Southern Living Yankee

I don't have any recent pictures of the kids--how about some plants we're raising instead? (Plants are much easier to raise). So here's Tom's little garden. Isn't it adorable? He's got green beans, spinach, beets and onions in the rows (from left to right). Behind them are two tomato plants and one green pepper. This is my shady-spot container garden. Tom waters it with Miracle-Gro and the plants are loving it! This is the view off our balcony: Do you see Fudd? He loves to nap out here. And here is a mama duck on our pond with a few mallard duckings in her brood and a couple fuzzy yellow ones. WRITING UPDATE: Last week I edited and improved chapters 7 & 8. Tomorrow I work on chapter 9. Thanks for checking in on me.

Yes, I'm a slacker. But now I'm back so let's just keep moving forward. Anjee & Jim and their kids, Jessi, Lizzi, and Zeke f i n a l l y came to visit -- and we were having so much fun I didn't take any pictures! (I can't believe it either!) Yesterday we collected fossils, had a scare on the Buckeye Trail (Jessi screams quite nicely), ate way too much, watched fun movies, and played Wii games. Fudd was enamored with Zeke and enjoyed trying out all the different laps to sit on. Even Elmer came out for some petting. Oh, yes, on Friday night the fam jumped in the pool when they got here, and it was a good thing because it didn't get any warmer all weekend long. Imagine that! The middle of July and it's rainy and cool. WRITING UPDATE: Back to the grindstone, but I'm glad. My writing day this week will be Thursday and maybe Friday, too. Thanks for the comments on the last post. (Click the word "comments" at the bottom of it--great thoughts fro...

Sometimes people ask me what they can say to their widowed friends. Let's start with the "what NOT to say" answer. I heard it in the sermon at church yesterday and my heart responded "So true! So true!" In the story of the blind man in John 9:1-17 the Pharisees ask the wrong question: who sinned that this man was born blind--in other words--why did this happen? Asking Why ? or worse yet Who sinned? are the worst things you can say when people are suffering--whether that person is yourself or another. If you're going to ask this question--well, may as well just get out a whip. Same thing. You know this is true. Sometimes there is no answer revealed to earthly eyes--as was Job's case. Just look at Job: God devotes an entire book proving how useless these comforters were once they opened their mouths and tried to explain away Job's suffering. Sometimes there is no answer worthy of suffering. When my first husband died you'd think it would have been...