The Scoop on Granny

Name:
Cathi

Status:
Dreaming of the mountains...


Who is Granny?

I'm the incredibly blessed mother of 9, "Granny" to 16, and wife of "The Papa," the knight-in-shining-armor whose loving support has made it possible for me to stay home and give my life to mothering, homemaking, and 26 years of homeschooling. Life at Granny's House is full of laughter, friendship, books, music, lively debate, writing, and good things to eat. My days are made even more meaningful by coming alongside other moms, giving them the support and encouragement that I lacked as a young mother and helping them to network with each other in ways that strengthen homes and families. A few times a year I board a plane to visit my "away" kids, to attend the birth of a grandchild, or to enjoy some lazy days with my best friend, but I always love coming back to...Granny's House.

My Complete Profile

On Granny's Calendar
  • August 15 - SAC Day begins
  • August 16 - Sam is 7!
  • August 20 - Kristen's birthday
  • August 30 - THE WELTYS ARRIVE!
  • Sept 3 - FAMILY PICTURES
  • Sept 3 - Chris' birthday
  • Sept 5 - Henry is 9!
  • Sept 7 - Isaac is 10!
  • Sept 17 - The Papa's birthday
  • Sept 23-30 - Granny and Papa go to Hawaii
  • Sept 26 - PawPop is 88!
  • Sept 29 - Tim is 15!
  • Oct 2 - Cheyenne's birthday
  • Oct 4 - Liam is 5!
  • Oct 7 - John Caleb is 17!
  • Oct 18 - Tony's birthday



  • Email Granny!


    Get your own calendar



    Granny Cares
  • Care Calendar
  • Agape Pregnancy Help Center San Antonio
  • World Vision

  • Granny Cooks (and Eats)!

  • The Pioneer Woman Cooks
  • Once a Month Mom
  • $5 Dinners
  • Full Bellies, Happy Kids
  • A Year of Crockpotting


  • Granny's House (and yours!)

  • Simple Mom
  • The Nesting Place
  • Between Naps on the Porch
  • The Inspired Room



  • Granny gets around...
  • A Holy Experience
  • MommyLife
  • Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
  • Preschoolers and Peace
  • Breathing Grace
  • theMangoTimes



  • Granny stays informed...
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Fox News
  • Drudge Report

  • Granny Thinks...
  • Al Mohler
  • Between Two Worlds
  • Blog and Mablog
  • First Importance
  • Equipping the Saints
  • Desiring God

  • Granny says you may go to...
  • PowerLine Blog
  • Michelle Malkin
  • SteynOnline
  • WSJ Opinion Journal Best of the Web
  • GetHuman
  • Home School Legal Defense Association

  • Granny goes to the movies...
  • Netflix
  • Rotten Tomatoes
  • ScreenIt.com

  • Granny is watching!
  • Blue Pencil Editing
  • SPOGG
  • Mighty Red Pen
  • Conjugate Visits

  • Granny smiles at...
  • Purgatorio
  • ScrappleFace
  • LarkNews
  • Sacred Sandwich


  • Saturday, June 30, 2007


    Yesterday in the middle of the carpet installation, a sweet, rather new-ish friend whisked me away for a late birthday lunch to a favorite restaurant of hers. It's a small Indian place where she eats often and she wanted to share the whole Indian food thing with me. I've eaten Indian food only two or three times in my life, and I've made Indian-like curries a couple of times, but it certainly hasn't been a fixture in my life as in hers. Not knowing quite what I was in for but being game to try, I joined my friend at the India Oven. I was delighted to find that there was a buffet, which gave me a chance to sample a dozen or so different dishes, just a few bites of each, and then go back for some more of my favorites. As it turned out, about eleven of the twelve dishes WERE my favorites! My second plate of food was as full and nearly as varied as my first and I ate until it hurt...savoring every bite. And now I can say I have discovered a new food love--northern Indian cuisine! I'll be combing the internet for dishes that can be made without having to comb the city for exotic ingredients, though I'm not above even that if it strikes my fancy...

    And if you're way ahead of me on this and have any great recipes to share, fire away!

    (And thank you, Penny!)

