L-L-Lizard

Yesterday, Oliver was doing what he does everyday of his life. He was in Bo's bushes searching for lizards. I told him to get out of the bushes several times, but I was busy scrubbing the house down, and quite frankly, when the highlight of your life is lizard hunting, shouldn't everyone leave you alone?

Oliver caught this really big lizard. Bigger than all other big lizards ever caught by the Hodges boys. And he was a very fiesty lizard. Oliver brought the lizard to me proudly. Jonathan was so excited that he asked to hold it, Oliver handed it over, and then Jonathan panicked a bit and ended up dropping the lizard. Oliver stepped back as Jonathan attempted to catch it. Then Oliver pushed Jonathan aside, pounced and caught the lizard immediately. Highly entertaining.

That lizard was a grayish brown color in the early stages of his Oliver relationship. After dinner, when I really paid attention again, I noticed the lizard was a brilliant green. I said, "Ollie, come here and let me take a picture." Oliver trotted right over, very pleased with the prospect. As I peered through the viewer I decided to tease a bit. "Why don't you let the lizard bite you nose, and it can hang from your nose for the photo." Immediately Oliver put the lizard to his nose saying, "Come on, open your mouth and bite!"

Oliver is marine material.

Mom, you are disgusting

I should be doing about a dozen other things besides updating this blog. But, oh, well.

When I was a small child, visiting my dad, the food choices were either exotic or low class- depending on how you look at these sorts of things. One dinner which Jason and I enjoyed immensely, was sardines lined up on a piece of buttered bread. Yummy. Sometimes dad would go to this very particular butcher, and have the highest quality sirloin ground up. We would go home and dad would mix it with various things, shape it into patties, place it on wheat bread with thick sliced onion and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and voila! Dinner was served. I never thought anything about what I ate, except that I was always hungry and I enjoyed everything.

Occasionally, I get a hankering for a nice tin of sardines, bathed in oliver oil, lined up neatly, and waiting to be a tasty snack. Also, steak tartar, or pickled herring, smoked oysters, mmmm. All a culinary delight to me, and an object of scorn and disgust to my picky offspring. I guess I should have served them up such things when they were Vivvie's age. Maybe it isn't too late to work on Vivian. I do have a leftover sardine here.....

Another day

I'm rather overwhelmed to say the least, and at a general low point. My girlfriend brought me dinner for the family yesterday. It was really great. In the big bag of dinner items, there was this amazing layer bar about 3 inches square, with a thick buttery graham cracker crust, coconut, chocolate chips, and then walnut halves across the top. I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch because I wasn't hungry. And looking at this bar, I still wasn't hungry but I decided to take a little tiny taste....which was followed by another little tiny taste, and then a bite, until only half the bar remained.

Oliver watched me take a bite from the very back of the suburban and said,"mom, what are you eating?" To which I responded," A little taste of heaven." Oliver thought about this and said," Well, I want a little taste of heaven!"

I thought Jon only had one class remaining after this semester, but it turns out he has two classes. Some weeknights he won't get home until 10pm. Joy.

Charles has been saying a lot of funny things, but whenever I sit to hastily type out the stories, they leave my mind entirely.

I haven't been home cleaning, cooking, shopping, organizing, etc., for a Saturday in months. I think the last time may have been pre-June of this year. Jon and I decided that this Saturday, we would forget that hundreds of babies will be slaughtered and 5 people will actually care enough to go out to the abortion mills--in order to get our household into some semblance of order. With this decided, I looked at my calendar for Saturday. I had already committed to being at a community event in Atlanta from noon until about 6pm. Sigh. Well, at least we'll have the morning.

I LOVE people who call me and keep me on the phone "solving" all my problems. "What you need is a house keeper....what you need are volunteers to make phone calls everyday....what you need is someone you can train to take your place half the time and give you a break....what you need is a secretary..." These type of people should be gathered out of the general public and put on an island together. They'll all sit on the beach talking about what they need and die of starvation 10 feet from the coconut trees.

The nice thing about being at rock bottom is that you can only go up. I really thought I was going to get a flat tire yesterday, just because it seems like a good time for everything to go wrong. I didn't get the flat tire, which confirmed in my illogical state of lowness that I truly am at the bottom.

Thursday with Gloria

Gloria is a mother I talked out of abortion at Atlanta Surgi-Center (although according to DHR, Atlanta Surgi-Center stopped performing abortions in April when they gave up their ambulatory surgical license) in early August. Yesterday, I took her to Hosea's Feed the Hungry to get a supply of food and some coats for her children. Gloria has 8 children at home.

