Ummm....

My grandparents are coming from the Mid West to visit, this weekend, through the middle of this coming week. I'm excited! They are supposed to be coming, around... well... They were supposed to be here by now...

:-/

Mom and grandma are going to look at light fixtures for the house, as well as kitchen appliances (like a refrigerator, stove, etc.)
One of my four cousins (from dad's side of the family, and the only "boy cousin" on this side of the fam.) are coming with them, which Miester Man and Banana are both excited about.
So, the coffee is hot and ready... and waiting... And the house is cleaned, sparkling, ready... and waiting... And mom is sick again :(
She's been fighting stuff for about a week, and of course, the cold-like-symptoms make them self oh-so-much-more-apparent. Zicam, tea and vitamins have become our close friends this year. Maybe to the point of being a little too close...
"Too close! A little too close!" (Aladdin)

And look who pulled into the drive!
My excitement is making butterflies form and flap, hyperactively, in my stomach, and I can't seem to type fast enough.... Gotta run!

Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Miss Elisabeth!

Three Hit-'N-Run Lines....

I just realized...

"Run! Definitely run!"
~Avatar~

"Swim away! Swim away!"
~Finding Nemo~

"Run... ANYWHERE BUT HERE!"
~The Incredibles~

What is with all the running? I was scanning through all my mental-files of movie lines for an email I was sending a friend, and all three of these filled my mind. I had to laugh! Seriously people! What's with the running?!

Anyone have any insight?

Blessings in Christ,
Miss Elisabeth

P.S.
"She is runn'n, a hundred miles an hour, in the wrong direction..."

A) Does this mean she was running down a road with a "wrong way" sign on it?
B) After all the times our local radio station has played it, this kid has been running a looong time! (I don't think a human can physically handle all the running she has done, in one life-time)
C) I do like this song, but I actually enjoy listening to the artists....
D) No, I'm not slamming the song.... but after hearing nearly every-other day since the album first came out, I could live without it...
E) I am SO GLAD if this song ministers to you! Praise the Lord! God be the glory!! Please don't sing this song around me!
F) I guess that's four hit-'n-run-lines... not three...

A month?! REALLY? ALREADY?

Wow! I cannot believe it's been an entire month since I last wrote on here!! Goodness gracious! Time flies! Or, as my dear, loving, beloved, cherished (great) grandmother tells me (whenever I talk with her on the phone) "wait until your my age! You go to sleep and you wake up ten years later..."
EEK!
That kind'a (totally) happened this month (doesn't it happen every month?)
So, I'll just try to sum up what has happened this month in a point-by-point manner :)

• A group of home-school families (including mine) went to a local symphony on the first of this month. It was phenomenal! Miss Banana thoroughly enjoyed the ballet, which accompanied the fantastic music. The afternoon was spent at a local out-door nature campus where the younger children in the group snow-shoed, and bird watched (who knew there were birds to watch in the Gr. Plains winter?!). The older people in the group went cross-country skiing.
• The builders have totally torn out all the (inside of the house's) walls, replaced the stair case leading from the back door into the house; gutted the bathroom(s), replaced walls upstairs, and switched around/ took out closets in (all) the rooms upstairs. They have also replaced the front porch window, which looks absolutely beautiful (and unfortunately the computer will only allow me to upload so many pictures today :-P). The house smells wonderfully like a construction sight... aahhh... fresh cut wood...
• The younger three kiddos found a raccoon hang'n in the loft of our barn at the property, and exchanged curious stares for several minutes. I joined the younger three up in the loft, where the masked bandit looked at us like we were the strangest creature to walk the face of the earth, and how dare we disrupt his nap! (The creature was huge, and 'twas quite the experience!)
• Mom drafted me into doing science with Banana and Miester Man.
• The outcome of the above? I typed in the term, "butterfly" on our library catalogue search engine and (literally) clicked "request copy" on every informational-related book regarding butterflies (and moths)... We went to the library, I picked up the books, and then extracted every book I could find in the adults section of "butterflies" (yes, including those huge 24x30" dinosaur-sized books with all the waaay-cool-too-up-close-and-personal/organic-pictures)... we read all of them!!!

- I am sorry the photo is upsi-down...

• Miester Man and Miss. Banana then made copies of all the factual information we could find in the butterfly/ moth books (butterflies anatomy, life-cycle, grammar, etc. and so forth)

(yes. . . I am hiding from the camera behind a

Muppet/ picture of a butterfly that my youngest sister made . . . and? . . . your point? . . .)

