Walnuts on My Windshield - Issue #11

Friday, August 20, 2004

In a couple hours, we will head south to enjoy a vacation at the beach with Scott's mom, and his brother, Stu, and his family. We have jointly rented a condo (three story!) on the beach, which will be an adventure, I'm sure. Thankfully, the current forecast predicts no hurricanes.

Josiah had a fun time this week with a couple of the boys from our cell group, Ethan and Taylor. They came home with us after group on Sunday night and stayed till Tuesday afternoon. The three of them slept out in the camper, which was good for the rest of us. It was a total guy event, with hiking in the woods among the chicks and tiggers (including some new trail construction), swimming in the creek, bike riding, zip-lining, a bonfire, peeing in the woods, and all that kind of stuff. Tuesday was spent at White Water, and a good time was had by all.

As I type, we are down to the last little bit of packing, so I confess that my brain is not at its peak for creative writing. I suppose I can add that it's been unseasonably cool here for the past few weeks, with highs often only in the 70s (the temperature of heaven) and lows dipping into the 40s. The low temps, combined with our new air conditioner have meant much lower-than-usual electric bills, another thing we can be thankful for.

In honor of seeing the relatives, I cut the boys' hair, so they would look sharp. Andrew's curls are always a bit challenging, but I think I did a good job; curly on top and short around the sides and back. Well, two days later, he took scissors to his head and cut off 40% of the remaining curls right up the middle and gave himself two totally bald patches - one above the right ear and one center back. He looked really odd, so yesterday I went back to square one and evened it all up. It's now very short with no curls at all, but at least he doesn't look like a beach bum for the beach.

Scott and Katie got to attend an Ozark Mountain Ducks (local minor league team) ball game and about froze their buns off. They left in the 10th inning of a very exciting game because they could not get warm. Katie had on jeans, but Scott was in shorts. This was August 14th in Missouri! We lost in the 11th, but Scott and Katie both enjoyed their date night anyway. Scott and I are determined to be more pro-active in spending one-on-one time with the kids. Date nights are a good way for us to do that. I'm up with Josiah next. We still need to plan what to do. Then Scott will have a MAJOR date with Jessica in September. Their trip to China will be September 22 - October 11. Please pray for them!

I'm sure there's more to write about, but I will close here and get the light timers set.

Until next time,
Patty

From My Bookshelf

How to Photograph Your Life by Nick Kelsh gets a 10! It is a very handy guide to photography, written to people like me, who really want to take pictures, but whose pictures always look like the "bad" examples in this book. I actually read it twice before I had to return it. I am now hoping that I can apply at least some of the concepts as I try to photograph our beach vacation. "Get closer. . . Overhead light is not complimentary to people. . . Photograph beach scenes an hour before sunset. . . Get closer. . . Move the subject off-center. . . Avoid flash with people. . Get closer. . .Fill the screen with faces and forget the legs. . . Get closer. . . " I'm going to try to remember to get closer. J

The Idiot's Guide to Etiquette (7) was also useful. Sorry that I forgot to write down the author'' name. This book was broken down into logical sections, and in particular, I learned some key things to focus on with the children. We have a l-o-n-g way to go there, sad to say. Because my folks did teach me good decent manners when I was growing up, a lot of this information was old hat, but I was sad to see that a lot of it was new hat, too. For example, it's no longer considered appropriate for men to hold doors for ladies, just because we are female. I begged to differ on a number of the currently accepted practices, and on a few things, I'm sticking with the old ways even if they are socially unacceptable!

Quote of the Week:

"Feed the interest, invest in the desire, train the ability." ~ Ellyn Davis of The Elijah Company

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