A Standing Stone

We had to have one of our cats, Lucy, euthanized last Friday. She had developed what the vet believed was a large tumor on one of her lungs, making it very difficult for her to breath.

Lucy became my cat before Rae Lyn and I were married. The way she became my cat is an interesting story. In the summer of 1995, Rae Lyn had just started a job as assistant manager at the Jacksonville public library. On the first night that she closed the library on her own, she returned to Conway and I met up with her. She suddenly became worried that she had forgotten to lock the side door of the library. Finally we decided to drive back to Jacksonville (about a 50 min drive) and verify that she locked the side door. We got to the library probably around 8:30pm or so and found that she had locked the door after all. So we headed back to Conway, feeling that we had driven all that way for no reason. About halfway back, driving in darkness in a remote area on a low trafficked highway, I suddenly saw a small cat in the middle of the road and swerved to miss hitting it. I turned around and slowly drove back to where the cat was. She was maybe a week old, and had a little blood on her but otherwise seemed to be in good health. There was only one house nearby, so we took her there to see if the cat belonged to them. Nope. So we decided to take her back to Rae Lyn’s apartment to decide what to do with her. Rae Lyn already had a cat, so she decided she would put an add in the paper to give her away. The following day I decided I would keep her.

So in an odd turn of events, I had a cat (along with the dog, Triple, I had at the time). After a few days I decided to name her Lucy, after Lucy Ricardo, because I could tell she was prone to getting into trouble. What kind of trouble you ask (besides being in the middle of the highway at night)? Well, when she was a kitten I was awaken in the middle of the night several times with her screeching because she had been lying in Triple’s bed and he, being quite old, partially deaf, and partially blind at the time, would lay down on her. When she became a little older I would sometimes put her outside during the day while I was at work. Several times I came home late at night and would find her stuck up a tree, crying. Apparently a dog or something had come through the yard and scared her up the tree, but she wasn’t quite sure how to get down. I would either have to get a ladder or call her for 10 minutes until she got up enough nerve to come down on her own.

As far as cats go, Lucy had several interesting personality traits.

1) She had a “foot fetish”. She never cared to be petted much, but she liked to be rubbed on her head and neck with Rae Lyn’s or my foot.

2) She had a “box fetish”. Anytime there was an empty box lying around, she would find it and get in it.

3) She would squeak whenever she was picked up and she could growl like a dog.

Lucy loved her sister, Grace. They were practically inseparable for 11 years. We’re trying to spend some extra time with Grace now so she won’t be so lonely for Lucy. Lucy was really something special! A very sweet, gentle cat. She was always happy to see us when we got home from being gone. She loved living here with us and we will miss her very, very much.

(Posted by Jonathan and Rae Lyn)

This is an invention that Elizabeth created and built herself.  Its purpose is to view bugs and measure them at the same time.

If anyone’s interested I’m sure she could build more for a nominal fee.

Today Elizabeth’s brownie troop took a trip to Blanchard Springs Caverns. Rae Lyn, Elizabeth, and I left Conway at 9 am and arrived at Mountain View, AR just in time for lunch. We ate at a little diner called PJ’s Rainbow Cafe, and then headed over to Blanchard Springs, about 20 minutes away.

After the cave tour we drove a little farther down the mountain, and took a short walk to the spring where water pours out of the lowest level of the cavern.

Here’s Elizabeth and Rae Lyn at the spring.

Then Elizabeth went on a trek of her own by climbing a mountain of rocks.

Jonathan has finished our master bathroom!  Actually this was finished a couple months ago, but I’m just now posting it.  All the walls are smoothed out and have been painted and it looks great! J. did a great job!!  Click here for the before pictures.

Our next project is the kitchen.  We have already begun peeling off old wallpaper.  There are two layers of wallpaper in the kitchen.  We have started, but I don’t know when we’ll get back to it.  (We’re great procrastinators!) 

Today Elizabeth’s Brownie troop took a field trip to Toltec Mounds State Park, and Rae Lyn and I tagged along. We saw a short video on the history of the park, then we were taken on a guided tour. All the brownies were given a pamphlet with some questions for them to answer during the tour (they turn in the pamphlet to get credit for a brownie badge).

After the tour it was lunch time. Rae Lyn had already mentioned that she wanted to go to Cotham’s (home of the one pound “Hubcap burger”), because she had always wanted to try it but had never been. It’s not too far from my work so I had been a couple times before for lunch. It’s in Scott, AR which is only a few miles from the park. Rae Lyn mentioned where we were going to a few other Brownie families, and they had never been either and were interested in following us over there. So all together we had 7 adults and 6 kids.

When we got to the place it was packed. I could tell by looking at the faces of a few of the adults with us that they were a little nervous about entering. One of the Brownies remarked, “I don’t want to eat in a restaurant that’s built over a swamp!” I didn’t have my camera with me, but here are a few photos I found of the place. We crammed inside and waited a few minutes for our table to be assembled.