When I was in the parking lot, Afemo and his wife Elizabeth (daughter of Hosea Williams) drove up. I had met them at a CareNet fundraiser dinner a few weeks ago when I served as greeter with their daughter Juanita. Afemo was very nice, and said he would come and speak with Gloria personally, and make sure that she was well cared for.

After an hour, Gloria's two youngest children were getting restless and hungry, so I went and got some fried chicken and biscuits. Well, I couldn't exactly bring fried chicken into a room full of practically homeless people waiting for food assistance, etc., so I asked Gloria and the children to come outside. We settled in at the back of the Suburban and I helped Tayman (nickname) with his food, etc. Afemo came out to make sure we weren't leaving. Gloria was still waiting to be seen, so Afemo talked with her about her situation. Afemo is a professional actor, and Gloria recognized him. She was so pleased that he cared about her and her family. Then he took her hands and said he wanted to pray for her. I joined the circle, and he prayed this amazing 15 minute prayer. It was very moving. I had tears running down my cheeks and then my nose was running- which is rather awkward when you are standing in a prayer circle. Do you drop hands and wipe your nose with your sleeve and then hold hands again? And won't that seriously gross out the person stuck holding your hand? That and all the other obvious questions began to surface. I regrouped without dropping hands. :-) After Afemo was finished praying, he stuck around and chatted for a few minutes, and I thanked him for taking the time to pray for Gloria.

This cute wee black man named BJ handles security over there. He's nearly 70, and a friendly, energetic chap. He was very pleased to meet me because I'm a friend of Shealita, who rescued BJ from a horrendous living situation. BJ brought the two little boys some match box cars and fall jackets. Tayman was talking to everyone like a little magpie by the time we left. He was very happy.

When I took Gloria home, she was encouraged and ready to move forward. Things are tough for her. Her mother died when she was 12. She got pregnant a year later and dropped out of school. Her father died that year as well. Her grandmother took Gloria and her sister in, and cared for them as best she could. Gloria doesn't have a support system, no education and no job. She feels like she's at the mercy of her surroundings. My greatest hope for her is that she will recognize how God is working in her life, and that she will rest upon Him for salvation. Her life is going through great changes, and she is getting help and support now, all because, by God's grace, she stood in a parking lot at Atlanta Surgi-Center in the blazing hot sun, and chose life for her baby.

That's it?

When I'm finished with prolife activism, abortion is outlawed, and I'm once again working on a history degree, I'm going to write a book.

Chapter one: Fundraising- which will in fact be a very short chapter. Mainly because since getting started in this work, I've done several fundraisers for other organizations/people, and none for myself. Quite frankly telling potential donors to write a check to you personally just seems sketchy. But I didn't want to take time to become an organization, get a board of directors, file a 501(c)3, ad infinitum, because that would take away from I want to be doing- saving mommies and babies. The bottom line is, no money, no nothing. So the Bank of Jon Hodges, where I have been withdrawing funds, has officially dried up. I think it's past dry. And filing a 501(c)3 costs...you'll never guess.....oh, you did guess- money. $1,000 clams. So I joined Prolifeunity as National Director- but the founder and President thinks like me in one respect- he would rather be saving babies than raising money with his prolife activism hours.

Well, I decided we had to get an EIN so that we could at least get a business checking account, and have checks made out to Pro-Life Unity. What a concept. Expecting it to take vast amounts of time, and at least some expense, I was happily disappointed. From the moment I called the IRS, until I left the bank, checking account accomplished- it was about 1 hour and 33 minutes. Why didn't I do that sooner!! Oh, and the best part. The fee was one I could afford- $0. I can now take checks made out to Pro-Life Unity!

I'll discuss chapter 2 later.....

No more

Things I will no longer be buying at Trader Joe's: Sourdough baguette and 3 Layer Hummus. I have NO self control on the hummus. The pkg, containing 12 servings, is nearly gone, and was purchased yesterday afternoon. Not good. I'm going to jump on the trampoline right now....

Charles' Toad

For anyone who is interested, Mrs. Street discovered that Charles' toad was in a horrible state of dehydration. Charles had put the toad in about 1 inch of water, and I had ordered him to put him the toad in a dry bucket, which he did after some argument with me. Well, it would appear that toads cannot drink water- they absorb it through their skin. Oops! Fortunately, Mrs. Street is very talented when it comes to toad rehabilitation and the toad is now very happy and rehydrated.