More News from Afghanistan

Yes, TJ is now in Afghanistan near Kabul and he did feel the earthquake. It woke him up! He will be keeping Landis posted as much as possible although getting an internet connection is sporadic and he was able to get a cellphone there but it will be expensive to call. If he can access internet, they can communicate online through Skype which is great - phone/video and its' free I understand. They have already done that some while he was in Kuwait. Modern technology! So, continue to remember TJ and all our soldiers while they are serving our country. Thanks.

Reply to Cristi

I've heard nothing from Landis yet - however, as far as I know, TJ is still in either Kuwait (where he was first send for staging/preparing to Afghanistan) or at the "in between place" which we are apparently now allowed to know the exact location. Last I heard they were possibly to remain in the "in between place" because of danger to fly them into Afghanistan. I'll let y'all know more when I have an update.
Thanks for checking.

Remember TJ while he's deployed

Please remember TJ (and Landis and the kids) while he is deployed. He left for Afghanistan last Thursday (is in Kuwait for a couple of weeks, then near Kabul). Prayers for safety, peace of mind, comfort and the family's well being while he's out of country. Thanks.

Gen at 10 months

Here's Genesis at 10 months. She's taken a step or two and will be walking in no time now. Still smiling as usual. She's such a happy baby!

Our own spaghetti baby

Ok, so as not to be outdone by little Ms. Avery, here is Genesis with her very first spaghetti experience. Apparently, she was thoroughly enjoying this new delight. This photo isn't the worst of it. In fact, I don't think there was an uncovered spot by the time it was over! Thank heaven babies are washable!

Sweet sweet sweet

Have you just ever seen such a cutie? We'll, I know you all have your own babies in your family but.....well, just look at these pics. Life is good.

Book Nut

Well, I am a book nut. I'm always carrying around a book to read at lunch (and sometimes more than one!) I've got 2 or 3 going at a time these days (which I used to not allow myself to do). So, for Mother's Day my wonderful husband got me a Kindle2. (Photo above). If you don't know about it, a Kindle is an electronic reading device. This is the coolest thing ever! It will hold about 1500 books. It has a built in dictionary which you can use right where you are in the text, you can highlight, make clippings and even write notes where you are in the text. It remembers where you were when you last stopped reading so when you turn it back on you're right there. It will even read aloud to you. Once I figure out how to do it, you can even put MP3 files on it and listen to music while you read. It also will let you search Wikipedia and Google - these are experimental applications they are working on. Just incredible.
I just finished The Kitchen Boy (about Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family - one of my very favorite subjects on which I have read many books) and am now reading For Whom the Bell Tolls - I have never read any Heminway before! I have the entire Bible on my Kindle (New Living Translation) and a collection of Dostoevsky as well as Alcoholics Anonymous, The Year with C. S. Lewis for a little daily meditation, and the Three Muskateers for some future day. I really want to read the Count of Monte Cristo but I found the Muskateers for free so I put it on there. You just search the Kindle store and buy your book and it downloads it to your Kindle in about 60 seconds. The entire Bible downloaded in 60 seconds! Can you believe that? You don't even have to be connected to a computer. It is a wireless connection direct to Amazon.com. As you can tell, I am thrilled to death with this little dumplin' and will be reading a lot!!!
This thing is small and compact and comfortable to hold, very easy to use and the new "paper technology" is awesome. Even in bright sunlight there is no problem seeing it at all. Not backlit like a computer screen. It looks just like a book page. I had already recently bought some books from Amazon before getting my Kindle so I'll have to read Liberal Facism and The 5000 Year Leap the old fashioned way, but oh I wish I had them on my Kindle! I'll have to be careful not to spend a fortune now on putting a library on it!
Anyway, hope you are all doing happy reading too.

The Past Weekend

We went to Monteagle, TN this past weekend for our semi-annual retreat/conference on Monteagle Mountain. Its a beautiful place and very peaceful weekend - it rained the whole time this time but we still went down to Sewanne College and went to the cathedral and shopped at the bookstore and the little gift shops, and to Hammers and found some bargains. Here's a photo of Phil next to a carving that is on the side the building at Dubose Conference Center where we have the retreat. We had fun. It was good to get home. It was also good to have our air conditioning system replaced (again) on Monday so we can be cool whenever it actually gets warm again!

