Volunteer State Festivals

Hello, F.O.T.E.s,
I don't know what it's like where you live, but down in TN, they know how to have a community festival. This past month, I've spent a good bit of time down there, trying to get the house sold. In our spare time, we attended a few community festivals. One of them celebrated the soybean. We ran into several dear friends there--it was great. We enjoyed funnel cakes.
After that was Doodle Soup Days. We sampled doodle soup (kinda like bbq chicken with a dipping sauce) and had Dippin' Dots. Carnival scaled a climbing wall, sponsored by the National Guard.
A week later, we visited the Dulcimer Festival. Strangely missing was food...? They were, evidently, very serious musicians. The powdered sugar might be bad for the instruments.
Months earlier, we attended the Fiddlesticks Festival. Fiddlesticks are basically ice cream on a stick, covered with chocolate. Not a bad way to spend several hundred calories. ;-) This one was crowned King of the Festivals by my flock. Their reasons: all the rides were free, the crowd was small, ICE CREAM, and Wimpy's. Wimpy's is a restaurant in that town that makes the best burgers. And huge! The regular Wimpy is a 1 pound, hand pressed patty! The Jr. Wimpy is a half pound and the "Baby Wimpy" is a quarter pound. EEK! That's one big baby! The fries come in a huge basket. One order fed my whole flock. So, what was the price for this gut-wrenching, artery clogging amount of food? Less than a trip to McDonald's. ! Yeah...the Lambies have discovered "haute cuisine!" :-)
You know, after analyzing all our data on the Great TN Festival Road Trip, it appears that Tennesseans, 1) know how to party and 2) love food!
Gotta run...
Y'all keep your wool dry!
The Ewe


Quote of the Day: "Those other girls got the music...YOU got the musician." :-)
A dear friend's husband, defending himself of his wife's accusations that he wrote his other high school girlfriends love songs, but never wrote her one.

Ewe Ever Dance?

...This Ewe did yesterday. Mr. FedEx man brought me a check. From the sale of our house! Sweet success! It's been 4 years in the making. Whew!
Yup. I did the Happy Dance right there on the driveway.
Y'all keep your wool dry,
The Ewe

Quote of the Day:
"WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

The GrandRams...

...Are home. Continue to pray for them as they decompress.

The Ewe


Quote of the Day: Lovable, had just asked me what that 'funny looking underwear in the catalog' was. I explained that it's special underwear that helps a lady look more trim. Understanding brightened her face and she replied, "OH! So, it's a griddle!" (that's no typo) :-)

My Heroes Have Always Been...

...normal folks. Nita, Tanisha and Ernestine, you rate. :-)


This is from Foxsnews.com:

"At the convention center, people stumbled toward the helicopters, dehydrated and nearly passing out from exhaustion. Many had to be carried by National Guard troops and police on stretchers. Some were being pushed up the street on office chairs and on dollies.

Nita LaGarde, 105, was pushed down the street in her wheelchair as her nurse's 5-year-old granddaughter, Tanisha Blevin, held her hand. The pair spent two days in an attic, two days on an interstate island and the last four days on the pavement in front of the convention center.

"They're good to see," LaGarde said, with remarkable gusto as she waited to be loaded onto a gray Marine helicopter. She said they were sent by God. "Whatever He has for you, He'll take care of you. He'll sure take care of you."

LaGarde's nurse, Ernestine Dangerfield, 60, said LaGarde had not had a clean adult diaper in more than two days.

"I just want to get somewhere where I can get her nice and clean," she said. "


Faithful nurses, doctors, soldiers, and elderly folks...Those are the heroes.

Keeping my wool dry and keeping the faith,
The Ewe

What Can *I* Do?

Hello, F.O.T.E.'s,
As pictures and stories come to us from the Gulf States, some of you have probably had the thought *I* did yesterday--"...but what can *I* do?" My in-laws are actually down there, helping provide food and comfort. (Also, my husband is 7,000 miles away, doing his part to promote Democracy.) And I'm here, making peanut butter sandwiches. :-)
Now, I do plan to collect items to send (check out the website below), and I do plan to send a monetary gift, but we all like to feel we had a personal impact on situations like this. A friend encouraged me yesterday, "You've got family off doing these big things and you're left behind. But you keep being positive--keep on keeping on." Oh, how that made me smile. I thought a lot about that. I realized that it's all a matter of *knowing* what your job is. My calling is to raise up these little ones and hold down the fort while The Ram is gone. Now, we will incorporate our "relief efforts" into our life here--collecting items, etc--but, since I know where I'm supposed to be, I can keep my priorities straight. Yes, there is something attractive about doing the dramatic things. But I'm called to be faithful to my mission. Our soldiers overseas can't rush home to help our Gulf Coast brothers and sisters. They have a mission there, as *I* have mine here.
Thinking about this last night, I heard a little whisper in my heart, "Ewe, you could be feeding those peanut butter sandwiches to the future engineer that will solve New Orleans' problem once and for all. You could be feeding those sandwiches to a future Coast Guardman who will pluck people from danger. You could be feeding those sandwiches to the scientist who will discover a cure for cancer. You could be feeding those sandwiches to the mother or father of the person who God uses to usher in the next Great Awakening." OH, isn't that exciting? But what if I'm feeding those sandwiches to a future restaurant manager? Or truck driver?
Remember the movie "It's a Wonderful Life?" I love how it points out that we *all* impact our world. We may never know the extent of it, but that doesn't matter. In the big picture, we're all just "a vapor." But we're vapors who can mean the difference to some other "vapors." :-)
So, what can *I* do? First off, I can pray. I can ask The Commander daily what He has for me to do in that day. I can remain faithful and steadfast in my calling. In that context, we will also reach out to the people in such desperate conditions.
Well, gotta run...I've got some peanut butter sandwiches to make...
Y'all keep your wool dry,
The Ewe

For information on giving monetary gifts and in-kind donations:

http://www.tnbaptist.org/