Friday!

I love Garfield. He's one wise Kitty.

Graduating Classes of 2015 and 2021

This is just a few of the graduating 6th graders (I think there were 56). They looked so grown up and were minding their manners through it all.

This is only a few of Alexis' (aka the Chick) kindergarten graduating class. They all showed their best sides and really put on some great performances for us.

Alexis accepting her diploma.

Zachary accepting his diploma. (thank the heavens!)

I'm wondering if I'll still be alive to see these younguns graduate from high school. I've spent at least a couple of hours over the past two days sitting on the most uncomfortable bleachers in the world, and several hours in the truck going here and yonder for one reason or another. My butt is tired. But,,,,SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!!!!!!!

Exceptin' for the June Gear Up program, and Tae Kwon Do, we're near 'bout free!

I Need a Boost

Some days have been hectic around here. The Chick was sick enough for an overnight stay in the hospital last Thursday. Another round of tummy trouble; I sure wish that bug would quite bouncing around here. Beans didn't come for the day but came and spent Thursday night and much of the day Friday with us.

Saturday Alexis, MeriKate, and the Beans stayed with us while Bubbie and Jerri went shopping in Memphis. PopPop took them for a ride on the 4-wheeler and found them a snacks of wild dew berries. Three little girls came home full and happy with purple lips and hands.

That's about all that's been going on around here. My energy is lagging and I don't want to leave the house much but that will change next week when the house is full of kids every day.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Memorial Day

Photo Challenge - Doorways

Thank you for the wonderful prompt for this challenge Miz Annie!

My first doorway is on that old barn that sits out in the field behind our house. I think it was built back in the 1940's or 50's and it's still standing, barely. I love old barns.

I snapped a couple of shots of this doorway because I notice the reflections in it every time I drive out of Helena heading west. It wasn't until I took this photo that I noticed that something must have happened here recently. That looks like some sort of patch on the bottom of the door.

This is the doorway leading to the entrance hall of the Pillow-Thompson House in Helena, AR. It was built by a well-to-do family who's ancestors donated it to the PCCC of the University of Arkansas in the 90's. There are quite a few old southern homes in Helena.
This view of the doorway leading into Estevan Hall, another historical home in Helena, is kind of spoiled by location of the camp chairs. Estevan was built in the 1826 and was occupied by the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

I think this used to be an old school building. I thought the steps that lead to a darkened doorway was interesting. I'll have to find out for sure what this building was.

This doorway leads into St. Marys Catholic Church in Helena, AR which was built in 1936. I think of all the doorways that I've seen in my life, church doorways are my favorites.

Please go to our Brenda Photo Challenge Blog and click on the comments to see all of the other wonderful "doorways" for this challenge.

Beans Starts With "B"

Beans as she runs to stand in front of the CSI rerun, "Nanaw! Is Crap a bad word?"

Nanaw, as she's trying to look through and around the little body in front of the TV, " I don't think so,,,not really."

Beans, in a sing-song voice, "Ok, Crap, Crap", as she prances and dances back over to where she and Zach are building with legos.

"And it starts with a K, don't it Nanaw?"

******

Don't forget the photo challenge tomorrow! Miz Annie was kind enough to chose our challenge prompt this time.

Half Formed Thoughts

Do you ever hear or read something that makes thoughts start rolling around in your noggin? One thought leads to another and then you start to wonder what was so important about that little tidbit that got you to thinking so hard in the first place.

Well I ran across one of those tidbits of information the other day as I was scrolling through the minutes of one of our district school board meetings. I don't know why this item jumped out at me unless it was the fact that it was one thing stuck there in between Board Policies and Personnel Decisions.

"Mr. SoandSo discussed with the board the possibility of hiring a Mandarin Chinese teacher."

What??? There was no mention of the board's reaction to this little item on the agenda but I've been anxious to find out.

We're a rural district with, I'm guessing, 400 or so high school students in grades 7 through 12.
We're a mostly farming district in a mostly farming county; our 2000 census had our population at 26,445 (it wouldn't surprise me if this has dropped significantly). The percentage of persons of Asian decent in the county at that time was 0.32%. Over 59.04% of the population insist on speaking ebonics, another 39% is so tried and true redneck that their language sounds foreign, and they discuss the possibility of hiring someone to teach Chinese???

Hell, I'm thinking we need to hire a couple more English teachers cause I think in our English speaking country we should be making darn sure that everyone knows their country's native language. I know for a fact that we rednecks in the county would surely gain some benefit from additional English lessons.

I'm sure there are arguments that it might be a good idea to be able to communicate with one of the major rising powers in the world but I really don't think a rural high school that claims not to have the funds to cover all of the special education needs, or a bigger and better technology lab, should even consider hiring a Chinese teacher.

If there's money to spend on education buy computers, or something to benefit the entire student body for a change.

Ok, that's out of my system.


I've mentioned before that I pretty much dislike theaters because most of them smell like a musky, sweaty locker room, and I really don't care to be in a large, dark, room full of strangers. I much prefer to choose who sits near me when I'm laughing, or crying, or both. This is the reason that I love being able to buy or rent a movie on dvd and bring it home to watch. I also occasionally enjoy watching a good movie on one of the Direct TV Starz channels. This doesn't happen often because I swear Direct TV has more reruns than local TV ever thought about.