Three 8s

Ok, Cristi, here are my 3 8s:

8 Things I look forward to:
1. Cheat days from the diet
2. Weekends
3. Seeing Mom on Mother's Day
4. Coffee first thing in the morning
5. New pics from Landis of the grandkids
6. The local car show this weekend
7. Monthly dinners with friends
8. Rare chances to see family members

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Went to work
2. Swept & mopped kitchen floor
3. Cooked dinner
4. Paid bills
5. Did some reading on my lunch hour
6. Called my mother & daughter
7. Folded laundry
8. Watched a little TV

8 Programs I watch on TV
1. "24"
2. Glenn Beck
3. O'Reilly Factor
4. The Fox Report
5. Boston Legal
6. Misc. HGTV shows
7. Misc. History Channel shows
8. Misc. Discovery Channel shows

Tax Day Tea Party & more

Philip & I joined some friends for the Memphis Tax Day Tea Party and the front page of the newspaper the next morning had this photo - I'm in the far left lower corner in the red jacket and our friends Joyce (green sweater, Paul Revere hat! & Steve (Greed sign) are right there with me. It was an interesting thing to do, we had a great turn out and I felt good for participating!

Also, Gen turned 6 mos old this week (the 15th) and here are her latest smiling photos!

It's beautiful here today and I can't wait to get home and enjoy the afternoon/evening. Our neighborhood yard sale is tomorrow morning and it's going to rain in the afternoon, so need to make the most of this beautiful weather while possible.

Love to all.

Easter Weekend

We had a nice Easter weekend and hope you did too. We visited a new church, Great Commission, in Olive Branch and it was good. So close to home and like our beloved Heartsong - casual and rock & roll praise! We had friends over for lunch in the afternoon and enjoyed the evening.

Here's a photo of the turtles sunning themselves on the boat dock out back. Spring is fun as all the wildlife gets active, if you know what I mean, and we have Mallards building nests under our willow tree and will have baby duckies to watch soon.

Love to all.

Good Friday

It's Good Friday and I'm at work but looks like most people aren't. I used to have this day off but no more. I could have taken a vacation day, but since losing half my vacation time in the job change, I decided I better hold onto some days for later in the year to cover all our adventures, conventions, etc. It's gray out and pretty quiet. I am looking forward to the weekend, a big get together tomorrow evening with a bonfire up in Fisherville and Easter Sunday. I'm hoping Mom is getting well and feeling up to an Easter Sunday visit!

Here's a photo of the boat Adam is now on and we hope he'll have a good experience, get settled in and be able to get back to enjoying his work after his recent change of vessels.

Love to all and Happy Easter!

Thanks to our Lord and our King

A little tweaking

Ok, had to do just a little tweaking to the decorating in the "new" bedroom. The pillow I had on the bed wasn't right - it had a little sort of dark fuscia stripe in it that just threw off the colors of everything else just a bit, so I changed that and I found a lamp that just absolutely belongs in that room with the new browns! So, here's another couple of pics to bring it up to date!

Also, we had a fabulous day today - did my little decorating this morning, got our website for the business updated and took a long ride out in the country in the 1976 Triumph Spitfire convertible! The weather was absolutely perfect today - sunny and not cool or hot - just right! It was great. Stopped on the way home, picked up some steaks and chops and grilled out! Now, dinner's done, and it's time to be mellow, watch some TV and enjoy the evening time!

Love to all.

Leather!

Well, here is our "new" sofa - and below are the before pics. Phil recovered this sofa over 10 yrs ago when we first moved into our house; it was time for an update and now we have this yummy nutmeg leather! I'm lovin' this. Now, of course, I'll be trying to get thim to do something new to the loveseat too!

New Reading List

Well, here's my new reading list:
I'll probably finish the novel, The Reincarnationist, today and am ready to dive into the following:

Inside the Revolution by Joel Rosenberg
The 5000 Year Leap - as recommended by Glenn Beck (ideas that changed the world)
Liberal Facism by Jonah Goldberg
and
Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin

Sounds exciting, huh? I know, I'm a little weird, but it keeps my mind stimulated and I am a news/political junky, and more lately, more & more history. I've read much Russian history in the past, so now I'm exploring more of the world.
Someday I'll finish the new biography, Einstein, which I'm over half way through, and also the biography, Houdini (same thing); I just keep getting distracted with other stuff and have recently read a few novels (which is not as common for me as non-fiction) and have really enjoyed them.
So that's the news for this Thursday!
Have a great day.

Monday!

It's Monday & was busy, but not too bad. I cut my finger on the food processor blade cleaning up after making pimento cheese (which I love on our low carb diet but Phil won't eat it! I can't type much so I'll just try to post the new pics of the grandkids and their pretty mom!

Photos of newly decorated room

Ok Cristi, here you go. Photos of the newly decorated bedroom (& my haircut included). As I said before, the color is richer than it appears in the photos - a bit warmer! It is a very peaceful feeling when you enter the room! I'm lovin' it.

