Learning to Lean

I'm pretty sure that most of y'all who read this regularly are aware that my family's going through some trials at the moment. Particularly, my brother Ben. I have no intention of delving into the specifics here, but I do feel like it's a good place to sound off, so to speak, about everything.

Mostly, I go through phases of anger/frustration, indifference, and occasionally acceptance. You would think that if I've managed to accept these burdens before, I should still be accepting of them now. Unfortunately, that's just not the case. I mean, I'll be in a good "trust in the Lord" phase & then I get fed up & revert to anger, closely followed by frustration. Of course the logical part of my brain knows that this is the influence of the Adversary, but the rest of me just feels like I've been dragged behind a semi for the past 15 months! Emotionally, that is.

And then I become desensitized. While these are the times that I feel the most "normal" & like I can handle the rest of my life (medical school's no picnic), I come out of it feeling infinitely worse than ever because Mama & Daddy don't get to just tune it all out when it gets to be too much. So I feel guilty that I'm not "in the trenches" with them, in spirit at least if not in person. Cue breakdown.

You know the thing about it though? It seems that all of us are going through similar cycles & thankfully they don't tend to line up! So when I'm in a bad place & really upset, Mama and/or Daddy are being strong & can help me. Also, I'm learning to rely on my Heavenly Father for strength & comfort. I'm blessed to have so many people in my life who are great examples in this respect, in and out of the church. It's a hard lesson for me, to be sure. I'm not good at asking for help & even if I do, I often don't really exercise the faith necessary to receive those blessings. (And that goes for faith in other people as much as in Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ.) But I'm learning & trying every day to do better.

Thanks for your help, even if you didn't know you were giving it!

St. George Island

My grandparents love us very much. As a result, they have been taking our whole family to the beach for the past 15 some odd years! I still can't believe it's been that long. Anyways, it's quite the operation to find a suitable house for 10 people & actually get us all down there! For the past several years, my brother's friend Ben has joined us, which is good since Ben's the only grandson among granddaughters! (Yes, they're both named Ben.) We've been going to St. George Island off the coast of Florida near Apalachicola and we love it. We're usually too busy relaxing to take tons of pictures, but here's a few to give you an idea!

The picturesque view from the dining room. Sitting at the table looking out this seemed, to me, to be the epitome of tranquility & bliss. It was hard to get the picture to do it justice...




Sea turtles nest here each summer. While we're quite familiar with the "light out for sea turtles" mantra, this was the first year we'd actually seen fresh tracks & nests. Very exciting!




Family swim time! What you can't see are the mega water guns that Ben & Ben are hiding underwater. Claire's helpfully pointing out a potential beach-walking target for their Stealth Attack. Sadly, none of us actually had the guts to shoot at unsuspecting strangers. Though Mama & Nancy fell victim a few times! Notice the distance they've placed between themselves & the rowdy childrens.


Ma being positively perplexed by the remote control. In her defense, the batteries died by the end of the week so it's entirely possible that it was not behaving properly at this moment in time!




Beautiful & delicious roasted vegetables courtesy of Emi. We like to take pictures of food in our family...especially when it's so colorful!





Cousin kitchen loafing. Notice how Mama & Nancy are in constant motion while we're on standby to help out as necessary. The appropriate soundtrack to this picture is Fox News making a valiant effort to overpower our chatting. I know open kitchens are all the rage, but there are serious acoustic issues with such a floor plan! On another note, Claire's holding a paper towel in preparation for...

...this! Apparently, she was trying to get it over her head without breaking to make a sort of collar. She almost made it, too!





Claire contemplating what went wrong with the paper towels. Or wondering why they won't release season 3 of Pete & Pete on DVD. Both very much worth pondering. She turned 18 a couple weeks ago...Happy Birthday, Claire!



Brother Ben totally passed out from a long day of beach activities. Isn't the sunglasses tan hot? ;-) Hey, it's inevitable, we know.





Fuqua was also quite sleepy. Too sleepy in fact to put on pants! Thankfully, neither he nor my brother read my blog, so my life is in no immediate danger!






Well, that's all folks! As we've gotten older, the future of the family beach trip has become more & more uncertain. We have reservations for next summer though, so it seems we'll go at least one more year. Depending on when I decide to take the boards, I may or may not be joining them. We'll see. Cross your fingers!

Daddy's Hand

Warning: Some images may not be suitable for the squeamish. Parental discretion is advised.

So a few posts (& about a month) ago I described the Hand Incident of 2008 starring Ken Wehunt & an old hay baler. Here's the pictorial account:

The middle joint of this finger got fractured from the pressure.

Apparently, this was quite the impressive stitch job considering how it started.

Thankfully, he's healing very well. The stitches are out & most of the dead skin fell off at the beach, so it looks good! Physical therapy was an adventure...they're still very sore. Thanks for all y'all's prayers & concern!

Meet Electra

She is my new kitten! Isn't she adorable?

A 4th year at MCG found her outside her barn & emailed the school to try to find her a home. I caved when I saw the picture! She's 8 weeks old, litter-trained (thankfully), & every bit a calico mischief-maker! The family that had her for a few days started calling her Electra for her habit of tearing through the house like she got electrocuted. And she totally lives up to her name! Man, that late-night crazy kitten thing is hilarious! A bit annoying after a few minutes, mostly the attacking of everything that moves including me, but still fun! She was chasing her own tail earlier...then she fell off the couch. Hilarious!

Everyone's asking about my guinea pig, Sanguini, & how it's going to work out. So far, they've been introduced twice without incident. She is very interested in prowling around his cage, however, & occasionally reaches through the holes to try to swat him. He seems completely nonplussed about the entire situation. He doesn't run away, nothing! If anything he's been more active since Electra's been here than before! She did learn to jump into his cage last night, which I decided wasn't such a good plan, so I made Sanguini a roof. I'm convinced that they can be friends. Though I admit it might take him giving her a good strong nip to get the message across! It's a work in progress.

I've wanted to get a kitty for a while now. In fact, Daddy tried to talk me into giving Sanguini away last fall in exchange for a kitten. But alas, I've had him for almost 3 years now so I'm attached. We're buds. He's staying. Still, it seemed like the right time to take on another 4-legged friend & thus I read the fated email. And so...come meet Electra!