While we were waiting, we were surprised to find out that entertainment was being provided for the children. Apparently Dr. Wu (provider of “Fabulous Balloons and Prestidigitation”) appears every Saturday afternoon at Cotham’s. The guy was pretty amazing and kept the children entertained the entire time we were there making balloon animals, performing magic tricks, and even singing a little opera. They stood in front of him and watched with amazement until their food was ready, then they came to the table, quickly ate, and returned to Dr. Wu.

The food was great. I didn’t get the hubcap, but I did get the regular jalapeno burger and it was terrific. Rae Lyn had the regular cheeseburger. Elizabeth had the lugnut cheeseburger. For desert we shared a fried sweet potato pie with ice cream on top. Very Good!

Here’s Elizabeth with her balloon giraffe.

A couple of weekends ago Me, wife, daughter, and the in-laws made a trip to the Wye Mountain festival. We walked around and looked at the flowers, and I took pictures.








For a dollar you can pick a dozen flowers. Here’s Elizabeth with her dozen.










There’s not a whole lot to do there but walk around, look at flowers, and think “wow those daffodils in my yard are going to spread like crazy”. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

At our last December meeting, we had the award ceremony.  Elizabeth worked very hard and earned 5 try-it badges:  Discovering Chicago, Animals, First Aid, Pet Care, and Airplanes.  All the girls worked very hard and learned so much!  E. is enjoying being a Brownie!  Our good friend and Brownie Troop leader, Miss Kim is awarding E. her badges and our other Troop leader is Miss Pamela (also pictured).  Both our leaders are wonderful and put in lots of hours getting ready for and leading meetings.  Oh, BTW, cookie sale starts Jan. 5th!!!  I'll be in touch!

Happy New Year, everyone!  Now the holidays are over and it's back to business.  We had a very Merry Christmas!  We went to Stuttgart and spent several days with my parents and grandmother.  Jonathan did pick up on my hints and got me a CD player for my car!!!  I won't have to continually channel hop in order to find music I like.  It's been great having J. home on vacation.  He doesn't go back till the 8th!  He's been busy hanging stuff on wall for me and putting on new light fixtures in the dining room. (So now our dining room is completely finished!!!)  I'm so going to miss him when he goes back to work!!

Well, now that the dining room is complete and J. is off for a few more days, we're going to get busy on that master bath!!  Really!  I'll post pictures when we're finished!!

I've also been looking at home school curriculum!  We still have not decided for sure about next year, but I'm leaning toward homeschooling again and Elizabeth is all for that!  She misses her homeschool friends and I miss my homeschool mom friends, too.  I also miss teaching her.

I don't like to make new year's resolutions, but I just can't seem to pass up the opportunity to make some goals for the new year.  As always, I want to spend more time reading the Bible and in prayer and trying to focus on God as my #1 priority.  Then comes finishing up that bathroom, working in the yard, and get lots of scrapbooking done.  Oh, I also need to take down the Christmas tree!  Gotta focus on trying to recruit ECA teachers and get all those books on my list read, finish up the cross stitch picture I've been working on for 7 years…I'm tired already!  Hope everyone has a joyous and prosperous new year!!

Friday, my friend Rebecca and I took the kids to see "Happy Feet".  I was really looking forward to it.  I was disappointed from the very beginning of the movie.  They opened with the song, "Kiss" by Prince, which has pretty sexually explicit lyrics.  In fact, there were a lot of sexual inuendos throughout the entire movie.  Pretty surprising for a cartoon penguin movie…go figure!  Anyway, besides all the inuendos, I found the movie to be, well, kinda dumb and I wish "Charlotte's Web" had been playing instead.  However, I did enjoy hearing Stevie Wonder's "I Wish"…great song!

Well, it's been awhile since I've written on the blog.  I guess it's time for an update. 

We're not much farther on the master bathroom.  Did a little work on it one day, then I became sick with a sinus infection, then Jonathan became ill, then I hurt my back.  So much for plans.  We're all doing much better now, but it's almost Christmas.  Who wants to sand walls over Christmas vacation?  Anyway, the plan is to start back to work on it after the new year.  Sort of like a New Year's resolution.

I've been busy working on storytimes for the daycare I work for, Christmas shopping, and I've actually gotten some scrapbooking done.  I did manage to make all my Christmas cards this year, also!

Elizabeth has been busy in school.  Her reading group put on a play of "Henny Penny" and she got to play the starring role.  She also played Cocky Locky.  They made their own puppets to use for the play.  She has also been very busy in Brownies.  Tonight, they have an awards ceremony.  Elizabeth has earned several try-it badges with the group and also a couple on her own, including a "Discover Chicago" badge for her work on her Chicago scrapbook she made of our vacation there this summer.

So now, it's countdown to Christmas…I've gotta go finish up shopping and get the house clean!