Still haven't re-hung the paintings yet. One has color that I don't think is going to work in there, so we are deciding which art to hang. Then it will look different again!

Adam got on another boat back to work yesterday which was a great relief as there was a problem when he got off two weeks ago and he was uncertain of his status. He was reassigned and boarded a boat yesterday and I'm very relieved. Having had the problem with his job with he and three other men told them may not have jobs, then his Dad died 4 days later and having to deal with all those conflicting emotions, it was a rough trip home for him this time. He did make it up to see Landis this past weekend and their half-brother Tim and his wife came to spend the day with them, so it was good they all had an opportunity to be together again. Johnnie's death has stirred up a lot of strange feelings from sadness at the terrible circumstances of an alcoholic death to relief from years of fear and torment, to the awkwardness of those feelings, and the sadness too that the children will have to deal with the confusion of sorrow, relief and guilt because of the relief. It's a hard thing when someone dies who has alienated everyone who ever tried to love him because people just can't say, oh how he will be missed. Mostly, we can say we can't believe he lived as long as he did, and it's good that he is no longer in misery, and can no longer torment others. Johnnie T. Wilson, Jr., 6/22/46 to 3/7/09 - dead at the age of 62 from hypovolemic shock due to peptic ulcer disease, due to chronic alcoholism, according to the medical examiner. Wow.

It's Wednesday

We're planning to create an email group of the folks who attended our We Surround Them party Friday night and share our experiences with navigating around the www.the912project.com website and discussing how to become more involved. Someone has already suggested we might want to participate in a Tea Party! We are looking forward to becoming closer to our little group and see what happens.

We painted our bedroom wall Sunday changing it from Hunting Coat Red to Library Mahogany! It's a wonderful, deep chocolate brown and looks great - of course I had to change the bedding etc. so it's a whole newly decorated bedroom and has a very peaceful and sanctuary kind of feel to it and the gold taffeta drapes make for a wonderful, warm glow. Lovin' that.

(I'm at work so don't have a photo here to attach - the ones I took don't do it justice - they make it look darker in there than it actually is - some things you just have to see in person. )

Also, I posted a new video of Genesis on my Facebook page. Check it out.
Love to all,
The Lambs

Glenn Beck - The 912 Project

Ok, if you didn't see Glenn Beck's special yesterday "We Surround Them" you really missed it. It will be run again today on Fox News Channel. Please watch. Go to www.The912Project.com when you can get on it. So many people are going to this new site that it keeps shutting down! Connect with your family, friends, etc. and be part of taking our country back.
Also, please pray for the mental, spiritual and physical well being of Glenn Beck as he is having much success, much praise, fabulous ratings, people counting on him to be a leader, etc. and I know the government and those in power are feeling threatened by him. We need to lift him up to God who is good and is a power greater even that the almighty US Govt!!!
Thanks.

Oh, so cute!

What a cutie! Take a look at this pretty happy, baby!

Our Lake Frozen

Our lake was really frozen this morning - no ducks standing in part ice/part water today. Didn't see any ducks! It rarely freezes over the whole surface so it's interesting ot see. Long day at work, home for dinner & to meet with friend to do step work (finally finished - Step 12) and waiting for Adam to come in some time tonight.

It's cold here!

It's blue blazing cold here. I'm attaching photos of ice on the lake - the ducks are standing in the lake! Also, here are some photos of the view from my office window yesterday morning. Life sometimes comes full circle. From my office I can see the Wonder Bread Bakery where my Daddy worked most of his life and where we went to see him as kids. Across the street from the bakery is A S Martin & Sons body shop which was Philip's grandfather's business and is still there today. Wow! Also, from my office I can see the first law office I worked in (at the far right of the photo) and the next law office (at the far left of the photo) where I worked before going to work out in east Memphis where I stayed for 22 years before going back downtown. You never know what life will bring. It's good to have a design for living that really works, to be able to face life on life's terms, to remember that to live fully means to experience some of everything!

Family Drama

Well, if you haven't heard yet, nephew John Dalton's mobile home burned down and he and the little girls got out safely and are looking for new digs! Hopefully, they'll find a new place soon and we can start getting together all the stuff you'd need to start from scratch! It's really mind - boggling when you think of all the stuff you have and actually use daily to keep a home going! Wow. Bless all their hearts and pray for calm, faith, courage and perserverance for all.

Hope everyone has a great day.

By the way if you haven't seen them yet, here are the latest funny pictures of Genesis staring at her toy monkey! What a personality this kid is going to have!