A wee bit tardy. My apologies.

Dearest you,
So I haven't written in a couple weeks. My bad. One excuse being that our schedules are a bit chaotic since our home is being redone (result of flood damage). Another excuse being that the computer I generally blog on is, well, a bit under the weather. It throws tantrums at random will, causing far too many exclamation!! points! and ! not enough! periods! !! Which would have resulted in this entire post (which will be quite lengthy, I should warn you) being as annoying as the past sentence. You should thank me for sparing the tiny voice in your head from yelling every other word you are now reading :D
And while the computer has been a jerk, I've found productive ways to occupy my time. Like playing farm girl in 90 TN heat. Fun times. (house/pet-sitting for family friends). Most of my siblings and I were just shy of parent-less for nearly a week. Innnnteresting. We braided miniature hoses' manes. We renamed my friend's cats. Gen and I made up a theme song while fishing bugs from the pool. Which we all then swam in. I bruised myself on the water slide while my little siblings came away grinning and un-scarred. Ironic. I laughed my head off watching Evan being chased by three horses and five miniature horses, trying to coax them all to the barn. He succeeded, in case you were pitying him :) Then I tried to catch my first firefly of the season. I failed. (It did seem much easier when I was younger--a jar with a lid, an untouchable amount of energy, and a careless attitude to the smell that lingers on one's hands. Admit it, you've noticed it too. :P)

Several days last week Gen, Evan, and I had colds. We were driving around one day with country music blaring (we do live in Music City, so it HAS to be one of the channels we frequent). And singing at the top of our lungs. You should have heard us--actually, you probably could. You'd have to be pretty deaf to miss our hoarse, tuneless yelling. Or maybe you just mistook the din for...something else. There, I just saved you from insulting me yourself:P

Oh, and by the way, I discovered that I'm pretty much beast at reverse driving down sloping, winding driveways. Just in case that info ever comes in handy.

In the midst of all that action, it was a pretty relaxing week. Lovely. :) At the end of the week as we were leaving to come back home, the eight horses were all waiting at the gate to say/neigh goodbye--so sweet :)



A few weeks ago I was volunteering at an after-school program for elementary students. As I was walking with two little girls, they were each exclaiming how old they were (for example, "I'm 87!", "I'm 592!") At this point I interrupted, saying, "I'm infinity!"
One of them asked, "How do you write that in numbers?" To which I hurried to find an acceptable response, "Um..." Yep, that was all I came up with.
And then I was assisting with homework. Also loads of fun :) One child told another, who was acting rather crazy, I must confess, "You're a hobo!" Not really sure what that had to do with anything, but maybe it was just thrown out there as an attempted insult? The un-offended child claimed "I'm not a hobo--I'm just a wild, crazy boy!"
Well, at least he knew it too. But maybe the humor in this was only in the moment. Nevertheless, I shall resist deleting it :D

Since I've been home, I've been sewing, playing "Mechanic Sophie" in the no-longer-new coveralls my dad and brothers bought so they could work under the house, reading some lovely historical novels, debating my little siblings over brownie/ice cream points (and who qualifies for what points, and to which category :), and planning who wants to travel to which country with me when I'm rich and famous. Knowing that you are curious, I'll post the results of our discussion: Blake wants to travel to London (and England :P), Evan wants to go to Ireland (where we'll raise sheep for several weeks--one of his goals is to be a shepherd), Vivienne desires to tag along with me to New York and Paris (she loves to shop and figured they'd be good places to start:D), and Lilly wants to see Florida and California (she's satisfied with only national flights :D). Now to work on the rich and famous part...

I went to the library the other day--one of my favorite places, but you'd already know that if you know anything at all about me :) I scanned book shelves with my head turned sideways. Bad for your neck, alright. They really should stack the books vertically. Of course, that would be impractical when one attempted to remove a book. Just imagine an entire stack crashing towards you. I don't think the stereotypical librarians would appreciate that very much--doesn't promote quiet-ness very well. Obviously.

