Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because He trusteth in Thee. Isaiah 26:3

Memories...

What DO you do with old high school formal dresses? My daughter has at least a half dozen or more dresses from dances that have been hanging in the closet in our guest bedroom. I finally took them to the laundromat, where she works, because one of her cousins was looking for a dress to borrow. The cousin ended up not borrowing any of them and they're still hanging at the laundromat. My daughter only wants to keep two of them and wants me to take the rest of them back home...what am I going to do with them? She claims she doesn't have room to have them hanging at her house, which she doesn't, but seriously, why are we even keeping them? She just can't bear to part with them, I guess. There used to be a dress bank at the high school for girls who couldn't afford to buy prom dresses. The only problem was that all the dresses got borrowed and never returned. At one point in time I had a basket full of gloves, shawls and wraps that I finally took to the Goodwill. We had such fun shopping for her dresses and accessories, maybe that's the problem with getting rid of them. It makes it all seem so final that she's not a little girl anymore and she's all grown up. Guess the wedding and three kids should have been my first clue huh?

another critter

I have a bad habit. I love to sleep with our bedroom door and front bedroom window open at night. I need that cool night air to get a restful night's sleep; without it I feel like I'm suffocating. Since our bedroom is on the second floor of our house, I've never considered it a danger issue. Until now.

The night before last my husband had already gone upstairs to get ready for bed. He was in the master bathroom and all the lights in our bedroom were turned off. I headed into our room with the intent of getting ready for bed when I noticed something flitting around in the darkness..darn moths, I thought to myself. They're everywhere lately.

Then I realized, wait a minute...that's a really large moth...no, that's not a moth, it's a bat! I let out a scream and that sucker proceeded to dive bomb me! I ran out the bedroom door with the bat in hot pursuit. I slammed the door behind me, trapping it in our bedroom. At this point, my husband was still in the bathroom, wondering, no doubt, what was going on. I hollered at him that there was a bat in our room, and I WAS NOT coming back in, until he did something about it.

Exactly what do you want me to do? he hollered back.

get rid of it, I yelled!

mike?

hon?

is it gone? did you get it?

time ticked by, with no response...

Finally, what seemed like an eternity later, but was actually probably only a few minutes...the bedroom door opened. My hubby stood there with bathroom rug in hand and a look of victory on his face..

did you get it?

Yea, it's gone, he said.

you sure?

Yep.

what did you do? did you hit it with the rug?

Nope. He said. Just turned on all the lights and it flew out the door.

I no longer sleep with my bedroom door and drapes open. I now run a fan at night. My hubby insists that we can leave the door open, as long as the drapes are closed, and no more bats will come in. I'm not so sure of that.

And by the way...this is the third time this has happened in three years! You'd think I would have learned the first time.

Genesis 1:24 (The Message)

God spoke: "Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds."
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.

Presidential elections

I'm wondering about Ron Paul. Anyone have any thoughts? I read what seem to be good things about him, yet I still know very little about him. The first time I saw one of his political signs I asked my husband "Who's Ron Paul?" I thought it sounded like some kind of a joke...you know...RuPaul? Then after doing a little research I found that he's a legitimate Republican candidate for President, who currently serves as a U.S. Congressman from Texas.

In Washington state it used to be that you had to vote by party line in the primaries; one party or another, but not a combination. This has been challenged, I believe, all the way to the Supreme Court, and to be honest I don't really even know what the rules are now. I do know that I really disliked this policy when it was instituted.

My husband says the reasons for these rules are simple...If you have a strong contender in the party of your choice, many people would vote for the weaker contender in the opposing party during the primary, hoping that in the general election their strong candidate would be running against the weaker of the other party's candidates and ensuring a greater likelihood that their preferred candidate would win the general election.

For instance, in the last election President Bush was the strongest of the Republican candidates, given that he was the incumbent. Republicans in our state could have voted for the weakest Democrat in the primary, hoping to pit him against President Bush, and ensuring a victory for the Republicans. I feel I ought to be able to vote for whomever I want, regardless of party affiliation. Sometimes, in the past, I have voted a combination of Republican and Democrat, particularly when it came to state senate elections.

As much as I dislike political signs springing up on every available corner and roadside, there's a certain excitement and optimism brewing with the approaching presidential elections. Whoever I'm going to vote for remains to be seen, but you can be assured I WILL vote!

McKenzie-Marie

I've posted stories on here about my one and only grandson, Josiah, but haven't talked much about my beautiful granddaughters. I have six granddaughters. The next-to-youngest is McKenzie-Marie. McKenzie is 4 years old. She is tall, like everyone else in this family, and people often think she's older than she is. I think McKenzie must be the most beautiful child I've ever seen. (Outside of her mother.) She has big, beautiful brown eyes that just sparkle. She's incredibly bright and has such a great sense of humor. She's a lot like her mother, in that she's awnry and stubborn, and doesn't like to do what she's told. (Sorry Jen!, but you know it's true!) I think that's the German coming out in her.

Friday we went to the high school and watched her perform at her cheerleading camp. Now, please don't take offense, but I'm not a big cheerleading fan. I always thought it was kinda silly, but then maybe that's because I only lasted a week at cheerleading tryouts and decided it just wasn't for me. This tall body of mine just wasn't ever going to be able to do a really good cartwheel, and forget about the splits. Regardless, McKenzie loved it! She even won an award for best smile. The best thing was that it was something that she did, outside the shadow of her big brother and baby sister. It was a joy to see her laughing and smiling and just having fun!