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    has spoken at 5:02 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Friday, June 29, 2007
    One more post before bed...
    The carpet guys ran out of carpet before they ran out of floor due to a couple of mistakes in the measuring. They will have to return next week to do the back staircase, but the front one is done, and the master closet as well. The house is still a mess from all the moving stuff around, but it the floors and walls looks so fresh and clean that I am in absolute heaven tonight. And our toes are enjoying the new carpet...



    I'm delighted with the combination of the wall, trim, and carpet colors. Here's some of the effect:

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    has spoken at 10:23 PM
    4 Backtalks to Granny



    We are currently "chilling" while the workmen take a meal break. Some of the furniture is already back in place and soon it will all be! Living room, front hall, and master bedroom are done; family room in process; stairs yet to be done this evening. I AM LOVIN' IT!!







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    has spoken at 5:42 PM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Here are some of the pics as we prepped and cut out the old carpet...





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    has spoken at 5:36 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    UPDATE: The carpet installers are here and working! Check back for pictures later in the day!

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    has spoken at 10:53 AM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Thursday, June 28, 2007



    Okay so I'm confused.

    Does this include Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen?

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    has spoken at 12:37 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Wake up and smell the....bacon?
    I am SO relieved that we are going to use federal money to get this bull by the horns. Or rather this sow by the....oh well, just go read.

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    has spoken at 12:00 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny





    You know what this picture spells?

    N O . C A R P E T.

    That's right. We woke to another huge rainstorm and read the watery tea leaves. Sure enough, when the carpet guys showed up at 9:30 and saw that we had no covered area for them to lay out and cut the carpet (our garage is too full), they shrugged and got back in their truck and that was that.


    I am so disappointed. The week as laid out was perfect. And last night The Papa and Nathan moved loads of furniture and "stuff" to the areas that weren't to be carpeted today, so need I tell you what our house looks like? Let's just say, don't get out in the storm to come over here and comfort me and expect a place to sit down ;-)

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    has spoken at 10:50 AM
    4 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, June 27, 2007
    Run don't walk...
    ...over to Tami's blog and read her post about big families! True, hilarious, and touching...

    While you're there, check out Lauryn's makeover.

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    has spoken at 12:37 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Today's work...
    This area, now freed of the tile, will be carpeted tomorrow.





    They forgot to tell us they'd have to take the toilets out. I'm trying not to drink anything :-)




    And now for the master bathroom...



    Ah. The flooring folks also forgot to tell us that though they can remove the toilets, they can't replace them. 1-800-PLUMBER!!!!!!!

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    has spoken at 11:07 AM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    In which Granny defends her choices...
    I now do not have enough fingers on both hands to count the number of inquiries I've had asking why we're getting rid of the tile in our house. So I'll attempt to answer the question here to save a dozen email answers.

    I love tile.

    Really, I do.

    In YOUR house.

    Six years ago when we built this house, we let the nice lady at the builder's showroom talk us into putting ceramic tile in the dining room and foyer. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't a very large area and I thought it would be a nice touch. Amortized over thirty years it was only adding about .90 a month to our mortgage so I gave in.

    I knew almost immediately that it was a mistake.

    First, even though walking on cool tile feels nice in the summer, it also lends a pretty cold feel to a room. What it ended up doing was making sure no one ever wanted to eat in the dining room. The room became a repository for school books, a place for craft projects that were too messy to be done on carpet, and an overflow space for kids to sit during parties.

    Second, I hate grout. It's an outgrowth of my hate of seams, crevices, cracks, anything that collects grime. I know, you'll have lots of ammunition for me on this one, but trust me...I've lived with the tile several years now and it bothers me.

    Third, during the years when we had 15 people living in this house, two of the 12" tiles in a very visible spot cracked diagonally all the way across them. When I inquired about having them replaced, I about fell over. I could have the room re-floored for that!

    And fourth, when I tried to warm up the room by putting a rug over it or carpeting over it, I ran into a myriad of problems that didn't make that practical either.

    So, I resolved to have the whole thing ripped up as soon as it was financially possible. Having tile demolished is just about as expensive as having a new tile floor put in, but at least I'll never have to do it again.

