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August 31, 2006
The wit of a son
My sons, being brothers, irritate one another occasionally. Oh, not in a bad or cruel way, just in a "brotherly" way. Well, tonight Stephen was taking his turn at giving his brother some grief. Will says to Stephen, "If you don't stop, you're going to be getting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight"(meaning he was going to knock some teeth out). Stephen said, "Hmmm...I can use some extra cash".
Funny.
Posted by james at 12:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 30, 2006
A child's singing
Few things will touch your heart to it's innermost depths as the sound of your child's voice singing. Today, we're packing up our house for our move across the neighborhood and I have a mixture of hymns and contemporary Christian music playing in the background. Jane Beth has the gift to be able to hear a song and learn it on the first hearing of it. I just heard her singing along with Steven Curtis Chapman's "Up on the mountain".
Pass the tissues, please.
Posted by james at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 29, 2006
Closing and moving
Well, we close on the new house on Thursday and move in on Saturday. I have mixed emotions on this move. I know it's good because we're moving to a bigger house and it has all sorts of things this one doesn't, but forgive me, I'm a guy, and the house we live in now has things that one doesn't such as:
1) The woods are our backyard
2) Great privacy(nearest neighbor is 70 yards away
3) Ability to watch the sunset from the back porch
4) Great climbing trees for the kids
5) Easy in and our for my truck and trailer
6) Full sun on the front porch 8 hours a day for Candice's plants
7) A place for our bees
8) Candice's murals
9) It's home
10) Metal roof
11) My kids can shoot their air rifles in the backyard
12) We're right across the street from our boat
I'm sure I'll like the new house soon enough, I'm just going to miss this one ALOT.
Posted by james at 08:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
A few pictures of the new house
We're closing on a new house in the next week. It's in our same neighborhood, 500 more square feet and a room big enough for a schoolroom(and I get an office, sweet). Here's a few pictures.
This is the front.
Another one of the front...
And one more of the front...
The backyard...no, it's not huge, but when you have a lake and woods to play in...
And the back from the other end of the yard...
Candice is very excited about moving in, as are the boys. I'm getting that way, I just don't like "moving" at all. UGH! Oh well, it will be here and done soon enough, enjoy the ride eh?
Posted by james at 08:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 22, 2006
Longest run
Christin is training for a marathon right now and it made me think of something I did a LONG time ago...like, uh 14 YEARS AGO. I was going through the EIB test in the Army and I was all the way to the final task which was the 12 mile road march. Sounds easy enough right? The catch is, you do it in full combat gear, carrying your M16, wearing your rucksack with 50# in it and enough other weight to simulate a full load of ammunition. Oh, and you have 3 hours to do it. The deal is, you can't walk it, you just won't make it in 3 hours. So you have to run. Yeah, run, with this behemoth on your back and this rifle in your hand. So I'm figuring, I'll just use the strap on the rifle and carry it on my back right? Well, it wants to bounce around everytime I pick 'em up and put 'em down. It gets caught underneath the back of my helmet and pummels me on the back of the neck...enough! I go back to carrying it. Okay, back to running. We got up at 0400 so we could be running by 0530 to miss the heat of the day. Everything, aside from the rifle attacking me, goes smoothly until 0630 when the sun decides to get involved. Wow, I had no idea the sun could be that hot at that time of the morning. But everything is still okay, there is only one soldier in front of me, Sergeant Adam McGary(he wound up finishing in 2 hours and change, GOOD TIME) and I can still see him up ahead. Just keep running and drinking water. Well, about 0700 I ran out of water in both canteens and I threw them to a soldier that was refilling them at mile 9. Another soldier ran to catch up with me and hand the full canteens off to me(I'm feeling a little cocky right about now...9 miles in an hour and a half...I can still see McGary...yeah, I'm going to smoke this thing) and I decide to turn and run backwards to receive the canteens. BAD IDEA. I got the canteens cleanly enough, got them into their holders easy enough, but when I turned to run forward...well, the laws of physics fought me and tried to pull me to the ground. I'd have been okay if I'd just fallen, but I didn't...nosirreeee...I put my leg way out and caught myself and kept running, looking like one of those Russian dancers out of "Fiddler on the Roof". That's when I felt it. My groin muscle. Does anyone know that they have a groin muscle? I didn't until RIGHT THEN. It announced it's presence loudly and with fervor...and a SNAP. "Bad word, nasty word, followed by some standard vulgarities"...oh sure, all too low for anybody else but me and GOD to hear them, but believe me, I said them. So what now? Quit? NO WAY. I figured I'd just be slower but I'd make the 12 miles...after all, I can walk 3 miles in 45 minutes while stopping to talk to neighbors, this will be a cinch. It wasn't the cinch I thought. It was tough and it really hurt. A lieutenant was right there when the "SNAP" happened and he was a medic. We didn't stop but he assessed that I could make it if I just didn't stop. Would you believe that he walked/ran with me the remaining three miles? I got passed by everybody else doing the march(only 4 of us were still in contention for the EIB Badge), but I made it. Time? 2 hours 59 minutes and 52 seconds. After crossing the line, it still hurt, but for the rest of the day, it didn't hurt as bad. To this day, it's probably the award that I'm the most proud of from the military.
