Vindication.

I have, over the years, said some very nice things about my brother, Bryan.

My latest mention of him was on his 40th birthday.

Remember? I said nice things. NICE THINGS.

I also suggested that the reason I was bug-eyed in this picture was because maybe he had whispered something dastardly into my ear giving me a scare.

You, along with my grandmother, yes, I'm talking to you grandma, poo-pooed the idea.

"Not our precious Bryan." "But he's so wonderful, and brave, and protective, blah, blah, blah."

Really?

When he read my blog about the snake being lost in my house, he sent me this.

I'm just going to sit back now, and bask in the glory of being right about him and his stinky big brother antics.

And worry just a little that, even from the other side of the world, he's found a way to torture me.

More on the snake.

After finding out that we had a snake loose in the house, many of you had various suggestions for me. Most of them involved moving, selling the house and moving, relocating, or moving as soon as possible.

So, what you're saying is, having a snake loose in the house is not a good thing?

I couldn't agree more. It's also made me think about the ramifications of actually having to put the house on the market and sell it.

We have a few drawbacks, let me just name a few.

1. The economy no es bueno. Houses are being foreclosed upon at an alarming rate. The bank officers have pitched a tent and have Pizza Hut delivered every other night. Oh, who am I kidding, Pizza Hut won't deliver in my neighborhood. When I call and give them my address, they say, "Are you in the neighborhood on the other side of I-30?"

"Yes. It's like 1/2 a mile from you. "

"Oh, um, yeah, we can't come over to that neighborhood because, you know, we're afraid we might die. Try Dominoes. They're crazy at Dominoes."

2. Like a water leak, termites, and black mold, I'm pretty sure I'd be obligated to put, "Snake loose in the house." on the disclosure statement. From the sounds of ya'll, and the look on Dea's face when we told him Julius was on the lamb, it would be a deal-killer for about 95% of our potential buyers.

3. After five years of scrub, I finally have some decent landscape growing and I'm not really willing to walk away because of a foot-long corn snake.

Also, I may or may not owe my marriage to a snake.

When Trey was in college, he, too, had a pet snake. It is just one more of the reasons I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have dated in college but, that's not important right now.

His snake had disappeared and been missing for about three weeks. He was sure Caleb, the apparently very biblical snake, was dead. Then one night, as he was taking some hussy (I actually think she was like Miss Texas or something like that. Whatever.) out on a date, he opened his car door for her and there, curled up on the passenger seat was Caleb, healthy and good as ever.

Trey was so excited he kind of ignored the now screaming and hysterical girl to embrace his long lost pet. She refused to go out with him again, leaving him single, which resulted in his move to Dallas where we met, got married, and lived almost happily ever after.

See, lemonade from lemons, people. Lemonade from lemons.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm not tearing the house apart looking for the thing. Someone suggested I put out something for bait, you know, to attract Julius.

Hmmm. What do I have that is horrible, causes angst, and can be incredibly painful?

How 'bout this? Their names are eerily close.

I think it will totally work.

Ya'll have a great weekend!

Reunited.

One of my favorite things is the very first hug you get from your kids after a week at camp. If I were Julie Andrews, I would put it into a song.

But I'm not so...yeah.

My friend, Lauren, thankfully snapped these as we were greeting our kids on Saturday at Pine Cove.

She didn't get one of Tee because, even though he will still, at 10, run up, hug me and kiss me on the lips, he's fast as lightning and darted back to relish the last moments of fun with his new friends.

Reuniting is so sweet.

Do you think it will be as sweet when we reunite with Julius, who escaped from his cage this morning?

Julius, you remember, is Tee's pet.

Snake.


Shiver.

Ordinary.

So I'm sitting here thinking; what in the world I'm supposed to write about following a post that included the former President of the United States and poison ivy.

Great 4th of July deals at Target?

The various projects we completed this weekend using only duct tape?

It all seems a wee bit mundane and ordinary.

Or totally lame, either one.

Walking Scout early this morning - tripping (ok, seriously, that's an exaggeration. I'm actually VERY graceful.) over the broken beer bottles, fast food wrappers, and two crack addicts - I was reminded, once again, that there is way more mundane, or chaotically ordinary in my life - in most of our lives - than there is over-the-top exciting.

The kids are home from camp and my house is once again a mess. The laundry has already piled up and the fingerprints that had been cleaned from every window are back. How they do it, I don't know. To be sure, it's a skill.

But, this is how it's supposed to be. The longer I'm a mom, and a wife, and a seriously underpaid source of unsolicited opinions, I realize the way the Lord has constructed my life is exactly the way it's intended to be.

I was never supposed to live in the beautiful part of town, with perfectly manicured lawns, and pretty homes, famous Dallasites, and cars without 24" rims.

This crazy crew of children we have were no accidents. Each was intended to be born inconceivably close to his or her siblings so that people would question, often out loud, my understanding of how babies are actually made.

Dea and Darius have been moving in the direction of living under our roof for years, we just didn't see them coming. If I had, I might have used some evasive maneuver tactics I learned from watching season after season of 24.

The Lord's plans are to transform us into the image of His son and he uses whatever means necessary to do so. I've found that although His means are often messy, and unglamorous, and without hoopla or Secret Service, they are both effective and divine.

May we all delight in the ordinary of our lives today as we rest in the assurance that not even a breath or a heartbeat is given without the intentional, loving, forethought of the Lord of the universe.

Mr. President in the hood.

There are mornings it's totally necessary to have your full cute on by 9:00 a.m. This morning was one of them. Let me start by saying, as gravity continues to take hold, 9:00 a.m. is extremely early to pull it all together. I mean, there's a reason bridal photographs are taken after noon. Puffy eyes people, puffy eyes.

