One of the things that teachers of preschoolers are interested in, whether it’s in a school classroom or a church classroom, is the development of life skills. Like putting things away. If the kids don’t help put things away, then teachers are left with significant clean-up work at the end of a day, or even just when Sunday School is over. And, as with much of life, if it’s fun, the work goes more quickly.
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What I *used* to think of as a nice, safe, pleasant place to sit and read.
Even though it’s really hot here in Central Texas right now, the mornings aren’t too horrible, and I sometimes go out and sit on the pew on the front porch and read. It’s in the shade until early afternoon, and I even might eat lunch there, while I’m reading, which is what I did last Saturday. If I’m going to be outside working in the yard, especially in the back yard, which has some low places, I always use insect spray. We don’t have standing water, but I’m not so sure about the neighbors. But, sitting on the front porch, I don’t, ordinarily, until recently, use that precaution. So-o-o-o, after enjoying a relatively pleasant time of reading and lunching, the temperature escalated and I went back into the house, and noticed how my left forearm was itchy. Really itchy! And, being a responsible adult who knows better, I went ahead and scratched it. It was REALLY itchy. As the afternoon wore on, I would idly scratch the itchy place, not particularly paying much attention to it. When I actually looked at the thing, I saw that there was a pretty large red (itchy) patch, and in the center of that, a smallish raw, gooey circle in the center. Hmmmmm. And I went to bed.
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On Saturday, July 2, David said to me, “What’s with all these ants?”
“What ants?” I said.
“They’re all over the place!”
“Where?”
“Around my computer, in the bathroom. They’re everywhere!”
“When did you start seeing them,” I asked.
“About three days ago,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” I asked. “We have a contract with the bug people. They could have come out then. Now we’ll have to wait until after July 4th. And, I haven’t seen any ants.”
“Ants,” he said, just a little frustrated. “What ants?”
“You said you’d seen ants,” I said, getting a little testy, myself.
“I said, ‘GNATS,'” he said.
“Oh. Gnats. Well, yes,” I said. “I’ve seen a few gnats.”
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I’ve looked at, and used, some of the YouTube tutorials about knitting, especially the ones showing how you graft one side of an object to another. I can sit and start and stop the video as I work my way across a knitted teddy bear’s head, for example. Watching someone, at least for me, is way more helpful that merely trying to follow written instructions. Last year, I saw one for a cute cake that looks like a Canadian flag when you cut out it into wedges. So all this past year I’ve thought that maybe I could make something similar, but for a July 4th cake. The tutorial made it look easy (don’t they all), but she did mention, at one point, that she had to make SIX cakes before she got it right. I neglected to take that into consideration.
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I was telling you about the first plane part. And I was at the Knoxville airport, where folks were sitting quietly in rocking chairs and watching the planes land. I got on my plane, settled into my seat, took out the airline magazine and a pen, so I could do the crossword puzzle, and promptly fell asleep.
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Actually, I’m back from the trip, but I’m not a hip modern girl with a laptop and a tablet. I only have my phone. And that’s no way to write and post a blog each week. So, before I left home on May 21, I had to get three blogs ready to go out on the three Fridays I’d be away. So, let’s pretend that it’s three weeks ago, and I’m getting ready to leave. Okay?
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I remember having a party line, just briefly, when we first moved into this house, in 1959. Mother and Daddy probably had a party line, at some earlier point, but it must have been when I was too short to be able to answer the phone that was in the phone niche.
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Perfect!
I saw these socks at Wal-Mart. The tag says “Aloe-Infused,” and I thought that sounded comfy. And they match some of the Crocs that I do yard work in. So … a Win/Win!
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If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then is age in the heart of the beheld? (Or, you’re as old as you feel.) I’m 66. When I look out and think about people who are 66, I think, “Wow. That’s really getting on in years, isn’t it.” But when I think about myself, I think, “Sixty-six. Not so bad.” Or else I’m thinking, “Sixty-six!! Ollie, Mollie, Gollie! How did this happen?
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I know the mechanics of putting up a toilet paper holder and a towel rack. It’s just not something that I do all that often. Or, actually, ever. But when our house got painted, at the suggestion of the guy who wrote up the contract, I did remove all the door and drawer knobs and handles and took down the wall-mounted towel racks, hooks, and toilet paper holders. My doing that (and replacing them when the job was done), saved lots of time for the painters. So I very much understand about how those racks go up. There’s a metal plate that gets attached to the wall. Then, the arms of the racks are slipped over those plates. There’s a tiny little set screw that gets tightened up against the bottom of that plate, and that holds the ends in place.
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