A wonderful day

It is lovely, sunny, but windy (okay, very windy) out today, but yesterday was absolutely beautiful, sunny without much wind at all. My parents came up for the weekend because today is Hemi's birthday. Three whole years old.
We celebrated yesterday since we had the whole day with my parents here. There are the remnants of a turkey (for some reason we always seem to have extra turkeys in the freezer) and a birthday cake in the kitchen. We went to the park, got a glider stuck on the roof of our house (not enough wind to blow it down yet, but we're sure it'll come down sooner or later) and I got sunburned on my arms. They left fairly early today so as to get home in plenty of time. It sounds like they have a bad berring in one of their minivan's wheels: I told my dad that he shouldn't travel with that minivan up here anymore, every time he does it breaks down! I hope they make it home safely. (It is a '90 Dodge, on its 2nd engine, and over 300K miles total. It's amazing the thing still runs. By comparason our troublemaking '95 Ford has only 139K miles and is also on it's second engine.)
I keep telling everyone that the hat isn't just a style thing, but even my parents have trouble believing that! (I suppose sunburns fade in memory or something.) My husband suggested long-sleeved shirts, and maybe I'll eventually give up and go that route. At least it wasn't a bad burn, and with lots of cocoa butter lotion and aloe it has mostly faded today.
My tomato in the window has finally set a fruit! I'm very pleased about it. It is drinking upwards of a galleon of water a day. My poor husband ended up buying a roll of wire and building a cage for it because it was too tall for the comercial cage and was falling out the top. So far it hasn't flopped over the top of the new cage, and if it does . . . well, I'd say he could add more wire, but if it gets that high it'll run into the ceiling and I don't know what we'll do then. He tolerates my plants very thoughtfully. It is a Pruden's Purple. I am not sure how often to fertilize it: the fertilizer bottle says every time you water, but it gets so much water compared to regular house plants that it would get an awful lot of fertilizer if I did that. I don't want to poisen it!
My lettuce is not doing too well. I'm afraid it is too dry as well. I need more water cans or something, I guess. I don't like to put water straight from the well onto the house plants because it is so cold.
Speaking of which, I think I need to go water some more plants.

A favorite hymn:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Words: Heney Lyte, Music: Wm. Monk.

What are yours?

I ought to know better by now.

So every time I say "I could never . . ." or "I'll never . . ." then something happens to make me reconsider it, or do just what I said I couldn't do.
Case in point: I mentioned to my mom, upon driving past one of the RV sites that the oilfield workers around here live in full-time, "I could never live in one of those with my three boys."
So my husband's buddy from college who's from out here, lets call him 'Pete', calls up yesterday with a proposition. Pete's in the process of putting together a Christian music festival here. I'll keep all y'all posted. But that's just the start of it: as far as Pete's long-term plans go. If he pulls it off, my husband will be helping him manage his band's electronics in oh, about a year and a half on a full-time touring basis. Now remember what I said before, about not being able to live in an RV with my boys?
Looks like I may well get to eat my words again! (Though, being stuborn, I'm planning to hold out for a bus conversion. They seem to be capable of taking a bigger beating, and my boys are good at passing out the beatings to the walls.)
But I like it here, I really do. And I was starting to make friends and everything. And . . . that's enough whining out of me. This would still be 'home base', anyway.
Hummer's into 18 month size clothing, for you parents out there. For the rest of you, that translates as break-your-back big for a six month old. He's still waking up complaining that he's absolutely starving to death a couple times every night, in spite of putting away a good amount of blended brown rice for dinner. Beau and Hemi are growing like weeds, too, Beau in 6s and Hemi in 4Ts.
We're living in the middle of a ground squirrel town. My dad warned me to watch out for symptoms of bubonic plague in them, evidently they are carriers. (Or their fleas are, he wasn't quite clear.) Eleven antelope came up to our back door the other day. I scared them away trying to sneak around the house to take pictures. There's a cottentail living under our shed. There are bald eagles all over the place: they do look funny when they're loosing their juvinile head plummage. There are robins and bluebirds and red-winged blackbirds and sparrows and everything around, I can hear them singing through the walls! We had a wind storm that makes me glad this is a rental: reroofng is someone else's problem. If they don't get on it soon, water damage is going to be their problem, too. This is the same wind storm of Res' hawk and cottentail story. We almost lost a window to it, as well as about a fourth of our shingles. It was scary, just the boys and I at home, and I wasn't sure how much more of it this little old mobile would take.
There is some little yellow flower (less than a milimeter across the bloom, the whole plant is less than two inches tall) that is just carpeting the ground out here. It tolerates snow just fine, doesn't mind frost. Seems to do fine with occasional foot trafic as well. I wonder if anyone is selling it as a ground cover, or if it is only happy with our harsh weather conditions? They aren't much to look at individually, but they make a green and yellow haze over the ground when seen through the window. Very springy.

OK, if this posts, I'm working again!

So I have a gmail account finally, (I guess maybe they read my complaint about not having a cell phone?) and I've upgraded blogger. Or whatever they call it.
Let's see if it works?