Lovely Tuesday

 I put my anger and sadness behind me and had the best day.  

I spent the morning practicing free-motion quilting and realized I'm just as awful as I used to be at it.  I doubt I'll get good enough to do anything on the girls' quilts, but I now have the time to get a little more comfortable with that part of my machine.

Millie and the girls walked over yesterday afternoon.  I had gone to the garage to sift through some stored things to see if we could include anything in the yard sale Elise is helping with.  Luckily, I had already sent away a couple of boxes, because they found their little crib music box and a Fisher-Price musical teapot that they just hugged and hugged.  I'll keep those here for future playing.

We walked to the yogurt shop, and the girls chose only pineapple this time and not one of those concoctions that make my teeth hurt - like watermelon and cotton candy or watermelon and chocolate.  They both did insist on their gummy sharks, Swedish fish, and gummy worms for toppings.  

We then walked to a shady-ish park and let them finish eating them.  I was carrying the yogurt so the girls would walk faster before it melted and was wearing my mask and tripped on a high place in the sidewalk.  That cursed mask blind spot.  Millie and I were proud of my comeback though.  I'm sure it wasn't pretty, but not a drop was spilled and I avoided the ground.  Scary though.

The walk home was nice with discussions about electric cars and baby bouncers, Beany Boos, acorns and so many other things.  

As we entered the path by the Gardens, the girls spotted what they thought was a deer or maybe two.

Graysen took my phone and recorded their approach to the deer, just one fairly big one.  It was cute to hear them talking to the deer, but the video picture itself is mainly the path and grass and sky.

She did get this picture, and I cropped it for her.  We think it was a Mama Deer, and she was not jittery at all, just chomped and looked and chomped and looked.  Finally as the grown-ups got near, she ran toward us and then veered off into her underbrush.  

Once back home, we got some water and watched the guys finish up on the back fence.  I'll have to take a picture of the new one later.  Millie and I had a chance to also finish up our week's conversation since the girls played so sweetly on the side of the house, making tools from nature and sanding and measuring and sometimes fighting over who got the longer stick.

The bouncy house was my main reason for going back with them, and it didn't disappoint.  It inflates in seconds, and it's just perfect for letting off a little steam. 

This looks like the beginning of a wrestling match.  Graysen looks ready, but Katherine looks like she knows there are going to be hurt feelings and pain involved.  I interfered pretty quickly and suggested something else.

        

They called it Charades, but I really just called out a letter of the alphabet, and they acted it out for us to guess.  We were cracking up over some of their interpretations, and that spurred them on to get crazier and crazier.

When I called out F, Katherine was looking like a fish swimming around, so I guessed that, but then she said, "NO.  A flounder."  Sometimes I would recognize what they were but give silly guesses, and they would fall into heaps of laughing girls.  "Are you a monkey buying groceries?  An ice cream cone?  A goat girl?"  One questionable one we had to count.  They had learned on one of their nature shows that there is something called a Jesus Christ lizard because of its ability to walk on water.  Is that sacrilegious?  When they were acting out G, this is the one thing we couldn't guess.  Maybe because it doesn't start with G!

I appreciate the emails and texts I've received about my state of mind recently and the assurances that I'm not alone in my feelings. It's so appreciated.  I need a lot of help in times like this to hold onto my faith.

I had heard that one of Billy Graham's granddaughters spoke at their convention and figured she had joined his children in using their influence and power in their political crusade.  The patriarch of the family at 92 regretted his involvement in politics but not so Franklin and this granddaughter.  They don't seem to care about the character and actions of the man they so ardently support, preying on the gullible nature of believers.

I did see this refreshing article though about another granddaughter who has joined the Lincoln Project and is honest and very courageous.  Saying of her uncle after he proclaimed that God allowed trump to win:  When Franklin Graham portrays trump as aligned with the cause of Jesus, he "diminishes not only my Jesus but all he stood for  and came to Earth to fight against."     

On the far end of the spectrum, that QAnon-supporting newest member of the senate was invited to the convention, whether to speak or not, I don't know.  This is a spokesperson for a potentially terrorist organization.  When asked about his opinion on QAnon, our president said, "I don't know anything about them, but they seem to like me."  I guess that's the only thing that matters.

Bitterness level:  5. Anger level:  4.  Hope level:  6.  Disbelief level:  10.