Good morning, Florida

Good morning, Florida!

Just so we're clear, this here, inside the walls? This is my house. See all that lovely sprawling nature outside? That is YOUR house. You don't eat in mine and I won't eat in yours. Capeesh?

hmmm...not so much, eh?

After a marvelous night of restful sleep, I am awakened and there's a little request made of me. "Can you make lunches this morning?"

But of COURSE! I love making lunches! I sauntered out of bed and into the kitchen to begin my work. Now, we have a pretty open floor plan, so the entry from the garage, from the front door, and the pantry are all within an arms reach of each other. When the flooring guys finished up their work a couple of months ago, the trim around the garage door particularly is rather gappish. It's made for interesting discovery, but nothing as interesting as this morning.

Before my very eyes, in the crevice there by the garage door was something rather bulky even for us! I turned the kitchen light on and turned quickly to Mini Mann and said, "What is this?! When did you get this toy?" He turned, looked, and ran crying into the bathroom to get Daddy. Apparently, it wasn't a toy. It lay there nice enough with a dead lizard right next to it. It was a real snake. In my HOUSE!

Well, thank goodness to a dear friend who answered her phone at the ungodly hour of 7:00AM, we learned that it was probably a non-poisonous little corn snake, but that didn't make a single person in my house any braver. There was sweating. There was inappropriate laughter. Shreiking. Tears. Shaking. Someone even threw up!

In the end, though, my hero used the barbeque tongs and delicately freed the little bugger from the inside garage door where he apparently became stuck, most probably the night before...eghphphph!, and tossed him/her outside. Back to its house and out of mine.

I'm really glad to learn a couple of things from this little experience.

1. We have snake fighting tools currently in our possession! Who would have known?

2. My Softie is the bravest man I know. (and no, baby, I don't think that snake is outside plotting for revenge against you with the tongs.)

3. If you don't remember buying it, it's probably not a toy.

4. Trying to pick up the snake by its tail didn't work for Softie the way it did for Moses (Exodus 4:2-4), but we (I) screamed a little when he tried and then I used completely inappropriate humor and brought Moses into our little equation.

So, now, I believe I shall without fear go and get ready for my day. Strange though, how similar common household items can look to a serpent after such an experience!!! GAH!

Below you will find the most excellent picture of an x-ray I've ever taken. I drew in some cute little red arrows that point so the most amazing fracture in a humerus that I've ever seen.

The only really sad thing is that this fine looking fracture is currently living inside the arm of my 13-year-old little boy. The amazing thing, is that this fracture didn't stop him from enjoying the race at Daytona. Although he fell at school the Thursday before the race, he didn't really get too miserable until Sunday night. Even at that, the pain he experienced still had to be mostly inferred since he didn't actually say, "uuhhh....my arm is pretty sore. sure would be nice if it would feel...uuuhhh...better or somefin'."

He never complained of pain, but the picture shows that there was probably some pretty significant pain inside his little body.

Good news, though! He didn't need any surgery and today, just 2 weeks afterward, he was swinging on a swing without his sling on and he had a great time! He'll wear a sling for about 4 more weeks and then everything should be all healed up.

What's up with our words tonight?

Dude, Dad! Uh...yeah...you do need to pull up your pants. Nobody wants to see your underwear....uhh...except K-Dawg!

Spoken by Middle Mann. Followed by uproarious giggling from the 16 year old girls!

Do you ever struggle to find the right word??

Definitely, maybe. I heard that was really good. K-Dawg said it made her feel every emotion in the bible...book....definitions....DICTIONARY!

Quoted directly from my Sweetie's mouth.

a milestone

Is it possible that my Sweetie is officially 16 now? Honestly, I didn't really know what it would be like to have a 16-year-old but it's not half bad. It makes me think of me when I was that age...all of 18 years ago. And it also reminds me of that fateful little age that's looming ever so close. The one that I did the math on when I was pregnant with her. The age I would be if she had a baby when I had her. That birthday is coming up in a month for me. Of course, there's a whole year there where something horrible could happen that would forever alter the course of her life. I just don't see that happening, though. For that, I can only thank God. Seriously. How she ended up being so amazing with me as her mom blows my mind just about every second that I think about it.

AND! She likes Gainesville. She's even been calling it home. AND! She's got a meeting with Softie on Thursday at the local community college to learn "all you ever wanted to know about dual enrollment but didn't know to ask" for her final two years of high school. Wow. For real. My head would explode if I let it. She's so grown up and getting more so every day.

Hello little blog! It's been too long...

So, hi. Sorry it's been so long. Probably you've been feeling all neglected and stuff.

Honestly, I've thought time and time again about stopping by and saying a little something here and there. Certainly much has been going on. I've not been under a rock by any stretch of the imagination. Not unless a rock would be considered one of extreme busy-ness and a renewed tiredness that was absent for about a month. When I'm not sleepy, I'm BUSY! So, then when I'm sleepy I need to sleep to catch up from all the busy-ness.

So, now I've got some time and some things to catch y'all up on. Enjoy the next few posts. Plus, I'm uploading pics to Flickr too! Yay!

he made it to daytona!