Category Archives: Zookeeper & the F-Troop
Zookeeper: a person employed at a zoo to attend to the animals
F-Troop: a satirical American television sitcom set at Fort Courage…heavy on character-based humor; verbal and visual gags, slapstick…
-These are the slap-stick adventures of my Fecher-troop and the spiritual journey of mawage, a new catering business, and tending to my homeschooling zoo of 12 at our own Fort Courage amidst laughter, tears, and a growing collection of pet peaves.
Cowboys and Aliens ….and God?
A movie review provided by this bewildered movie buff.
I like movies. I watch a lot of them AND I’m also pretty observant so I am not blind to the obvious bias Hollywood and the media have against conservatism and, especially, Christians. If there’s a Christian in a movie, he or she is usually at least mentally off, the “really” bad guy, or the idiot.
When the preacher-man first made his appearance in Cowboys and Aliens, my first thought was, “Oh, great. Here they go again. This one is the nutcase of the town. He’s probably a mass murderer or the town drunk. Whatever he is, he definitely will not be a good guy.” Not only is he a good guy, he’s one of the wisest in town, a man of integrity and all-around nice guy. Not only that, the preacher tells the saloon owner that he needs to have faith to which he, Doc, replies, “”God ain’t done much for me.” Now, I know this isn’t exactly doctrinally sound but it’s not “too” far off base, but the preacher says, “You can’t expect God to do everything. You gotta earn His presence. Then you gotta recognize it, then you gotta act on it.”
Also heard in this flick:
- “God don’t care who you were, son. Only who you are.”
- “If there’s such a thing as a soul, this man had a good one. … Please protect it.”
- “She’s in a better place.”
- “Whether you end up in heaven or hell, it’s not God’s plan, it’s your own.”
The movie also includes self-sacrifice, overcoming bigotry, and a boatload of courage. This is by no means a family-friendly, Christian movie (although some parents thought it not a problem to bring their toddlers to the 10 o’clock showing. Good grief). There’s some language, immodesty, and a whole heck of a lot of violence (a.k.a “action-packed” which is why I chose that movie!) but I didn’t leave thinking, “What did I ever do to them?!” I won’t spoil the movie for you but if you want to know exactly what is in this flick or any other, you can go to Plugged In. Warning – this site tells you what you’re looking for but is a “spoiler site.” Cowboys and Aliens has some creepy-looking and quite original creatures, ships and I really want a bracelet like that!! Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig went above and beyond to bring life to their characters. I thought the whole cast did an amazing job at making this ridiculous scenario believable for the duration of the movie. It’s well-made and if you can get past that it’s yet, another, “aliens are here” movie, this is fantastic storytelling! The Cowboys and Aliens site is pretty impressive, too, and worth a visit.
There ya have it! My movie review. Enjoy!
What’s not shared is lost,
Michelle
So…I’m a Nana
Autumn Rose
It was surreal. I was holding this precious little girl that looks SO much like 6 other tiny baby girls I’ve delivered but it wasn’t I that labored; it was one of those baby girls. My daughter. My first granddaughter. I had asked Corinne if I can be “Nana.” One, because I’m too young to be Grandma and two, so the grandbabies can differentiate between grandparents. And, third, because I’m too young to be a Grandma.
Craig, Jillian and I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday, July 19. Corinne had been experiencing “labor light” and was enjoying it. She was already at 5 cm so the hospital was keeping her. She had been permitted to eat pizza before we got there since she was going natural and not using any pain meds. She had been laboring since the day before and was starving. That didn’t make any difference when I was in the hospital. They didn’t even like me to eat crackers! The reasoning was that if I needed a C-section, they didn’t want food in my stomach. I was glad she was able to eat but jealous at the same time as I am still bitter about having to starve to death.
Anyhoo, for those that know the journey we have been on with Corinne, you know that this was emotional for many reasons. It’s so hard sometimes to trust that certain events in your life were really meant to be in God’s plan. But one thing I have no doubt of – there is NO child conceived without His consent. And so, I’m waiting with anticipation to see what God is going to do with this new season in all of our lives! It only occurred to us just before Little Autumn’s birth that our near future includes weekends with Autumn staying over playing with her Uncle Seth…who is only 1 1/2 years older than her. When she’s 20, Isabelle will be 26. They might just be hanging out! It’s strange, I tell ya.
So, back at the hospital, Corinne’s labor actually began to hurt and I could tell it was the kind of pain that gets the job done. She still managed to crack jokes and gab her head of in between contractions. Josh’s parents arrived that evening and we decided to leave Jillian at the hospital and we went to a hotel. We had asked Corinne & Josh if they wanted us there and they didn’t mind either way. We decided to get out of the way and let them have this special time. It was hard to leave but we knew she was in good hands. And Greater Hands.
Autumn Rose was born at 3:50am on July 2oth, 8lb. 1 oz., 22″ long. And she’s 
perfect. She’s beautiful. And she’s too far away, dang it. Okay, I don’t have to get in a plane to go see her so I am grateful. She’s only 2 1/2 hours away. But newborns don’t stay newborns long.
We took the whole herd and my mom up yesterday to see the new family. We crowded into the tiny apartment. It was like “how many people can we fit in a VW?” We managed and had a good visit. And I held Autumn. I have pics of everyone holding her and it was so precious to hear all of them ask, even my macho men, if they could hold her again.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.
Psalm 127:4
I’m a Nana! Let’s do this!!!
What’s not shared is lost.
