I hate snakes.

We went outside to check on the chickens and look for eggs. When I got near the coop, I noticed that one of our chicks was loose. That was odd because they were pretty secure in the little coop we had them in. S helped me catch it and we went in the main fenced in chicken yard to put it back.

There was a snake in the coop. I’m still not 100% sure how this chick got out, but it must’ve been pretty frantic to get away from the snake.

That snake made me mad. We incubated and hatched those chicks ourselves. And the snake killed one of them.

I’m not as brave as Stephen is – there’s no way I was going to catch the thing. I headed back into the house to get the pellet gun.

It took me several shots before I hit it enough to really injure it. I guess I need to work on my marksmanship a bit more because it was definitely close range! I finally shot that snake though!

Now I’m just hoping it’s actually dead so that Stephen can dispose of it when he gets home. There’s just not enough bravery here today for me to do it.

S stood outside the coop, away from me since I had the gun. He kept asking me, “You gonna kill that snake, Mama?” Oh yes, son, I am going to kill that snake!

Those snakes better watch out – you don’t mess with my animals!

Last week I was pretty happy that I hadn’t gotten the cold that Stephen and little S had. Apparently I was a bit too cocky too soon, because it hit me yesterday.

Unfortunately, although we had cold medicine in the house, none of it was approved for pregnancy. When Stephen got home from work, I headed for CVS. I still had a few Extra Care Bucks left over from a great sale/coupon deal a week or so ago, so I figured I’d get generic medicine and see if I could get it for as little out of pocket as possible. As far as cash was concerned, there was only a dollar in my purse so I really had motivation to be careful.

The cold medicine was cheaper than I anticipated, so I grabbed a box of tissues. It still wasn’t enough to meet my ECB amount. Since I couldn’t remember anything else we needed around the house, I headed for the makeup and picked up a lip gloss similar to the one that I use all the time that is almost gone. It still wasn’t enough. Then I went to the candy aisle, found a HUGE Symphony bar, totalled it up in my head, and headed to check out.

After the cashier rang everything up, it STILL wasn’t enough to use my ECB. The thing about it is that they can’t complete the transaction if it ends in the negative, so you have to buy enough merchandise to bring the balance up. Even if it’s only a few cents. So I grabbed a bag of M&M’s, thinking they would be enough – but they were on sale (on bummer, lol!) and still didn’t bring the balance out of the negative.

By the time I walked out of the store, I had bought a package of cold medicine, a box of tissues, lip gloss, a Symphony bar, and four bags of M&M’s. My total out of pocket expense was $.19. That definitely made me happy!

S doesn’t know it, but there’s a bag on the kitchen counter with chocolate in it for him to enjoy later. It was so much fun to be able to get treats like that for my family!

I’m thankful for the way that God provided – I know everyone gets sick at some time or another, but it was nice not having to buy the medicine and pay a whole lot for it!

S is such a chatterbox. Right now he’s singing about how he loves Jesus and frogs and. . .

Let’s see if I can remember all of it.

“I like frogs and toads and turtles and Jesus and my van and squirrels and my Buddy (our dog) and my chickens and Jesus and the Lord and . . .”

I learned something this morning. You can’t jump a van’s battery by using your riding lawn mower. We tried it.

Stephen went to leave for work this morning and discovered that the van door had been left open all night and the battery was completely dead. Needless to say, I felt terrible (S and I went to town last night). We tried to jump the van off the mower. Unfortunately the mower just wasn’t strong enough.

Stephen’s parents live nearby, so when his dad got ready for work, he came over here and helped him start the van. I’m thankful that he could come!

I have a feeling that the next time I drive the van, I’ll be checking more carefully to be sure all the doors are closed!

Yesterday we were sitting in the living room and I noticed that for some reason, my computer had restarted. I don’t know if S had bumped it (that’s happened before) or what. I didn’t really give it a lot of thought.

Then this morning I went to work on the pictures from the retreat this weekend that I was working on yesterday. Well, I had done a lot of work, but hadn’t saved anything yet – so every single picture I had attempted to edit has been lost. The originals are still there, but not the editing and resizing.

What is more aggravating to me than that though is that I’m usually saving my progress every couple of minutes. Can you tell I’ve lost valuable work before? :O) But for some reason, yesterday I didn’t.

