At 5:30 a.m. my county issued a mandatory evacuation for our zip code … we are supposed to evacuate by 10:00 a.m. this morning.  I have gathered up our personal papers, my business papers, and Jami’s homeschool materials on our dining table.  I still have to put my photo albums and negatives in a couple of plastic boxes and throw some clothes in a bag.  Load up the truck and Jeep with all this, then crate up all the animals for the trek to my sister’s house.  While not the ideal situation, she lives further inland than we do and with all our critters (3 dogs, 6 indoor kitties, 2 outdoor kitties) there’s not a hotel in the state that will take us.  I’m just praying that later in the day they do not issue a mandatory evacuation for her zip code.  I don’t think they can “make” you leave, but basically if you ignore the “mandatory” evac order, you are on your own if something catastrophic happens.  They will not send anyone to help you.

I have to go for now … much to do before we leave, but your prayers are appreciated.

This storm is making me a wee bit nervous.  Okay, a lot nervous.  We keep “escaping” a direct hit … Katrina, Rita, Gustav …. it’s only a matter of time before our number is up.   We still have water, canned goods, that kind of thing.  But to tell you the truth … we’re a measly 8 miles from the beach and the only thing between us and the beach is a saltwater marsh wild life refuge.  Sigh.  I’d probably stay here through a tropical storm, or possibly even a Cat 1 hurricane.  But anything stronger than that, I’d feel mighty inclined to head a little further inland.  I just don’t know that our 60 year old, frame house with cement siding is up to handling a major storm.

And I’d much rather err on the side of caution … evacuate and come home to find all is okay, rather than stay here and wish I’d done the sensible thing and evacuated when I had the chance.

Any of you remember this photo?

This is a house a few blocks down from ours after a particularly good rain storm about a year or so ago.  Not even a “tropical storm” … granted, it’s so dry around here right now, the ground might soak it up a lot faster, but as much rain as tropical storms and hurricanes dump, I’m not sure it’s a good gamble.  We didn’t have a flooded yard when this happened, but who knows what might happen with Ike?

I’ll be checking in with ya’ll later.

Read the entire article, but note this little bit that really tickled my funny bone (notable bits are in boldface):

Tyrell has such a lovely rhythm to his writing:

Stupendously predictable … I’m going to be looking for an excuse to use that phrase … for some strange reason, it just pleases my ear.

I haven’t even finished reading about your adventure in the College Bookstore (or the Bookstore at the College), but I HAD to quote you … this was a great line and one that will make me chuckle for several days (being the caffeine addict that I am).  Have a great one!

Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 92. Heat index values as high as 105. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south.

Oh, Lord … send winter and send it quickly ….

This is Hysterical … I took a minute to read a few columns and this one absolutely cracked me up. Enjoy:

Vlad, You’ve Got Mail
Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

From President George W. Bush:

Dear Vlad:

Beijing is weird. First of all, you can’t breathe the air.
Second, how ’bout those drummers? Sure, they’re perfect, but that’s the
point. A billion Chinese see 2,000 drummers in sync and say, “Well
done, my little emperor son.” I see 2,000 drummers all moving with one
motion and I’m thinking: “Whoa.” Can anybody say MIL-I-TAR-Y PRE-CI-SION?

Hey, which reminds me. What’s up with Georgia? This is not
good, Vlad. You and I have had our moments. And, OK, fine, your dog’s
bigger than mine. A lot bigger. Stronger and faster, too. We got it.
But you can’t just go invading democratically elected countries that
are U.S. allies. You can’t have everything, Vlad. If you don’t stop,
I’m going to have to do something and you know I don’t want that. What
I want is for you to not make me look like a fool.

