Digging Out From the Deep Freeze

Nothing newsworthy has really been going on of late, but I am pleased to report that the temperature is supposed to be on the rise this week. Freezing rain is forecast for tonight, but I don't see how we'll be adversely affected as the highs for the week are in the mid- to upper 40s and the lows aren't supposed to dip below, say 38 degrees. Knowing that we wouldn't be suffering from this arctic cold forever, Randy had the foresight to take a few really cool pictures of the icicles hanging from the church building this past Sunday.



Speaking of icicles, if you've never heard the sound of, oh, let's say ten icicles falling from the roof at once, there's really no adequate way to describe it. Just yesterday the kids and I were all sitting in the living room during D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read) so the room was quiet, peaceful, serene, and then BAM! We were scared out of our skin by the biggest boom we'd ever heard in our lives! Turns out an entire row of icicles had been sufficiently thawed by the sun and let loose their grip on our eave. What a racket!

Okay, I have just found another cool way to share photos, right in my blog! If anyone checks this blog before I post this entry, you'll see what I mean! There is a site called slide.com that allows you to create slide shows from your photos, and it will automatically post the slideshow to blogger, MySpace, Facebook and a whole host of other personal accounts. I just chose some random photos from our trip to the Children's Museum--I certainly have many more that I could add--clicked on "Add to Blogger" and presto! The slide show was running when I clicked on my blog! Oh brother, I'll be up all night making new slide shows!

Two more funny stories to share. First, what led me to slide.com was my desire to add a video clip to my blog that I shot with my digital camera. I still haven't figured out if that can be done. At any rate, the kids and I were talking about a video clip I shot about two years ago . . . well, okay, this will be an example of how rambling our conversations can be! We were reading the passage in 1 Kings ch. 19 where Elijah is feeling very discouraged and alone. In verse 10 he says, "I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty . . . ." Darcy asked, "What does 'zealous' mean?" Without really thinking I said, "Picture Elijah as a cheerleader for God, you know, like, 'Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.'" Then Tyler said, "Did you make that up?" (He was referring to the cheer.) I said, "No, that's just a cheer that . . . well, it goes way back. It's just the way people used to cheer." Then we started reminiscing about the aforementioned video clip that I shot of Peyton a couple of years ago. It was so cute--she was holding two little pom-poms and I was trying to coax her to do a cheer for me. Over and over she would shake the pom-poms and chant, "Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah!" Then she would rattle her shakers and jump and such. At one point she got right up in the camera and the view is obstructed because she is wiggling her shaker right in front of the view finder but you can hear her going, "Deedle-deedle-dee!" like she's tickling the camera or something. It was just the cutest thing, and we all got a big kick out of it. And naturally we watched the video clip many times--two years ago. So as we were reminiscing about that clip yesterday, Tyler got this very bittersweet look on his face that sort of gave me a twinge in my heart and he sighed and said, "Those were good times." Oh!

Last story for the day: Recently we checked out Old Yeller from the library and I have to say, TV Guardian once again gave us a chuckle we won't soon forget! We have our box set to block just about any "offensive" or profane word imaginable (meaning you don't even want to bother trying to watch religious programming without turning the confounded thing off!), but I will admit I was a little stymied myself when TV Guardian blocked a couple of lines of dialogue in Old Yeller. Old Yeller, for crying out loud! This old cowboy was making a trade with the youngest boy--seems Old Yeller had strayed onto the Coates' land and they had fallen in love with him, but he really belonged to the cowboy. So the cowboy said he'd trade Old Yeller to the boy for a home-cooked meal and "that great horned toad you've got in your pocket." When the boy replied, TV Guardian muted the dialogue and the closed-caption screen printed the words, "You mean you'll let me have Yeller for this great excited toad?!" The cowboy affirmed that he would, and the boy again said something about letting him have his "great excited toad." It took me a second, but I finally figured out how the boy slightly changed the name of his great "horned" toad in such a way that TV Guardian sounded the alarm! Can you guess?!