the weekly ramble

Today is Thursday. One kid is napping, one has finished school work, one is studying for a test, and one is at college....so I am blogging.

Today, we were pretty much out o' groceries and rather than making another made dash to Kroger (I feel like I go  there everyday!)...We decided to have a make-do lunch. Before my kids could turn up their noses to it...I whipped some onion rings, spaghetti noodles for the baby, and some bacon. Wow, now that's  a winner of a meal, right? BUT my kids were happy, and even the hubby working from home didn't complain.

Here's the big  plate of onion rings. The other night I made some, and Shek looks at me and says, "Are these onion rings?" I said, "Yes!" He said, YOU know how to make onion rings?" I said, YES! He was a little awe struck on the whole idea...I guess it's been over a year since I made them...

Earlier this week, my grandmother, Honey, went on a trip with the seniors from her church. She drove herself to meet the bus, and we were to bring her car back home that night so that it wouldn't be parked in that parking lot all alone all week.  Of course, I had to wait till Karl got home to the car switch...so after I walked, I parked my own truck outside of the garage in the driveway. I knew we would be leaving after supper to retrieve her car. 

So ...

after supper Karl reminded me that we needed to go get her car...I said, "Oh yeah." So I grabbed my keys, pocketbook and the baby and headed to the truck.

It was already dark outside...and remember my truck is parked in the driveway...the concrete driveway up near the house...you know right by the garage...I didn't park it in the back 40 or anything like that.

Everyone piled in the car...Jolie was on my hip, I opened up the backseat door and buckled her in the carseat..

I noticed something out of the corner of my eye...you know that peripheral vision...I'm so glad I have that. I looked down and right to the left of my feet I saw a SnAkE! And he or she was pretty long...and slithering under the truck...I yelled SNAKE....I am  pretty sure the neighbors heard me...and we don't live in a neighborhood, but I am sure the ones somewhat nearby could have heard me! Not only did I yell snake, but I ran toward the top of the driveway....throwing my hands up in the air, shaking all over and  jumping up and down. 

Our family does not pick up live snakes! 

WARNING:For those of you Crocodile Hunter type people that get all excited about snakes and jump out and hold them and caress them and tell them what a precious snake the are and all...well, this post isn't for you...so you might want to not read the rest of the story...

I did have the baby safely in her carseat, but in my frenzy to run...I failed to shut her door....My hubby hears snake...and loving snakes as much as I do...he throws that red titan truck in reverse, backs up (which shut my girl's door)...and pulled forward squealing his tires and ran over the snake..he hopped out and said did I get it?

He did.

The only good snake to me is a DEAD one...even if he eats other pests...he needs to eat them out in the far corners of my yard away from my truck, house, garage and family.

Yes, we apparently killed what some of you would call a 'good' snake...and I use that term loosely. BUT it was very dark...it was inches from my feet and my child...I didn't have time to ask him what kind of snake he was.

I've heard all my life that snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them....if that's so...he shouldn't have been slithering that close to me...and some how I doubt a snake could match my fear of him.

SO...to update...this week we've had an encounter with bats and another encounter with a snake..just thankful this snake was not in the house like the last two were....

After the snake ordeal...we still had to go get Honey's car...I couldn't even get in the truck on my side near where the snake had been ...cause I didn't know if he was traveling with friends...so I crawled my 40-something self across the truck seat from the driver's side and told my hubby that maybe we need to move to a high rise apartment....lol

Just kidding...there'd be different kind of snakes there!

Friendly snake?

Whatever! this one was just a little too friendly for us!

Gone Batty!?!

 Bats?!?

Holy Batcave, Batman, I believe we do !

We live in a rural setting. We have to deal with "critters" from time-to-time...Like Snakes! and Bats!

I hear you people shouting for the animals' rights out there...and this post is not for you so be warned. At our house we don't like snakes. The only good snake is a dead snake around here. AND when one decides to get in the house he is a gonner...sorry...no catch and release going on around here. AND the 2 snakes that have showed up in my grandmother's apartment downstairs have been copperheads anyway. YIKES!

A couple of years ago, when Zach was still in HIGH School, and Karlie had a friend over to spend the night...we had our first encounter with a bat. Zach had gone on to bed and had shut and locked his door...when all of the sudden he started screaming in a panic...Come to find out a bat was in the room with him and was darting at him. His dad, trying  to get the door unlocked said, Keep the cover over your head, son...and in a paniced voice that son said...don't worry dad!

