Lake Jean in the autumn.

Country rooooads, take me hoooome....

The Real Sting News

UPDATE: The Real Sting is back! Apparently someone submitted a false news item to the main site and it got posted accidentally. The result was a flood of fans wanting to know the story behind the rumor, and that overloaded the server. For the record: Sting will NOT be on WWE this week! It's amazing how a little blurb like that, which was only on the site a short while before the error was caught and removed, could cause such widespread interest in the space of a couple hours. Not to mention crashing the website... but we're up and running now.

In related news: Be sure to watch Praise the Lord on TBN, Thursday December 1st. Steve "Sting" Borden will be hosting Praise for the first time! If you miss it, you can watch a replay online at www.tbn.org

Catch the show, which airs at 10 PM EST (7 PM on Planet California), then join us for a forum party afterward!

Foooooo...

Feathers. Lots of 'em. In the hall, in the kitchen, but mostly in the bathtub.

Why? Because it's dark outside and my darling husband has no place to clean the pheasant he got today. So he's in the tub with the bird. Cleaning it. In the bathtub. Hey, why not? He WAS going to clean it in my kitchen, but after the squirrel episode I said no way.

When he's done I'm going to stick the Shop-Vac nozzle in the bathroom door, turn it on and suck all the floaters out of the air before tackling the tub. It's the least I can do for my hunter guy, who is so happy about his bird... Methinks roasted pheasant on Thanksgiving sounds good! A turkey shall be spared this year.

Thanks, God. Once again you have provided. (Next time, can you send us one that's already nekkid? Just kidding... sort of...)

*fooooo* (blowing feathers a la Hudson Hawk)

Faith, Snow, and Faith

Faith I

I was conversing with a friend on IM the other day. I re-read our conversation afterward, then went back and read some of the others we'd had. One thing struck me, and that was how I come across in (rapid) print as opposed to how I really sound. It's a common thing on the internet, and doesn't generally bother me. However, with the fast pace and randomness of our conversations, he has got to be wondering just what kind of Christian I am due to some of the comments I'd made. So, to explain (more for my own peace of mind than anything else):

1. Verbiage. I use masked cursing online more than I use it verbally (i.e. $#%@!!). It's faster when I'm aggravated about something (namely, my shift key not working) to type that than to say "Oh, gee, my shift key isn't working." I don't type 100+ words a minute so I use shortcuts. So assume it stands for "drat-diddly-dee" or something, OK?

2. The Playboy magazines. I've been an "automatic renewal" subscriber for years now. Why? I like to read them. No, really... I called once to see if it was available without pictures, but it wasn't except in the Braille edition. (I can't read Braille.) I like the interviews, the product reviews, some of the fiction and Raw Data. It's the only thing that might be considered smut that you'll find in our house. The hubby and I read it in turn and discuss articles with each other and I have no problem with that whatsoever. And we hide it when my brother is here.

3. Grade-school grudges. I don't have any, really, life's too short for that. But I refer to those people as I knew them then, since I haven't seen or heard from them since. Maybe they regret treating people like dirt. Maybe they talk about me the same way ("Oh, yeah, the weird chick..."). Maybe they don't think about it at all. I don't have any other points of reference so they're stuck in my memory as the mean girls. I hope we can find some other common ground to discuss besides grade-school history anyway, though I had a great trip down memory lane looking up our former teachers. I'm going to write to one of them.

4. Truck worship. Yeah, I'm just throwing that in there... (This is going out to everyone I've ever IM'd with a photo of myself hugging the truck.) I love vehicles, and I love my truck. I'm not obsessed with it, but since it's the nicest thing we own, I tend to yap about it. I picked him out, I named him, and he's like our first-born child since we don't have any actual ones to spoil. Not worship; unconditional love. Did I mention he's purple? What's not to love?

Snow

It snowed yesterday. Not here, but in the higher elevations. We took above-mentioned truck for a drive today to look at the fall foliage and wound up near Lake Jean. Hubby was surprised to see that there was enough snow to call out the plow trucks! It was the wet, heavy kind that's great for snow sculptures. Unfortunately I was unprepared, having only a long-sleeve shirt and no jacket or gloves, and the wrong shoes. I got out long enough to throw a token snowball at my husband, lost a shoe, and hopped around until I could retrieve it and get back in the truck. The remaining snow was pretty to see among the fall colors, though. The sky was simply incredible today too. Still... snow a week before Halloween? Might not have to move to Canada after all!

Faith II

Faith is a family friend. She and her husband are a truck-driving team; they are long-haul (or over-the-road) truckers and only get home a couple days a month. I missed seeing them this time around but my husband got to see them for a bit. They presented him with a goodie bag full of... drum roll... ELK! We now have elk steaks and elk loin in our freezer. Man, that's even better than venison. I'm stoked (and thankful, since we lost almost all our meat when the freezer quit). Faith, by the way, is the neighbor who invited me to come work for her for a couple weeks 6 years ago. I met my future husband my first day there, and I'm still working there. I'm grateful for the former; the latter is debatable. She was smart enough to get out. I got her job, but still, if a pay raise doesn't come my way soon I'm going to be seeking other employment. Guess I should be happy that I'm employed at all but I'm collecting job applications. (I'm also available for work-at-home computer stuff... hint hint.)
Anyway, Faith and Jeff are wonderful, down-home folks with big hearts and I wanted to give them a shout-out here. Hi y'all! Thanks!!! See you at Thanksgiving and keep the rubber side down!