Miss. Banana, always the first to find any sort of creepy-crawly (and promptly adopt it as "hers...") found this lovely little monster.... I mean... ehem, critter, in our kitchen... ew.... And it's still alive... in our kitchen... in a Tupperware container. I am not yet convinced that it is (actually) a caterpillar, but that doesn't matter to Banana. She insists that it's "a baby butterfly," and the cruel elements of earth would destroy it if she let's it back into it's natural habitat (which in fact, would happen, due to the incredulously mean-cold-weather, which has improved over the last couple of weeks).

• Upon completing reading the mountain-of-books, creating a colorful binder of pictures and facts regarding butterflies, getting in arguments with the kiddos over what butterflies they have in fact actually seen in really life and the ones they haven't (because they're in a rain-forest somewhere, and Banana and Miester have seen only parts of the States), getting bugged out by bug-zilla, and over-saturating my brain with fun-yet-bizarre-yet-fascinating-and at the same time really weird information about this (wonderful) earth God has created, I threw myself at Pax Romama's feet (A.K.A.: "Mom") and begged her to un-enlist me (otherwise known as "fire") from this project...
• Mom laughed, took a picture, and proudly displayed it all over kingdom come (/ the Internet/ her blog)
  

(L-to-R: Feche Boy with a butterfly on his shoulder, Miester Man thoughtfully comprehending the world with a fellow Monarch-wanna-be)

• To ease the rift in our (mom's & my) relationship, Pax Romama sent us (her resident-posterity) to The Butterfly House.
  

(L to R: Hannah touching a very curious looking, yet cute black butterfly :) and on the right a butterfly has "rested" (??? butterflies don't "sleep!!!!) on my shoulder

• I've started reading (and intend on completing) Timothy Ferriss's The 4 Hour Work Week, am more than fascinated, and thoroughly enjoying it, yet don't have a clue what sort of entrepreneur-type-business I would start, if (a seriously hypothetical "i-f") I were to theoretically (someday) start a business (far down the road from here!)
• After reading many (stupid) books on "self help" (it's always curious to me that people actually pick up these books to help themselves) I've sworn off every and all book with this sub-title donning a semi-perfect-looking-homo-sapien ["stupidstickfigureswithpoofylips... PAH! I am used to" reading about "(for) gods!" (raises hands, dramatically in the air)... like Brother Andrew, Mother Theresa and Corrie Ten Boon]
• There is another book I started reading title... "Living O," I think.... but the author escapes me... It's rather fascinating. A non-fiction, about a 30-something year old gal, who challenges herself to live an entire year off the advice of Oprah Winfrey (to the letter). For someone (like myself) who is not in the loop of cultural fads, this is a highly captivating read, and I'm more than intrigued to complete the book (as soon as mom is done, which should be sometime late-tonight or tomorrow)

I hope that's a good up-date for y'all who are interested... Jeesh... Sorry it's taken me so long to actually log on a write something worth substance! It's been a crazy year (almost four-months into 2010 - isn't that just crazy-insane?)

Something that has crossed my mind, which I've been unable to shake, is a challenge for myself. Totally non-conventional, perhaps a little (lot) crazy and it's not going to get me into any popular nothing (but at the rate I'm going, I've just given up on that all together *laughs*). An idea has struck, bouncing between my ears, settling slightly here and there, but for the most part remaining rather firm (this is usually a good indication to me that God is trying to tell me something, and that I ought to pay heed!). The idea goes something along the lines of this:

• Get "unplugged" for a year: no texting,
• cell phone,
• Facebook (closing my account).
• Not reading any type media that's not immediately relevant to my life now
• Internet,
• news paper,
• magazines.

What I would Hope to Accomplish?

• Being more creative in my research (not using Internet, at all)
• Being more pro-active and deliberate in my search for news, current events and politics (not passive-aggressive, as I see surfing the web and emails appear (to me) to be).
• Face-to-face,
• personal
• one-on-one in my interactions with other people
• Using this as an experiment to see how a semi-young-adult/ post-teenager would "survive."

I would not close my blog account, as this would be a way to "note" the progress/ information that's gathered through this experiment...

Anyhoo, so much to think, do, act upon, say, proclaim, announce... HA HA! But I must go no.

God richly bless and keep you,

Miss Elisabeth

Disclaimer: There have been some complaints about the spelling of my blog (e.g. family, friends, etc.). However, this cannot be helped. I have done my utmost best to correctly spell and use the English Language in the most correct way possible. However, there is not perfect way, and being a person from "the younger generation," I don't see how this can be helped . I do use "spell-check," which is based upon each programmers opinion on the "correct" way to spell a term (the term "correct," itself, is a highly relative term that has little meaning in today's society, I have found, much like the terms "organic," "fashionable," "100% natural" and "normal." If you do not understand what I am saying, please look up these terms in a Websters 1800's dictionary, and compare it to the way modern society defines these terms, then compare these two definitions with the way modern society uses these terms. ) Thank you!