Anyway the bat was killed with a broom and my hubby threw it outside. Knowing that they carry rabies..I said you better go get it out of the yard so that the cat doesn't get it...and what if had rabies? So he went and got it out of the yard...it was raining...and put it in a ziplock bag....and then put it in the freezer. Later Zach tells us that the night before something had been in his room the night before but he couldn't figure it out and  it would flap around and go in the vent above his bed! THEN being the mom I am I research about bats on line. I expect to read that their bite is like a vampire bite...nope it can be little scratches like razor marks...WELL..he had some unexplained scratches on his foot. AND he sleeps with his feet out. We call animal control who can't come till daylight, and when they do they say they can't test our bat because we froze it instead of refrigerating it. NOTE TO SELF: place your dead bat in the fridge next to the milk so that it can be tested correctly for rabies. WE take the boy to the doc. AND the doc says, we have to assume that the bat was rabid especially since it was in the house darting at him and basically acting uncharacteristic of bat behavior. SO we were sent to the ER to receive YOU know it! THE RABIES SHOTS....we get there and the doc on duty said there was a shortage and that it was not up to our doctor if he received the vaccinations or not...he put in a call to the CDC...so I said it's now up to the government if my son receives treatment? HE was a real smarty pants doctor and he totally lost all respect. WELL, the cdc called and said yes, he was a candidate for the shots. SO he had to receive the dreaded shots and certain intervals over period of weeks... the first shot had to go into the bite sight which was the foot. After finally getting all the shots we threatened to get him the rabies dog tag to wear...

Needless to say...we don't want any bats around here. I know they eat up the insects and all that, but they can do what GOD made them to do without being in my attic or attached to the screen vent above my garage where they were depositing  you know what right in front of the garage. AND From what I hear...their deposits are dangerous too. 

AND That's how we found out that they we were there... we saw an enormous amount of you know what in front of the garage...so karl goes upstairs..pulls down the attic stairs and goes...he comes back down and said there's about 12 attached on the outside...and I see some tears in the screen. He gets some screen and  a staple gun and waits till its dark and hopefully they are all gone. Most had left on their evening hunt, but some stayed...so while he is stapling new screen behind the original screen, he sees bats turning their heads and  hissing at him...GEE! I don't think I could handled it.

THEN he searched the attic to see if any had made it in and sure enough he found one roosting in the top. He sent Shek downstairs for the BB gun. Shek couldn't reach it so I had to get it down. I didn't think this was going to be good...a bb gun?

So I go up there and hand the gun up and THEN HE SAYS, SHut the attic door..I said you want me to shut you up in there with it...he said YEP...WELL, I sure didn't know how I felt about it. I said why don't you get a real gun and he being the wise one said..yeah and shoot a hole through the roof? Well, I said at least it would be dead!

HE shot it with the bb gun...then it swooped him, then it lighted some where else where he shot it again, then it landed on the floor and he shot is several more times to make sure it was dead.

I know bats have their place in the world...but it's not in my house...darting at my family...and causing rabies shots...We don't want that again..

SO BATS! BE GONE!

Sunday Snapshot ~ Karlie

The Berry Homestead has been a flutter with busyness over the past few days...the latest event, was finding  bats in the attic again..and that's a post all in itself, so I'll write about it tomorrow. Then there is always homeschool, life with a busy household, a dryer on the blink so that means that the clothesline out back is getting some good use...life with a college student who lives at home, but is so busy that 2 days this week I didn't see him.. And last Sunday I was headed to take Karlie to the first Pure Fashion meeting of the year, only to show up at the wrong church and totally missed her meeting...and I was supposed to help register people. OOPS...Then there was Karl's volunteer work day. He helped dig post holes and place muscadine plants on them at a local food bank with other volunteers from his work. He has had a sore knee ever since. He grew up on a farm and did that kind of thing all the time..and we currently have several rows of muscadine/ scuppernong vines ourselves....but he doesn't get to do that kind of farm work like he used to so now he is a little sore...we've also been helping Jolie in her recovery of her surgery...helping by doing a lot of holding, hugging and medicating....in just the past few days she has been more herself...and she is eating and drinking more.

BUT even though life is running full throttle around here, I promised Karlie that today's Sunday Snapshot was about her. AND since the two of us spent the whole morning cleaning her room (we go to church@ 5 so we can relax on Sundays mornings...or in our case catch up on some chores) we celebrated by taking a few photos of the finished product. Her room wasn't really messy, but she had been wanting to re-arrange it FAHEVAH..so after getting her dad to move the furniture exactly where she wanted it there was a little dust and clutter that was hiding that we took care of.  We decided to clean out desk drawers, cabinets, you name it we cleaned it and dolled it up.

Karlie's favorite color is Lime green...can you tell? She likes hot pink and zebra too.

She loves makeup...and has it all organized in that organizer rubbermaid thing on the left! AND that's a lot of makeup!

 Here she is on her antique bed that's been in the family forever.

After posing like this...

Her sis had to copy her...

Here's a cool place to study!

Sitting pretty in her newly re-arranged room...now to talk her into helping me with mine?!

