Tribute to Clay

Tribute to Clay

Update

Clay died this morning.

There is much love lost with his passing.

He's no longer in pain.

Pray for Joyce and CJ.

Today is November 3, 2009, will you pray?

Dear Friends,

My dad's close friend has pancreatic cancer. His young son, CJ, wants to cast all his cares upon God for he cares for us. He wants the cancer gone. He wants his daddy to not have pain. Please pray for God's healing hand to totally heal Clay. CJ and his mom, Joyce, need help. Please pray for God to help them. He doesn't help those who help themselves. He helps because that is who he is.

Psalm 55:22 (New International Version)
²² Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.


Love,

Kanani

Black Cherry IBC and Sand

The very idea. Giving a 7 yo black cherry soda for his birthday. The nerve of some mothers; they're obviously rich beyond compare such that the idea of ever cleaning up after such a gift would cause so much trouble would never cross their minds. How dare them.

Really, I'm glad for the gift. It's a mixed blessing, you see, I don't like cherry flavored drinks - unless it's cherry coke (with caffeine that I'm not supposed to have!) or a cherry blo-pop. Why don't those set me off? I guess black cherry IBC is better chilled! However, all my kids like the black cherry IBC flavor. That's the other side of the blessing, M gets to share. It's really fun to watch him do what he's been taught to do. He does it very well and quite naturally. So as they are sharing, S who is always unsettled in his chair at the table, does a 360 with his cup in his hand. There you have it. The source of my new carpet stain. A really rich mom would've had the kids drink it out on the brand new deck, but apparently I'm not that smart.

So, how is all this a real blessing you ask? I have a routine for carpet stains which is why my carpet isn't more stained than it is. It involves a hoover mini-vac that pretty much inhales just about everything in it's path. It's famous. I have friends who borrow it just for special occasions. Well, I worked long and hard on this stain - did I mention that it was black cherry IBC stain on my carpet? I worked on it twice. It may be time for professional help. I digress. When I emptied out this awesome mini-vac which had worked for a very long time on these stains There must have been an entire cup of sand.

We live on beachy sandy soil so sand in the house is a given. But this was ridiculous. How could I clean this area and collect an overflowing cup of sand? Well, apparently this is an overlooked area of my house. It's kinda gross, really. And I use RESOLVE (You know the commercial I'm thinking of right?!) But that's not all. Tonight I picked up the living room specifically so I could vacuum after all the kids had gone to bed - I hate vacuuming in the day time, I have no idea why. I took special care to vacuum the aforementioned area. Again, I picked up an overflowing cup (I really didn't go to the effort to measure it exactly) in my wonderful spectacular fantastic Bissell Healthy Home Vac. If I thought you'd read it, I'd tell you more about my vacuum and how I decided to get it. Suffice it to say, a dear friend bought one, recommended it with caveats and now I own one.

So, to all my friends who've visited before, I'm sorry. I had no idea there really could be that much sand in one area. Guess I'll have to vacuum that every day like Danny says.

For the record, M even shared a root beer with me.

Duck

DUCK

I do not endorse the jokes on this site, but this one is incredibly hilarious. Please enjoy!

Totally insignificant findings in my study today... maybe not all insignificant

Proverbs 30:15-16

	The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:
	the grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.

How many times did you use your vegetable peeler this week?

What about watches? Is it really important that my watch have all the bells and whistles?

Dinner, was it alright? on time? done? did you have any?

For me, I used it enough that I had to pull out the second one because the first was buried in the stack of clean dishes not yet put away by my kids who never cease to amaze me in their skills used to avoid work. Don't worry, it's a new thing for us... perhaps it'll stick with us.

MM bought me a new watch today. Perhaps the face of this watch won't be decimated or removed as the last few watches I've had. My new watch isn't very big - some might call it feminine. It's supposed to be feminine. If it'd been up to me, I'd have bought the one with the dial on the face that shakes on your wrist at the alarm time. That'd be nice. However, I learned years ago that a gift received is not returned - love it or re-gift it, if you don't you'll never find one when you need it.

Note to MM, please don't ever ever leave me to tend to the smoking fire while you are gone for four hours. Most assuredly the meat will be no where near done as you think it should be and you'll be mad at me. I don't like it when you are mad at me!

I didn't write that for MM, he doesn't read my blog... neither does anyone else, for that matter.

I digress.

The point is this, I had a great day. I got to close the curtains in the house when I wanted to elminate radiant heat from turning my house into an oven. I enjoyed a great evening with my family. I got a new watch that makes me look a little more like a lady...

Now, don't get your hopes up, there's not wardrobe change coming any time soon!

Now for the rest of the story...

You were wondering, I can tell, why on earth would I blog about a silly salad spinner? It's true that it's wonderful and I really think every household should have one, but there's a behind the scenes story that I'm ready to share...

I bought my salad spinner late last year/early this year - I don't really remember. But I shop at Walmart. Things appear on their shelves today and tomorrow are gone - there' s no guarantee what'll show up next so I bought our salad spinner from the clearance price rack. I was thrilled to find it works well and is a good size for our family.

Since I decided that it works so well for my family and I'm always thinking of things for Clea in Uganda. I felt that she too should reap the benefits of my magnificient find. So since I've been back (yes it's been three months since I returned!) I've searched my regular Walmarts in search of the elusive salad spinner set. I wanted to be sure I could get another one for my self (Selfish, I know!) before I sent mine off and it wouldn't fit in the package I sent in May. I had looked online and found it available for site to store or home shipping but they also showed local stock in a few stores around town - but they were never on the shelves!

I know you know this because you are a faithful reader of my blog - even if you don't comment- but I live way out so searching through Walmart does not fit into my schedule. So I resort to strange ingenuity for such things as shopping. I inherit clothes from my neighbor because she lost all the weight I wanted to loose. I make many things from scratch rather than store ready mixes. I go to town as little as possible and still survive. I hate shopping. More than I hate shopping I hate calling Walmart. But I was desperate. I'd asked at two Walmarts and they couldn't imagine what I was talking about (shame on me for not having that UPC code - now you know what they're for!)

Finally I was getting things ready to get to Justine to take to Connie to take with her as she returns to Uganda next week (pray for wonderfully peaceful travel and smooth reunion of the whole clan!). The spinner was going - in fact Justine already had it. But I needed my new one. Clea already had the vegetable peeler and the knife. I wanted another one for my house. What do you do? You break down and call Walmart - but not the Tallahassee ones. They haven't the time to answer the phone let alone find what you are looking for - even if you have the UPC (computer nearby helps- who wants to write down all those numbers just to find out you transposed one or two!). So I called Crawfordvill Walmart! No one is housewares answered my call, so the operator put me on with the manager! Sweet relief. He not only made several trips across the store for me (I'm sure he used his time wisely along the way), but he made sure I got just what I needed.

But he's not the real hero of this story - It's Jessica! Knowing that she'd most likely visit her local Walmart in the near enough future I made the next phone call. It was Sunday afternoon and she was eating lunch- I was being lazy! I gave her the description of the item, the UPC code and the manager's name (sorry, I can't remember it now!). She dutifully wrote it down (or pretended to!) and said she'd take care of it for me. This is way better than site to store - this is site to door delivery!

I have my salad spinner, vegetable peeler and knife with sheath. Clea will have her set soon. Jessica is a saint. You are now enriched. Thank you all, and Good Night!