friday video

Ok, so did you notice K-man mowing in the background...and glancing over

at me doing my video and resuming his work as if everything

was going on as usual?

I guess that's because he's used to me being weirdly dorky.

And me making videos in the yard apparently doesn't phase him in the least.

He's a very good husband that way.

I love that man.

Anyway,

let me know your book recommendations!

I mentioned wanting something fiction, but tell me about anything good you've read lately.

Have a blessed weekend!

spring has sprung {snakes abound}

Spring has sprung.

The weather is warm.

The flowers are blooming.

And summertime, looming.

Somebody stop me.

So far in the last week we've found three, count them, THREE snakes.

Though I am not an alarmist,

this does alarm me, moderately.

Mostly because if I happen to encounter one myself,

I know it will completely catch me off guard

and I will likely never resume any kind of normalcy.

My carefree life as I know it will be over.

Gone forever.

So I hereby pledge to not leave the safety of my concrete driveway

without my rubber boots on.

No need to hold me accountable,

I will not forget this promise.

I assure you.

Pics of today's find, for your pleasure...

K-man is the bravest man I know.

And he does everything he can to rattle my courage-less cage, every chance he gets.

The kids seem to be taking after him,

and not me.

Which is good since they will likely be the ones to save me

when I do encounter my first snake alone.

My life is depending on them.

I hope they understand that.

Look how Lucy is fearlessly wrestling with that massive invertebrate.

She's a beauty, she is.

(Insert Steve Irwin accent)

It's a happy day when dad brings home dinner.

Just kidding.

Don't you worry.

We set this little darling free.

Black snakes are non-poisonous and a good thing to have around.

Far, far from Lori.

Then it was business back to usual.

As if nothing happened.

All the while,

I'm curled up in a corner in the fetal position.

The End.

another lucy post

Lucy helped me roll out the dough for pita bread last night.

She stood there and rolled every single one.

Another sign of her getting bigger.

Yet, her innocent willingness to eagerly help tells me she's still very much little.

She'll outgrow it though, no doubt.

Wah.

And yes, as a matter of fact, that big heavy marble rolling pin

did in fact roll off onto the floor when she turned away for half a second,

nearly sending me through the ceiling.

I thought for sure the dern thing had dropped straight down to the basement.

But it didn't even leave a mark on the wood floor.

But it did leave a mark on my startled soul.

Anyway,

I hope your Wednesday is the best ever.

Enjoy!

little {big} lucy-bug

Our little Lucy-bug is growing up so fast.

I can hardly stand it!

On Monday she went to have her first cavity filled.

Well, the first one where she wasn't FULLY sedated.

The last time we tried this (unsedated),

she slithered out of the chair and melted onto the floor

before the dentist could even stick his mirror

in her mouth for a look-around.

She cried.

I cried.

The dentist cried.

It was a mess.

But this time was different.

She was brave.

She didn't waiver.

She sat there like a big girl.

I was so proud of her!

And then today she held her very first tiny newborn baby.

Like she was a big girl or something.

My dear friend Angela had a baby girl a few weeks ago

and today we finally got to meet her!

Lucy was so smitten.

She talked about her long after we left.

And as if the conversation about how she got out of her

Mama's tummy wasn't previously discussed (fully) enough,

we almost bounced into the discussion of

breast-feeding.

Call me a coward, but I darted the subject completely because,

at the end of a very long day...I simply wasn't up to

explaining God's main intent for our boobies with a six year old.

And on that note,

I wish you a lovely evening.

The End.

ask lolly

It's time for another edition of

"Dear Lolly"

**I actually found this question in a

"Your relationship questions answered" column in a women's magazine.

And as you will soon find out, based on MY reply,

I didn't even bother to read what the columnist's answer was.

Heee.

Q:

I lost my job in the fall, and I've been squeaking by financially,

just barely covering my bills and paying rent.

My mom is putting a lot of pressure on me to move back home to

save money,

but I'm to old to live with my mother...I'm 30.

Help!

My dear jobless friend,

First of all,

you're 30 years old, which is...adorable.

But honey,

at 30, you don't have the sense God gave a fence post.

So let me explain what your mother's offer really means:

Breakfast in bed every morning.

Shopping every day.

A generous allowance for merely unloading the dishwasher once a week.

And being tucked into bed every single night,

complete with a snack and a new magazine.

You see,

once you and your siblings all moved out,

your mother morphed into an entire new creature.

And moving back home would enable you to full reap the full benefits of that.

It's the beautiful circle of life.

So my advice to you is to run, don't walk...RUN to your mother's house.

You will thank me later.

Or something like that.

Love,

Lolly

winner, winner!

HOLLY!

You are the winner of my Starbucks gift card drawing!

Email me your address and I'll get that sucker in the mail to

you right away!

