I’m actually quite proud of that header.  A color by number picture that I did with photoshopped elements added.  Plus it was a lot of fun to do. 

So, I’m guessing that it’s going to end up with one issue on Monday and one on either Thursday or Friday depending on how my week goes.  Probably mostly on Fridays, since I have ministry stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

I’m actually starting this one on Sunday evening.  It has been a LONG HARD weekend for me.  Thursday was the 4th of July and a day off and holiday.  I took Friday off as a liberal leave day and of course had Saturday and Sunday off.  So a nice four-day weekend and I feel like I would have gotten more relaxation if I had been at work.

I fixed a leaky sink, but ended up ordering a new faucet for the bathroom anyway because I couldn’t change the hot water side, so I’m going to just change out the whole faucet.  Which should be fun because I’ve never done it before.  Maybe I’ll take pictures.

Here’s my list:

• Fixed the leaky sink
• Vacuumed out the car
• Went shopping both at Harbor Freight (Yay!) and for groceries (Boo!)
• Changed my bed linens (NOT an easy task! – I have an extra large and heavy mattress that has sheet suspenders under it to hold the fitted sheets on because the mattress is larger)
• Did three loads of laundry
• Mowed the lawn
• Weed-eated the lawn
• Used my new backpack sprayer and sprayed weed killer all over the lawn
• Wrote
• Studied
• Worked on Dragon Laffs
• Took and picked up Izzy at her new job on base both Saturday and Sunday
• Was Security at Church on Sunday
• Had a meeting with new people at Church who are building a house for homeless men in town for my jail ministry
• And built a little wooden model of an owl in memory of Mary, who collected owls

The owl was just a time waster.  I used to build the little wooden model/puzzles all the time.  And I went online and ordered a couple of other ones to play with while I’m watching TV, listening to podcasts or listening to my bible read scriptures to me.

Anyway, that’s been most of my long weekend.  I feel like I’ve been beaten with a stick…a big, thick stick…by a big hungarian guy…with a crappy attitude towards dragons.

So many people have no idea what it’s like to be in pain ALL THE TIME.  I still go back to the line – “I wake up on a GOOD DAY in enough pain to send most of you young people to the emergency room or reaching for the phone calling 911 for an ambulance.”  And the flip side of that is, like today, waking up on a BAD DAY, still climbing out of bed with tears in my eyes and thanking God for the night’s rest and for the day that He’s put before me, asking for His help to get through the day and setting out with the faith to KNOW that HE will see me through the day.  Even though as I sit here writing this I have NO IDEA how He’s going to do it, but knowing that He will.

One last thing before we get this started…I saw this little family on the way to picking Izzy up the other day.  I’m thinking wild turkey, but I can’t be really sure.  Any of you guys out there have any ideas?  

Okay, Smartalec Izzy just had me do a Google search (I knew how to do that!  I just didn’t THINK of doing that!) and according to Google, I was right, they are wild turkeys…walking down River Road here in town.  Gotta love livin’ in the country.

And now…. 

Okay, for the next couple of “in-between pictures” I’m going to pop in memes about memes.  What is the big deal about stealing memes?  Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?  Isn’t that why we make them?  So other people can snag them?  In the hopes that one day someone forwards you a meme and tells you how funny it is and it turns out it is one that YOU created?  That’s why I always try to remember to put a little dragon in the lower corner of the ones that I create.  So here’s the first one:

Not sure if this is a true story, Urban Legend, or just a good joke…whatever.  It is funny and made funnier by the fact that it COULD be true.  But I have heard it before, so who knows.

It happened at a New York Airport. This is hilarious. I wish I had the guts of this girl. An award should go to the United Airlines gate agent in New York for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.

For all of you out there who have had to deal with an irate customer, this one’s for you.

A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.

Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket on the counter and said, “I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS.”

The agent replied, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll be happy to try to help you, but I’ve got to help these folks first; and then I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?”

Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. “May I have your attention, please?”, she began, her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. “We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him with his identity, please come to Gate 14”.

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United Airlines agent, gritted his teeth, and said, “F*** You!”

Without flinching, she smiled and said, “I’m sorry sir, you’ll have to get in line for that, too.”

Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.

Boy, she handled that second part MUCH better than I would have.

The second meme, meme…

Do you younger guys even know who these guys are?  I asked Izzy, she had no idea who they were!!!

Another meme of memes…

And the LAST meme of memes…for now, anyway…

“Impish invited me over to play…can I come in, please?”

That is so bad for you!

I saw this many years ago and it just surfaced again:
__________________

I agree with Joe, I read this many years ago and laughed myself silly.  This is truly a classic piece.

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I’ve been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell.. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame.

Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they’re welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. ‘This is Luke, my baby brother, and. I’m going to tell you about his birthday.’

‘First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.’

She’s standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I’m trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

‘Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts going, ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!’

Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. ‘She walked around the house for, like an hour, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

‘My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn’t have sign on the car like the Domino’s man.

They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.’ (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

‘And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!’ (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

‘Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push,’ and ‘breathe, breathe.

They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom’s play-center, so there must be a lot of toys inside there.

When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there in the first place.’

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat.

I’m sure I applauded the loudest.

Ever since then, when it’s Show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another ‘Middle Wife’ comes along.

Cool!  I was keeping an eye on Dave, also.

Hold on tight when you watch this one, it’s really hard.

And that’s it my friends.  Much more I wanted, needed to say, but I ran out of time.  Maybe I’ll get to it for Saturday.  My love to you all.