Sunday, June 27, 2010

Quiet Sunday

Sort of.
We put up a small little pool so my hillbilly children could enjoy playing *together* instead of the previous cooling off routine here...which included a landscape pond section, a medium horse/cattle water trough and a large rubber bucket...and allowed for more spectators than participants.

Yes...plastic pond section.
Yes...a stock watering trough.
Yes...what amounts to a fat, round rubbermaid bucket.
We're country folk, remember? No, we're *rural-and-then-some* country folk. We believe in the practical adage of previous frugal generations...Use it up, wear it out, make it do...or do without.

Well, ok...that and the fact that there's SNAKES IN THE POND.

But, all hail the century of progress: I picked up a cheap little pool and we found the closest to level location here I could find and set it up. And watched the 3-week threatened storm *finally* hit. Talk about a bummer. Mom gives in and get a "real pool" and ol' Mother Nature slams us with rain. My poor depressed children.

Today, though, the sun won out, and they've been basking in a leisurely afternoon like the most affluent suburban yuppies :) No offense meant there, just trying to share the social class gap between us rural-and-then-some mountain folk and those townies down in the level lands.

They're having a blast being able to jump around together in the same water. As I said, it was more spectator than participant before -- one or two could sit snuggly in the trough, one took the plastic pond section, and one took the large bucket. They pretended to be splashing together but it was more of a 'boy in the plastic bubble' play date experience. Honestly though, they didn't mind at all. My children have been blessed with extremely simple visions of fun and entertainment.

And on that note, eldest son is over in LR, prepping for his first day on the jobsite with Dad tomorrow. It cost us around $230 to get him from Alabama to Arkansas, thanks to a set of brakes, rotor and/or drum thingamabobs needed on his truck. That note about 'simple entertainment visions is merely a childhood thing it seems...Mr Fancy Pants arrived at about 9pm, unloaded some laundry (that's really what the phrase "coming home" means, you know...) And proceeded to set up his XBox and whatever that other box was, as well as a large footlocker of games and DVDs, and his 27" TV-used-as-his-computer-gaming-machine. He was late in joining some game with friends.

You know how large a 27" TV screen appears to a group of wide-eyed, enthralled siblings who merely have a dinky 19" TV for movies? That baby might as well of been a 54" wall unit! They sat totally entranced by the richness of their brother's life.

Methinks some priorities are a bit skewed in that GenX group. Or at least my addition to that group. We pay for his car repairs, he's livin' large on the XBox Live scene. Hmmm...there is something wrong with that picture.

Other than that, we're having a quiet day. The older girls and I just watched the movie The Soloist. It was good -- a true story of a homeless, gifted musician, and an LA Times reporter who tries to 'help' him and ends up seeing change within himself. We really enjoyed it. My olders were a bit undone over the street scenes of the some 90,000 homeless in LA proper, and their life conditions. There is a huge layer of deep poverty, and a great deal of mental illness within that community here in the US they didn't realize existed. Sure, they've seen it on TV shows and movies, but that's just Hollywood. Seeing it as a true story of a real life, of several real lives.....I'm all for the much-needed Missions work around the world, but there is so deep and equal a need right here.

Ah, but well...I want to stitch up a couple more dresses for Emily's birthday, and she found other material for bloomers...bright red and pink hearts (no idea where that remnant came from!). I told you -- my eclectic child.

Dinner in a few minutes -- Sweet & Sour Chicken over Rice. We were going to have it last night, but Christopher doesn't like rice, and well, I don't run a deli counter. Dinner is for all what it is for one around here. So we made a monster pan of lasagna. Tonight, the sweet & sour chicken I've been craving :)

1 comment:

Greg and Donna said...

The red bloomers with hearts sound like something my Amy would pick. Hope your week goes well. I am mailing you a check today and then getting ready to visit grandparents in VA this weekend. I love your pool description...reminds me of my own Kiddie pool days, stretched out in the little pool alone, since my sister was napping. Simplicity is great and I wish us "townies" had more simplicity.

Jer.6:16

Jeremiah 6:16
Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

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