It has always been a goal of mine to write about once a week. It seems that lately I have not been able to accomplish that. Life just gets busier and busier as the kids get older--well, except for Vicki who just finished her two game a week volleyball season. (They finished their season being eliminated from the tournament by the other Mt. Carmel team.) I say this to let you know that I am not giving up on writing, I’m just trying to fit it in when I can.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNA. Jenna celebrated her tenth birthday Friday. That fact just seems hardly possible to me. I remember all the events around her birth so well, from the tornados hitting Nashville two days before, to the trip to the hospital, to catching a first glimpse of her foot as she was born (she was breech and born by C-section), to bringing her home in that Saturn we used to have. Now she is a big girl about to finish the fourth grade. She and Vicki had a girls’ day out Friday to celebrate and Jenna is sporting newly pierced ears (we had no school of Friday). Jenna has really been looking forward to this. She has wanted to have her ears pierced for a long time and Vicki said she had to be double-digits before this could happen.
That night Jenna and I went out on a daddy/daughter date (Vicki and 16 other friends from the church were hitting the town for a concert). We had a complete family celebration at Pauline’s last night. Jenna picked out the menu…it was great. She informed us that now she is older she wants to be in charge of cooking a meal once a week. Vicki is celebrating that one!
THE HOUSE WAS ROCKIN’ BUT NOBODY WAS KNOCKIN’. We had a most memorable event Friday morning. Around 4:40 am Vicki and I both woke up to squeaking and shaking. This went on for at least ten seconds (that we were aware of—the tremor reportedly lasted about 20 seconds). In her sleep stupor Vicki wondered aloud if we had two dogs “having relations” on our porch. I would have considered this more if she had suggested two cows instead. Her next guess hinted at more clarity of thought: an earthquake. After going outside to look around a call to the Sheriff’s Department confirmed this. We learned later this was the 5.4 magnitude quake centered near West Salem, Illinois, which is about 180 miles from here. It was an interesting experience. Earthquakes are so rare around here and when they do happen they aren’t strong so I’ve never before been conscious of one as it was happening. At least we got a good laugh at Vicki’s original guess before going back to bed.
TMI (TOO MUCH INFORMATION). So Ben and I are wrestling and I have him pinned down where I can tickle him. Just to aggravate him I look up his nose and say, “Boy, you’ve got a lot of boogers up there!” I got a little too much information when he said, “I try to clean it out every day, but there’s one big one that’s stuck up there and I can’t get it out.”
RHYMING KING. Nate is into rhyming. He’ll hear one of us say a word and think of several others that rhyme and give us the list. He does this quickly so you know these words are just popping into his head. For example, if he hears the word ‘bed’ he might say, “Bed, head, said, led.” Then he adds, “Ding-a-ling, a rhyming point for me!” There’s no telling how many rhyming points he has now.
LEFT SPEECHLESS. Pauline said to Vicki, “I got Bro. Bill good!” She was at church the other day when a friend, Lillie Mae Rippy, noticed several bruises on her arm. Bro. Bill happened to be passing by and Mrs. Lillie Mae called his attention to it. Looking her arms over he quipped, “Mrs. Pauline, has someone been grabbing at you?” Quick with a comeback she said with a twinkle in her eye, “Well, don’t I wish!”
MY TABLE. One gift Mom gave me for Christmas was an Introduction to Furniture Making workshop at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville (part of Tennessee Tech). This workshop was scheduled for last weekend so I left early last Saturday and came home last Sunday (spending the night in Cookeville). Our project was to make a side table. The design was a bit ambitious for a two day workshop with splayed lags and four tapers on each leg. I cam home with all the pieced cut and milled, but need to sand it down, glue it together, and finish it. Now I am ready to turn the chicken house into a workshop.
CHANGE OF WORK ADDRESS. For those of you who have my work email address, please note that this will be changing on May 5. My new email address at work will be joe.swann@rcstn.net. My old address will be deleted June 30. On that note, we will officially be changing the domain for Robertson County Schools from www.robcoschools.org to www.rcstn.net on May 5 as well. We will keep the old domain for backwards compatibility, but it will no longer be used as our official URL.
Joe