Day's End

Baggage Claim

Matthew 11:28

Come to me, all of you who are tired
and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest.

Home again home again, draggety-drag

Stayed at a hotel near the airport last night so my sister wouldn't have to get up in the wee hours to drive us. We ended up still awake in those wee hours, since the hotel had an indoor pool and a whirlpool. Then the NASCAR race was on, then I was in that too-tired-to-sleep mode.

Got about 3 hours sleep and also slept through most of our flights in spite of the coffee. I'm pretty disappointed with Starbucks. I thought I'd be wired, but I was out before the first plane even finished boarding. I think I wasted four bucks. (I have a funny Starbucks story to tell later, though!)

Got home about 3 PM, been in a zombie trance since then. But I'm going to bed as soon as I fix some dinner. I'll come back to post pics when I wake up. No more deer shots, I promise!

If you're squeamish, don't look!

Dinner the old-fashioned way... This is the buck my aunt got. I was cutting a shoulder here.

Episcopal Church, near Ridgeland, SC

I never knew there was such a thing. Only in Redneckland, y'all!

Of Mugginess and Meatlessness

Arrived in Savannah in the middle of a tropical storm. (The egg made it safely; they made us take off our shoes and belts in Harrisburg but that was it.) Our checked luggage arrived on the baggage carousel soaking wet. Made me glad I'd kept the ancient vinyl suitcase of my mother's, since nothing in that one got wet.

So it's pouring rain, 94% humidity and 80 degrees. Welcome back to the South. My niece and nephew were happy to see us. We spent the night at my sister's in Savannah. She made tofu curry and rice for dinner; I threw together a passable veggie pizza. Plus she and the kids had made cupcakes. My sister is the Baking Queen, and the cupcakes were great. Almost worth the trip right there! We played with their porch cat and their ferret. (Side note: I was dozing on the couch and was awakened in a jolting hurry when the ferret decided to chew on the instep of my foot. Good MORNING!)

Since then, we've been at Mom's. Went to Charleston one day for shopping and dinner and to give Mom and B a bad case of nerves... We took Mom's little Toyota, and "while in Rome, drive as the Romans do" was my motto. Yee-haa! That city is bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. But we had a good time.

Let's see, what else... dug up some fossils at the shoals, just a handful of teeth and some random pieces. Going back today when the tide turns to hunt bigger sharks teeth. Went to my grandmother's yesterday, watched the Braves choke in the playoffs (of course) although they held on for 18 innings. My aunt decided to go sit in the deer stand for a while. She told me there was a big fox that came up sometimes, so I grabbed the camera and went along, but not until my grandmother had made me put on a pair of cammies (to keep the bugs off). I don't think I've ever sweated so much during hunting season in my life. When we hunt up north, most of the time there's snow on the ground and bugs are nonexistent. We saw five and a half deer (the sixth one didn't come out of the woods) and my aunt bagged a five-point buck. So B helped her husband clean it etc. and we came home with a nice piece of meat for steak sandwiches.

On the way home last night, at one of the backroads turns, we had to stop and wait for what we initially thought was a possum to get out of the way. It was only after we rolled up next to it that I saw my first *live* armadillo. (Only ones I ever saw had tread marks on them.) A younger one, but neat to watch... I tried to get a picture but my camera batteries died again. I know why they call them "possums on the half-shell" because it moved just like one, only faster. ;-P

Today, we go back fossil-hunting; tomorrow, fishing (finally!) and crabbing. Wednesday, if my sister will allow it, we're taking my niece with us to the state fair. I'm going to pull rank (Aunt Privilege) to get her if I have to. Haven't seen the kids in two years and my sister has to pick this week to have an authority struggle with my niece. She can wait a week, dang it. I've missed most of her growing up (she's 10) and left when my nephew was only a couple months old... he's six now and I've seen them both once a year or less since then. Adorable kids, and well-mannered to boot. Even my niece is good compared to most young'uns today.

So that's the update. More later, heading for the beach now!

I'm leaving, on a jet plane
Don't know if I'll be back again

We gone... will post from the islands when we aren't fishing, eating, or beach-ing. Not too worried about the flight; I always did like flying. I'm going to think about Jonathan Livingston Seagull when we're up in the clouds today!

Speaking of birds, this goes right along with the theme. I will be hand-transporting an emu egg to my niece. It's boxed and padded but I know I'll have to open it for security and explain just why I'm toting a giant green egg around with me. (I didn't trust putting it in our luggage.) Also in the box with the egg is a figurine of Buddha from a Chinatown shop. (gift for someone else.) This is going to be fun: woman with cowboy hat and sneakers, purse full of hard candy and camera and Christian book, carrying a box of really big egg and Buddha. Accompanied by redneck male. Yeah, I'm gonna get searched.

I'll let you know how it turns out.