So, Christin, throw a pack on your back while you're training and the real deal will be a cinch.
Let me know how that goes. Oh, and don't run backwards.
Posted by james at 07:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 21, 2006
A VERY Good movie
We saw a movie that we are highly recommending. It's called End of the Spear.
I can't say enough about this movie. I realize I'm not a film critic by any stretch of the imagination, but this movie captured my attention from the opening moments and never let me go. I was told the story that it is based on by a friend in college and didn't hear of it again until I saw the movie the week before last.
See this movie.
Posted by james at 11:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Something occurred to me today while I was responding to an email; people have either forgotten how to write letters or they forget to take the time to write properly when they write a letter in email form. Why is this? I get so many emails with no greeting, no closing, no signature, poor or no punctuation and terrible grammar and spelling. Yes, I've misspelled the occasional word myself, but I don't do so regularly and I do employ spellcheck often so as not to embarass myself. I still wonder, when did we declare email as a "non letter"? Do you remember when you'd write a letter to a friend or sweetheart? Would you have dared not started it with "Dear" or "Bill" or "Candice" or their title? Would you have not paid attention to paragraphs? What about run-on sentences? What about grammar? Does it bother anyone that we sometimes come across as writing at less than a 4th grade level in some of our correspondence? Call me weird, but this really gnaws at me, I simply don't understand it. I know that I'm not the one to mention it because I am far from perfect in this department, but since I've thought about it all day long I decided I'd blog it tonight before going to bed. I'm sure I've made a few mistakes in this post, but as it's not a letter to any one person, I'll exempt myself.
Seriously, I'd love to read your thoughts on this...just be sure to use spellcheck.
;)
One more thing, if you've ever commented on any of my posts, you have nothing to worry about, the letter or letters I'm referring to weren't written by any of you.
Posted by james at 11:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Appraising
For those of you that don't know, I've been taking an appraisal course to be able to become an appraiser trainee. I completed it this past weekend with the exception of the final. It's been years since I've read and studied that much and I was surprised how much information it was to absorb. I've had the opportunity to do this before but for whatever reason then, I didn't. I'm thankful for the opportunity again. I still have and will have some lawn accounts, I'm just very ready to not have to do the cleaning for 8to10 hours a day...YES!
Posted by james at 06:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2006
My little lady
Candice took a bunch of pictures when we were in Monroe several weeks ago for a visit and this was one of them.
Looking at this picture, I feel like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof...is this the little girl I carried? I don't know where time has gone...
Posted by james at 11:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
You've got to be joking...
I've been mowing lawns for several years and I had a new one happen the other day. I had mowed a customer's lawn 3 times with no communication from him nor any sight of he, his wife or his family. I left him 2 invoices and one business card, all asking for payment and then finally I stopped mowing a month ago. Well, he calls me the other day and asks why I haven't mowed his lawn. I explained that I'd mowed his lawn for a month and a half with no pay(he only wants it mowed every other week) and wasn't mowing again until I was paid. He said he had been out of town for a couple of weeks. I said that was fine and I asked how his trip had gone. He demanded that I come mow his yard. I told him I'd be happy to as soon as he paid me. He then told me he'd take me to court if I didn't mow his yard immediately, that we have a contract and I wasn't honoring my end of it. I asked him if he'd honored his end of paying after each cutting ever. I finally told him I'd call him back as he was yelling and spitting into the phone.
Sheesh...just an observation, but thus far, every single customer of mine that has ever been difficult has been from out of the country. I guess that they don't have to cut their grass over there.
Posted by james at 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 06, 2006
Some good looking kids
The kids went to Nana and Papaw's a month or so ago and John James learned to swim while they were there. He is now, of course, by his own opinion an "expert swimmer". Candice got a group shot of them.
Posted by james at 08:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2006
Our house now
This is the house we currently live in.
The plants are all Candice's doing...very nice. Do you know that in the almost three years we've lived here, we've never heard a siren, a loud stereo from a car, or seen a car driving more than 20mph in our neighborhood? Pretty cool...
Posted by james at 09:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My first attempt at posting pictures
I hope this works...this is the house we are buying.
Posted by james at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 02, 2006
Our house
Remember how I told ya'll about Candice and I looking at a house on Sunday that we are interested in buying? Well, someone looked at our house on Monday, made a bid on Tuesday, we're signing a purchase agreement today and also signing a purchase agreement to buy the house we'll be moving into tonight as well. This whole thing is surreal...if all continues along, we'll be out of this house and into our "new" house in mid September at the latest.
I'm excited.
Posted by james at 09:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Chris
August 2, 2006 and we have our first storm that's going to enter the Gulf of Mexico. I'm trying not to get nervous but they've already called my dad and told him to be ready to go to Vicksburg. They do that when a hurricane enters the Gulf because the Corps of Engineers needs it's guys to be able to coordinate things from a place not being ravaged by a hurricane.
I don't know about ya'll, but I really don't want to participate in any more hurricaes...EVER!
Posted by james at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack