and now I’m in recovery mode. That was my spring break for the most part…different than the ski trips we used to do every year but still loads of fun for me!

“all I wanna do is have some fun, I got a feeling I’m not the only one”

Today is the start of the Spring Reading Challenge hosted by Katrina. It will run until June 20 and it’s a good way to read any books you’ve been putting off! I believe she will have some prizes/giveaways along the way so be sure to check in with her every week or so. There’s no pressure to finish everything you pick and it’s ok to change your list if your little heart so desires! That’s a good thing for me because I can be a very moody reader at times. I usually try to include one non-fiction book when I do these because I just don’t read it otherwise but right now I’m picking all fiction. Unless you know, the mood strikes me to change later!
Here’s a few I’m hoping to get read over the next couple of months:
Mozart’s Sister by Nancy Moser
The Way We Were> by Judy Baer
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe………all four of these books belong to my sister who loans lots of books to me with no time limit on returning them! But I’ve had these for many months now and just haven’t been motivated to read them so I’m hoping this will get me going.
Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers; I actually just bought that book this week on a whim. I’ve always heard what a good book it is so I’m looking forward to it.

Not pictures is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer; my library doesn’t have it but I hope to get my hands on it sometime in the next few months.

Happy spring reading!

* Daylight saving time, you are no good to me right now. I don’t like waking up in the dark because it makes me feel like I didn’t sleep long enough! I was able to sleep a little late last week, nice…. and then today it was back to waking up naturally around 6ish, what time is that really? TOO early!

* No sun for six long days, too long….time for the sun!

* Spring break but I have no kids at home and thus no trip planned…too much time on my hands?

* But spring break means March Madness….time for great basketball games and YAY for Miss. State winning the SEC and going to the big dance! The first game is a tough one though. Boo for no Survivor this week.

* I’m hoping for warmer weather this week.

* Somehow hubby got talked into doing a consumer survey over the weekend, they’ll pay this week when we turn it back in. Lo and behold it’s like a 100 page book! I don’t think it’s enough money for the time it’s taking to fill in.

* I don’t like the new facebook look!

A few things on tap for this week…….
haircut, probably past time
24 watching party tonight, I’m bringing bread
sewing, a few burp cloths and maybe something else
Happy Monday!

“does anybody really know what time it is?
does anybody really care, about time?”

I seem to be going long between posts now and I’m not sure what all I’ve been doing with my time! We did have a gathering at my house recently so I spent some time getting ready for that plus a few other tasks that needed to be taken care of. And spring teased us with some warmer weather and gorgeous days for a week maybe. It was nice enough to be outside and do yard work, that is if you like to do yardwork! I don’t love it but tried to get a bit done. It was in the 80’s one day here and then back to the 40’s yesterday. It drizzled most of yesterday and apparently we are in for more rain over the next few days; I’m so not a fan of the rain! No working in the flower beds now, too chilly and damp. This kind of weather makes me want to stay inside and do nothing, or read, or catch up on my dvr’d stuff……and it also makes me do stuff like this:
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Friday and time for Susanne’s meme for sharing some of your favorite things from the week. I’m glad it’s Friday because I’m looking forward to the weekend!

1. We had a surprise snow this week! Not much for lots of you in the north but snow, most any snow, is a big deal in the south because we just don’t get it but maybe once a year. This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning, kinda fun.

2. The opposite of that is the spring like weather we’re now having, I love it! It was around freezing at the first of the week but is now in the 70’s this weekend.
3. Blueberries on my cereal
4. Facebook games, especially Scramble with Annie!
5. Bread machine I got for christmas….I’ve had fun playing with it.

And just because I have to put it in
6. Lost! Some good, good tv! I may be lost half the time but oh what fun to figure it out.

What’s been your favorite thing this week?
Have a great weekend!

I used the random number site to get a number for the books to send out and this is what it shot out:

Random Integer Generator

Timestamp: 2009-03-06 13:51:46 UTC

Number 5 comment was made by Sandra……..I’ll get the Heather Creek books out to you in a few days!