Congrats!

hoola hoopin'

When cuteness collides with,

Oh-my-word-that's-just-embarrassing.

I'll let you be the judge of which is which.

another episode of...

Another episode of,

"Lori Gets a Hold of the Video Camera Again."

And just for being a good sport and putting up with me,

leave a lovely comment

and I'll put your name in the hat for a

STARBUCK'S GIFT CARD!

I'm super nice that way.

Drawing will be on Sunday.

Have a great weekend!

laws of physics

Two things:

First:

When K-man saw my blog post from yesterday

he said,

"Oh my Lord, please tell me that picture isn't really on your blog."

Me,

"Umm, indeed it is."

K-man,
"Have you no shame?"

Me,

"No, apparently not. I had to do it for the people. I had to."

Second:

We were just on our way home from Macy's piano lessons

(30 minutes or so from our house),

and Isaiah announced that he had to go to the bathroom.

I quickly assessed the situation and deemed it

an emergency by the degree of dancing he was doing in his car seat.

A mother of six knows these things.

Nowhere to stop except the side of a country road.

And I learned a few things.

1. Never have a little boy pee uphill.

2. Never have a little boy pee into the wind.

3. Never stand behind a little boy peeing uphill and into the wind.

3. The laws of physics can't be broken.

I will leave you with that.

Blessings to you.

And to me.

fancy rain gear

It's raining cats and dogs here

and I had to pull out my fancy rain gear

to feed the chickens.

vegetational efforts

How sad is this.

I can't even see the results of my gardening poll.

I'm feeling all empty inside over it.

I blame the unrest in the Middle East and my dern internet service.

Anyway,

your comments made me smile.

Especially Joy, who listed out all her plantings,

then says...

"I expect the garden to yield at least three green beans and a cucumber."

That pretty much sums up our gardening experience as well.

Yet, we press on.

Year after year...after year.

Oh sure, we get the usual 348 cucumbers and 874 zucchini.

But nothing exotic like, eggplant or cantaloupe.

Anyway, here's what's happening so far:

Heirloom tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Peppers (3 kinds)

All nestled quietly in their little seedling dirt beds.

**Oh, and don't you love my little garage kitchen

that the Amazing K-man built for me?

It's purty schweet.

Meanwhile:

Outside, so far we have carrots, potatoes, lettuce, onions, and spinach planted.

But I don't have a picture.

It's been a monsoon here the last two days and

no photo-op has presented itself.

So we'll see how all this plays out.

I have some pretty high hopes of garden success.

But I've been down this hoed-row before, countless times.

Check back with me in July when the sun is scorching

and the weeds are mocking me.

Anyway,

Blessings to you and your vegetational efforts.

epic agricultural skills

Oh, golly.

It took me forever to get to sleep last night.

So now I'm all sleepy and fussy.

And there's all these people here who need me to

get them off to school and work.

So here I am.

But my big mug of coffee is half-gone...so it's just a matter

of minutes before I come alive.

Anyway,

I had planned to do a gardening post.

But with my brain being fuzzy right now,

I think I will just do a quick survey to find out what ya'll

are doing this summer, growin' vegetables and all.

Then we'll talk about it more later.

Sounds good?

Feel free to comment.

I do know how some of you simply can't keep quiet

about your epic agricultural skills.

And rightfully so.

Please, tell Auntie Lori all about it.

Look to the right on the sidebar for my survey, K?

rain, thunder, nightgown, and boots

Today is a rainy, thundery day!

And after baking six loaves of bread this morning,

I knew I needed to go out and take care of my chickens

before I finally jumped in the shower.

It was pouring down, muddy, and chilly.

And I loved it.

Got my chicks and chickens all fed, watered, and eggs gathered.

It was such fun...(since my hair wasn't done yet)

and I was still in my nightgown...

and jeans and rubber boots.

So thankful for rubber boots on such a day.

I hope you're all cozy-cozy on this rainy and sleepy afternoon.

we laughed and laughed and laughed

I declare,

I do not think I've ever heard these kid giggle as long and as hard as

they did today.

Mercy be.

K-man has been busy clearing out part of our property line

to put a fence up...and the bonus of that is,

it has cleared an incredible path for walking...and RIDING!

Have you ever seen such happy faces?

They laughed and laughed and laughed.

Oh, it blessed my heart so much!

K-man gave me a ride also.

Just the two of us.

I laughed and laughed and laughed, too!

I love a good Sunday afternoon.

holy roller

Looky what Lori got!

An oat roller.

Or as K-man calls it,

a holy oat roller.

Just a little Pentecostal joke for ya.

Oat groats.

Whole grain. It's all good.

Rolled into...well, rolled oats.

Although here it looks like flour.

