Three Cheers...

...for Emily, Momma, and Deborah! they are apparently my only true friends in the world ;) I thought about replying to you in a post but I've decided to comment after your comments (on my last post) instead. hope that isn't too confusing. you're all smart. i think you can handle it. :)

Here are some things you may not know about my recent life:

1. I made a key fob! Have you ever heard of that? I hadn't! I saw what I thought was just the cutest key chain on etsy.com and decided to make myself one. Later I found out what it was and that it was made that way so you could hold your keys hands free. How great! Another great thing about my key fop is that the fabric was free. (oOo!) I bought 11 yards of canvas duck cloth for roman shades and found a ridiculously small remnant of ribbon that the fabric counter lady refused to measure. She tacked it on to my bolt of fabric and off I went. It is a very cute key-fob.

2. I made the first cut on the fabric for my roman shades! i'm not good at cutting. i'm not good at cutting 58" in a perfect straight line when my cutting mat is only 24" at its longest. i'm open for suggestions on this one.

3. When the fabric lady scanned the bar code and went to print up my receipt (she was not the usual fabric lady) she let out a little gasp and looked at me to tell me that when i saw the price I would probably rather just buy pre-made curtains. The total was probably about the cost of two sets of walmart curtains. Little did she know that I was going to make the equivalent of approx. 7 standard windows. Not just one or two. Oh well. I got a free key-fob.

4.I don't know where my camera is. Otherwise I'd show you our larger smoother ceilinged great room (it'll be very smooth by the end of this week-- spring break -- walt's promised me), the famous key fob and the strawberry plant that has at least 4 blooms on it already.

5. While I went out to run errands Walter spent the first day of his spring break building me a vegetable garden box. Our soil is too dense for easy gardening and this seems to be the best solution. Did you know that you can feed one person from a 4x4 square of garden for an entire year (using your freezer of course)? We're starting with one square until the septic tank guy comes and tells us where he's putting in the new one. Then we'll add a second!

After my running and going this morning and my cleaning and cooking of the early afternoon I'm just inexcusably exhausted (ridiculously). I've been spacing out on the bed for almost 2 hours now, almost like it took too much energy to fall asleep. But I smell the chicken tortilla soup that's been cooking in the crock pot and I think it's not going to make it to the longer side of the recipe's instructions (isn't it great that crock pot recipes give you an hour or more leeway? i'm too hungry for this soup to make it 4 hours tonight.) I can't wait to turn off the music and eat soup and salad while listening to the rain and intermittent thunderstorms. This is something I missed in PA. We didn't have good storms. You have to come back into the plains/prairies for that one. That's one thing I'm grateful for. It's a definite perk of tornado alley. ;)

a lengthy link

I'm so sorry for the lack of posts. Also, I'm so sorry that this one may end up only being a link. But since the wall with our tv cable was knocked down Wednesday and I haven't watched the news since I just found out today that Romney dropped out of the presidential race. (I was quite in shock! Not even NPR mentioned it on Friday for the good hour that I listened. Oh well.) So of course I had to go rooting around the internet for the all the information I could find. I came across this article on Huckabee. I enjoyed reading an article written not by political pundits or evangelical Christians. It's good to hear from another voice. If you can make it through I'd love to hear your thoughts.

As for me, I'm excited about this candidate. He seems to be a man of grace who sincerely cares for the poor. I read once (in response to the death of Jerry Falwell and his looming legacy) that Christians are standing up to say that there is a new christian activism that must take place. While we still do care for the unborn children we can't stop caring once they exit the womb. We can't fight to keep them in this world then deny them adequate healthcare, education, food or shelter. And while I don't agree with absolutely everything Huckabee stands for I do think that he is a candidate that understands this. I don't think he should be counted out of the race just quite yet. (for an interesting--at least to me-- commentary on why so much of the news seems to have counted him out already check out the article above.)

Sooo, sorry for the lengthy link. I'll have to post pictures and updates soon. We've added space to our living and dining rooms, began sanding off the popcorn ceiling in the original living room area (lotsa dirty dusty pictures there!) and began major work for a vegetable garden that my gardening magazine told me I should plant already (woah! the southern growing season really is something. grass is already turning green and bulbs are popping and then growing fast out of the ground. I hadn't even dared to think of spring and it seems to have arrived. definitely surprised). Anyway, I'm off to make dinner, shower off the ceiling dust from my body and wash my clothes so that I'll have something to wear tomorrow.

Good night and shabbat shalom!