the gift goes on!

ok - you may remember my "major award" for my poem 'the vine'...the one i had to pay a "nomial fee" to recieve...a fee that exceeded $170... is not the only thing i have been awarded! also, my poem is going to be published into a coffee table anthology called 'immortal verses'. a publication which i can purchase for the low low price of $49, and for which i recieve no royalties...although i do "retain the copyright to your own work of art". AND for a small fee of $25 i can fill out an artist biography that will go on the facing page of my poem! hoo hoo!



needless to say, i view all of this with a great deal of skepticism. but hey, if you all want to buy a $69 (your price, not the artist price) coffee table book of poetry, i can hook you up!

redrum

oh boy - curtis didn't scoop the new frog eggs, and now there are a million tadpoles (tiny) amid the few i saved (big - one with a FOOT GROWTH!), and i have steeled myself to kill them (the little ones). i have already been outside this morning with my goldfish net, scooping and scooping...they are tricky little buggers - maybe it's the will to live? so now, i have a bucket full of tiny tadpoles, admittedly with a couple of big ones that i couldn't avoid, and i am going to flush them. or maybe get curtis to flush them...i am trying to convince myself it's not murder, but...i sort of subscribe to the monty python philosophy "ever sperm is sacred". and now that i think of it, the little tadpoles look an awful lot like sperm. i think i will have to get curtis to flush them...

welcome home, me!

jericho is falling...

apparently, life is falling down all around my home while i am gone... while the tadpoles are thriving - i will probably be home before they hop away, hooray! - new frog eggs were laid while i was here, and although i told curtis to scoop them, he forgot/didn't, and now there is a new generation hatched. which means when i get home, if i want to fill the pool for the girls to swim, i have to murder hundreds of princes! (you know, frogs turn into princes if you kiss them) i don't think i can do that. life is sacred, even slimy tadpole life. sigh...



also, it appears that satchmo, in a fit of boredom and as a cry for attention, ate baby beauty, our blackmoor fish. i can't tell you how sad that is. i have been nuturing baby beauty with great joy. now he is dead. sigh...

and to top it off, curtis says the house is an abominable mess. and i am coming home on sunday. anyone want to make bets on whether or not he will remember/have the time/have the energy to clean it - even though i asked? oh dear...

a moment of depth

i am a little confused. i've been reading the OT (joshua, judges, ruth and 1 samuel) since being here in KY, and it has been very interesting. i do not feel like i know this God. maybe it's reading it in a new translation for the first time in many years, but the God of israel - while willing to forgive and redeem under the right circumstances - is incredibly harsh. father's sacrificing virgin daughters, slaughtering 10's of 1000's of women and children, smiting people left, right and center. i guess i see why - he is holy, and they are worshipping idols left, right and center, but it made me uneasy. maybe, though, i have gotten too far from his righteous anger, too used to the "nice" version of Jesus we all know and love. but as i think about it, when i read the gospels earlier this year, Jesus was pretty stern, too. he was not fooling around. yes, he was full of love, but he was unyielding too, and gave impossible commands, and demanded obedience. so maybe the God of the OT and the God revealed through Jesus in the NT are not that disparate, but they sure feel that way. i am going to have to think about that some more, i think. all i know is that if i were an israelite back in the day, i would have lived terrified. and maybe i ought to live with a little more of that reverent 'fear of God' in my life today...cause to be honest, i act like an israelite an awful lot...

the thrill is gone

i don't know what to do... for the first time in 4 years i find myself wanting to go home, while on vacation here in KY. my mom is stressed about her job, and never home. my dad is lacking joy, and my girls are driving me nuts. if i leave, though, it's a family betrayal. so i will stay. but i am hoping things look up... sigh...

updates galore!

false alarm.... it wasn't feet...it was, apparently, tadpole poop. a long string of tadpole poop. ah, well. i figure it takes a thriving tadpole to create such a thing! :) i am awaiting more pictures, but what with my slighty insane husband working til 3:30 in the morning, i don't expect to get them promptly. i'm surprised he can form a complete thought on that kind of schedule!

there is a new problem in the elliott household - the furnace is leaking, and a huge water spot has shown up on the kitchen ceiling. my father is beside himself. my mother provokes him by telling him it's not a big deal. they roll their eyes at eachother behind their backs. we are eagerly await the furnace guy to put an end to the marital unrest. i have been spending a lot of time looking like i'm not listening.

other than that, we hope swimming lessons will resume today - having been cancelled the last two days due to an overchlorinated pool... how frustrating! but, no cancellation phonecall so far this morning, and optimism is peeking it's head out of my heart! i am keeping my mental fingers crossed....

proof of life

good morning! it is the "quiet hour" ... when grams has left for work, meg is still alseep in her bed, and kyra is devouring another book on the couch. i quite love it...not to mention the cat just leapt up onto my lap and is purring like a madwoman....ahhhh....

and curtis sent me proof of life of the tadpoles! hooray!



he says he thinks he saw one with feet, but couldn't get a picture because it was down near the bottom of the pool...but how exciting! i miss watching them grow, having never seen a tadpole grow into a frog, but i will take comfort in the fact that these frogs would not have lived if i hadn't rescued their eggs! i am a rachel, frog rescuer! lover of living creatures everywhere!

genuinely quiet mornings are so rare - i am going to go and take advantage of it... i hope you all have a wonderful day!