First time ever we saw your face anniversary

It's been a year! A whole year has passed since referral day. I remember going to bed anxious this time last year. My agency had emailed that week that a new list was coming out and that they would try to match us on the September 20th list. We woke up early the next morning and while Karl got ready for work he handed me the laptop and we checked our email ...and what do you know...

There was an email saying possible match....We saw several photos of Jolie and read all of her info...we knew she was the one God chose for us or a better way to put it we were the parents HE chose for her...we have been so blessed...

So while she's sitting on her dad's lap tonight still getting over cleft palate repair surgery, I grabbed the referral photo that is framed on the wall and mentioned what today was and that I needed to take a photo...she immediately got ready with a "cheese"....

Jolie and dad pose with the referral photo that we saw a year ago!

 hugs.

It's been a year...Seems like you've been in the family forever.

Happy Referral Anniversary to Us!

TRUTH: 34% OF Christian families consider adopting and only 1% of Christian families actually do.

TRUTH: There's 147 million orphans worldwide.

TRUTH: If only 7% of Christians adopted 1 child, there would be NO orphans in the world!

Got love? Adopt!

Sunday Snapshot~It's been a long week

It's been a long 1/2 week, since Jolie's surgery on Wednesday, but we are finally home! She still needs to drink more fluids and eat. She seems to want to drink, but mainly wants us to fix her something to drink, but then she just holds it in her lap. She did drink some green tea maybe 1 oz and ate 4 noodles and a bite of orange for lunch. I took photos of our stay at CHOA. We even met a nurse on our last night there who also had adopted from China. I took a lot of photos with my iphone while we were there to document this event. I will share more photos later, here's  a few from the week.

This is us moments after she was handed to us from recovery. I cried to see her in such pain and fear. Zach had just dropped by after finishing his classes and this is what he saw as well. He cried, Karl cried...we were all bawling to see her like this...it was heartbreaking.

We went on a walk on day 2. We visited the gift shop where she picked out this stuffed dog. She loves dogs and cats...especially the big dogs. I originally thought this was a wiener dog, but the tag said Weimaraner. She also got  a Mickey balloon.

Yesterday, Gam and Pop brought Karlie and Shek for a visit. The visit really brightened her day. AND Shek played a "game" about drinking her Chocolate milk so we were able to get a few more oz of fluids in her that way. The above photo was taken at the KOI ponds at the hospital. She was excited to see everyone, and they brought her balloons and a toy. On the walk we also ran into Bella a therapy dog.

Jolie waves bye to Bella.

Today, the nurse gave her some different pain meds and she seemed to turn back into the kid we know. She picked out food to eat in the cafeteria, but  really didn't eat much...I know she wants to she just has to get used to her new mouth and that retainer thing that is protecting it all is worrisome to her. Since she had finally started to drink "some" we were discharged to come home. We were all ready...and she even started pointing to the door saying "HOME"!

Thanks for all of your prayers. I am glad that the surgery was rescheduled to happen during  fall break it was just easier on everyone.

 It's great to be home. Regular life starts back on Monday with Karlie's NCCA classes as well as both Karlie's and  Shek's "at home classes"...

 Our family has appreciated all of your prayers and concern over the past few days for Jolie. All of the encouragement via facebook comments have been nice. It's nice to feel those prayers being lifted up for all of us.

Surgery today

This Baby Girl is scheduled for cleft palate repair and ear tube surgery Wednesday at 11:15. We have to be at the hospital at 8:30am.

 Please pray!

The last teen year!

19 years ago today or really early this morning at 4:08 am, I gave birth to the first born, Zach. I can't believe it's already been 19 years..where does the time go? We celebrated his birthday Sunday at lunch. He requested some favorites for  lunch: wings and potato skins....and his cake (another NASCAR creation).

This afternoon we are all meeting him for lunch in the ATL, in between his classes...then we'll be heading to the Braves game tonight to see Zach and his group from college sing the Nat'l Anthem.

Happy last Teen Birthday, Zach...Love you lots.

Sunday Snapshot~10 YEARS AGO

Many have asked in recent days, "What were you doing on 9-11-01? That's an easy one for me! I had just given birth to my 3rd born, Shek on the day before. On the day of the attacks, I was in the hospital excited to be watching some tv other than PBS. My older two kids were at school in 3rd grade and kindergarten. Little did I know that watching the Today Show that morning I would see the towers go down live. It was a very surreal time...and I found myself glued to CNN in the days that followed. During a time of such uncertainty, I was very thankful that God allowed me to have Shek a week early.

Photos of Shek, 10 years ago from the baby book! To learn more about how SHEK got his unusual name read this!

10 Years Later

 we celebrated Shek's 10th birthday!

Shek and Gam

Jeff Gordon cake, of course

Reading a birthday card

 The fam

Pop with Shek and Jolie. Shek is too interested in his new ds game to look at the camera.