Anyway, when PopPop and Zach came home late Friday evening from a short fishing trip I was watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Pop grabbed the remote as he always does when he comes home from somewhere, because he's a man and it's like another body part, but I told him, "Turn that channel and you die!"

I happen to like many of the movies where they mix up real actors and animated characters. So after a bit of mumbling he settled down in his recliner and was soon snoring away (this is another man thing, grab the remote, turn the channel, go to sleep)

On Saturday when they returned from yet another fishing trip, I was watching Arthur And The Invisibles. I slapped his hand when he grabbed for the remote and told him I was watching something. He sat back in his recliner and said, "Jillian is starting to influence your television viewing choices."

Well, so?

Stuff

I picked Zach up from school on time for his monthy appointment with his doctor yesterday (he still hasn't gained his weight back from that icky bout with the virus durn it) and afterwards we rode around town taking pictures of doorways; lots of doorways.

We killed a little more time by stopping in to browse at a little shop I hadn't noticed before on Cherry Street in Helena where I spent too much for a bottle of lotion that just smelled TOO good. I wish I'd looked at the price before I sniffed it.

Then there was a quick trip to the administration office at the college to pay for his summer Tae Kwon Do, stopped for a snack and a drink, and then it was time for his Tae Kwon Do class where he tested for his blue belt. He passed so that made him a happy camper.

Last evening I filled out a registration form for him to attend the Gear Up ( “Gaining Early Awareness Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.”) program at school through the month of June. I asked the elementary councelor last week about summer school or any other program that might help Zach with math because I feel he's still very weak in some areas. She checked and called to tell me about this program. I had never heard of it; didn't even know it was going on at our school; but I feel like someone at that school felt the need to exclude most of the student body (as well as parents) from knowing about it.

Anyway, I sure hope he's accepted into the program, and enjoys a less strictly structured part of the learning experience. Keep your fingers crossed for him!

Where's the Sun?

Road washouts

Flooded fields (there's a farmer's soybeans or corn planted under that water)

Even some of the highways are flooded.

It's just been dreary and nasty around here. Brings your spirits right on down.

Krysten gave us a scare Saturday night. She came down with the same stomach bug that's been going through the ranks and a sudden fever spike caused a febrile seizure. The emergency room doc said it's a common occurrence but I told him it's hardly common for us if you've got 3 children and 8 grandchildren and this is the first occurrence of it that you've seen. Jami was scared to death! Nanaw wasn't there when it happened but was nervous just hearing about it at the emergency room.

I'm tired.

Photo Challenge - Circles

Thank you kindly Miz Jeanette for choosing our challenge prompt for this round. I've been looking high and low for circular objects over the past week and a half.

See the 4 little circles at the top of this track? Is it a bear? A cougar? I followed the track down the turn row and right into my garden where Molly, that huge St. Bernard from next door, took a shortcut to her house. So there you go, it's a Molly track!


The tires on an irrigation pivot are circles. This pivot also makes a circle in the field as it waters the crops.


The unbroken circle is an age-old symbol of eternity so perhaps that's what was originally meant when rings were given during Wedding ceremonies.

This was fun and I'm looking forward to visiting the Brenda Photo Challenge Blog to click the names in the comments to see all of the other challenge photos. Now, don't forget those cameras! Keep snapping!

Challenge Reminder

Don't forget the photo challenge tomorrow! Miz Jeanette has chosen "Circles" for us so I'm expecting to be able to see loads of circles when I visit our challengers tomorrow. Click on the Photo Blog to see who's up for "Circles"!

No Excuse

Old Man river is overtaking his banks again.

All this rain we've been having around here has made me sleepy, so that's what I've been doing, a lot, sleeping. The sun finally came out in the afternoon yesterday, and it's been nice today; it would be nice if it stayed that way for awhile.

As if it's not bad enough that everything is totally saturated, all the rain has also caused all the creeks and rivers to rise. So now, every drop of water that comes pouring down will be very slow to drain away; there's nowhere for it to go. I crossed over a drainage ditch just outside of Lexa where the water is right under the bridge and the fields on both sides are covered in water the ditch will no longer hold. I noticed a backhoe crew working near the bridge so I hope they are keeping a close eye on it.

Zach was finally able to return to school on Monday. That child lost about 5 lbs the 4 days he was home sick with that stomach bug. He's got his appetite back now so he'll be gaining that back again in no time.

That's about all the news around these parts for now,,, well,,,except for Beans giving the baby kittens a hair cut to "cool the kitties cause dem was hot",,, but we won't go in depth about that right now, she doesn't like to talk about it.

Water and Pups

Water was almost in this person's house.

This was our road on Saturday afternoon. We went out for a few supplies in the big 3/4 ton farm truck.
This is just inside the Lexa city limits. I haven't seen water across the road here in about 35 years.

It rained.

And it rained.

And it rained some more.

I think we ended up with about 7 inches total, or thereabouts.


And Dempsey had puppies, which is the result of her escape with Tee back several weeks ago when they escaped out of their kennel and we looked for them for 3 days before we found them. We didn't know Dempsy was in heat but we began suspecting that she had been a month or so ago when she started looking like she was carrying a load of puppies.

Dempsey is a German Short hair pointer, the little chocolate brown puppies resemble her. The papa of the litter is unknown. Anyone want a puppy?