and all the cows come home

last night's excerpt.
'abrum's home. so we are in the living room, daddy kicked up in his chair,
chris sitting cross-legged on the couch, merry strewn out on the long couch,
moriah sitting on her legs, abe sitting on the end with a little of all of them on him, tickling.
melody asked abe,
'what is your major?'
'I'm presently working on Layman of Plant Protection.'
Chris says
'I'm still workin on my Bachelor's.'
abe says to chris,
'Well, Fulmer, you done rounded up the nerve to go ahead
and scare up some tax forms?'' '

 does a soul good to have the men home.

abe said ' speakin of my beard, i did find a caterpillar in it the other day. don't know how 

he managed that, but i had to walk through a bush on my way to class the other day,

so i reckon he hitched a ride somewhere.  i wouldn't have seen the critter if the folks hadn't pointed him out to me.'

that He would wash me over

again

with that realization of His 

incredible sacrifice

and the love which prompted Him to do it,

the power which sustained him as He hung in agony on the cross.

i desire to know. 

Him.

that He would grow my heart to be that flourishing garden

where the warmth, comfort, strength, constancy of His presence

is ever known. 

this world is empty, empty. and wasted breath on everything we care about in it. 

God help me to be 

immersed 

in Yourself, lost to the world, won over to you

completely.

the exception being tuesday

NOTE. this was written on tuesday even though it's labeled as wednesday and this is for the simple reason that it actually was posted on wednesday. at's what happens when you fall asleep at night instead of finishing blog posts.


for it was exceptional.  i liked everything about today.  i liked the weather - chilly and sweet and fresh. i liked my work, the people i worked with, the people i talked to, the brew of coffee i had.  i liked being by myself for part of the day, and mixing with people the other part of it. it's just been a very good day. and i like that.
  this morning i rode in an ambulance - a retired one, at least. but i had never done that before, and for some reason it felt momentous. i met all of anne's bcm friends on their last night of the season and that was climatic.
at supper the other night daddy got cracked up about a birthday card he almost got for u.z but didn't.  he said he really just couldn't, and he never told us what it was, but for about 10 minutes he was on and off laughing so hard he couldn't swallow and was turning red.  but he always does that when he laughs hard.

 dawn making hobo-glyphics.

  

the hobo party was ridiculously fun.  i might post more pictures later but for now, so long.

robin egg saturday

we had our first egg hunt ever today and it was ridiculously fun. mama got all the dyes and boiled the eggs and made our baskets with edible grass and jelly eggs. and we decorated eggs, listened to music, and then chris, daddy and mama hid them...felt like christmas in spring. i'm sold. it's an official fulmer tradition for the grey submarine from now on. the red robin egg hunt. i remembered as we were looking for eggs that i used to believe if i would only lie on an egg and keep it warm enough it would hatch. it's been a good good saturday.  after daddy grilled steaks, dawn and i grilled porkchops and hot dogs and then all of us girls climbed the maple tree. so sad. it's going to be cut down. i think also, that my caterpillars are dead, which is too bad. they would have been nice butterflies.  i hope they'll still come out of their cocoon.  here are lots of pictures from today.

venus, dawn's turtle. apparently he's lived in her garden for a good while now, but 

it was only today that we girls discovered dawn even had a turtle at all.

his legs were so rubbery and funny. 

and the way he looked from behind when he walked

was adorably comical.

poor maher.

on this side of the house

someone's in the shower. someone's always in the shower, which means no pressure and no hot water on my end of the house. but that's ok! life is good! i got a sunburn, a raise, got to say hey to GrandPatty and this evening i had a conversation with a wise man which was one of the best conversations i've had in a long time.
                    think my hair may be getting just a little longer. maybe. oh goodness. good night.

best friday

     Anne and I haven't belly laughed in a long time, but tonight we had a real, solid one.   that felt good.
Apollo sent us boxes in the mail and  (!!!) letters and my caterpillars are in their cocoons.  Daddy bought our first watermelon of the season - woohoo!  The light has been so soft in the evenings lately.  It intertwines with the trees and grass and casts a warm luster over all the fields, especially.  Bust my buttons, but I'm tired.  But the cookies must be baked before the morning.  I discovered tonight that when you plan to make white chocolate raspberry cookies but you don't have raspberries, you use cranberries. and when you don't have flour, you walk over to Neighbor Angelot's though it be 11.00, and see if she does.  She did. So then, onward with cookies. And onward to bed. I'm really too tired to be writing anyways.

