hooray!

My new Bible study on Romans started last night!

It's 9 weeks long. Our group consists of 6 ladies (counting me)
That's not counting Sugars, who had an awful lot to say last night, so maybe we should put her name on the roster too!!

All 6 of us are mothers and there are 2 grandmothers. I think this is going to be a really fun and interesting study!!

So, question for the day.
Where is your favorite place to kiss a baby? Yeah, I know, they're kissable anywhere, but do you have a real favorite spot for sugar?

I kiss the bridge of my kids' noses, right between the eyes.
My step-mom loves the back of the neck sugar.

Ahh, it's Saturday again and time to reveal the answers to this week's Thursday words.


madtom n any of several small North American freshwater catfishes of the genus Noturus, having a poisonous pectoral spine.

poil n a yarn or thread made from silk, used for ribbon, velvet, and as the core of gold, silver, and tinsel yarn.

Funny story,

When I was 12 I got to spend 2 weeks alone at my Grandma and Grandpa's house in a tiny town outside of Lafayette, La. My Uncle lived across the street. He has 2 ponds/small lakes on his property and keeps them stocked with catfish. So, I grabbed a pole and basket of crickets from his house one day and was out there alone, fishing off his foot bridge. Darned if I didn't catch me a catfish!

I had no idea what to do next.

I was afraid to touch it's "whiskers" cause I thought they might, just might be poisonous...and I couldn't figure out how to get the stupid thing off my hook without touching it.

I don't know why I didn't think to just break the line and let him go.

I ran all the way across the street and up to Grandpa's house to get Grandpa to come and take this fish off my hook. I'm surprised the poor fish didn't float when he threw it back...it'd been flopping on the bridge the whole time.

After that, I kept fishing......just didn't bother putting any more crickets on the hook. They were too hard to catch anyway.

Years later I heard the phrase "Do you go fishing for the fish, or for the fishing?"
Guess y'all know the answer to that one now huh?

When I came across "madtom" in the dictionary I thought see now, there is a type of catfish that's poisonous!! So HA!

Show & Tell

Kelli is hosting show and tell Friday again

So, here's mine.


I thought I'd take the next few weeks to tell you about some of my "pretties"




Today I'd like to tell you about the things on this shelf, and the man who gave them to me.




I love music boxes and angels.

I turned 23 the March before Subvet moved to Texas. Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years!! For my birthday he sent me the angel music box that's on your far left. It plays the chorus of the song "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Pardon, also sung by Whitney Houston. You can't see the angel and baby's faces in this picture but they're quite beautiful.


I graduated nursing school in December of 2000. For Christmas that year he gave me the statue on the far right. It's a "medical personnel" (could be a nurse or a doctor) holding a baby with an angel watching over them. The days that I was home while Gator-boy stayed in NICU I spent a lot of time looking at this one.

I can't remember which year he gave me it, but the small globe music box to the right plays "Silver Bells." One of my all time favorite Christmas Carols. It's second only to "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" which I MUST hear or it simply isn't Christmas!

The statue in the center is incredibly special to me. He gave it to me about this time last year for no particular reason. He said "When I saw this I just thought of you."

But my most prized possession on this shelf is the one you can't see. It sits behind the center statue and holds that fake ivy. It's a pretty, plastic urn looking bowl that originally held a dozen red roses. I had just started a job as Director of Nursing at a ratty and terribly run nursing home in a small town close to us. This job had staffing problems the likes of which I'd never imagined. Nurses and aids alike would just not bother to show up, and they didn't care if you fired them because they knew you wouldn't be able to hire anyone else. The temp services wouldn't even return my calls. I didn't go 6 hours straight without my beeper going off in the entire 3 weeks I worked there. The State inspectors showed up on my 3rd day. The paperwork was in a terrible mess, literally strewn over my desk and piled 3 feet tall. I was in way over my head. In the midst of all this Subvet sends me a dozen roses, the card says "Remember to kick butt and take names, if you get busy don't bother taking names!"

Just gotta love that man!

Get in the Ring!

OK, well let's see what you make of this.


Actually, I'm of two minds here.

a) Ms Barber is right, equal means EQUAL. Pump as often as you can, buy formula for the rest.

b) Many employers won't allow a woman 10-15min to pump every 3-4 hours...but WILL allow smokers breaks to go outside and have a cigarette....which Subvet (a former smoker) tells me takes 10-15min every 3-4 hours....

Oh, and

c) This lady is a nut that I don't ever want working on me. I mean really.....special consideration for dyslexia and ADHD so she can take the test over 2 days instead of the usual 1, then wants 60 extra min more than the 45 min break to pump?? How is she ever going to be a good MD? She should be a lawyer instead!

As an aside, I've worked with nursing moms who only pumped on their lunch break and were able to nurse their baby just fine.

PLEASE, don't anybody bring up this lady's argument that she needs extra time to pump "or she risks medical complications." If you do I'll have to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding!

Remember, we're not even talking about a job here....just ONE (ooops, now it's two) day(s) to take a NINE HOUR test.

To quote Sonshine's latest fav phrase, "Oh, my goodness!"

Q & A

Diana asked me "where did gator boy come from, anyway?"

We'll leave the obvious answer alone and tell the origins of this boy's nickname.
Also, someone asked once if these are my kids' real names or just cyber names. The answer is neither. The names you know my kids by are not their real names, however, they are the names that I call them by most often. Unless they're in trouble that is. You folks all know my kids by mamma's nicknames. Do you have special nicknames for your kids?


Gator-boy...

well, ever tried to wrestle (pronounced rassle) an alligator?

Ever seen someone do it?

From, oh, BIRTH. Whenever this child wanted to be put down he would lay down on his side like a nursing infant, grab my shirt and start rolling over and over in my arms.

As an infant before he could crawl he would roll to get across the room to whatever he wanted. And he never liked to snuggle (although that has changed). He always wanted to be put down so he could GO!. I used to call (and still do) holding the babies "Alligator wrestling" because he was soo hard to hold rolling over and over like that.

I've learned, the only way to hold a kid like that and NOT let him get out of your grasp is to hook one arm between his legs (stabilizing his hips) and the other arm around his neck over one shoulder (stabilizing the upper body) grasp your hands in front of his trunk and hold him to you.

Really ticks him off because he can't get away.

This little man is STRONG too! And determined as a bull penned next to a couple of heifers in heat.

You'd be amazed at the upper body strength I've acquired in the last 4 years!!