It's Good to be Missed.

Many of you wonderful bloggin buddies have mentioned that you missed me over the weekend and have given me a welcome back complete with red carpet.

I do appreciate that greatly.

It was funny, I wasn't sure my boys would notice I was gone. Especially since Subvet made sure they stayed busy.




Subvet made a point of telling me each night when we spoke that Sonshine had asked when I'd be home. However, we just didn't know about Gator-boy because he doesn't talk much, yet.

When I got home Sunday evening, Subvet was fixing supper. I sat in the living room with the kids. Alligator (my rather hyper "motor driven" child) spent the entire time from when I walked in to when supper was ready in my lap. When he would get down for a little of his normal up-down-up-down routine, he held both of my hands. Wouldn't let me go.

We've been working on getting him to say "mama" as a name for me. To do this we frequently will say "Where's mama?" and then point to me. He didn't respond at all to this until this week. He's done it consistently for 3 days now. Of course, this is the week that his speech therapist is on vacation so I'm just hoping he keeps it up so we can brag when we see her next.

So, I was missed, and it is nice.

I'm very glad to be back home and blogging again.

And thanks to all of you for your kind and thoughtful words.

Getting the dirt.

So, during my trip to Shreveport I noticed this on Hwy 69 between Mineola and Lindale.


The picture didn't come out as well, but that dirt is red. I was surprised to find red dirt that far south.

Here's what my backyard looks like.




Notice the cracks?? This here is clay soil. Doesn't drain. Doesn't hold water. It's CLAY. We've been 3 or 4 days without rain. These pics were taken of the high ground, the low ground still has some standing water. A friend of mine was preparing to move recently, they were wanting to buy acreage in order to farm. She kept saying "I want off of black dirt!"

Truly this stuff stinks! There are no basements around these parts and you have to water your foundation. Subvet thought I was crazy when we first bought our house and I kept telling him to water the house. "What? Is it gonna grow another room?!!" Now we wish it would haha.

See, if you don't water the house the dirt pulls away from the slab and your foundation shifts causing cracks in your walls and door/cabinets/windows that won't open and shut right. Where the dirt is all nicely tilled up around the house in the first picture is evidence of our foundation repair work that was done last Spring. Without worms, nothing would grow because the dirt forms hard clumps and the roots get no aeration. When you go to plant a flower bed the first thing you do is go to the store and BUY dirt.

So, now I ask you. What kind of dirt do you have?

it's here! it's here!

Well, it came today! Susan at Penless Writer had a raffle for her 6 month blogoversary and I WON!



Thank you so much Susan! This is very special to me!

I'm baaaaack!!!!!

Hi there folks. I'm gonna keep this one short since I have a TON of your reading to catch up on :-)

If you've been reading this silly blog for very long you'll know that I have a "quirky" sense of humor and sometimes things strike me as funny that other people "don't get." Here's something from this weekend that struck me as simply hilarious.

OK, y'all all know that I've been talking a lot lately about our new gun and all the associated issues (I like that word, nice and generic) with getting it.

Over the weekend I learned that my 83 year old Grandaddy qualified for the Florida Concealed Handgun License 3 months ago and until his death carried a .357. Why Fla? Apparently it's the most difficult and as such is recognized in all 50 states, which is funny since other than Sugars' baptism he never left Louisiana.

Seems that he out-shot everyone else in his CHL class. Only 2 outside of the bull's eye, those two only just outside the line.

Now, we know that he was a sharpshooter in WWII, but how on earth did he continue to be able to shoot that well??

That's the hilarious part.

Squirrels.

Yup, squirrels.

My grandmother had a bunch of bird feeders set up around their back porch and she hated for the squirrels to come and eat the birdseed. Grandaddy had a pump action air rifle (BB's) that he kept by the sliding glass door and anytime there was a squirrel he'd shoot at it. "Just to scare it off." He told me. HAHA. He even kept using that rifle after he broke the stock off it.

I always wondered WHAT he was feeding to the black bobcat (which he thought was a panther) who lived in the woods just past his back fence.

Show and Tell

Kelli is hosting show and tell Friday again

So, here's mine.