I've been thinking recently--which is not a recently acquired talent, I assure you--that all the fairy tale-type stories do go to some people's heads. I always considered the romantic, cliche books and movies (you know what I'm talking about--those happily-ever-after type stories) to be innocent, harmless. I thought everyone had enough common sense to realize they are FAIRY TALES and not REALITY, much as we wish them to be so. Not every Prince Charming is THE Prince Charming. The prince can be charming, but that doesn't mean he's yours. Make sense? Probably not. And yet I shall continue in this useless line. Have you noticed how most movies in particular portray the parents as idiots? And they ARE generally idiots, in the movies. But might they not have reasonable, realistic reasons for trying to persuade this child from falling in love with so-and-so? Or forbidding their kid from doing thus-and-whatever? Wisdom really does come from age, I've determined. And you shouldn't have to make every mistake to learn from them. Life's too short to make them all. I think there's a quote about that. Can't remember the author, though.

Random one-sentence notes--I've got three tonight:
(1)Circle analogies are fun. They're good weapons for confusing people. Oops--that was two. And now three. At least I can count.
(2)Selfish living makes life meaningless.
(3)It's a sad state of things when your little sister prays for things to be "normal."

Praise God for relatives, 'cause I've got two of them in town this weekend! I love my Aunt Angel and Grandmother Vicki! :D

Con amore,
Sophie

Nonsensicality

Dearest you,

Duuuuuuuuuuuh, dunh dunh dunh dunh dunnnnnnnh. Dunh dunh dunh dunh duuuuuuuuuuuunh, dunh dunh dunh dunh duuuuuuuuuuuunh. aka The Phantom of the Opera theme song. We've been watching the movie over the past few nights...illegally :P

The other day Gen and I took a walk in the rain. Then we jogged, and ran and danced in the rain. Did I mention we were wearing rainboots several sizes too big and weren't wearing socks? Now we each have a set of twin blisters to show off. Healing blisters = itchy skin.

FYI, add stress to my imagination, and I go super creative.

Gen's been driving us all hysterical with her impression of a hamster voice. She tells jokes in it, and sings...songs like the macarena, the hamster dance (appropriately), and the hoedown throwdown. Yeeeep.

And then a cockroach decided to appear on my bed inches from my face. Gen's a superhero with a fly swatter. Cockroach near bed = checking covers before hiding underneath them.

After Gen and I made a quick run to Walgreens this morning, she was driving no more than 7 miles on our street. And I calmly inquired, "Genny, why are you driving like a granny?"
"I'm coasting."
"Riiiiight. Because we're really going to save a lot of gas by coasting the half mile to our house." She didn't go any faster :D

I gave an impromptu Italian lesson to kindergarteners who can barely speak proper English. I was teaching them how to say, "How are you, whatever your name is?" And they each asked, "Can you put my name in it? And so-and-so's too?" Sure, whatever floats your boat. Or makes you happy.Or cures your ADD-ness for a minute.

Oh, and I've decided that my beta fish, Fitzwilliam Darcy, is a survivor. He survived being pet-sitted (or however your say that correctly) by a seven-year-old BOY for a week who swapped his clean, purified tank water with chlorinated sink water. He is also a pig. The fish, that is. He would eat a dozen floating meals a day, if I let him. But those dried worms are expensive, you know. Like three bucks a bottle. And it'll only last him for a year or two, or a dozen. So he gets two meals a day.

I had a cereal date with Blake tonight. Cereal = dessert this evening. He wouldn't let me read the newspaper, instead insisting upon sitting awkwardly at my elbow as we chatted about absolutely nothing in particular but having a wonderful time nonetheless, listening to Gen play "Moon River" on the piano. That hit the spot. Which spot I have no idea, but it must have hit one of them.

My dad just came in to wish us all a good night. He gave us each very enthusiastic high fives and thumbs up. And then we all had a group huddle, like a football team, chanting whatever it is they chant and leaning to one side then the other in a frenzied manner. Goodnights in our house = awesome.

