Memorial Weekend Tidbits

Anna sat in her bouncy seat right in front of me on the table during dinner. It was a wonderful meal for me, since I got to stare at and kiss those wonderful baby feet. Should I take a bite of my chicken, or those cutie-pie feet? lol

Did I mention I love babies? My time is dwindling down fast with Anna Grace, who is already 5.5 months. Savoring every moment.


HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
If someone in your family has served in the armed forces, I just want to say THANK YOU! Give your family member a hug from us.

I don't like to ask people for favors. For whatever reason, it's just really hard for me. But last week upon learning that my Uncle Richard (Dorothy's husband) rototilled his garden area, I actually mustered the guts to call and ask if we could borrow the rototill. We have a large garden area and we've never had the time for the labor it entails. We've been settling for a smaller garden for three years. Knowing how blessed the kids would be by a larger one, I knew I had to make the call.

After church on Sunday Richard came over and set to work. He is about 73 years old, but has strong muscles and is in great shape. Nonetheless, when I saw how hard the ground was in some places and how his body skipped forward when the rototill wouldn't penetrate, I was scared to death he was going to end up losing his feet and ankles in a bloody disaster. I can't even describe to you how nervous I was. It took everything I had not to run out there and tell him I changed my mind. He is very macho though and I knew it would irritate him if I said anything.

I get these awful images lately of bloody disasters, dating from Emily's two accidents involving the stitches. No--they aren't panic attacks. But pretty close. Some sort of post-traumatic thingy must be going on in my ever-nervous brain. It will pass I'm sure. Maybe about the time Anna Grace is six or so.

Anyhow, lo and behold, we have a well-tilled garden to work with! We are super excited! Memorial Day is the first day of planting season here in Ohio. Tomorrow the WIA grant stuff gets turned in, and then it's party time with the seeds. I can't wait. I'll get pictures of all the "farm hands". lol

Another blessing this weekend involving a favor had to do with our van's air conditioner. Timothy and I melt in the heat. We just can't hack it. So when the air conditioner slowly started to get warmer in the van, I knew we had to come up with the money to at least have it looked at. No God. Not that! Don't let us melt! Please! Take away my chocolate..whatever..but don't let me melt like the wicked witch!

At the picnic yesterday I asked my Uncle David if his car repair man worked on air conditioners. He asked what our AC was doing. I told him about the gradual warming and he said he would charge it for us. I had no idea what "charging it" meant, but I swallowed my pride and said "I would really appreciate that! Thank you!" And charging it worked! We won't need the repair man after all. Now I'm the nice witch again! Yeah! Timothy is very thankful as well.

Arwen has written a piece on sunscreens (see link below). We were going to go to Walgreens and get the Bullfrog Baby and Neutrogena Sensitive Skin sunscreens--which are very expensive--but which have the non-chemical sunscreen that was recommended last year (zinc oxide). Now, after reading her article, I don't know what to do. The kids have been spending hours outside, and we've been using a Bullfrog tube that is nearly expired. There is a strong family history of skin-cancer lesions, so we can't mess around. What are you going to get, Arwen?

Spors in the Desert: No such thing as a safe sunblock?

Post Script: One of the times Anna was in the crib behind me this weekend, I had a chance to look closer at the Google Analytics for my blog. It was confusing that it kept saying there were around 200 unique visitors this last month. Only two to four people comment, so that just didn't add up. After studying the reports a little better, I figured out that there are only about 30 regular readers, and the rest (173) visitors are from Internet searches. There was an increase in the number of searchers because of the WIA grant.