*sigh* Off to edit those photos again!

Oh wow – the Fruitful Vine Preacher’s Wives Retreat was SO good! I really enjoyed being able to help get things ready, but I really enjoyed being able to hear each of the speakers as well. It was a blessing in so many ways.

I don’t know what God has in store for our family, but since He has called my husband to preach, I know He has something planned. It was great to be able to sit and listen – I felt like a sponge trying to soak up as much as I could.

Now my big project for the next few days will be to take the 80 pictures I took, edit them, and post them on the Fruitful Vine Newsletter site. . .

I sent S to the bathroom to go one last time before he went to bed. He was taking longer than he should have, so I went in there to see what he was doing.

He was standing on the bathroom counter, coloring the mirror with the bar of soap and wiping the soapy water everywhere.

I did help him clean it up, but hopefully he learned that when he makes a mess, he cleans it up himself.

How in the world does a mama not burst out laughing?

This – all coming from a little boy who just took my empty cake plate and took it to the kitchen to pick up for me. . .and he’s only three and a half. . .

We keep a cooler in the back of the van to keep cold foods cold on the way home from grocery shopping. It really helps here in the Carolinas, especially when we go to more than one store in a trip (which is pretty normal for us).

Last night we brought the cooler in to unload inside the house. It was still in the house this morning when S woke up. After his bath, he noticed the cooler and decided to play in it.

When I told him to get out of the cooler, his answer was that he was “just swimmin.” I could barely contain my laughter. Then he discovered that it was funny and he crawled inside and shut the lid. “Mama, I’m hiding!”

I really don’t like for him to play in the cooler, so I try to keep it in the van and not in the house to tempt him. When he told me he was swimming in it though, well, I couldn’t help but laugh.

One reason I’ve been a bit scarce here lately is I’ve been working on a BIG project for my pastor’s wife. She publishes a newsletter for Pastor’s Wives called The Fruitful Vine Newsletter. Recently, she decided that she wanted to put it all online.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on designing the site for her and putting all the newsletters on it. The site isn’t completely done yet, but I am very happy with what is done so far. Hopefully it will be completely done in the next couple of weeks.

The Fruitful Vine Newsletter

Another related project is that our church (and the newsletter) is hosting a Preacher’s Wives’ Retreat next week. It’s for all ladies married to a preacher – whether they be a pastor’s wife, a missionary’s wife, an evangelist’s wife, or a preacher’s wife.

It’s been so amazing to watch as registration forms have been mailed in! There have been more coming in than we imagined would come, and it is getting so exciting!

If you’d like more information about the retreat, head on over to the Fruitful Vine Newsletter Preacher’s Wives’ Retreat page. If you’re interested in coming, you can download a registration form from that page as well.

I can’t wait to see how it goes!

Recently, someone over at Prairie Homemaker posted a link to instructions for how to turn a pair of jeans into a skirt. I had seen instructions before that added a panel in the front and back, but these instructions included directions to add panels to the sides as well.

It’s been so long since I’ve worn jeans that I asked on Freecycle for some clothes, hoping someone would have some jeans they’d be willing to part with. Thankfully, there was someone, and we picked up a bag of jeans from her on the way home from my doctor appointment Monday evening. All three pairs of jeans fit me, so I picked the pair that was the most comfortable to start with.

After that, I searched through my stash of old clothes, looking for something denim that I could cut into that would hopefully match the jeans. I found an old jumper that never fit right and was never flattering, and started cutting.

I am SO pleased with how it turned out. I love denim skirts, but haven’t been able to find one that would work for me right now. The skirts I’ve been wearing have been the same ones that I wear to church. With going into the chicken coop and the goats’ pen, I always worried that I would ruin a good skirt.

This is the result. I absolutely love it!

You can see the skirt tutorial here. It’s very detailed. It took me a while with the first panel, trying to figure out how the seams would lay, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. It was pretty involved, and took me a lot longer than I anticipated – about six hours start to finish. Then again, that six hours includes doing laundry and making breakfast and getting coloring stuff out for S and letting him “help” me and making lunch and. . .

I can definitely see me making more jeans into skirts. Khakis would be nice too. . .the possibilities are limitless!