Annnnnd if you're wondering why there are so many equal symbols in this post, it's because I finished geometry last week and have been deprived of math for a few days. I love math. NOT. But I just felt like I needed to equal something. You know, to make sure my itty bitty parallel lines stayed in shape.

Praise God for playdough! Without it, I would smell normal.

Con amore,
Sophie

P.S. OK, so now I'm listening to "Pants on the Ground" with Gen. Wieeeerrd. *shrug

P.P.S. Sometime you need to go insane for a moment, in order to rescue your sanity. Vero? Right? :)
P.P.P.S And I've been informed that my blog doesn't make sense, but it makes people laugh. Therefore, the title.

Minus. What an awkward word.

Dearest you,

Since everyone else is blogging today I thought I had best follow suit.
I have nothing humorous to share of the past few days...Well, maybe except the random lady--who I'd met once before (apparently) but didn't remember-- at a graduation party who tried to set me up with her college son (who wasn't even present) for a full five minutes. As I was looking rather confused at the sudden change of topic, her daughter turned to me and said bluntly, "She's trying to set you up with my brother."Oh, ok, that makes sense. NOT. Remind me when I've got a college-aged son not to try to play matchmaker between him and a random girl I don't know in the least. Makes no sense, if you ask me. But a lot of things don't make sense.
Annnd, that's all I can think of to make you laugh.

Have you ever wondered how, when you're unconscious (as in sleeping. Although, maybe it could happen if you're knocked out too. I wouldn't know, so don't take my word for it unless I'm filling in for LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow...which has probably been discontinued anyways, so forget that.), your mind can take bits of reality and mix it with fantasy? Like how you can dream of a problem you were thinking of before you fell asleep, and in the same scene out jumps a gargoyle or you fall off a cliff and start flying? (These examples are by no means the actual dreams of the writer and should not be associated with her. Certain terms and conditions apply. See store for details, or log on to www.whatswrongwithsophie.com)

BTW, don't actually google that site. Who knows what you'll find...


Praise God for forgiveness! God knows we all need it. Literally.

Con amore,
Sophie


P.S. And because it is the title of this post, I had to throw it in here somewhere. Minus. Yep, it's still awkward.

Brothers--Gotta love 'em

Dearest you,

Innnteresing.
It's mighty hot in the house today. The few minutes of rain today didn't help--in fact, it only served to raise the already high level of humidity. I'm not complaining :)　Buuuuut, those large droplets of water falling from the sky did give Gen a good laugh as she watched me dash out the front door--barefoot and all--to save the open windows of our car from killing the interior by drowning it in the unexpected rain. I was soaked, but grinning.

I played rook with my dad and two younger brothers the other evening. We used to pay it every night, but it's been a while, so we'd almost forgotten how to win. We knew how to play. My dad and I were on the same team and creamed the boys. They were unsore losers--good sports, the lot of them.

I was blown kisses by a boy a couple days ago. Well, OK, he WAS two-years-old, and he can't yet say my name...but he's still reaaally cute :P He's pretty much the easiest child to babysit.

This guy came yesterday to fix the water heater or some such thing. Guess what his name was? Shannon. Yeaaah, that was my reaction too. I was almost as horrified as the time I first watched Gone with the Wind and realized one of the main male characters was named Ashley. And then found out that the actor's name was Leslie.(Sorry to any guys named Shannon. Seriously--I'm REALLY sorry :)

Tuesday evening my mom and I were momentarily insane. Maybe temporarily is a better adjective. I mean, adverb. (Hmph, I had to think for a second there--not studying grammar this year has left my proficiency in it a little lax:) She was holding my hand through geometry problems that were due by midnight for an online course. Nooooo, I'm not a procrastinator. (Just in case you don't know me at all, that was written an intoxicating-ly sarcastic tone.) Anyways, we were both laughing hysterically--between that and allergies that compromise your sinuses, I just about died. But I didn't. Obviously, since I'm writing this. I mean, seriously, I couldn't be dead and still be writing this. Silly.


