I can make it to the fence in 2.5 seconds. Can you?

Here's a picture of Lucky doing his favorite thing in the whole world--being on the alert to defend his homestead and the people he has sworn to protect. As you can see, Lucky is ever-vigilant in his avowed duty to protect the innocent and helpless. Always on his guard against ruthless predators such as cats, bugs, shadows, vacuum cleaners, and weird noises, our faithful companion uses his heightened senses of smell and hearing to detect any piece of food that hits the floor, or any opening of a refrigerator door within a 15 foot radius. Also, he knows karate, jujitsu, aikido, Tai Chi, and Tae Bo, and is skilled in several types of weaponry, including Nunchaku, Sai, Katana, those little throwing stars that could give you a really ugly cut, and the Chia Herb Garden (no, I don't know how he uses the Chia Herb Garden as a weapon--it's an ancient Chiaese secret). His paws are registered weapons (well, the front ones are). And so I say to any burglars, marauders, pillagers, Vikings, or anyone else who might have been thinking of burgling, marauding, pillaging, or Vikinging our home, I have one thing to say to you: Don't even think about it. This dog is a killing machine, and I can't be responsible for his reaction if you try to cross our threshold without at least offering him a Dingo bone or scratching under his collar.

You've been warned.

Sometimes it's nice to be a pack-rat

Today I was looking through a lot of my packed up junk (to get rid of some stuff--AAAGH) and I found a tub FULL and I mean FULL of old cards (when I say old I mean like cards people sent my Mom and Dad when I was still making Mom crave pickles) and newspaper clippings, old report cards from kindergarten, postcards, pictures, etc. I looked through a good bit of that stuff and you know, I had a lot of fun. There were all my 3rd place ribbons (ha ha) from track and field day in elementary school, my first squeaky clown toy (who apparently deflated when I used my brand new teeth to bite a hole in his head), letters from people I had forgotten had ever written me letters, and newspaper articles about people like Frank Mullen, the 81 year old man who used to take our class on hikes on the Stoney Lonesome Trail in Gardners and tell us about flowers and animals and the CCC camp that used to build roads and stuff back in the "olden" days. I found old pictures of my friends from elementary school through high school, and notes we had written to each other when we were supposed to be listening in class, ahem. I found a little New Testament that was given to the 9 year old version of my Dad and a prayer book that belonged to my Pap (my Dad's Dad) when he was a little kid. I saw a book called "Expecting?" that had a picture of a pregnant cartoon bear on the front, and inside was kind of a diary of what Mom was doing, thinking, and feeling while I was busy growing hands and feet and a circulatory system inside her. It made me feel good to remember that stuff. And the truth is, if I hadn't kept that stuff, I would have forgotten a lot of it. Not because I want to forget, but because I don't have a great memory, and I never really have. Having this stuff brings back memories for me that I'm so glad that I have, and although people always say "you can never go back," I think you can. Not for real, obvy, but I know that when I laughed at the references to our boring psychology teacher in a letter from one of my high school friends, and laughed at the pictures of my 19 year-old self acting goofy with my 19 year-old friends, I didn't just remember what we did back then, I remembered what it felt like. It felt really, really good and really, really free. I don't know what point I'm trying to make, exactly, except that the older I seem to get, the more grateful I am for all the stuff I've saved and kept and put away in a box, where I keep it until I feel like I need it. And looking through it all never makes me wish I could go back. It only makes me grateful to have been there. So I guess gratitude is the moral of today's story. And I'm very, very grateful for almost (had to put that in there, heh) everyone who's ever crossed my path. So if you have ever crossed my path, May God bless you, and I thank you for the good mood I was in today. It was quite nice.

Linky Dinky of the Day

Here's a waltz down memory lane:

Check out this music!!!
And this music!!!
While you're at it. . .
This one's the best!!!

I'll leave you to figure out where it comes from, hee hee.

Here's the link to the whole page of it. I'm in awe.

Linky Dinky of the Day

Sometimes, when I find a really cool, interesting, or relevant website or blog, I'll make it a "Linky Dinky of the Day" and post it to share with you. I don't think I'll do it every day or anything but I doubt anyone will care. The bestest ones will make it into my Linky Dinky list on the left side of my blog. Also, if anyone has a cool link to share, let me know and I'll make it a LDOTD, unless I hate it.

Today's LDOTD is World of Delp, where my dear friends the Delps blog about their family and post some way cute pics of their little'uns. If you ever need an "awwww" factor to cheer yourself up, go here and scroll for a while. Also, check out some of the cool links on their page--I especially recommend Urp the Wonder Horse; you'll see why if you click it (it'll make you feeeeeeel good. . .).

Enjoy it!!!

Pray for Them

Well, today I put my blog back up (under a slightly different name) and I'm sorry my first post is a sad one, but I want to send my thoughts and prayers to all who were at Virginia Tech when that terrible thing happened, and to all their friends and family. It's hard to imagine how or why anyone could do such a thing, and I can only pray that they find strength and comfort in each other and in God. We can only hope to learn something from this, and do whatever we can to try to prevent it from happening ever again.

I can't pretend to understand what it's like to grow up in such a time, where people do things like this in a school. I don't know what else to say, so I'll just say a prayer for them:

May the Lord be with the souls of the faithful departed and with their families, and with the family of the shooter, and may He bring to them comfort and peace. Amen.

Please pray for them too. :(