Michelle
Isaiah -God My Salvation
He had his arm up and elbow out. It was excruciating. For me, not him. Four years ago today, I endured my second most painful childbirth experience because the little guy’s elbow was stuck outward and that pain made for a very emotional birth experience. After our little Isaiah Joseph made entry into the world, my husband and I melted into sobs.
AND, if I had to do it all over again…I would in a heartbeat. Isaiah, as it turns out, is a dynamic personality and we love to chat with him, watch his antics, and we enjoy the anticipation of what he’s going to do next as well as what kind of man he will turn out to be. We’ve known he’s a command man since he was small (see Created To Be His Helpmeet by Debi Pearl) and we’re praying for his wife now (she will never be bored).
Isaiah means “God is Salvation” or “God my Salvation” as well as “God is my helper. As with all of my little ones, God gives me a special lullaby to sing to each of my babies as I rock them. This is Isaiah’s:
Your name, Isaiah,
God my salvation,
Your name gives hope
To a hopeless world.
Little man, Isaiah,
God is my helper,
Be a help
To a hurting world.
Great man, Isaiah,
Grow strong, be brave.
Be a hero in a desperate world.
Great man, Isaiah,
Grow wise, live God’s Word.
Be a light in a dark, dark world.
Little man, Isaiah,
You are so precious.
Share Jesus’ love
With His precious world.
Happy Birthday to my little man!
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Play with your food!
Michelle
Isaiah’s Birthday Invite -No you can’t all come, it’s just cool
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Fird Day
My 3 y.o. looking at my desktop Third Day pic: “Oh, dat’s Fird Day. Dat’s da guitar guy (Mark Lee), dat’s the deer da deer guy (Tai Anderson) (the sound he makes for bass when Make Your Move comes on), dat’s da drumming guy (David Carr) ,dat’s da sing-song guy (Mac Powell) . You and daddy sit in the seat cuz if U stand on da stage, Third Day (fird day) will squish U.” Be afraid, be very afraid. How cool is it he knows who’s who? Not sure of the stage-violence logic, though…..
Stomp the Wombat
My day started with Jillian making green cream of wheat and me rushing out to Mid-America Labs to have Seth’s blood drawn once again. The last time, the important” stuff came back normal but his lymphocyte count was up. Just a small thing, really. A brief Google search resulted with scary words like “cancer” popping up so I quickly closed the window. I went through freak out phase with his earlier issues that turned out to be non-issues. (See earlier posts…after I transfer them here.) Before I left, I told Ben to tell Lenae to take The Big Blue (our 15 passenger) and that I’d meet them at the shop. He told Lenae but somehow the message was missed plus Lenae’s alarm didn’t go off so my “staff” was still home when I returned. The soup was not heating up in the kettle and Reubens were not warming in the oven. That was fine, we were still okay on time so I didn’t spaz. That could have been the start of a bad day but the sun was shining; it was all good. Add to the hustle and bustle of the morning, the pain in my shoulder became worse (pulled something – and I have a high threshold of pain so if I notice pain, it’s worse than I think it is) and I fought the urge to become….grumpy. So I went to the chiropractor after driving the crew home after work. I can’t tell if it helped, yet. I feel worse but that’s not abnormal so we’ll see tomorrow.
All that being said, all of that craziness made the laughter of the evening’s card games a welcome release. The outlandish things that came out of the mouths of my DH and kids kept me posting on TweetDeck all evening: ”Okay we need a glass of water, a sharpie, and a very sharp spoon.” Natalie helping make up rules for a new card game. Craig’s card game rule: “and you can’t touch the table.” Noah: “And it’s called ‘Stomp the Wombat”(thank you, Penguins of Madagascar). Craig: “What part of don’t you understand don’t you understand?” Whacked. They’re all whacked. We don’t need TV. We’re our own sitcom.
Play with your food,
Michelle
St. Patrick's Day Cream of Wheat. Ew. The kids loved it!
Isabelle is Irish!
I May Never Pass This Way Again
I haven’t been blogging because I told myself that Quickbooks and Taxes are a priority and must be done first. BUT…I’m cheating by blogging that I’m not blogging for said reasons. I hope to have my part done by the weekend then dump it all in the accountant’s lap. Pray for the woman.
(In my best Arnold accent) I’ll be back….
I Like It Here…
My first blog was on Homeschool Blogger. I hear it’s been improved upon but I’m a scrapbooker at heart and needed to be able to load photos with ease. So I moved to Blogger. Much better and has served me well but up until recently, we were on dial-up and Blogspot didn’t always load up very quickly, if at all. I didn’t really make my blog known as there was a lot of tweaking I wanted to do but the dial-up and some limitations of Blogger fed my appetite for procrastination. I’ve been wanting to do a hodge podge blog where I can keep my general journaling and photo-posting, share my vast wealth of knowledge on zookeeping, talk shop with other homeschoolers, chronicle our adventure into the catering business, offer some spiritual introspection with Biblical exploration here and there, AND host a foodie blog all in one place. I guess we could call it a scatter-brained blog but that’s how I roll. SO, pages I need and flexibility to be creative with layout and so forth. And here I am, giving it another go. I am impressed with what I have found here and the recommendations to set up residence here have convinced me that I will be very comfortable here. I make no claim to being a great writer but I think best through the printed word, written and read, and I need the therapy. Here’s hoping I stay motivated and others might be blessed by my efforts.
Play with your food,
Michelle
http://thethinkingcloset.wordpress.com/
Recipe For A Wild Thyme 