In an effort to help outsiders understand the rural Midwesterner's mind ...

Because of misunderstandings that frequently develop when Easterners and Californians cross into states such as Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, the Tourism Councils in those states have adopted a new policy. In an effort to help outsiders understand the rural Midwesterner's mind, the following list will be handed to each person as they enter the states.

• That big-shouldered farm boy back there did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.
• It's called a "gravel road". No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Navigator. I have a four wheel drive because I need it. Drive it or get it out of the way.
• We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we shot Bambi, we got over it.
• Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't cry to us when a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those little 13 inch trout you fish for - "bait".
• Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.
• If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.
• No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey. Yeah, we have sweet tea. It comes in a glass with two packets of sugar and a long spoon.
• You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.
• So, you have a sixty thousand dollar car. We're real impressed. We have quarter of a million dollar combines that we use four weeks a year.
• Let's get it straight. We have one stop light in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
• Our women hunt, fish, and drive trucks - because they want to. So, you're a feminist. Isn't that cute.
• Yeah, we eat catfish, carp too - and turtle. Your really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.
• They are hogs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 80 goes two ways. Highway 75 goes the other two. Pick one and use it accordingly.
• The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season. It's a religious holiday. You can get breakfast at the church.
• So every person in every pickup waves. It's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
• Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish.
• That officer, be it conservation officer, sheriff deputy, city police, or highway patrol that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot - his name is "Sir" no matter how young he is.
  

Book-a-minute classics!

I find these very funny.

Here's a sample for you: A Tale of Two Cities in Book-a-Minute form. :)

Doctor released,
Marquis deceased,
Darnay acquitted,
Monarchy submitted,
Marriage announced,
Darnay denounced,
Places are switched,
Blades are twitched,
Seamstress cries,
Carton dies.

THE END
(ultra condensed by Liz Copla)

Isn't that diverting? Not all of them are as clever, and a few have naughty language, but a lot of them are pretty cute. Here's another (because I can't help it): King Lear.

King Lear

I am senile and old. Flatter me, and I'll write my will.

Regan and Goneril

Daddy, you are way the oh too awesome bomb. We would totally not ever, like, backstab you and take your land.

Cordelia

Dad, if you believe that, you're a fool.

Fool

I can dance. Bye.

King Lear

I give everything to the suck-ups.

Regan and Goneril

We're in charge now, pops. Go away and go insane.

Everyone

(dies)

THE END

It looks nuts, but that's really what happens! :) Especially Regan and Goneril -- transplanted into this century they would talk exactly like that.

Little bits

-I'm making a dress to wear for my sister's graduation. I love it so far. Of course, I've only gotten as far as pinning the skirt to the unfinished bodice, but I do like the fabric/pattern/lining a lot. A lining just makes a piece much more finished-feeling and ... lush ... Any girls out there know what I mean ... ?


-Dad's at JFCOM in Virginia Beach, Virginia for a week, working with some Brits on some kind of inter-country information-sharing network. :) Anyone making a stab at what JFCOM stands for? (The military is so full of acronyms and nested acronyms that when Dad mentions one offhandedly we kids make a contest out of guessing what they stand for. I won this one.) Anyway, we'll be missing him ...


-The Buick squeaks and makes fluthering sounds when I drive it. It also needs a brake job. I think it'll have to wait till Dad gets home. While we're on the subject of cars ... ! Gas - yikes! I'm spending a lot on gas. It's getting ridiculous.


-Did anyone out there know that all of our cars are blue? They are -- every single one. You would think they'd be brown.


-While we're on the subject of car color, look at this. I guess there are a lot of introspective, reflective and cautious drivers in our family.


-It is graduation open house season.


-And open houses take a lot of work beforeheand.


-I hope the Huskers can beat Texas A&M this weekend. We're ranked 6th, I think ... I'm a big fan, but I wasn't exactly expecting such a good season this year. Not that I'm unhappy. Anyhow, it'll be the #1 and 2 teams in the Big 12, so it should be a very exciting series. I still hope I can go to one of the games.


-Mysteries are my latest reading fave. Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, GK Chesterton ... I'm balancing out my fiction reading with a new Dickens, though. Can't have too much of this fluffy stuff. And of course there are important things to read, too. But can anyone tell me why all these mystery-solving characters (like Hercule Poirot and Father Brown) are always faintly ridiculous?


-And a reminder: this Sunday is Mother's Day! What are you doing for your mother on Mother's Day? :)

Tagged

Thanks to Erica, I have the taxing task of writing a six-word autobiography of myself.
(Oops, was that redundant? 'Autobiography of myself'? I think it was.)
(Speaking of redundancy ... Lane Grindle said the funniest thing the other day. Nebraska was playing Baylor and he said, "... And Baylor is undefeated in games where they've outscored their opponent." LOL!)
(I only expect Erica to know who Lane Grindle is.)
Anyway,

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2.Post it on your blog, and include a visual illustration if you so desire.
3.Link to the person who tagged you in their post.
4.Tag five more blogs with links.
5.Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs inviting them to play.

OK, my memoir is:

My goal is pulchritude of soul.

And I tag:

Emily

Colin

Alissa

Justin

Kristin

Time for some Heinz

We gave Miranda a surprise 16th birthday party! ... 14 months late :) We had a historical scavenger hunt around NE City.