By 8:30, we were seeing things like this up at Mercy Street.

Lovely gentlemen with wires in their ears checking the place inside and out, top to bottom and saying things like, "We're fifteen minutes out...Ten minutes...Five minutes...Ok, let's get ready, we're one minute out."

And then we saw this.

Now, da mug be clean, but not exactly what we were expecting.

And with the "One minute out." we saw this. The Schwepps truck. Not quite.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

That would be the Presidential motorcade carrying President Bush and all his coolness just comin' down to chill in the hood with his Mercy Street peeps.

Truthfully, his old friends, Bill and Candy, a.k.a. Nanny and Bunty, have been talking his ear off about Mercy Street for years and since being back in Dallas, he's continued to hear more about what we're doing down here in West Dallas from community leaders and businessmen. He wanted to come check it out for himself and we were thrilled to have him.

Here the President is getting the tour flanked by his Secret Service and Bill, whom he calls Red.

How do I get a nickname like that?

Oh, seriously, I was just happy to get a picture. And people, let me tell you, once the cameras were allowed to come out, there was no stopping me.

Dea.

Sadie, being her ever shy self.

Trey showing the President the land around the facility and explaining all the plans we believe the Lord has in store.

Sadie then joined the group and may or may not have stuck her hand through the fence and contracted Poison Ivy. But we're not talking about that right now.

The President really enjoyed talking to the guys in the bike shop. It's part of the Summer Work Crew program where kids are learning to repair and restore donated bikes for the neighborhood kids.

Johnny and the President could have talked all day about local bike trails.

Here's the whole Bike Shop Crew.

He was so great and personally spoke with each child asking them individual questions, encouraging them all.

Darius.

The President lovin' on Hattiebelle, Mercy Street's newest addition.

More work crew kids.

It was truly a blessed morning. The President told several stories, one of which was about speaking to a group of about 50 in Rwanda. He looked out at the group of people and said, a little under his breath, "God is good."

The immediate response he received by the crowd was, "All the time." Wanting to be sure he heard correctly, he said it louder.

"God is good."

And again, even louder, the response, "All the time."

He said, be it Rwanda, Highland Park, or West Dallas, the truth remains. "God is good. All the time."

Yes, He is.

Thank you, Mr. President, for blessing us all with a fantastic morning in the hood. Please come back anytime.

Who turned down the volume?

Sunday afternoon, after a night filled with incessant questioning, "Is it time to go yet? Is it morning, yet? Is that the sun? I think that's the sun. Mom! The sun's up!", we packed three anxious, if not well-rested Hill children into the back of our decorated car and shipped them off to camp. Then, we sent Sadie to Camp Nanny and Bunty, a.k.a. House of Spoiling, for a couple of days.

And good riddance. Whew.

Except, my babies are not here. They're, sniff, at camp. For a whole week.

My house is quiet

And clean.

Laundry is done, folded, put away.

There is a completed puzzle that is still intact and none of the pieces have been placed in the DVD player to see if a movie plays.

The flowers are watered.

Errands are done.

I knew what we were having for dinner tonight before we even had breakfast.

It's creepy.

Trey and I did get a couple of days to ourselves fishing and eating steaks in the smallest town in Texas. Pure awesomeness. Except for the remnants of my poison ivy which you can still see on my arm in this picture.

See, right there.

It does distract from the fact that I forgot to put mascara on, though, which is a bonus.

Anyway, it's quiet. A little too quiet. Sadie, Dea, Darius, Trey and I are doing the best we can to get through the week. We're sleeping in late, doing puzzles, and chilaxin at Sonic Happy Hour.

And we're hoping Monkey getting the staples out of his shoulder where a girl stabbed him with a piece of glass because he told one too many "Yo momma." jokes won't be the most exciting thing that happens all week.

Word.

The real story.

I posted Saturday about my brother turning the ripe old age of 40. In the post , there is a picture of my brother and I when we were wee babes and I may or may not have suggested that the scared out of my pants expression on my face, captured on film for all eternity, was due to the fact that my stinky brother had whispered into my ear something like, say, "I let the cat lick your passie", etc., etc.

A few minutes later, I got this email from my beautiful Grandma.

"Just read your blog and I will tell you why your eyes are so big in the picture.  Your Mother and I were together and the photographer was making goofy noises to get you to smile and look at him.  Bryan hugged you and told the guy, "Don't talk to my baby sister like that!" the photographer snapped the picture and this is the end result.  We all thought it was cute because we knew your now 40 year old brother was protecting you. 

Now you know the story ☺.  We wish Bryan a HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND GOD'S CARE UNTIL HE GETS HOME AGAIN.  

Love,
Grandma."

And with the receipt of this email, I found out something very, very shocking.

Grandma lies.

Oh, Grandma, I kid.

I know the only reason I can get away with that is because she's in the heartland of Nebraska and can't swat me on the rear.

I love knowing the story behind the picture and being reminded of the sweet presence of my dear grandparents from the time we were born. There is not a summer I can remember growing up without a week or more spent at their house.

We found birds nests in their bushes and watched the eggs hatch, we blew bubbles and took naps on their back porch while Grandma sang. She let us eat bowls and bowls of "sweet cereal" when it was banned from our house in an act of grand-parental indulgence. We baked, and sewed, threw the baseball, and smashed cans with another of my grandaddy's fun inventions.

More than anything I remember, though, was not the activities, but simply the time spent. Even today, when my grandparents give opinions or advice -mostly Grandma because she's the chatty one :) - I listen to what they have to say. They have built into their grandchildrens' lives some pretty weighty love capital and have earned with all of us a place of honor fitting two with crowns of grey on their heads.

Well, maybe only one crown of grey. Just keepin it real, Grandpa.

"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

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