glad to be here

Made my mom's chicken salad today, twice (over-salted the first batch and I can't serve trash) and hosted a luncheon to say "Thank you" to a few precious gals. Listened to evening songbirds from the porch swing while my mother-in-law walked up and down the dirt road in the Arkansas heat; while my husband worked on his sermon in the sitting room in his new T-shirt from Forever 21. It has the Ghost Busters symbol on it and he picked it out himself. That is one great store, America! I even conceded while there to embrace the styles that the young people are wearing these days. My favorite teenager, Libby, had me spending Christy W.'s money (which Christy handed me after church saying, "This is for YOU") on oversized sweaters, hot colors, butterfly tops, and jeans without, yes, WITHOUT boot cut legs. There comes a time when a girl must stop thinking that she is right while the rest of the world is wrong... So I will go make some popcorn on the stovetop, like my daddy always did, and MoMo will get a bowl for herself while I will eat the rest, and Daniel will keep preaching to the pillows in the sitting room. Now the nighttime tree bugs are screeching so loudly that I am glad that the airconditioning is on and the windows are tightly shut. I am glad that MoMo is still young enough to walk up and down the dirt road. Glad for friends who fund shopping trips. Glad that Daniel loves what he does. Glad for a sister-in-law who is facing her pain (after losing Glory) head on and heroically. Glad to be less than two weeks from seeing my mama and daddy. Glad for Ben And Jerry's Ice cream. Glad to be here.

not enough

There is just not enough time.  That's really all there is to it.  Not enough trips to Sonic for cherry limeades, not enough Sunday nights at Chuck E. Cheese's, not enough hot pink sunsets over the Ozarks, or afternoons in the pool, or shopping trips with Allison and Libby, or sermons that Daniel gets to preach at our home fellowship, or cookouts with folks who have known Daniel all of his life.

The time is just too short.  Two weeks from now we head north, where Grandpa and Grandma await us.  We are so excited to see my family, but we can't help but ask, where oh where has the time gone?

Sigh.

We are loving every single minute of our precious June in Arkansas!

off the map

Life in the country.  Tree frogs wooping at the setting sun.  Thunder rattling the timbers of the farm house, rain pouring down from the top porch.  Uncle Philip's cows mooing at an SUV that is coming up the dirt road, flinging pebbles in its wake.  No internet, no TV, no microwave.

Talk about a stark difference from our other life. 

So every now and then, we come over to Aunt KK's and put in a DVD of Dumbo and I get on the computer and catch up the blog.

At an airport somewhere on our way around the world.

Ready for surgery in Little Rock. 

In recovery.  She did great, and never let go of her chapstick!

All bandaged up.  The shoulder lesion won't get worked on until next time.

Old Fort Days Rodeo with the Wood family!

We stayed up until 10 p.m. to see the bull riding.  We had some tired buckaroos on our hands!

Fresh blackberries from Spiro, Oklahoma, gifted to us from Ms. Allison.  We (obviously) made cobbler and served it hot with ice cream!!

A cookout on a cool night.

Jubilee's first chance to eat a s'more, and she declined.  She'll catch on soon enough.

All of MoMo's grandkids except Glory.

Zion's 5-year-old Initiation Into Boyhood camping trip.

A Monday morning breakfast outing to Paul's for the world's BEST doughnuts.

The amount of delicious milk readily available in this country is staggering. 

Until my next brief overview post, happy June!