    And as for "Why vinyl?" I'll say that I am CRAZY about the vinyl we had installed in our kitchenlast year, and I just decided to extend it into the dining room and then we may use an oriental rug over that. We bought just about the best grade of vinyl flooring there is (my flooring man actually tried to talk me into a cheaper version and I wouldn't budge: I knew exactly what I wanted). It has a 15 year warranty, the best in the industry, and it is tough stuff. But it looks more like hardwood than any other substitute I've ever seen, and it's SO easy to care for. NO crevices! And people have walked in here many times and told me they love my wood floors. I quickly tell them they're not "real" but I appreciate the compliment...

    So...being very happy with it, I also decided to use it in the downstairs bathrooms as well. Yes, same pattern. I want all the non-carpeted floors to be the same flooring, and I happen to think most of the patterns designed for bathroom flooring are pretty cheesy anyway so I'm using the same hardwood-look everywhere.



    Hope that answers your questions. When I come to your house I'm going to LOVE looking at the beautiful tile floors. Here, I'm going to enjoy my hardwood-look vinyl and know that when John or the boys drop a hammer on it, it's not going to break. And nothing is ever going to get "stuck" between planks or in the grout.

    As I write, the nimble workmen are scurrying around me, prepping and sanding and measuring. I'll have pictures soon :-)

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    has spoken at 10:54 AM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    Tuesday, June 26, 2007
    I went out for a while to take Shelley to her piano lesson and returned to a uniform layer of fine white dust over everything on the first floor. I'm going to resist the temptation to try to clean it up until all the carpet is in. Is it Thursday yet?





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    has spoken at 3:15 PM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    D-Day, High Noon...



    Destruction is so much fun! (But it's LOUD!)

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    has spoken at 12:00 PM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    It's D-Day at Granny's House.

    D for demolition, that is. It's the day when we get to rid ourselves of the hated tile in the dining room and entry.

    I say "hated", but there is an exception. Tim, our 10-year-old Baby Prince, isn't too happy. In fact he's downright downcast. To him, tile screams one thing: "DRIBBLE!" He knows it's about to be replaced with carpet and vinyl flooring and that means he loses his indoor practice court and will be banished to the driveway. Ah, the heartaches of childhood...

    Anyway, here are the BEFORE pictures:


    Stay tuned!

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    has spoken at 9:27 AM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    Monday, June 25, 2007
    I was struck this morning by the sadness of the story of Zhou Fenying, a 91-year-old woman from a village in eastern China.

    When Zhou was 22, Japanese soldiers came to her village in eastern China, grabbed her and her sister-in-law and carted them off to a military brothel, she says.

    Now 91, Zhou has broken decades of silence to speak of her traumatic experience as a "comfort woman" -- the euphemism the invading Japanese used to describe women forced into sex slavery.

    "I hid with my husband's sister under a millstone. Later, the Japanese soldiers discovered us and pulled us out by our legs. They tied us both to their vehicle. Later they used more ropes to tie and secure us and drove us away," she told Reuters in her home village in Jiangsu province.

    "They then took us to the 'comfort woman lodge'. There was nothing good there," she said, speaking through a local government official who struggled to translate her thick dialect into Mandarin.

    "For four to five hours a day, it was torture. They gave us food afterwards, but every day we cried and we just did not want to eat it," Zhou added, sitting in her sparsely decorated home.

    Not only is the term "comfort women" a euphemism, even the term "brothel" does not convey the true atmosphere. These women were not used as prostitutes; they were repeatedly and brutally raped as the Japanese soldiers took out their anger and aggression on the young women. It is truly one of the most shameful episodes in century full of shameful events.

    But just as sad to me is this woman's current state:

    This harrowing experience has left a deep scar on Zhou's life. She cannot forget, and nor can she forgive.

    "If it were you, wouldn't you hate them? Of course I hate them. But after the war, all the Japanese went home. I'm already so old. I think they are all dead by now," Zhou said.

    For 60 years this woman has steeped in the bitterness of the months she spent in slavery. Who knows how much this hatred has limited her ability to love her son and others around her...

