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