Gators

Mrs. Roy's grandchildren are coming to visit which is a wonderful thing.  They had big plans to swim in the lake and jump off the dock and generally just goof off while Mrs. Roy was at work each day.  Unfortunately, Mr. Roy spotted a gator under our dock this afternoon so all swimming is hereby canceled until further notice!

If you have ever lived in the deep south, especially swampy areas like where we live, you know that basically any body of water is going to have a fresh water gator in it.  That's just the way it works.  Most of the time they stay away from populated areas and prefer the quiet and solitude like that found on the far side of our lake, far away from Mrs. Roy's grandchildren.  However, it has been literally over 100 here every day for about the past month and not too many of us human types have been stirring down by the lake.  So Mrs. Roy is assuming the poor gator, having a small brain and big teeth, decided it was safe to venture out.

You should know that it is against the law to exterminate one of these gators - someone thinks they are endangered.  So if you want to get rid of one, you have to call the game wardens and they have to send a gator catcher out to catch and relocate your gator into someone else's water.  However, when you live on a body of water that has several houses on it, like where Mrs. Roy lives, you have to have written permission from everyone who lives there before the game wardens can remove the gator.  Supposedly that's so you don't remove a gator one of your neighbors thinks is a pet or something but Mrs. Roy suspects it also keeps the game warden from getting nothing done except gator relocating since collecting all those signatures is too much effort for most of us to bother with.

So, Mrs. Roy has gone to plan B - call the neighbor and ask if the grandkids can go swimming in their nice, safe swimming pool while they are here.  If that doesn't work, well, Mrs. Roy will think of something. 

Life is good.

CHANGE

Do you like change or do you try real hard to avoid it at all costs?  Mrs. Roy is pretty good with change about some things - like new responsibilities at work - but personal change can be hard for me sometimes.  Right now Mrs. Roy's sister is having a hard time with some of the changes in her life as her daughter goes to college.  Mrs. Roy keeps trying to tell her that empty nest syndrome is a wonderful thing but she's having trouble grasping it all.  And Mrs. Roy works with a lady who just retired from her job rather than have to move to a new office and figure out new ways of doing things.  Mrs. Roy's son went through a period of change a year or so ago that sent him off in an entirely new direction in his life.  He's been very successful in following this new path and Mrs. Roy is very proud of him. 

Change is good for us because it makes us think and it lets us appreciate the old and the new.  But change can be difficult to accept and really inconvenient, too.  Mrs. Roy has found that, like most things, praying is very helpful when I'm faced with intimidating changes.  Mrs. Roy has also found that God most likely will answer my prayers one day at a time - so don't expect to know how the whole thing is going to turn out before you ever get started! 

That's really the key to embracing change - just trust in the Lord, take things one day at a time (Matthew 6:34) and try to enjoy what each day brings.  That's Mrs. Roy's way of doing things.

Life is good.

SNAGGED ANOTHER $5

Mrs. Roy just snagged ANOTHER $5 amazon.com gift card by using swagbucks.com's toolbar and search engine.  Every time I earn 450 swagbucks, I get to buy another gift card.  If you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for?  The widget over to the right will get you started earning your own swagbucks today - and I'll get credit for referring you.

I know I sound like a commercial but this is a really good deal and it costs absolutely nothing. 

Life is good. 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I just started reading this book and came across a great quote at the end of the first chapter.  I hope it is indicative of more good things to come.

"For all the rational explanations I used to account for choices in my life, for all the intellectual reasons I used to justify this particular endeavor, I now realized it was possible - maybe even likely - that I had been motivated by some internal longing that I hadn't even identified.  Some journeys we choose to go on, I realized; some journeys choose us." 

GNOMES AND CATS - PART TWO

Mrs. Roy looked out the window this morning and there was something stuck in the tree by the back porch!  Well, it at least looked like it was stuck but when Mr. Roy got a long pole and prodded it, the neighbor's cat jumped on down and ran off.  We think it just got up there and got semi-stuck and was too scared to jump down until it got a little encouragement.  HA

If you are wondering why Mrs. Roy has posted a picture of cat's rear instead of our usual gnome, go to gnomes and cats.

Happy 4th!

ARIZONA

Mrs. Roy has had enough of these protests and boycotts.  I hope everyone who reads this post will plan a vacation to Arizona in the very near future.  Those folks are trying to enforce federal law that the feds won't or can't enforce and Mrs. Roy believes the federal government is out of line criticizing them instead of helping them.  And those folks who want the baseball games to stop being played in Arizona and school trips to stop being made to Arizona, you should be ashamed of yourself.  You should be supporting the rights of American citizens and not people who are here illegally.  As Sonny Bono said, when asked his opinion of legislation extending benefits to illegal aliens:  "Illegal.  Enough said."