Category: family

on father’s day i bragged about my dad (and mom) for a second or two. today i would like to brag about my wife and kids. they are wonderfully challenging and cool in general but what i desire to brag about right now is how they made my father’s day great. since we were still getting the house ready to go on the market pam and the boys had been joking that this past sunday would be the least restful father’s day ever. the plan was that i would arrived back from church, eat a father’s day lunch, and then get back to work on the house until we had a college bible study at our house at 7 p.m. once the college kids left pam and i would start work on the house again. it was going to be a busy day. allot of stuff needed to be done around the house and i was just the guy to do it.

well i didn’t get to skip the house work but my wife and kids did make my lunch great. when i started to walk in from finishing our second church service i was stopped at the door by my kids with a present. they told me that i wasn’t allowed to enter the house until i had opened the present. i opened it and was greeted by some cool shorts and a pullover that my oldest son said would make me look almost as good as he does (high praise from a 13 year old). along with the clothes was a poem which said something like:

he stood up against the church
but was smashed by blaine (a reference to a kid in the youth who smashed my last francis statue – though the kids didn’t realize that it wasn’t actually blaine who killed frank)
you’ll find him in the garden
where your dogs have lane

i was then allowed to walk to our backyard porch where i was met with a wonderful st. frank statue (i am enamored with francis of assisi) and a poem underneath his 25 lbs. self. i don’t remember what it exactly said so i’ll have to repost it later but basically it was a hint combining a quilt (a blanket made of lots of different scraps) and the name of our future church “tapestry” (a community made of lots of different people). i walked to the bedroom to find a pencil cup that had been made for me with the name faux-logo of the church and tons of alantis pens and accent liquid highlighters (these pens and highlighters are the best in the world and everyone should go out and buy some). there was also another poem (that i will have to post later when i get home). the point of this poem pointed to our freezer where i had my very own pack of klondike bars. the fam even went so far as to make sure these were hersey and almond klondike bars because i am the only one in the family that likes almonds (there’s no way i can share even if i wanted to).

the day got even better when pam announced that the chocolate chip pound cake she was making for my father’s day lunch wouldn’t be ready till that afternoon so she was pushing my father’s day meal (fried chicken covered in broccoli and cheese with wildrice – a personal favorite) to dinner and she would bring home general tso’s chicken for lunch (another personal favorite). TWO FAVORITE MEALS IN ONE DAY.

even with all the work around the house it was an amazing day.

yes it is father’s day but i thought i would praise both my parents. they are both great and have been wonderful examples for me for what it means to be a good parent. if i weren’t so stinking tired from getting the house in order i would type out a list of what has been great about them but i am really tired so i will limit it to generic bragging. they’re great.

i hope your parents are just as great and that you honored at least one of them today (whether they are still with you or not).

for those of you following the house selling preparation of the terrell home here’s the work we finished on our house today.

• painted adam’s accent wall
• added four more bags of cedar mulch to the landscaping in the front yard
• added two bags of river rock to the walkway in the backyard
• installed curtain hold backs on the living room window
• removed the doogie door enabled storm door from our back door
• straighten up our boxes and worked on moving them into a self storage unit

since we had college bible study at our house last night we weren’t able to do anymore. i know this is boring for most of y’all but i figure this will be an interesting way to keep track of what we do over the two weeks before we place our house on the market.

the work continues over the next week.

roux has now been a stray for at least two weeks (he may have been gone from his house for longer for all we know). we’ve advertised finding him in every manner that we can think of – from signs to an add in the newspaper. so we’ve reach the point where we are going to start his heartworm treatment and claim him as a member of the terrell family. roux is now officially one of us.

now we no longer have to say “can i get a roux, roux?” because we already have one. 🙂

we might have a new member of our family – we’ll know in a week. one of our neighbors had a stray basset start hanging out at their house about 5 days ago. they advertised the found dog, searched the papers, and drove around with the dog looking for an owner or lost dog sign. unfortunately, the little guy was extremely thin and had a collar but no tags (a typical sign of a dog that has been dropped off). they weren’t sure what to do with the little guy. when we heard about him we quickly decided we would take him in and have him checked for a microchip at our vet. i took him into our vet today and had him checked out. turns out the little guy has heart worms and intestinal worms. our vet agrees that he has probably been dropped off. so the plan for this cute little basset right now is to advertise in the local paper for one week that he has been found. if we still don’t find an owner after we advertise then we’ll probably adopted the little guy. he is a great little guy who is pretty shy. we’re calling him roux.

pam and my love for homemade salsa has taken a new turn. yesterday i decided to plant a container salsa garden on our back porch. i don’t really have all the ingredients planted (i skipped the garlic and the onion) but i have the main ones (roma tomatoes, serrano peppers, and cilantro). the main problem is that my back porch is shady and the plants need full sun light for much of the day. i’m going to spend the next week moving them around trying to find the best light. in about 70 days i should be able to make salsa from scratch just by walking onto my back porch. my grandparents would have been proud.

as a kid i remember my grandfather being so proud because he was growing a tomato-potato in his backyard garden. it grew tomatoes above ground and potatoes below ground. he got a huge kick out of it and loved telling people about it. i just thought it was strange.

just in case you are curious my salsa recipe is located here

here’s are a couple of free links just for the fun of it.

• what’s the best way to break up a bank robbery? be nice to the robbers.
• google maps directions from new york to london look at step #23
• beauty tips for ministers – because nobody wants a cromagnum in the pulpit.
• a compelling story of two cia agents held in china for 20 years after their first mission in 1952.

[tags]salsa garden, salsa, tomato-potato, bank robbery, cia agents[/tags]

pam and i have some great neightbors – or at least the ones we know are great because we have one neighbor that may be a vampire, but that’s a story for another time. next door ms. helen is a wonderful. she always has a kind word and is fun to talk with. across the street will and andre have always been people that we enjoy having over to our house and being at theirs.

that is until today.

this morning they began painting their house. i would be okay with them painting their house if it didn’t mean that we will now have to paint our house. miss helen painted hers two years ago and while salmon pink is not my favorite color it definitely looks freshly painted. the vampire lives on the other side of our house and since he is most probably undead his house is supposed to look the way it does (it’s a way of warning people that a vampire lives there – kind of like the bright colors on those poison arrow frogs). this left will and andre’s house to match our house. neither one of our houses are in bad shape but they are both showing the slight frays that say “i’m going to need a paint job soon.” i was depending on will and andre’s house as my excuse for not painting our house. but no they have to go and ruin everything by giving their house a fresh coat of paint.

the only options i see for solving this are:

1. paint the house – this is not my favorite solution
2. become vampire and join undead neighbor – i think there is probably something in the vampire code against having to lords of the night on the same street
3. burn down will andre’s house

option three seems to be the best one so i will start making the arrangements now

SIDE NOTE – my parents have been riding my back about not blogging enough and now that i have become a blogging fool again they haven’t said a word. for shame! 🙁

SIDE SIDE NOTE – it’s friday the 13th. yeah. friday the 13th’s hold a special place in my heart since noah, my youngest, was born on a friday the 13th. we probably should have named him jason because of that fact.
[tags]paint, housework, vampires[/tags]

i know it’s clichéd but in 1978 my family did really drive to caliornia (from alabama) in vw bus and the bus did actually catch on fire (only minorly). we had a cb in the bus that we used to talk to trucks, i slammed the sliding door on my brother’s index finger and broke it, and yes we did visit the grand canyon during our journey (i’m fairly sure my parents still have the petrified wood bookends). every now and then i am almost convinced that every travel/vacation movie has some how stolen my life.