So Blake and Evan were quite humorous yesterday. Like they usually are, but yesterday I could transcribe their silliness into quotes. :P
Ex.
On our way home from music lessons (which took 2 hours instead of half an hour due to car tantrums), Evan informed me that he and I would be attending bartending school (there's actually one near our home). My little sister said, "Bar, and in ballet bar?"
Blake just got a haircut, and so all evening, whenever he randomly appeared in a doorway, he struck a model pose.
And then in the midst of rather mature discussions they both rambled, in a staggered order, "Can you go on amazon.com with me?" "Can you adopt me?" "Can I have your debit card number?"
And I was like, "Pardon me?" with a clearly confused expression, "Were we not just conversing like normal people? How did we end up here again? I'm lost." (And I replied "no" to all three queries, never fear).


We've been bowling in our living room. The lanes are the deformed and naked wood boards that used to support lush carpet. The pins are empty water bottles, with each of our initials on the cap.

And now Gen and I are having a drinking contest---water, that is. We're trying to see who can drink the most bottles of water. I'm really not sure when the deadline is. Maybe when we can finally drink our own water instead of that which comes in cheaply plastic containers?
And of course we're donating the empty bottles to our bowling alley. Of course.

Oh, btw, I'm winning :P


My little sister just narrated (man it took me a day and a half to figure out how to spell that) a
lengthy story to me. I nodded, and I didn't really digest any of it. Me + writing = neglected multi-tasking skills. Note that.


Praise the Lord for tears! If it weren't for them, think of all the salt water that'd be stuck in my head...


Con amore,
Sophie

P.S. Pictures are back, in case you can't see and are reading this in braille.

NEED...HOT...WATER

Dearest you,

(Friday)
My older sisters and I babysat this morning for a mother's Bible study. I had know idea I was supposed to work from 9-12 until my mother told me at 8:05. Apparently my sister had woken me a half hour earlier, asked me if I would be willing to sub for someone, and received a "yes" as an answer. I have no memory of any of that...whatsoever.
But anyways, Carmen and I played with eight three-year-olds for three and a half hours. I played dolls with the little girls. One charming, adorable, blue-eyed, blond-haired, sweet child repeatedly asked me for permission to pretend things. "Can I pretend this is a baby princess named Ariel?" (baby is pronounced beh-bee), "Can I pretend I'm the queen?" "Can I pretend this is a queen dress?" And I was thinking, yes, child, it's your imagination! You don't have to ask to pretend anything!

We pretended (with my permission, of course) that one doll was Ariel, one was Cinderella, and one was Prince Charming. The latter was a small, bald, ugly, and POSSIBLY male doll that was anything but charming. But it's your imagination, so anything goes, right?

Another little girl suddenly hopped up from where she was playing with a kitchen set, performed sporadic jumping jacks for a full minute, and then promptly announced, "Time for dinner!" She then sat at the miniature table, as if to dare someone to declare her actions were anything but normal.

And then I was asking a little lass for a "couple" of green blocks to finish a castle for another small person. She ran to the play kitchen, grabbed a cup, and proceeded to fill it with green blocks. She handed it to me saying, "Here's a cup of green blocks!" Ummhmm. :D


(Saturday)
We went to the Renaissance Festival today. So many wierdos there, but that shouldn't surprise me. I suppose I could be thrown in the "wierdos" category, considering I went OUTSIDE MY HOME in a medieval gown I made and wore it all the day long. Did I mention I did this in the 21st century?
Yep, with braided hair and jeweled belt and fake accent and all. Ok, the fake accent didn't hold up long.