    Maybe it's my recent reading of Corrie ten Boom's story in The Hiding Place that put Zhou's story in such stark relief. If anyone ever had reason to be bitter or refuse to forgive, Corrie was a good candidate. And yet she came out of a prison camp that nearly killed her (and was due to "exterminate" her the following week) and spent the next decades demonstrating the love and forgiveness of Jesus to all who would listen to her. Unlike Zhou, Corrie actually had the chance to meet some of those who had held her captive, and so her forgiveness was tested in deed, not just in word. In one of the hardest acts of her life, she extended the hand of forgiveness to one of the cruelest of the guards who had tormented her. And when she died, she had the assurance that her time as a prisoner was not wasted; God used it in ways that would have been impossible without it. Our precious Chinese woman, though, has allowed her hatred of evil to become hatred of the people involved and it has infected parts of her life that could have been priceless gifts to those around her.

    What a difference Jesus makes! How thankful I am for His example! How thankful I am for those in my life who daily demonstrate for me what it means to forgive and to live free of the hatred that the world says they "deserve" to harbor. How blessed we are that we can echo Joseph's words even to those who would kill us, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result." (Gen. 50:20 NASB)

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    has spoken at 11:04 AM
    2 Backtalks to Granny



    Sunday, June 24, 2007
    Sunday snippets...
    It was a lovely birthday week. Well, lovely as birthdays in your 50's go. Family and friends lavished me with gifts and flowers and ecards and phone calls, cheering me and assuring me that I can still say I'm in my EARLY 50's. Next year, not so much...I'll have to succumb to that "mid-" designation.

    So this will be the week of the great upheaval. Just thinking of every single thing in this house being moved as we replace all the flooring makes me jittery. On the other hand, I can hardly wait to see the effect and to get everything back in place before we leave on vacation! And at that point I will post more pictures. I haven't wanted to do that yet because the trim is still not painted and much of the furniture and other belongings are still out of place, waiting for the inevitable chaos of the recarpeting.

    This week will also be my big push to get the last of the curriculum orders done. I've come a long way since my May malaise, but there's still work to be done!

    My heart is heavy for the family of Jessie Davis, the young pregnant mother found murdered this weekend. The circumstances are murky and disturbing, but no matter the situation, a young woman and her unborn daughter are dead, a two-year old is left motherless (and fatherless, it appears), a loving family is left grieving and a community stunned. May God pour out His grace In Ohio.

    The odd weather around here continues. Here we are at the end of June, and we have no days in the next seven forecast higher than the 80's, with rain predicted every day. We are still relishing our wildflowers and generous green fields and yards, not to mention the lower electric and water bills!

    The Papa has taken our three youngest to the lake this afternoon, renting a boat and planning a relaxing day together. I will enjoy the quiet here, putter, nap, and gather strength for our coming week...

    I love food blogs. I've been finding some great recipes as well as thoughts about food on blogs lately. If you are a lover of eating and baking homemade bread, here's one that should inspire you as well as make you salivate: A Year in Bread

    And speaking of blogs, if you haven't discovered Lifehacker, go give it a look. It's one of the few I visit every single day, or multiple times if my Bloglines alerts me. It moves fast, with sometimes 30 or 40 posts a day so it's a little hard to keep up with everything. But once you get used to it, you learn how to scan for the things that will interest you and skim over everything else. The contents almost defy description so I won't even try. Just go visit for a few days in a row and see if you aren't hooked. If you aren't already a geek, it just might make you one. (I just bought the book to read on vacation, written by the major contributor to the site. Can't wait! Lifehacker, the book.)

    If you have some available slots on your prayer list, I'd appreciate your remembering our three middle kids, CJ, Nathan, and Bethany. All three have important decisions/plans regarding college coming up in the next few weeks and life and health circumstances affect all these. Pray for God to make very clear what they are to do and how we're to encourage and help them.

    Here's where I snip the snippets for today. It's time for a nap :-)

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    has spoken at 12:55 AM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    Friday, June 22, 2007

    This morning, a friend emailed to ask me about the value of studying ancient history. She is, like our family and several others I know, getting ready to dive into Tapestry of Grace, Year 1. This isn't her favorite period of history, and so she was needing some confirmation that it really is important enough to spend a whole year on.

    Well, after spending a year in the history of the 20th century, I'm MORE than ready to go back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. I can hardly wait! Like my friend, I love history, but unlike her, I really get my kicks from the old stuff--the older the better!

    But apart from the fact that I enjoy it, is it really worth giving it a whole year every four years? And my answer is a resounding "Yes!"

    The roots of most things good about American government and society are found in ancient Greece and Rome. Just as important, the seeds of everything destructive are found there, too. We are living in an age when what is good is being threatened by elements that will probably, ultimately, bring down the American democracy. But we're in the middle of it...we can't see the forest for the trees. Someday, if Jesus doesn't come first, people in a faraway time will study just what happened to us and why. We can't do that now because it is still happening and seems to be happening so slowly.

    But when we step back and with a wide-angle lens look at several hundred years of ancient Greece and Rome and understand how and why they came to such tragic ends, it's easier to understand how we might be heading in the same direction. We can identify the elements that are the same even though they may be cloaked with technology and our own brands of hedonism: there is truly nothing new under the sun. And we can use that knowledge to salt and light our world with the truth of God's word.

    Another value in studying the ancient world is that just as God chose the Jews to be His people, He also chose the ancient world as the perfect space-time for Jesus to be born and enter our world. Why? There are no easy answers to this question, but studying the ancient world is the only way to gain an understanding of why He considered the first century "the fulness of time." The world was ripe for his plan...what were the factors that made it so?

    Also, the ancient world was contemporary with all of what we read in the Bible. Studying that world brings new insights into the Old Testament stories as well as the New Testament formation of the Church and the spreading of the gospel. When I was little, I believed that the Bible was TRUE, but I never thought of it as connected with real history. Isn't that a shame? Now I marvel at studying ancient Egypt and seeing how it dovetails with the captive Israelites and with Moses' dealings with Pharoah. I can imagine what the powerful Joseph experienced when I know more about the Pharoahs' courts, the unusual patterns of weather, and the idolatrous religion practiced in the Nile region. Only then do I understand the significance and implications of the plagues. Only when I know something about Egyptian burial rituals do I understand why Joseph was so adamant about having his bones carried OUT of Egypt even if hundreds of years after his death. Only when I study Greek and other ancient mythologies can I recognize the unending tendency of fallen man to take seeds of truth and pervert them in order not to have to be accountable to the holy God who sent His son into the Greco-Roman world.

    And only when I can study and understand ancient history in the light of Biblical truth can I impart that understanding to my children, praying that they will absorb it in a totally different way than I did as a child. Otherwise, they too will grow up learning one history in church and family devotions and another from their history books, as though the two somehow occurred on different planets. May God infuse our next study with the fragrance of His presence throughout the ages and with a concrete sense that it is, and always has been, HIStory.

    And to my friend who was courageous enough to ask the question, I have left you anonymity, but if you'd like to come out of lurkdom in the comments and add your own, feel free :-) Only when we ask the questions can we gather the viewpoints that help us shape our own!

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    has spoken at 5:55 PM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Thursday, June 21, 2007
    Several of you have asked how we're coming with the interior redo of the house. So I offer this update:

    All the walls in Phase One are painted. This includes the kitchen, dining room, family room, living room, front hall and entry, and both stairwells.

    Painting of the trim has begun.

    Tile in the dining room and entry will be demolished on Tuesday.

    New vinyl flooring matching what's in the kitchen will be installed in the dining room, master bath, and powder room on Wednesday.

    Carpet in all remaining downstairs areas and staircases will be installed on Thursday.

    New baseboards will be installed the following week.

    This schedule accomplishes my goal of having the bulk of the work done and the house put back together by the time we leave for vacation (see ticker above). So I'm a happy Granny!

    Now, if I were just as far along on lesson planning....

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    has spoken at 5:59 PM
    0 Backtalks to Granny



    Kristen, my precious daughter #2 and mother of five of our grandchildren has posted a sweet tribute to her husband and marriage on this their 10th anniversary. Go savor...

    Tell me how much longer...

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    has spoken at 8:13 AM
    7 Backtalks to Granny



    Wednesday, June 20, 2007

    I know that a lot of you are very good about checking the grocery store sale flyers and making great use of the week's specials. Lately I've been trying to get back in that habit as well, but am hampered by the fact that I can't stand the feel of newsprint and I hate having paper hanging around.

    Ta-Da! I found a site that aggregates all the deals in your area, from all the grocery stores including Wal-mart and Super Target, and lets you see online what the specials are! You have to register once and put in your zip code so they know which stores you're shopping, and then you can set it so that each time you go back it takes you automatically to the sale flyer page. Ain't this a great country??

    MyGroceryDeals.com

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    has spoken at 1:00 PM
    3 Backtalks to Granny



    Where's the beef?

    Three or four years ago, Tami and Aubrey and I went in together and bought a side of beef and filled our freezers. That was a mixed experience for our family, partly because I was still not cooking a lot and it's not practical to do it if you're not willing to put in the work to actually THAW and COOK the meat.

    Well, I've gotten interested in doing it again, but this time I've decided to do some research first on all the different ways a beef carcass can be cut up, ground, etc. before I do an order. I am learning so much! For instance, now I understand why it's so hard to find flank steak--you never see a whole display case of flank, do you? There might be two or three if you're lucky. Well, that's because there is only a tiny bit of flank on a cow (about 3 lbs.) compared to the round section, for example, which can be nearly a quarter of the dressed weight of the carcass. Okay, I'm 53 today and never knew that! I guess I thought that flank steaks came from a huge hunk of flank roast somewhere, sliced to order!

    Anyway, last night I ran across a real treasure. It's a series of six YouTube videos, roughly seven to ten minutes each, of a master butcher cutting up a whole side of beef. It increased my understanding of this topic much more than any diagram or written explanation. If you want to see a pro at work and at the same time gain a much better understanding of where your chuck roast, T-bones, and brisket are coming from, set aside an hour and go watch these!

    And if you've got some real experience in this area that you'd be willing to share, I'm all ears! Have you bought a side or a quarter of beef? What did you like about the experience? What would you do differently next time?

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    has spoken at 11:44 AM
    7 Backtalks to Granny



    Tuesday, June 19, 2007
    Okay, well we knew it couldn't last forever.

    Summer has arrived. Oh, I know that technically it's still a couple of days away, but it gets to us sooner than it gets to you, and it's here. You know it's hot when you're timing the minutes it takes you to get home from the grocery store with ice cream. And when you're rearranging the contents of the bags so the frozen stuff is all by the milk. But you know, it's still so beautiful here from all the rain we've had that the heat is a little easier to bear!

    I've moved our vacation ticker to the top of the page...countdown has begun in earnest and we're all in the planning mode. Since this will be a pretty "active" vacation, with lots of things I won't be participating in, I have to devise some things to keep me busy on the days when everyone else is hiking, horseback riding, etc. I'm choosing a few books I've been dying to read, making sure I've got a couple of audio books loaded on my iPod, and thinking about a knitting project to take along. What I won't be doing is blogging, at least not live-blogging, because we'll be away from internet access. If perchance I'm wrong and Red River has moved into the 21st century (which I'm not altogether sure would be a good thing), I'll do some online Christmas shopping. For me, though, the real vacation will be the cool mountain air...

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    has spoken at 4:34 PM
    1 Backtalks to Granny



    Monday, June 18, 2007
    One happy pappy...
    Father's Day was good to The Papa. He got a new TV for our bedroom (see my strategy??), a 32" flat screen HDTV with DVD player. I think he was truly surprised!


    In the background, Josh is wondering what all the excitement is about :-)


    Here, John attempts to read the instructions but the old arms just aren't as long as they used to be. This indicates the very problem for which the new TV was purchased: he watched almost the entire final game of the Spurs championship standing right in front of the old TV because he couldn't see the score from our bed. (Shoot, I'm not sure he could see Tim Duncan!) I determined then that the Father's Day gift would be this fairly elaborate visual corrective.



