JEHOVAH-JIREH!

"The Lord our Provider" has indeed done that!

God has provided me the opportunity to work a full week this week (which is so rare that I haven't done this since before Garrett was born!)!! This will pay for a substantial portion of my trip to Africa in June!

So, you won't hear much from me this week as Poppy will be holding down the fort!

It won't hurt to pray for a little JEHOVAH-SHALOM ("The Lord our Peace") in this house.

Maybe a little IMMANUEL to be just that: "God with [Poppy]." (emphasis mine!)

My African Jouney Begins....

I'll get to the more serious side of things in a later post, but today this is what I've got for you.

My friend Robyn and I went today to get our passports for Ethiopia. We went to the Columbia Post Office because it was convenient to me. Things were going well, besides the fact that no one gets in a hurry in this town. I also forgot about the large quantities of rednecks we have in this town until we heard a loud chicken/rooster call from behind us!

Seriously??

We saw 2 of these:





Apparently, it is common to mail live chickens through the USPS in Maury county Tennessee.

They just plopped these 2 boxes of chickens down on the counter next to us like they were sending little Timmy a care package....no big deal!

We should have gone to the Franklin post office!

Paradise Falls

Saturday, we went hiking just off Nachez Trace. When we told Garrett we were going to see the water falls, he automatically assumed it was Paradise Falls! So all day, we referred to it as such. Only Garrett took it a step further and told us that he was Russell and he was looking for a snipe! He came equipped with a chocolate candy bar (because we all know that's what snipes eat!) and kept shouting through the woods, "Snipe, here snipe!"

A Rite of Passage

Today, Charlotte got her toenails painted for the first time! She loved it! She saw mine and kept saying, "Pink toes!" Daddy thinks that this is the beginning of the end!

Ahhh, Spring!

Well, not really, but today is the day we began to prepare for spring by starting our garden seeds indoors!

Its no secret: I'm no gardner!

However, every year I undertake a gardening project only to fail mid-way through it when it dawns on me that I was supposed to water them.

Here's how to do it for yourself...step-by-step:

You start with these little peat moss pots.

Then you must repeat the word "Peat?!" while making a funny face.

All parties involved must take part in this activity: "Peat?!"

You fill them up with water and let them sit for a minute while they absorb it all. Its a good idea to poke your fingers around in the peat so as to get them really dirty under the fingernails while you wait.

Then they get really "fat" as Garrett and Charlotte proclaimed.

Before moving on, you must place the lid over your face and make a funny noise.

And then, breathe through your nose so as to create little streaks of condensation on the lid.

Sprinkle 2-3 seeds in each peat pot, but do your best to only put 1 type of seed into each peat clump...this could have been disasterous!

Here's what we planted today: White Half Runner Beans

Marigolds (to keep the animals away), carrots, and sweet basil.

We also have cucumbers and sunflowers.

We'll be planting watermelon, pumpkin, and lettuce directly into the ground as soon as it warms up a bit.

Then, you cover it with the lid to create a little greenhouse!

Oh, and you needs a couple of little helpers with dirty fingernails in order to get the job done!