Our house is now an obstacle course of fans, dehumidifiers, cords, and such laying about. We must yell in order to converse in certain rooms because of the same objects. Now we have an excuse if we "forget" to carry out a request. Not "I didn't hear you," but "I COULDN'T hear you." :P

(Monday)
So Gen and I had a dance party tonight. You should have been there. Actually, you shouldn't have :P
I babysat a two-year-old boy all day today. He's the cutest and sweetest little boy, which is a good thing, 'cause I'll be with him all day tomorrow too :D

We've finally removed all the drying paraphernalia. Now we can converse without sounding irked. We are still deprived of hot water--supposedly that will be returned on the morrow. At the moment, we're all either taking advantage of our neighbors' generosity and using their showers, or we're braving our own (my dad calls them "Indian Showers"). The latter is not an option I would recommend for the sensitive in skin. If you hear someone shrieking spontaneously, it's probably one of us girls washing our hair. Let's just say I don't think I'll be taking hot water for granted for a good long while.

People are still bringing by food and other necessities. Today someone brought by dinner and two rather large boxes loaded with odds and ends. One of my little siblings discovered several boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats and exclaimed, "It's just like Christmas!" In May, yes. :)

Praise God for food and dancing and hot water! :D


Con amore,
Sophie

P.S. In the random chance that you were curious, mugwump is dictionary.com's word of the day, meaning "a person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue." It's just a fancy word for a person straddling a fence because they're too cowardly to commit to one side. Generally...In my humble opinion which I will not force upon you by any means...except on occasion :P

P.P.S. I've been having difficulty uploading pictures this past week...or so. Which would explain why the last few posts have been void of colorful images.

Family Bonding 101

Dearest you,
(Monday)
Well, we evacuated our home this morning at about 11.
Last night water started rising again, in our garage, in our front yard, and in our back garden. When we left this morning the garage had about two feet, the yard had close to three, and our patio (raised off the garden) had about six inches (barely an inch shy of coming into our living room). And all this was rising.
We've moved into our friends' home for the moment in Mt. Juliet.
Blake and I were in charge of keeping track of the water level, in order to make an estimated guess when or if the grimy, disgusting water would reach our house. Guess who fell asleep at 1am? Blake. So I had to round up Gen to accompany to the very dark, very creepy back patio. It WAS rising about an inch every half hour, but it slowed around 2:30am, about when I drifted off to sleep :) And two gigantic fire engines pulled up at our house about 2am just to assess the situation. The called back and forth with my mother, who was on our front porch while they stood safely 15 yards away, over the growing lake in our front yard. They didn't offer many suggestions.
We had to cut our electricity around midnight because the water level was getting too high and a power line had come down--but remained attached--just a few feet from our house, caused by a tree falling. Soooo, no stove, oven, fan (for the very stuffy upstairs--where all eight of us had to camp out), and NO lights! Ohhhhh, and our mom wouldn't let us use the plumbing for fear all the pipes would overflow. Welcome to wash basins and chamber pots. Family bonding 101 for sure.
One of my brothers was up at 6:30am, and he woke up several others, including me. So I'm a little tired, as on of my friends could attest to, considering I was talking a mile a minute on the phone with her :D And that was BEFORE I had caffeine.
When we left our house we had to trudge through a 3+ of feet deep trashy swamp, just in order to get to our van. People from our neighborhood--and from others--came down to our house to take pictures because it was one of the only three houses that were still surrounded with water.
Between rapids, stubborn rain, fire trucks, a self-inflicted black out, yard sticks to measure water level increases, and walking through thigh-deep swamp water, we've had an interesting couple of days.

(Tuesday)
We began cleaning up our home. It was dirty. And smelly. Our living room had six inches of water in it overnight. It drained. Praise the Lord the rest of the first floor remained dry. Our neighbors fed us food. A swamp remained in our back yard. We went back to our friends' house. And slept.

(Wednesday)
While my mother and some of my siblings returned to our home, I remained with our friends in the hopes of getting some school done. I did. A little.
I also read a novel on their deck as chickens clucked around me and danced in a robotic way.

(Thursday)
I think that's today. I honestly have know idea what day of the week it is, much less the date.
We went back to our home this morning, hopefully to stay. My dad returned from China last night. It probably wasn't the most welcoming sight walking through our front door, considering the carpet has been torn up in the living room, along with half the walls (thanks to the help of some wonderful friends! Otherwise, we'd all smell like mold. True story.)
Today we've had very random people coming in and our of our home helping with various clean-up procedures. I mean random, as in I-haven't-seen-you-or-talked-to-you-in-years kinda random, and I-haven't-EVER-seen-you-in-my-entire-life kinda random. We've met neighbors we never knew we had. It's amazing how many strange people the Lord has brought to our door. And they've all been a HUGE help! Peoples have been blessing us with food and work and prayers left and right. And forwards and backwards. And day in and day out. And I think you get the picture.

We are all so thankful the water did not get in farther. The damage could have been soooo much worse, but it wasn't. The plumbing and electricity are back in order. And we've received so much help from people we know, and those we don't. Many people had their homes destroyed by this flood. We are SOOOO lucky and SOOOO grateful.

I've written this post in sections because I'm a perfectionist and I don't want to send anything out that hasn't been edited and I haven't had time to go back over it all and I still haven't had time or energy or interest to go back over it all and I've made up my mind and I'm going to post it anyways and get over my perfectionism and I thought the best way to do this would be to write a n extremely long and annoying run-on sentence and keep it going as long as I could keep thinking and so this is the result. Happy breathing.


Praise God for friends, neighbors, and strangers!!!

Con amore,
Sophie

I don't belong here :D

Dearest you,

Last night was indescribable. I started out the evening depressed about certain situations. I plugged up to my MP3 player. And suddenly, I clearly and completely felt the peace and love of God surround me. I felt like dancing for joy! (Actually I did on the patio in the dark). It was THE MOST incredible feeling I have experienced in a long while. And, as mentioned before, it is indescribable. So you won't understand, and that is OK :)

Even later, amidst the lightning bolting through the otherwise dark sky, the thunder shattering the quiet of a house almost entirely asleep, the rain pelting out a steady rhythm of splashes, and flash flood warnings changing every other minute, God's peace protected my soul from depression. It'll sound silly, but I just wanted to shout, "Have at it, Satan! I can take any thing you choose to throw my way because my Guide is the Lord Jesus Christ and He has sole possession of my heart!"

I don't belong here. Isn't that great?! This world is NOT my home, and all the heartache associated with it is not a burden I have to carry alone. Praise the Lord! His grace IS amazing, and His peace DOES surpass all understanding!

This doesn't mean I will never again feel lost and stressed, or that God will remove all temptations and trials and strife. But it DOES mean I can cast all my cares upon Him, and He will sustain me. I don't have to do it alone!!!! :D

As I listened to my family going slightly berserk over various things, not the least being the weather, it was OK. I have the Creator of the universe on my side, and He has plans to prosper me, and not to harm me. I cannot wait to see what HE has in store!!!!

Oh, and we found an orange box turtle underneath one of our cars. You'd never think playing with a red-eyed reptile on the kitchen tile would be so much fun! He's adorable, or creepy, or so-ugly-he's-cute, depending on who you ask. His name is also up for debate. Choices include Neptune, Molasses, Skippidy,and Awkward. Oh, annnnnd, he's training for track and field in the bi-annual turtle Olympics. He runs and jumps. Over human legs and arms.

And today, the rain is still pelting out a steady rhythm, a quick heavy, beat. There is so much water in our back yard, we could probably go white water rafting. Our garage had about two inches of water in it earlier, and a tree collapsed just three feet from our house, carrying with it a power line. We're preparing for a possible shortage of power later, gathering candles and such. We never have any flashlights with workable batteries :P

But GOD reigns supreme, even over this remarkable rain.

Praise God for His reign over His rain! :D
Con amore,
Sophie