And Sweet September are the first two books in a new series by Guideposts called Home to Heather Creek. In Before the Dawn we meet Charlotte Stevenson; her daughter Denise ran away from home at eighteen and is the mom to three children. After she dies in an automobile accident, Charlotte brings the teen age children home to their farm in Nebraska. The kids are virtually strangers to Charlotte and her husband Bob and are not thrilled to leave behind their life in California for a very different life on the farm. Sweet September picks up the story as harvest is beginning. The kids and grandparents are becoming a bit more comfortable with each other but are still learning to deal with their grief and how to become a family while trusting in God to help them through.
Lauren was sweet enough to pass these along to me a few months ago to read and my sister Stacy read them when I was through. I’d like to pass along both of these books so if you’re interested in them let me know in the comments. I’ll leave this up and open all week.

In three years of sometimes sporadic blogging I’ve never really had anyone visit my blog by doing some random or odd google search. There’s been just a handful of people that have found me by googling “gail”……nothing unusual there since that would be my name. But a couple of weeks ago I noticed that there had been some different searches that led people here; and may I just say that whatever it is you’re looking for, you still probably won’t find it here!

Here’s a few of my favorite ones:

1. toothbrush song by gail….I SO wish I had written a song but maybe not about toothbrushes!
2. sonic sweetheart blast recipe….please share that recipe because I’d like to have it
3. a math song for greater than…..I do NOT do math and don’t even want to think about it
4. sewing cowboy dress up….Git along little dogies!
5. dexpak directions….because I must play a doctor on tv
6. superman sunday school lessons…….THAT should be a fun class!
7. what high school did erynn mangum go to…..well I believe I can guarantee it wasn’t in Mississippi!
8. can drinking more water help with giant papillary conjunctivitis…..my tv dr gig didn’t teach me this either but I’m curious to know if that works
9. a song to memorize the bones in the body…..Oh my goodness, I would like to hear that song!
10. he wrote me a letter……I got that about 2 dozen times last week during Idol so it must have been something sung on the show. Maybe I should rethink using songs? (nah, I’m probably “In too deep”)

Nope, I still don’t think you’ve found what you’re looking for here at my place; but it was good for a few laughs for me!

It’s been a while since I participated in this monthly meme……my laptop crashed before Christmas, my blog was down for a while and then our internet service was out! I hope that will be it for the computer problems until much later.
5 Minutes for Books is a great site for book reviews, recommendations and other book related things. So check it out to see who else is sharing their books today. These are a few of my books for the month:

Not pictured but something I just finished were the Sunrise series of books by Karen Kingsbury; the last of the books about the Baxter family. I enjoyed them all and was sad to see them come to an end! At times they might be predictable but I’m ok with that and like to read something clean.
Multiple Blessings by Kate Gosselin is on the bottom and I actually just finished it as well. You might know it from the tv show about their life with 2 sets of multiples and if you like the show you’ll probably enjoy the book. I thought it gave some interesting info about their early days and struggles.
Size 12 is Not Fat……I know nothing about this one and haven’t even read the blurb on the back! It’s one of the many fiction books loaned to me by my sister Stacy.
Hot Tropics and Cold Feet…..I’ve not read anything by Diann Hunt yet; this is another borrowed book.
The Price of Fame….a Guideposts book from the Tales of Grace Chapel Inn series and the one I’m currently reading. Surprise, it came from Stacy…..she’s better than the library! Not sure what will be up next for me after I finish these but the sack of books she sent with me is big enough to have plenty of choices.

I always love recommendations so tell me what you’ve been reading lately!

This week has flown by for me! Time to share some favorite things from the week; you can find out all the scoop and join in the fun over at Susanne’s place.
Here’s a few of mine:

1. Sunday dinner out with friends
2. Mashed potatoes……..it’s a crime how much I like them sometimes!
3. Sitting outside by the firepit
4. Crockpot, to cook an easy meal with
5. Surprise visit from my girls!

What’s been your favorite thing this week?
I’m looking forward to the weekend and hoping to catch up on some sleep. Hope your weekend is great too!

A few days ago I took my car to a dealership in a neighboring town to have a recall thing fixed on it….the heated windshield washer part needed replacing. Here in the deep south it’s very important to have a heated windshield washer! But I’m ready now should we need it; I also got a new inspection sticker. It was time for one but we won’t talk about whether it was past time or not. As I’ve been known to do in the past, I went to walmart afterwards. That’s only because I don’t live anywhere close to a target. While wandering down the aisles I came across a long row of tulips in pots that I suppose had been there for valentines day. They were marked down to just a couple of dollars and I briefly thought about buying one for myself. But they were just sad looking for the most part; most had flopped over, looked wilted and had lost color. It looked lonely to see long rows of them!
I’m not sure my picture shows how bad I thought they looked when I first spotted them.

