Dodging Twisters & The Last of the Questions

As many of you know, I live in Northeast Arkansas and I spent much of Tuesday evening watching the weather and dodging tornadoes much like the one in that picture to the left. There were no touchdowns in my immediate area. No damage, no injuries, praise God. Others relatively close to me weren't so blessed. At last count there were at least 13 dead within a 100 mile radius and still some people unaccounted for as I type this.

Thank You to all those who've left me comments and emailed me asking if I and my family made it safely through the storms. There were some funnel clouds reported pretty close and even a few tornadoes that touched down in fields and unpopulated areas fairly near us but the worst things we saw were some rain, some gusty winds and a little lightning. Praise God for his protecting hand upon us!I have a pot of Earl Grey tea made and it's comforting on this chilly night. After a high of almost 80º on Tuesday our high today was only 40º on Wednesday, and we're headed into the 20's tonight. Is it any wonder we had tornadoes on Tuesday?! Some places even saw snow flurries this morning.

I've got my tea and my fleece blankie over my legs so this seems like a good time to answer the last of my questions.

MYRNA @ CHERISH...THE WORD! asks: What's the biggest fish you ever caught--no "fish fibs" allowed! Where, when, what kind?

Myrna, this is going to sound like a cop out, but I honestly and truly don't know what the biggest fish I've ever caught was, where or when or what kind. Now don't misunderstand me, I go fishing with full intentions of catching fish if at all possible, and I intend to eat what I catch if it's big enough and it's edible. But...I go fishing just as much to enjoy nature and the outdoors as I do to catch fish. Even if I never get the first bite, I've never been fishing that I didn't enjoy the outing. For me, it's more about the whole experience than about bragging rights.

Now that is truly a foreign concept to Jessica. She thinks that as soon as you throw a hook in the water you should catch something. It's all about catching those fish! Of course she won't put a worm on her hook or take a fish off the hook; that's for me and Jason to do for her. But by golly, there'd better be fish biting constantly and she'd better catch something at least every 5 minutes or she's ready to get in the car and leave, no matter how beautiful the day or the scenery and no matter how much wildlife we may be seeing.

Just guessing, I'd say probably the biggest fish I've ever caught was probably a carp, and it was on the Bay Ditch about 13 years ago while fishing with my Daddy and my brother in law, Jerry. We were fishing with homemade dough balls and Wheat*ie balls and the carp were biting fast and furious. We each caught several nice ones that day, and the biggest one I caught weighed about 4 lbs. by my guesstimate.

Catfish, the biggest I ever caught was probably about 3 lbs. Bluegill, probably the ones I caught last Spring while fishing on Lake Poinsett with my sister, Donna. You can read about that fishing trip HERE and there's a picture of the biggest bluegill I caught that day over to the left. Some of them were at least a pound, maybe even a little bigger.

I hope I answered your question, MYRNA. I did the best I could with the faulty memory I have to work with. ;o)BEV @ SCRATCHIN' THE SURFACE asks: What's on your list to accomplish in this lifetime? Something you've always wanted to do?

What with the current popularity of "THE BUCKET LIST" I should have expected someone to ask this question, I suppose. Leave it to BEV to be the one to make me really think about this. Because to be quite truthful, I've never really had many longterm goals like climbing Mt. Everest or diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

No, I'm afraid that my goals are much less lofty and not nearly as exciting or risky. Not that I actually ever had any goals, you understand. But just for the purposes of answering this question, I'll think (type??) out loud for just a bit.

Hmm....I never had any real aspirations in life beyond being a wife and mother. Some may look down on me for that, and say that I didn't set my goals very high to begin with, but I'll have to disagree with those people. Besides, I can truthfully say I attained those goals: how many that say they want to climb Mt. Everest ever actually do it?

I may not have been/be the best wife and mother, but I'm working on it. Beyond that, I want to be the best Grandma I can be. Still working on that. More successful at meeting that goal some days than others. It should go without saying that I want to become more like Jesus every day. Still working on that one, too. Feverishly at times, with some success and some failure every day.

I would say that one thing I haven't done that I'd really like to do is travel more in the US and Canada, maybe Mexico. All by ground, preferably by car or train. I won't fly for personal reasons. Personally, I'm afraid of crashing. At least if you crash in a car or a train you don't have to fall for 40,000 feet, dreading it all the way. Also, I want to actually SEE the countryside, not just fly over it.

Someday, if the Lord sees fit to grant my desire, I'd like to live in my own home, not a leased apartment. I'd like to paint the walls or paper them as I'd like to, not as my landlord dictates, and I'd like to decorate it to my specifications.

My goals in life are pretty simple. It doesn't take much to make me happy, and the Lord has granted most of my needs and a lot of my wants up to this point. I have no doubt that He's going to keep on providing for me, and that meets most every goal of mine, right there. I don't worry too much about tomorrow, and not much about today even. I live day by day, sometimes moment by moment.

I try to be content with what God provides each day and to grab those opportunities when He presents them to go beyond my usual routine. Who knows what God has in store for me? If He provides a way for me to travel more and/or have a new home of my own, so be it and thank God for it, but if not, I'll be content with that too.

Well, I chewed that plumb to death, didn't I? ;o)
Thursday promises to be a full day. I have to do my grocery shopping in the morning, come home and put everything away, then I'll have Miss Emmy in the afternoon until Jason gets off work and picks her up. Somewhere in there I'll have to cook some supper for us.

I'll also have Emmy on Friday afternoon/evening and all day Saturday, then I have a Valentine's Banquet at my church Saturday at 4 pm. I have to make some type of casserole for that and a dessert. No idea what I'm cooking for that at the present, or what's for Sunday Dinner yet. I hope to become inspired by whatever's on sale or looks good when I do my grocery shopping Thursday morning.

I also need to sweep and mop the kitchen and bathroom, clean off the kitchen counters and clean the tub in the bathroom and put down clean rugs, vacuum and do some washing, and do some cleaning, sorting and decluttering here in my computer room again. Notice I said I need to do those things, not that I'm actually committing to doing them. I hope to get at least some of those things done before Sunday. We'll see. As I heard somewhere lately, "we'll see" is what we sometimes call the "slow no". My bed with fresh, clean linens is calling me. Y'all have a great Thursday.