Finally looks at the camera...

Karl says this may be the last year "I can ride Shek on my shoulders."

A lot has happened in the past 10 years...as I saw in the baby book when I scanned the baby  photo...a gallon of gas was $1.49 a gallon! I've watched my son grow into a sweet fun comedian.

10 years later ,We continue to celebrate life.

Favorite Photo Friday~ Mayberry Revisited

Earlier this week we attended the annual emergency crew open house in our county. The Sheriff's Department brought along this vintage squad car.  I snapped a photo of my boy in front of the car with my iPhone, because the batteries died in THE camera.

This was my favorite photo of the week. My boy looks  like Opie Taylor standing outside of Andy's car!  I used to live in Mayberry, in a little old house in town, with a big front porch...and people would either honk or wave when they came by...and some would stop and visit for a while...I miss my Mayberry....and this photo reminded me of my time there.

Y'all come on back now ya hear? And Gomer says, HEY!

I am joining in on the Friday Favorite photo at The Long Road to China and Back

open house

Tuesday night, after Shek had just arrived home from the race, my oldest called to remind me that the open house was happening right then too. THE. OPEN. HOUSE. is put on Shek's calendar every year because it is the one night when the emergency crews come to the Target parking lot with all of their firetrucks, police cars, rescue squads, and even a, helicopter. Also, other merchants, and churches from the area come to give out free samples, balloons...etc. SO we loaded up the car went by the  Target booth and were given a red tote that we used to put all of our 'stuff' in.

Shek was excited to use my camera again, but when he tried to snap his first shot the camera was DEAD! He looked at me like it was my fault....but you know after taking 149 photos at the NASCAR race and a few videos too boot...the camera had a right to have a dead battery....but I had my phone camera so we could proceed with the fun.

It was drizzling rain, but we did manage to get a few free snacks, each of us got a bag from our dentist with an oral B toothbrush, paste, and floss...(WE have the BEST dentists in the Whole WIDE World)...and I don't  give out compliments to dentists easily. Also, in our bag was candy, a ball, firehat, a Hero cap, army writing pens, and pins to wear, jr sheriff badges, and jr. fire badge stickers and color books. Shek even got a mini basket ball for shooting the basket ball three times in a row at the MCC church booth ( the church where his big bro works).

Here's a few photos from the night...and we ended up at Steak n Shake for supper....what a busy Tuesday we had this week.

Firetrucks with the ladders raised.

Police motorcycles lined up in a row.

Our first real fall like day...very nippy outside in the drizzling rain.

We watched this police helicopter land...pretty impressive.

Jolie loved her firehat, ruler, and badge sticker...she loved petting the k9 dogs and the life size firedog in the costume...she wanted to touch him and was not scared of the lifesize mascot at all.

This was my favorite photo of the night...it looks like Opie standing outside of Andy's car! I used to live in Mayberry, in a little old house in town, with a big front porch...and people would either honk or wave when they came by...and some would stop and visit for a while...I miss Mayberry....and this car reminded me of my time there.

We ended up at Steak n Shake...and Karlie had her eye on the turtle milkshake...

and Shek had the M&M's shake 

Once the camera  comes out ....Jolie gets to posing...

And Jolie posed with me too..it was a busy and fun day.

NASCAR repeat

My boys came home Sunday night, very disappointed. THE RACE WAS POSTPONED! It was postponed until Tuesday. Zach had college classes, and Dad had to go into the office, and I had to get Karlie to and from biology class and it would have been too loud for Jolie I think. But POP was available to go...so Shek packed a lunch for he and pop they grabbed their ponchos and the tickets and went back to the race. It made for a great first field trip of the school year. After all we have made a lap book about NASCAR racing and learned some pretty neat things that we didn't know.

Zach couldn't stay away either, so as soon as his last class was over he joined them for the final laps of the race. I think they are all hooked ....and want to go back again and again. There were still several rain delays, but they finally got to see the race and will you believe it? Jeff Gordon won, and my Shek got to see him win his 85th win, making him the 3rd all time race winner. Jeff Gordon is Shek's favorite. He has a life size poster of him in his room, numerous posters of him Jeff Gordon curtains and bedding...not to mention a jacket and a phone....So it was icing on the cake for Shek to see him win. (That was a little GOD wink for Shek I think).

Zach loved it too...said he was cold and all, but he didn't stop grinning...he said AWESOME just AWESOME.



Shek took along my camera and snagged some pretty cool shots of the race.

The Line-up

McDonald's Bass pro car

behind the pace car

 Jeff Gordon

Cars up close!

pit row

 Racin'

 NASCAR officials.

trucks

Gordon's burn out 

 Jeff racing away after the burnout.

Jeff Gordon wins...

...and Shek was there to see it, in the cold breezy drizzle, but it was worth it.