Later that same afternoon my girls drove up to surprise me. It was my birthday so they came to see me and eat with us. They literally scared me to death because I thought I was alone in my room and I came out of the closet and saw something move out of the corner of my eye! It was fun to see them for a few hours and visit with them.
Look at one of the things they brought me!

I love tulips and the colors of these are so pretty! I love these way more than the sad looking ones!

I’ve seen this passing around some and thought I’d play along since I haven’t thought of anything profound! It was just a bit harder than I thought to come up with 10 things but here’s mine:

10 Things I Do Every Day

1. Read…..I have to read every day, usually whatever book I’ve got going but I would feel all twitchy and out of sorts if I didn’t get to read.
2. Cook, it seems like I’ll have to do that forever.
3. Pray
4. Make the bed
5. Put contacts in………I can’t sleep in mine so I have to put them in and out every day.
6. Use prescription eye drops…..will have to do this forever to preserve my eyesight!
7. Weigh…..I think I’ve read you aren’t supposed to but I can’t adhere to that
8. Usually listen to music of some sort; and/or try to get songs out of my head that just get stuck there! Is there always a song or songs running through your head or am I the only one that happens to?
9. Get on the computer
10. Drink lots of water

So, what do you do every day? Let me know if you post this so I can come read yours!
Happy Monday!

edited to add: I forgot to say that I first saw this at Karen’s blog in this post. If you decide to play along, let me know and I’m sure she’d like to see it as well!

Since I’ve got my laptop back from repairs and mostly running, I thought I’d join in this week over at Susanne’s Friday favorites. It’s been a while since I’ve done this one, let’s see if I remember how it’s done!

1. My favorite thing that’s happened recently….finding ALL my pictures on my external drive that I thought I’d lost when my laptop crashed! Yay!
2. Having hubby home again after a business trip.
3. Books; specifically this week the Sunrise series by Karen Kingsbury. It’s the last of her books about the Baxter family and I think I’ll be sad to finish the last one.
4. A cup of spice tea at night while reading.
5. Some of my reality shows starting back up this week! I’m a junkie and might need help. But it will be fun to see Amazing Race again, along with a few others.

What’s been your favorite things this week?
I hope y’all have a fun weekend and good Valentine’s day!

We got a new fridge about a month or two ago; my old one was almost 20 years old, yikes! The ice dispenser finally quit working and that helped speed the buying process along. Gotta have ice, right! This one is a little fancy schmancy with some fun features that I’m enjoying.

The old one….yep, it needed updating.
Oops, couldn’t find a picture without all the junk on the front……they hauled this one off when I got the new one installed.

The new one ….Sweet!
It’s a bit hard to take a picture of a black appliance I found out!

Hubby and daughter didn’t want me to put anything back on the front but I’ve cheated some lately with a few pictures. We got a rebate deal with the fridge, in the form of a gift card that can be used anywhere. That just came in over the weekend and Don gave it to me! I’ll have to go shop for something else now!
The new fridge looks so much better in my kitchen and it matches the other appliances……..it’s a good thing we got it when hubby was still drinking cokes, we used way more ice then than we do now!

My blog is BACK, and so is my sis’s! Our blogs are kept on their website/server at home and the computer broke down a few weeks ago. Before that, my laptop died right around Christmas so I’ve not been around much lately. My brother in law has worked on their computers til he’s sick of it I’m sure….those kinds of problems are never fun.
I got my laptop back a few weeks ago and it was still a black screen just like when I sent it for repairs! That was mildly annoying. They had to send us a new hard drive to install ourselves after they messed up and installed a keyboard instead. So for now my laptop is working and I’m trying to get everything put back on it and get my pictures burned/saved so I don’t get in trouble again!
We’ve just been busy with everyday things…..work, watched some movies, had 2 of the grandkids over, had some get togethers with friends, reading, playing and various other appointments. Hubby has his cast off now and is starting therapy but has been told it could be 9 months or so before his bones are back to what they were before.
I’m glad to be back up and running again, thanks to Tim! I hope to get my google reader whittled down over the next couple of days and will visit as soon as I can!