Today I Am Grateful For...

A) This challenge!

You know, it has been really hard some days to come up something that I'm really grateful for on that particular day.  I mean, there are the obvious things, of course: my health, my family's health, food, shelter, and so on.  And I hope that I really don't take those things for granted.  I try to thank God for them each day, and mean it, not just do it out of habit; because I know that any one of them could be taken away at any time.

But for this challenge I really wanted to try to come up with something each day that pertained particularly to that specific day.  And sometimes it was hard, but it made me have to look back on the day and examine it a little.  I think I may keep doing this, only maybe on a weekly basis, like, each week think back over the week to find something unexpected to be grateful for.

B) Air conditioning!

I have to be obvious on this 100°+ day, and say that I don't think I've ever been more grateful for air conditioning.  I am grateful that my mother has air conditioning, too. 

When we were growing up we didn't have air conditioning, and, actually, we didn't usually need it.  Our house was on a little hill that almost always caught a breeze.  Even on the few summer days that were sweltering, a fan, a glass of iced tea, and a run through the sprinkler would be enough to cool us off until the sun went down. 

But as the planet started getting warmer and more humid for a bigger part of the year we finally talked my parents into getting central air.  And last week my mother told me that she was so thankful for it, even though she was surprised at how the heat would get to her now when it never did before.  At her age she doesn't need to be getting that hot.  I think tomorrow is supposed to be even worse than today.

"Step into my parlor," said the spider to the...Blue-Tailed Skink??

Eler Beth came running into the house this afternoon, calling to me to come out to see a sight:  Seems a baby 5-Lined Skink, a.k.a. a Blue-Tailed Skink (lizard), was on our front window ledge with its little blue tail caught on a tiny little spider web.  As we watched, it struggled and struggled but couldn't get loose.

Eler Beth ran to get something to catch it in, although I was calling after her the whole time, "We aren't keeping it!!  You can catch it to show Dad and your friends, then you have to turn it loose!"  But before we could get it, it finally struggled free and ran off.

I wonder what the spider would have thought if she'd come home to find a baby lizard caught in her web?

My Stupid Score

I saw this  fun little test in Guido's journal, and here is my score:

    I'm very, very proud of myself!!

Andrew is always throwing these types of tests at me, trying to trip me up (you know, to prove that he's smarter than Mom!  As if!), so I'm usually on the lookout for trick questions.  Also, some of the very questions on this test have been on other little quizzes that he's challenged me with.

But I'm still rather pleased with the result.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Heat indices expected to be as high as 105° today here in Southern Indiana.  There is a county not too many miles away in Kentucky where today is the first day of school --  On July 31!!!

I'd hate to be those kids having to ride a schoolbus this afternoon.  I plan to stay inside as much as possible today! 

Emails from sweetie-pies and instant bill-pay!

Saturday:

Today I am grateful for the internet.  I got an IM from one of my great-nieces today that simply made my day.  She is Eler Beth's age, and she surprised me by IM'ing me.  She and her older sister were home, while my niece and her husband were out on a "date" (cute, huh?); she was at the computer, killing time, so she contacted me. 

We talked for a long time.  Even after her mom and dad got home we talked for a while.  At one point, her mom (my niece, who is three years younger than I and a very good friend) told her that if she started bugging me then she had to go, then she wrote "but I don't think that'll happen!"

She's a lot like Eler Beth, and is a marathon talker.  I really enjoyed that conversation.  They live in Florida, so we don't get to see each other too often, so that's why I'm really grateful for the internet.  It's wonderful to call and hear your loved ones' voices, but it's also nice to converse and share pics over the net.

Sunday:

Today I am grateful for e-billing and payment.  I know, I'm reaching here.  But it was nice to able to go online and pay several bills today instead of having to either drive around town tomorrow in the heat and humidity or write out and mail a bunch of payments.

Another Fish Story, Sort Of....

A few entries down  I wrote a fishing story that had to do with Thomas falling in the creek.  If you haven't yet read it, make sure you do!  It made me remember another fishing story.

Before I was even pregnant with Andrew, Thomas and I went fishing with my eldest sister, her husband, and their two young sons.  My BIL was a paraplegic, so he was confined to a wheelchair.  We went to a local state park resort, to fish in the river below the dam.  To get to the spot we had to go down this steep path down an embankment, straight down from the parking lot.

Everything was fine, until it started raining.  We thought it would just be a little shower that would pass, but it didn't, so we knew we had to leave.  There was absolutely no shelter where we were.

Getting my BIL up that steep path in a wheelchair was not going to be easy.  We tried having Thomas push and my sister pull, then we tried having my sister and I pushing and Thomas pulling, but the path was too slippery and steep, and we just couldn't do it.

Well, Thomas happened to have a big rope-like cable in the trunk of the car, so he had me go get it.  He tied it around the wheelchair, then he and my sister got behind and in front of the wheelchair and I went up to the parking lot and wrapped the cable really tight around a lamp post.

Thomas and Dennice would move the wheelchair up the bank a little, probably less than a foot at a time, and hold it steady until I could pull the cable tight again.  Whenever I'd see the cable go slack I would tighten it up.  In that way we sort of inched him up the bank, the cable acting as a support, so the wheelchair wouldn't slip back whenever they'd get it up a little.  It worked, and even though we didn't catch much fish, and we got rained out, we still had a good time. 

The funny part, though, was that while I was standing in the rain, under that security lamp, holding taught that cable wrapped around that lamp post, a car full of men came cruising through the parking lot.  They slowed down a little and gaped at me; I nodded and smiled.  They literally stared and gaped at me for several seconds, before slowly cruising off.

Now if you'd seen a woman (and at that time, newly married and weighing 98 lbs., I looked more like a little girl) standing under a lamp post in the pouring rain, holding a taught rope that disappeared down over the bank toward the river, wouldn't you have at the very least stopped to see how big the catch was?!  If I'd been thinking I'd have yelled, "It's a big'un!"  Or "It's a fighter!"

Oh well.  I probably wouldn't have wanted them to stop and help, anyway.  But I would have loved to have heard them telling the story when they got back home!

A Fly Story

I just had to swat another fly.  The rain is making them horrible.  I went out to get the mail, and when I came back in I think three came in with me.  And that reminded me of a cute story.

When I was about 19 and still living at home, my sister Barbara (the artist/writer) went into my room while I was at work one day to borrow something.  When I got home from work, this is the poem I saw taped to my mirror:  

"I swatted a fly in your honor,

Although you were not here to know,

For you've robbed the house of your presence,

Having gone off to work long ago. 

I hope you are suitably humbled

By the honor I've heaped on your head;

For though the flies in your room may be many,

There's a dead one somewhere on your bed!"

                           By Barbara G. Dowell

I never did find that dead fly.