In a recent meme I said:

3) I qualified for the Concealed Handgun License the first time I'd ever been shooting.
True
Yup, I have the green man target to prove it. It was actually my 2nd time on the range, but the first time the trigger of my revolver was so stiff I couldn't fire the stinkin thing. The 2nd time I went to the range was when I met up with an instructor who fixed the trigger. I did not grow up around guns and have had NO experience so Subvet and I thought starting with a trained instructor would be the smartest way to go. I must say it felt good when after putting 3 shots of my first 6 either in the X or the 10 ring (the other 3 all went in the 9) he said, "Well, you don't need me anymore...." (For you who want to know, it was at 7 yards)
Now I just have to save up the $300 to take the class....
On a related thought, I've been asked by a couple of people upon learning that we now have a gun in the house "Would you really shoot someone?" My answer hasn't wavered. I HAVE THREE BABIES TO PROTECT. As my instructor pointed out (he also teaches self defense) egress from my home if invaded ISN'T good. I will have to stand and fight and I will do ANYTHING wait, EVERYTHING NECESSARY to protect my babies. Also, we bought the exploding bullets that (supposedly) won't go through walls so anyone who enters my home without my permission better be prepared to die. And yes, I do answer the door gun in hand. I'll tell you the reasons for all this home defense in another post.

Today's show and tell is the target. Subvet keeps telling me to be sure and say that I "started in the center then moved outward as my hands got tired." It is true, but I'm not sure what difference it makes. (I'm a novice remember.) There are 24 holes in that paper, if you're interested.




I also figure I'll tell you the reason why I finally let him get me the gun. He's wanted us to have a gun in the house ever since 9/11/01. I kept over ruling him, until this happened

We live in a small town. When we moved here the city limit sign said pop 2,300. It now says 5,600. Nope, I didn't forget any zeros. It's a SMALL town. One fine day when I was 8 months pregnant (the last time) I had both boys asleep in the van so instead of pulling into my driveway (which always wakes them up) I parked on the street in front of my house to let them sleep. As I sat there an "old" man (my guess is 60-70ish) walked up to my house, opened the storm/screen door and tried the doorknob. He stood there for a min or two, during which time I'm calling 911 on my cell phone from the car. He then walked down the street to the cross street. Now the road I live on is not a thru street and we're only a couple of houses from the corner. He went up to no other houses, just straight to mine. He turned down the cross road towards the back of my house. We don't have an alley, we share our back fence with the back fence of the houses on the next street. Meanwhile I'm giving 911 as accurate a description of the man as I can while I'm looking at him. The operator says she'll send someone out. The guy comes back up to my house (bypassing all the other houses) and this time knocks on the storm/screen door. Waits a bit then walks off again. I'm thinking a friend in blue should be turning the corner any second now...hopefully to catch the guy in my lawn. 2 hours later I call her back and ask where on earth my friendly neighborhood cop is. She says to me, "Did you want contact? You didn't say you wanted contact." I didn't know that I had to REQUEST for a cop to come talk to me when a guy just tried to walk in my house. Well, we went back and forth a bit and the next morning Subvet has a little tete a tete with our local chief of police. Turns out the call went from the county 911 operator to the city officers as a "WELFARE CHECK ON A CONFUSED OLD MAN." It's a good thing Subvet was there and not me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know several of you readers are police officers. The city police officers did nothing wrong in any of this story as far as Subvet and I can determine. It was the 911 operator. I ended up (after a week of tracking this down and having everyone and their dog listen to the tapes of both calls) speaking to the 911 supervisor. She said she'd have put it out as a "suspicious circumstance" I said hey, I'll go for that, but that's a darn sight different from a "welfare check." I asked her why it went as a welfare check...."well, we go by tone of voice and the choice of words..." I interrupted her. Folks, I'd make a tinkle poor nurse if I broke down in hysterics at every emergency. I thanked her for letting me know that next time this happened I needed to cry and yell that some guy was trying to get in my house...help help help...and oh by the way...I'd actually like to speak to the officer sent out to investigate, pretty please!!!! Then, perhaps, it will get off the bottom of the totem pole of 911 calls.

Turns out, the operator who took my calls did get reprimanded over this. She a) should have sent it out as a suspicious circumstance (I mean really, if there's any question wouldn't you like them to choose the more potentially dangerous of the choices??) and she b) should have asked in the first call whether I wanted to speak to an officer or was just "letting them know." However, this incident greatly undermined our confidence in our officers' ability to protect us. I mean, the poor guy in blue on the street can only go by what he's told by the 911 operators. This, sadly, reinforced Subvet's belief that the city police are simply the "clean up crew" who come by after all is said and done. We therefore need to be able to protect ourselves. To any officers who may be reading this saga. I do truly hope that I've not offended you.

What is terribly scary is that had I gone on inside with the babies there was (at that time) a good possibility that the door would have been unlocked when the guy first tried the knob and he would have been in the house. Now THAT 911 call would have sounded a bit different!!