 My caterpillars: Everesence, Sympathy Joy, Calamity Jane and Leviathan. 

Seen here,  Leviathan. 

of tweet and retweet

Tweet

and Retweet 

were sitting on a boat. 

Tweet fell of and who was left? 

twitter.

Retweet's imaginary friend. 

You see, Retweet and Twitter have almost the 

same amount of letters, which means they are almost identical in strength.

and if Retweet was silly enough to create an imaginary friend 

nearly as strong as himself, this suggests to me that

Twitter would soon grow into an irreplaceable

 presence in the mind of Retweet, so that one day Retweet

would eventually give in to the strength of his friend.

And what better time for Twitter to take 

advantage of this weakness than 

when  Retweet had his back

turned, busy with

pushing off 

Tweet?

Easter

  Today was the best Easter I remember. I got up early and read the 20th chapter of John.  Mary was the first one at the grave...I wondered how much sorrow she must have felt, been bowed down with as she went there that morning.  Then getting there and thinking someone had taken his body...But when we he said her name...'Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.'
    I like how John never speaks of himself in the first person, but refers to himself most of the time throughout his account as 'that other disciple whom Jesus loved', or 'the other disciple'.  The urgency he and Peter had in reaching the sepulchre 'So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre...'  Makes me want to be more that way in my relationship with Christ.

  Daddy was blessed this morning to preach an incredible message on our victorious Savior.  Then we had 35 people over to our house and we all ate lunch together.  Caleb Apollo caught bugs and told us about the first time he held a baby and how he thought the kid's head had snapped.  Ahh!! And the weather today was perfect. Absolutely.  Sweet, light air.  Honeysuckles in thick vines by the house and garden.  It's just been one of those incredible days, tailored just so in all the right ways to make it sublime.

oh my dawn.

    I hear Dawn getting onto herself.  She's sitting across the house in her indian suit, and I'm in the bathroom getting ready for work, but all the doors are open between us so we can hear each other.
 "I DON'T NEED HELP ON THIS PROBLEM!!!"
 "What's the matter, Pocadawnkis?"
"Nothing's the matter!!!  I'm just stupid enough not to get this problem right.  I've been going on with this problem for a while and - It's 25x4...The easiest problem in the world!!!  But I was all like, "... 4x5, carry the 2, whatever...and then I got the answer and I thought..'hey..i know this..YEAH!  I DO know this!! I'm so Dumb! I'm the dumbest person on the planet!!!  Broge, what should I wear to fish in?  I could be super redneck and wear my Georgia Bulldog shirt with my fly fishing vest.'
  

hard

go hard after Christ,
  don't look back and don't let luggage weigh you down.  don't let friends who are wearing the race tag, but are merely lounging on the sidelines, draw you in to sit down or to sway your ambition. go hard! push to the limit - where your lungs are burning, your breath short, your legs weak - keep running. and don't think the people on the sides who are taking this easy have anything better to offer you. they don't.
  our goal is beyond this place- keep focused.  the more we run, the more we sweat, the less we care about our material worth and all that is noble, lasting, worthwhile is ever before our eyes becoming our most beautiful desire. that quenching well away from this heat, that cool forest away from this desert. keep pushing, pressing, looking further. keep running.

challenge to self

let your forgiveness be won 

as easily as your love;

the wrong done

against you be

forgotten 

as easily as the good
done to you was
remembered.