Look, Vlad. Seven years ago, it was you and me in Crawford. We
had a blast. You loved my truck! We bonded. I went out on a very big
limb and told the whole dadgum world that we were soul mates. “I looked
the man in the eye,” I said. “I found him to be very straightforward
and trustworthy,” I said. Oh, yeah, and, “We had a very good dialogue.
I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Trustworthy, Vlad. Got soul? Why not just hire the Goodyear
Blimp and paint “Mission Accomplished” on the side? Here’s the deal,
Vlad. I love ya, man. But you gotta stop this. If you don’t call a
cease-fire and leave those Georgians alone, I’m going to have to whomp
you upside the head. Just kiddin.’ But you know how this looks. Your
invasion of a sovereign neighboring state is unacceptable in the 21st
century — blahblahblah — and you’re hurting Russia’s standing in the
world, not to mention our relationship.

Oh, and by the way. We’re talking 4 million people here. Four
million, Vlad. You wanna let the big dog eat? Fine. Pick on somebody
your own size. And yes, your pecs are bigger than mine. Whatever. Hey,
gotta split. It’s Kobe time. Take care and give my love to that cute
little gymnast of yours.

Ciao amigo,

Bushy

P.S. Did you catch the American women’s beach volleyball team?

From Sen. Barack Obama:

Dear (Former) President Putin:

I’m sorry to be writing this e-mail instead of meeting you in
person, preferably in the Oval Office, where I belong. Soon, soon.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the foregoing, I felt it
imperative that I express my deep concern about Russia’s invasion of
the tiny, democratically elected sovereign nation of Georgia. It would
appear that you are not familiar with my platform for change and hope.
War does not fit into this template and I am quite frankly at a loss
for words to express my deep, deep distress.

As the chosen leader of a new generation of Americans who
speak a global language of peace, hope, harmony and change, this is
simply unacceptable. Quite frankly, your actions pose potentially
severe, long-term consequences. I’m not sure what those might be, but
they won’t be nice or fun.

Please picture me looking very serious when I say that I
respectfully request you to calm down. Life is but a flicker in time
and we’re but actors strutting and fretting. That is to say, we’re all
on this planetary journey together and our karma is interrelated and
interdependent. Thus, it would seem that our differences are best
resolved through words, not bombs.

It is said that war is a failure of diplomacy. I would submit
that it is also counterintuitive. If my Kenyan father and my Kansan
mother and my multinational upbringing taught me anything, it is that
we are all One. That said, I am The One the world has been waiting for
— and you are, quite frankly, blocking my chi.

As soon as possible, I’d like to sit down and begin talking
about how we can resolve these and other differences that threaten
peace-loving people, which I’m sure includes you. I haven’t looked into
your eyes and would never presume to know your soul, but I do know that
we share a common humanity and that we can all just get along.

Yours in Global Harmony,

Acting President Barack Obama

From Sen. John McCain:

Hey, Putin.

Don’t make me come over there.

McCain

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

1.  I’d really appreciate your prayers regarding a relationship in my life … I’ve been fairly upbeat in my posts regarding my family.  Just reporting on the good stuff, keeping the other stuff to myself.  Part of this is because my family is pretty fractured … not much relationship with anyone else but my sister.  Well, this is the relationship that I’m asking for prayer for … because of time constraints I can’t go into everything right now, but this past weekend she really hurt me.  And I’m having a difficult time getting past it, overlooking it, forgiving it.  I know that I’m not the perfect sister, but I have tried to be there for her following her divorce eight years ago.  She lived with us for a time, then moved to our mom’s … during this time we owned the blind business together, and while her nursing school schedule and then her work schedule did not permit her to go on every client appointment, I always split the profits of the business with her 50/50.  It was my way of helping out.  Then a couple of years ago, she “retired” from the business.  But I have still tried to help out by sending our mom money when I could, watching the kids when I could …

I know that my sister has gotten “stuck” with the less pleasant parts of caring for our mother.  Because they only live about 10 minutes from each other, she is much more “accessible” and therefore, Mom calls on her to do more (our mother does not drive due to impaired vision issues).  I don’t know if my sister is going through a mid-life crisis or what (she’s only 35), but lately she does not return calls for days and gets irritated if you say anything about it.  Our kids got into a little tiff recently and I thought we had resolved some issues when we worked through that.  But apparently not.  I had been trying to reach her for four days to find out if they wanted to come to church with us on Sunday and then spend Sunday afternoon with us … I left a very specific message at her office on Friday giving the reason for my call.  The receptionist said, “I’m going to hang up on you and she’s going to call you back on the cordless.”  I waited AN HOUR for the return call, only for her to finally call me, laugh and say “Can I call you back in a little while?”

