Life in the A-Frame

Life in the A-Frame

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Our new Saturday morning routine

Two or three Saturdays a month, we make the short trip to Bryan/College Station. We take our recycling, shop a little and eat out. The main reason we actually go is Casa Rodriguez in Bryan. We like to eat early-around 11:00, because we love ordering from the breakfast menu.

It's pretty inside.

Can you tell where our daughter goes to school? We probably embarrassed her by wearing "matching" shirts.

Mike orders his usual breakfast, huevos rancheros.    With bacon.    And beer.

Migas, potatoes, and refried beans.

Salsa and chips.
A lot of Mexican food restaurants automatically bring green and red salsa, but here you have to order the green sauce. The first time we did, we found out why. If you just dip your chip and eat-you die. It's the hottest thing I've ever tried. But, the taste! I think it is made from roasted jalapenos and tomatillos, but they won't tell me (it's a family secret). We learned to order sour cream on the side. Mix the green sauce and sour cream and it's amazing.



I usually order a pancake and a breakfast taco, but this time I ordered sopapillos and coffee. When they arrived, the four "pillows" of hot fried dough covered with powdered sugar and honey on the side, I forgot to take a picture. So I owe you one!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Bible school pictures that didn't make the cut





I have just one thing to say: Black lights are fun.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Shoes News

Now that Bible School is over, I can turn to something a little less serious-my new shoes! I realized that I told about visiting my son at the Texas border and my shopping trip, but never showed my purchases. Here are my excellent shoes. Keep in mind that it is hard and feels really odd to photograph one's own feet.









Okay, that was fun !

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Bible School:A very good day!


We enjoyed worshiping, praising, and learning together. It was a good day of:


CRAFTS

SPACE SNACKS AND LUNCH

SINGING PRAISES

HOMEMADE VANILLA ICE CREAM

JOYFULLY PLAYING WITH FRIENDS

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Setting up for Bible School



The craft kits are prepared. This is my living room by the way, and it has been like that all week.

The Santuary has been transformed into outerspace and the "planets" have appeared.

The "Astro Bistro" is ready for business.








But! I found this little copperhead under a planter right by the front door of the church. I don't like to kill anything unnecessarily but poisonous snakes in an area soon to be filled with children just won't work. I found a small shovel and tried to work up the nerve to kill it myself but I couldn't. It wasn't so much that I was killing a living creature as it was that I might miss and he would be really mad. So...I did the only thing I could think of- I stood guard to make sure the snake didn't move and sent my daughter to call Mike so he would come and kill the snake.

Waiting for Mike to drive here from home was the longest 15 minutes.....but here he is to the rescue!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Book Club Choice for June: The Thirteenth Tale

My choice for this month's book club is best described by this review:

A Storied Past




The Thirteenth Tale

by

Diane Setterfield



Published by Atria Books



Review by W. R. Greer





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Thirteenth Tale is a story about stories. Vida Winter, the woman whose story is at the center of Diane Setterfield's novel, tells her biographer, "Everybody has a story. When are you going to tell me yours?"
The biographer and narrator of this novel is Margaret Lea. She lives a quiet life outside of London with her parents, works in her father's antiquarian bookstore, and writes the occasional short biography of persons whose lives were so obscure that they've been almost lost to history. Her world revolves around books. She devotes six hours a night to reading, and loves the old stories where she can lose herself in their romance, intrigue, revenge, and madness before all the plot lines ultimately come together for a happy and satisfying ending. Jane Eyre is a book she often refers to as her favorite. Margaret doesn't have much of a life beyond her books and her father's store. She carries a scar, both physical and emotional, from her birth, a tragic event which has left her mother unable to enjoy any happiness in her life.
Margaret gets a letter from Vida Winter, perhaps the most renowned novelist of her time, asking Margaret to write her life's story. Vida Winter was perhaps most famous for her Tales of Courage and Desperation, which contains twelve different fables retold in her own fashion. Rumors abound that there were supposed to be thirteen tales, and for years, everyone wondered about what happened to the thirteenth tale.
Vida Winter's problem is that she's running out of stories to tell. Her novels were a way to ignore her own story and push it to the back of her mind, but now as she's facing her final days, her story is demanding to be told. For reasons that are unclear to Margaret, Vida Winter wants to tell this story to her. And what a story it is.

Vida's story goes back a generation before her birth. It involves a mother dying during childbirth, a beautiful daughter, a cruel son, and a husband unable to cope with his grief. This is a pattern that will repeat itself. Lovers are debilitated by grief, driven to madness and a hermit-like existence. Children run wild in the absence of any firm parenting. There are deaths, children born out of wedlock, ghosts, a governess, a kind country doctor, scandal, a topiary garden, and a fire that eventually destroyed the Angelfield home. To say any more would spoil the unraveling of the story.

Margaret resides at Vida Winter's Yorkshire home while the story is doled out in pieces to her. She realizes, though, that she's not getting the whole story, or at least not yet. The staff at the home interacts with her as little as possible. Something is digging in the garden at night and on some nights, it sounds like someone is softly singing the same five notes over and over again. Margaret makes a few trips to Angelfield to view the ruined home, discovering more surprises to the story. Yet, there are parallels in Vida's story to Margaret's life, reopening her own psychic wounds. A walk on the moors nearly does her in, and the story reaches its climax on a stormy night when the phone lines are down. Jane Eyre moves from being a book often discussed in The Thirteenth Tale to being an important part of the story. Margaret must put it all together, though, to understand Vida's life and the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale.

Vida Winter becomes a character that dominates this novel. Her clear grasp on what makes a story interesting reflects on Diane Setterfield's skill as well. The Thirteenth Tale is a riveting story that unravels with surprises and discoveries, where seemingly innocuous comments and events early in the novel actually bear great weight in the story's denouement. It's the type of novel that tempts the reader to reread it once they're finished, just to enjoy how all the parts come together once again. If you like to read and if you like a good story, Diane Setterfield has an entertaining one to share with you.



Please pick up a copy and read it for your own entertainment. If you are so inclined, interact with me on my discussion site: http://readers-haven.webs.com/        LET'S READ AND TALK!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

I'm a Fan of the Fan- cleaning- tool


The tool is fuzzy and curves itself around the fan blade so that both sides get dusted at the same time. And it comes with a telescoping pole. Which is great because....



we have 20 foot ceilings! Until now, cleaning involved Mike standing on a 24 foot ladder which was leaning on a slanted wall. Very unsettling.

I can even use this tool without much trouble. I changed the head to a duster tool and cleaned all the windows in our living room, and removed all the cob webs. No need for the ladder any longer!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Outdoor Fun


Even though it has been close to 100 degrees here lately, we've spent a lot of time outdoors...in the pool.
My son, visiting on his days off, seemed to enjoy it. So did our other visitors.
Diving for coins was a popular game.
Let's just say they spent a lot of time UNDER the water, in their own cool, private world.