Just after we had surprised her

My team: Anna Beasley, Meghann Shudak and me. (We had seated ourselves on that bench, but quickly discovered that it was wet.) We won the scavenger hunt.

Joseph Pena gets bigger and bigger. I love helping him 'walk' like this.

Two self-portraits of Miranda and I: Below, after we had attempted what we call "smoky eyes" ... the first a little more 'au naturale' ... ;)

Invitation-making time. Laura and Miranda and I got together to make them one afternoon, and then watched Lorna Doone and ate Schwan's Silver Mint ice cream bars later.

Sorry about the blurry-ness.

Grace turned 12 on March 25th. She had a DQ ice cream cake -- I think we've found a new family favorite.

The Cutler family was over to help celebrate. Peter and Chant Cutler are two of a kind -- both being the youngest, they're used to getting attention however they can :)

Doesn't it look like Phil and I are at a casino or something? :) There's a family fun center in Omaha run by some people we know, so we went for some fun one cold Saturday.

We played laser tag there too. I'm the best player in the family. Don't I look like a shrimp next to Tim!? You wouldn't be able to see anything in this picture if I hadn't added all the fill light I could ... that's why it looks so strange. :)

We had the Jared and Sarah Berg family out from WY for a few days ... We used to be neighbors and always enjoy catching up with them. The three kids are so much fun!

Peter and Akayla are the best of friends ;)

Sarah

Jared

It was great sitting up late and talking with Jared and Sarah. Jared is quite a character ... We also got to watch Akayla, Malachi and Levi for a day while their parents went to a pastor's conference in Omaha.

We took them to the zoo -- Tim and I were sick and had to bow out and go home halfway through, but they all had a great time.

Malachi

Levi

Remember praying for Rachel? :) God is so good ... early this month we were able to attend her wedding reception!! She is doing very very well and it's simply amazing to think about all that she and Ryan have come through since their engagement.

A pitifully blurry picture of Laura at the state graduate recognition. (This isn't her "real" graduation -- that's on May 17 and we have about 101 projects to finish between now and the open house ;)

Laura and Grace W.

Look how much Claire has grown since January! Uncle Dan (Grandpa, now) is doing great -- some of you have been praying since he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and he has one transplant all finished, with at least one more coming up.

Claire with mom and dad

The Wii was popular.

Tara's turn with Claire.

Batman's suit looks a little wrinkled over his flowered shirt and jeans ... ;)

Helping with more graduation invitations ... Grace W.'s this time


Phillip turned 14 on the 20th.

I have a video or two that I plan to put up tomorrow, so ... be checking back. :) Oh, and just out of curiosity -- did anyone get the title?

One month later

I never meant to let my blog go for a month. But, about a week ago, I realized how long it'd been and started thinking of something to post. Then I thought I would let the whole month go by and let it be an example of my self-control in not letting my blog rule me. :D

(Riiiight, you say. Just quit making excuses and start posting pictures.)

As soon as I find my camera cord.

Books

Since I was homeschooled from kindergarten to my senior year of high school, my education experience has been completely different from my public-schooled peers. I consider homeschooling one of the best things that my parents could ever have done for me. From the beginning, the goal was t0 truly learn the different subjects, not just to get through the workbooks or study for the test, and it created relationships with my family that I haven't seen in conventional, both-parents-working, kids-at-school-all-day families around me. And one of the best advantages, in my personal opinion, is that I have had free rein to develop a love of reading.

My parents started my schooling a little early because I was eager to learn reading for myself. At the tender age of 7 I can remember checking out my limit of 20 books at the library. My mom, who has opinions on a lot of the so-called 'children's literature' that is written these days (opinions which I have come to share), steered me toward the best books she could find -- all the classic kids' authors, mysteries, history, and, as I got older, authors with a little more heft, shall we say, to their work.

Now, to start a 400- or 500-page Dickens novel is pure bliss. I love sorting out the many different characters, and my rather grammar-oriented soul appreciates the complex sentence structure that is so rarely found in modern writing. I know that what I'm describing probably sounds torturous to some. I just can't understand that. I love following a deep storyline and learning as I go, whether it's history, ethics, or just an exercise in my understanding of the English language. And, as my dad says, the first reason they teach us at home is so we can read and understand the word of God for ourselves. I've taken more out of that one Book than any other.

I do know that, because of my early adventures into classics, I had a vocabulary that must have sounded ridiculous. I can look at my 11-year-old bookworm sister now and see myself as I was at her age -- always looking for chances to use the long, weird words that I was encountering. I also know that, because I had only seen the words and never heard them spoken, I made quite a few pronunciation mistakes. For a long time I remember believing that "bough", as in tree bough, was pronounced "boff". (Well, that phonogram has six different sounds -- can you blame me for picking the wrong one?)

In case anyone's wondering, I didn't spend my entire childhood closeted with piles of books. I believe I have developed a healthy appreciation of many other pursuits as well. But there's still nothing like starting in on Tolstoy's War and Peace ... all 1500 pages of it.

(From an English assignment last year)


That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed in profit.~ Amos Bronson Alcott

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency--the belief that the here and now is all there is. ~ Allan Bloom

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ~Jorge Luis Borges

I often feel sorry for people who don't read good books;they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.~ Scott Corbett

I've traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books.~ Unknown

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.~ John Ruskin

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~ Anna Quindlen

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.~ Austin Phelps

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes the day happier.~ Kathleen Norris

Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.~ Paxton Hood