But I had to adjust my settings a bit.

And I forgot to take a picture of the final product.

Just pretend.

It's all very 1800s Proverbs 31ish of me, isn't it?

Yet, I rarely shred my own cheese.

My ways are forever mysterious.

thru the ear to the brain

Well, wasn't the cheese poll fun.

But I almost couldn't bear the fact that two of you

don't like cheese at all.

My goodness.

I'm a fair-weather shredder myself.

If it's convenient, I'll shred it right up and and enjoy it to the fullest.

Because it really does taste better and have a better texture.

But for heaven's sake,

sometimes you just have zero time for such old fashion ways.

So I try to buy both to cover my bases.

Moving on.

Lucy and Isaiah doctored up K-man last night.

Lord knows after a hard day at work, he needed it.

And here's the differences between girl doctors and boy doctors:

Lucy, ever so gently working:

And then there's Isaiah,

who broke out his TOOL set to get to the root of the problem.

Which apparently meant going through K-man's ears to get to his brain.

I'll just leave that one alone.

Have yourself a lovely, lovely day!

let's take a poll

I want to take a poll.

I was going to ask all of you who you are going

to vote for in the upcoming election,

but I tend to get really fired up about such things.

And if any one person voted irresponsibly,

even in my own little survey,

I would have to hunt you down...and well, let's not even go there.

So,

I've chosen a much less, though still fiercely heated,

question for you.

Do you shred your own cheese?

LOOK OVER ON THE SIDE BAR.

Are you looking?

Over there...to the right...

do you see it?

Please answer.

And if you feel the need to comment about

why you shred your cheese, or buy it already that way,

go ahead.

I'm not afraid of your reasonings.

I'm very diplomatic that way.

little stinker

So yesterday was like 80+ degrees.

Unbelievable.

And quite enjoyable, I must say.

Though I do worry that if we continue at this pace,

by July it's going to be 147 out.

That will make me grumpy.

Anyway,

so I was puttering around in the kitchen getting dinner started

and a little someone caught my eye as I glanced

out the kitchen window...

I still have no idea what he was trying to do.

He never did tell me.

As you can see, he got the duster thingy stuck in the tree

and just stood back, admiring his handy-work.

He eventually got it down and put away where it belongs.

He's such a stinker.

And every single day he tells me:

(sorry if you already read this on FB)

"Mama, I am so happy today!"

He really is one happy little guy.

What a blessing!

beaver, chuy, and beekeeping

Do you remember that episode of

Leave it to Beaver

where Beaver has that Spanish-speaking friend, Chuy?

And Beaver and Chuy have a play-date and neither

one of them can understand each other...

but they are having all kinds of fun, despite the language barrier

until Beaver decides to try out a Spanish phrase that he

thought he knew...

but in reality he said,

"You have a pig face."

And Chuy started crying and it was a big ol'

lost-in-translation mess?

Remember that?

Well,

something like that is going to happen here today.

Eli is going on his first "play-date" with a friend at school.

And Eli's English is still pretty awful.

Oh how I wish I could be a fly on the wall with my video camera.

It would fit nicely into an episode of my reality show in-the-making.

I'm not really making a reality show, though I really should.

And completely unrelated to that,

do any of you raise honeybees?

Let me know if you do.

That's my next big project.

I buy local raw honey and it seems ridiculous that

I don't just have my own.

But I have questions.

I hope you have answers.

narcissistic me {and my vacuum}

There's something very narcissistic about me

doing videos of myself.

Especially since when I make them,

I rarely have on make-up...and all I can see is my nose

when I watch.

Yet,

I can't help myself.

There are many benefits to being 40+ years old.

One, being...one tends to lose all of one's insecurities

about one's appearance.

That is a very freeing thing.

Hallelujah!

Here's the latest:

And just so you know,

I'm really NOT put off by my kids being home.

They a very super delightful bunch.

Here's the vacuum I was telling you about!!

It's called the Shark Navigator Lift-Away.

Now there are SEVERAL models similar to this,

with the same name, oddly.

But not all of them have that life-changing

bare-floor-duster attachment thingy.

You gotta have that

if you have a lot of bare floors.

Oh, and the main attachment is downright dreamy, too.

Best vacuum I've ever had.

Seriously.

I don't joke about things of this matter.

No I do not.

This is not a paid advertisement, by the way.

I wish.

So there you have it.

Your life is now fuller, better, and all-around more complete.

And you are welcome.

It's been a pleasure doing business with you.

bread mix winners

Ok, guys!

Here are the three "winners" of my bread mix drawing!

Trish

Joanna

Sheri

Please, please, PLEASE email me ASAP.

loriatjoyunspeakble@yahoo.com

I'd like to get your mixes in the mail tomorrow.

THANKS to all of you who participated!