She never called me back.

On Saturday, I wasn’t feeling too well and was home alone.  She called and before I could get to the phone the answering machine picked up.  She left a message saying, “I’m sorry, I crashed last night, I’m on my way to Melissa’s for the weekend, she’d already asked … the kids are at Mom’s, love you, bye.”

I tried to call her within a couple of minutes of her leaving the message and I’m assuming she’d turned her phone off, because I called back probably 7 or 8 times and every time it went to her voicemail.  The last time I left a message, an angry, HURT message that I’d been trying to reach her for four days and she could have had the decency to call me and tell me she already had plans so we could get on with our weekend plans ourselves.

I haven’t heard back from her and it’s Tuesday.

I think that in addition to being an “orphan” (our parents are totally not parents), I am now an only child, too.  I think part of what is so disturbing about this is that in our conversation after the kids’ tiff, she made a really big deal about not letting anything damage our relationship because our family has disintegrated to such a small number due to feuding between members.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why she would say all that and then treat me like this.

2.  Out of Pocket for a while … our homeschool group starts co-op classes on Thursday, so I will be getting ready for that.  I’ll be checking in every so often as time permits.

Thanks again for your prayers.

comes from a very good article written by Chuck Norris.  You can read it in its entirety here.

I ran across this article in my email box earlier this evening:  “According to Christian broadcaster and author Tom McMahon, Pastor Rick Warren will be hosting an interfaith meeting next month with
30 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders “to discuss cooperation for
the common good of all Americans.” Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. plan mobilizes
churches to address global problems.”

Hmmmm …. as I contemplate this, a snippet of scripture comes to mind and I pull out my trusty Bible to see if I can find it. 

Jeremiah 6:14 says, “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.  ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.”  (NIV)

Basically, Warren is ignoring the hemorrhagic wound that is sin.  If you look at the tragedies that are poverty, disease, destruction, and death … these are the end result of man’s propensity to sin.  I do not have time to write a lengthy dissertation on my observations, and I’d like to include a brief disclaimer here that there are situations in which people are stricken by such as these with little apparent reason.  But hear me out as I comment in a “off the top of my head” fashion:

A.  Poverty:

2 Thes 3:6-10 warns us against idleness.

There are so many who would rather sit on their backsides and wait for the handout, whining about how poor they are, when they are capable of earning their keep.  Nurturing envy for things they are too lazy to work for.  Becoming consumed with bitterness bred by envy.   Is it my imagination, or do other countries dislike America so because for a time we exemplified the hard work ethic that allowed our citizens to succeed?  Not so much now that we’ve become a welfare state, apologizing for the “hardships” that so many of our citizens willingly choose to endure due to their lack of initiative.  Poverty is the fruit of idleness and idleness is a sin.

B.  Disease:

A disease that is mentioned numerous times in the scriptures is leprosy.  When I looked leprosy up in my concordance, it said “a severe skin disease, figurative of moral or spiritual disease …”  There are many that suffer various illnesses due to their lack of self-control — obesity or diabetes based upon self-indulgence, emphysema or lung cancer because of an addiction to tobacco, STD’s due to similar “if it feels good, do it” attitudes …

C.   Destruction:

Greed, hunger for power, hatred for man based on skin color or ancestry … a short list, as I am certain there are many other motivations for the desire to destroy another human being, or an entire nation.  And none of these motivations are based in love.

D.  Death:

Proverbs 14:12 (NIV)