    Next, son-in-law (and off-duty pastor and painting contractor) Dirk disconnects the old version, which now looks considerably tinier than it did last night.


    The Papa unpacks his new toy, assisted by the hordes of grandchildren without whom he no doubt would never have gotten it out of the box :-)


    He forgot to wear his T-shirt that says, "I may not be very smart, but I can lift heavy things."


    And the new one goes into place...


    There's a joke here somewhere...you know, like "How many Calvinists does it take to plug in a TV..."


    It takes up the whole top of the chest, but we can both see the picture from anywhere in the room! Happy Father's Day, my dear!

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    has spoken at 1:15 PM
    8 Backtalks to Granny



    Granny's Mission Statement
    "...Tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done....that the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, that they may arise and tell them to their children."
    ~Psalm 78:4-6

    My Focal Passage for 2011...
    Philippians 2:5-11

    5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

    6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

    7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

    8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

    9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

    10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

    11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    ~Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV)


    Oxymoronica...

    "The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

    ~Samuel Johnson


    [Oxymoronica, n., A compilation of self-contradictory terms, phrases, or quotations; examples of oxymoronica appear illogical or nonsensical at first, but upon reflection, make a good deal of sense and are often profoundly true.]


    Books on the iPhone, the Kindle, or on the nightstand...


  • The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, Alexander Mccall Smith
  • The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, Arthur G. Bennett, editor



  • Books finished in 2011...

  • Oxymoronica, Mardy Grothe
  • Some Sing, Some Cry, Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza
  • English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Roy Porter
  • One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp
  • His Word in My Heart, Janet Pope
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
  • Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
  • Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, John Piper
  • Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Joshua Foer
  • Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Red Queen, Philippa Gregory
  • Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas
  • The Confessions of Saint Augustine, St. Augustine
  • Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats, John Keats
  • Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell
  • Words That Work, Frank Luntz
  • NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
  • Poke the Box, Seth Godin
  • Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, Gary Taubes
  • A Patriot's History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
  • Song of Saigon: One Woman's Journey to Freedom, Anh Vu Sawyer
  • The Artistic Mother: A Practical Guide for Fitting Creativity into Your Life, Shona Cole
  • The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, Elizabeth Kantor
  • The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough


  • Oh, the thinks you
    can think...
  • Tapestry of Grace
  • Anatomical Charts
  • America's Library
  • George Washington's Mount Vernon - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Thomas Jefferson's Monticello - Virtual Mansion Tour
  • Hurricane Demo

  • Oh, the places we'll go...
  • The Alamo
  • Majestic Theater
  • The MAiZE
  • Magik Theatre
  • Sheldon Vexler Children's Theatre

  • Granny always says...
    Saying goodbye...
    Sunday snippets...
    Summer.
    Sunday snippets...
    Coming soon to a country near you...
    Making (a) room...
    Just in case this might make an impact on your spe...
    Midweek snippets...
    What's up?
    She said YES!

    Granny used to say...
    October 2005
    November 2005
    December 2005
    January 2006
    February 2006
    March 2006
    April 2006
    May 2006
    June 2006
    July 2006
    August 2006
    September 2006
    October 2006
    November 2006
    December 2006
    January 2007
    February 2007
    March 2007
    April 2007
    May 2007
    June 2007
    July 2007
    August 2007
    September 2007
    October 2007
    November 2007
    December 2007
    January 2008
    February 2008
    March 2008
    April 2008
    May 2008
    June 2008
    July 2008
    August 2008
    September 2008
    October 2008
    November 2008
    December 2008
    January 2009
    February 2009
    March 2009
    April 2009
    May 2009
    June 2009
    July 2009
    August 2009
    September 2009
    October 2009
    November 2009
    December 2009
    January 2010
    February 2010
    March 2010
    April 2010
    May 2010
    June 2010
    July 2010
    August 2010
    September 2010
    October 2010
    November 2010
    December 2010
    January 2011
    February 2011
    March 2011
    April 2011
    May 2011
    June 2011
    July 2011
    August 2011


    Grace Notes

    "Were the whole realm of nature mine
    That were a present far too small...
    Love so amazing, so divine
    Demands my soul, my life,
    my all!"