Turtles, Spiders and Garage Sales

Well, here are some things on my mind:
First of all, last Saturday I witnessed something so terrible and brutal, yet funny and exactly how God designed things to work. Of course, I want to share it with you!

So, we're at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art having a picnic and looking at all the turtles and fish swimming in the pond. We were with some dear friends who were in town visiting us. The kids were throwing their goldfish into the water to attract more turtles and watch them try to eat the goldfish (this is completely acceptable, by the way. People come to the MMFA just to throw bread and crackers to the ducks, geese, fish and turtles, not to look at the art.). Well, while we were watching the water, the tiniest, most adorable turtle I've ever seen swam up to the surface. I don't think it was even the size of a silver dollar. It was precious. While I was oogling over this tiny turtle, the unthinkable happened. A huge carp came up from below and swallowed him up in his big, fat, carp mouth, and he was no more. I screamed in shock and disbelief and what I had just witnessed. I wanted to cry and laugh at the irony all at the same time. Thankfully, none of the kids saw what David and I and our friend had seen. It was a lot to handle for me, watching a cute innocent creature get eaten alive! It could have really been one of those life moments for Andrew and Elizabeth!

What else is on my mind? Well, Andrew's third soccer game in a row is probably going to be rained out tomorrow. Ok, yes, that would mean that all of his games have been rained out so far! They make them up on Monday evenings, which is good, and then practice is on Tuesday evenings.

Garage sales. I love shopping garage sales! My friend asked me yesterday where my kids had gotten their cute summer clothes...garage sales in our neighborhood, I told her! I also got a wonderful double jogging stroller for $45 and a new bike for Andrew for $5! He is fairly close to being able to ride it (no training wheels), which means we're pretty close to being able to walk (someday RUN) the two-mile loop of our neighborhood with the girls in the stroller, while Andrew rides his bike.

Tomorrow I'm not going to shop garage sales. I'm going to go to real stores to buy new shoes and new shirts with the money I budgeted for shopping this month! I get to go with my dear friend Bonnie. I will even leave Hannah at home with David with very clear, written instructions! I am praying she will get better at drinking from the bottle!!!

....now, SPIDERS! Oh, they're just so creepy!!! I respect them tremendously. I'd probably even like them if they weren't so creepy and scary. But, alas, all that said, they still had to die. A couple weeks ago I noticed several webs in the windows right outside our back patio door. There were very large orb spiders dwelling in them. One of them had an egg sack. Then, a day or two later, I noticed more spiders, webs and egg sacks. Six spiders in all and seven egg sacks! And one dead spider, eaten by another, I'm assuming. Well, I had just about had enough and was not looking forward to thousands of baby spiders running all over my patio and getting into my home and scaring me and my children. I couldn't figure out exactly how to kill them though. Spraying them wasn't working, so I started thinking about what I could squish them with and if I had the guts to do it. Well then, my dear friend Bonnie, once again, suggested sucking them up and then dumping the container they were sucked into out into a bowl of a hot water and bleach solution. So that's what we did, after I refilled the bucket since my daughter dumped the first one out. I just know the spiders lived somehow and are going to get back at me somehow for trying to kill them so brutally when all they wanted to do was catch mosquito hawks and have a family on my patio.

So, there's my first post! Kind of long and wordy and, oh, so random! I'm sure I will get better though! Please don't compare me to my brilliant husband, David. He's such a good writer and has been doing this for so long, his writing and his blog is really impressive and fun to read. Thank you for at least humoring me, reading mine!