Bare with me as I attempt to type on a laptop with a mind of it's own. It has some strange cursor issue and it is pushing me over the edge. My cursor is bouncing from one word to another like a little dancing line. It's beyond irratating.

When Samson was nine years old his father died in a car accident. He knew it was going to happen five days before it did.

"I don't think you should drive to work today," he told his dad, who shrugged off his warning and told him that for such a young lad he had grown up concerns.

"I'll see you later," he said, "We'll have supper just like always."

When his mom got the call later that evening about the accident, Samson didn't wait around for her to break the news. He ran upstairs. He ripped all his motorcross posters off the wall. Pulled the covers off the bed and knocked all of his trophies off his dresser.

He threw himself down on the bed and sobbed. "Why didn't I just hide his keys. I knew he wouldn't listen."

All throughout his childhood, Samson didn't really feel different. He thought everyone knew when the phone was about to ring and who would be on the other line.

He'd heard the word psychic and he'd seen commercials for 900 numbers who said they could predict the callers future for a mean $2.95 a minute.

He thought that was funny because that wasn't really how it worked. Oh sometimes, he'd shake the hand of one of his mom's friends and see something weird, but often times it was a feeling. A dread. A worry.

It didn't take long for him to realize that adults don't pay much mind to the worries of children.

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Last week was the first time in 14 weeks that I haven't written at least a snippet for Just Write Tuesday. I can't believe I've been doing it that long. Funny how time just flies when you are having fun.

I remember when my daughter, who was six at the time, utter one of the most terrifying phrases I'd ever heard. She said, "Mommy, I want to be a cheerleader." What? A cheerleader? My past experience with cheerleaders hadn't been what I would call enlightening. The cheerleaders I had encountered over my life time always traveled together and pointed out everyone's flawesbut their own. Visions of the movie "Heathers" and the slutty dance done by the evil cheerleader in Bring it on: all or nothing were racing through my head. I tried to find out why my six year wanted to be a cheerleader.

"Really," I said, "You want to cheer? Why's that, honey?"

"Pom poms" she said, "I just love pom poms and jumping and yelling and wearing skirts."

"Don't you want to participate in the sport, instead of just being a spectator? Wouldn't you rather play soccer than cheer for those who do?"

She thought about that for awhile and answered simply, "Nope."

Thus began my foray into the art of cheerleading. Our first coaching experience wasn't great. The three women, all parents of squad members, seemed ill prepared and spent most of their time trying to recruit "real cheerleaders" to teach the little girls.

I found this aggravating and began helping out where I could and soon some of the girls started calling me coach. I have to admit that I liked the sound of that.

After that season ended, my daughter begged me to allow her to continue to cheer. So she began cheering for basketball and then football. By the time the football season rolled around, I was very familiar with the cheers and when approached by the organizational head and asked about possibly coaching, I felt that I probably could handle that.

"As long as it's not too big of a squad," I said.

Shouldn't have uttered that out loud because come football season, I found myself the proud head coach of a squad of 19 7 and 8 year old girls.

It was challenging but in the long run it was fun. I came to respect the sport of cheerleading. It truly is a discipline that requires a great amount of skill.

That same six year old is now already nine and just tried out for a competition squad and come fall I'll probably be coaching again. No not competition. I know my limitation. I'll be coaching my other daughter's basketball squad.

Here are the girls "rowing" us as their brother supervises. He ain't dumb...it was close to 100 degrees!

My hubby looking cute and annoyed that I'm taking his picture and not rowing.

So what are those faces all about?

As promised here are some of the pictures of our new canoe and our first trip out in it. I may have to scrap these just because I want too. The kids received life vests as a Christmas present from my stepdad and they finally got to use them! Yeah.

I'm back! Yeah. Five days in the woods may be longer than I'm really comfortable with. I can't wait to shower and wash my hair without wearing shoes! I'll post some pictures later. We just got an 18 foot canoe and we had a lot of fun with that. TTFN

These pictures are from a pear picking party that we had at my friend Christine's house. Soooo much fun. The kids had a blast and the horses next door were very thankful for the "not so pretty" pears the children brought over for them.

Thanks for visiting!

Well I should be packing for our camping trip but instead I'm typing a blog entry. Can you say procrastination. I haven't been on in a while and I felt I needed to update. Here are two pictures from camp last year. We are going to a local state park. Not too far away since gas prices are terribly high. Also, I will secretly admit this to you ***I don't like tent camping in the rain*** Wow it feels good to get that off my chest! If it storms I'm driving home...and I'm not going to feel guilty about it...not one little bit.

I don't feel much like writing today. I've been staring at this computer screen for longer than I should. Here's my entry for Just Write Tuesday.

"Dandelions in my shoes, in my shoes, in my shoes. Dandelions in my shoes, oh lucky shoes," sang T.J.

"What are you doing," asked Brant, from the front porch of their house.

"Planting flowers in my sneakers," replied T.J., "What does it look like?"

"It looks like a whole lot of trouble to me," said Brant. "Those aren't dandelions, Sherlock, those are the marigolds mom spent all day yesterday planting and I don't think she's going to appreciate your abstract gardening abilities."

T.J. thought about what his brother said for a long time. He looked at his new sneakers overflowing with dirt and flowers and couldn't help but think that his brother was most likely right. Although, T.J. wasn't about to tell Brant that.

"I'm going to grandmas," he said and without bothering to put his shoes on he walked the three blocks to his grandmothers house.

T.J. had always hated shoes and rarely wore them. The dirt and the gravel didn't bother his hardened soles as he skipped along to his grandmother's house.

When he arrived at 215 Marmalade Ave a weird sensation came over him. Where was his grandma? Why was her front door ajar, with the screen flapping in the breeze?

Ever so slowly he walked to the door. "Grandma," he hollered, "Are you here? Grandma?"

"YEOWWWW!"

T.J. jumped at the sight of Inspector Gadget, Grandma's cat. "What has you so spooked?" he asked the cat as he patted his head.

Mustering up all the courage he could, T.J. stepped through the door and hollered for his grandmother a third time. Again, like the time before, there was no answer.

When he got to the kitchen, T.J. had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The table was overturned and all of the drawers had been emptied. His grandma's lunch was still uneaten on the table, only a bite was missing from her sandwich.

Whoever had visited his grandma's house moments before had been looking for something, but what? And was grandma with them?

Okay...here's my messy craft room for your viewing pleasure. I was going to clean it up a little bit, but then I realized it always looks like this so you might as well see the true version. Guess I can't yell at my kids about cleaning up their mess anymore...LOL

Here are some pictures of the fireworks we saw a few days ago. I was trying out my firework setting on my new camera and thought they turned out pretty cool. I didn't have a tripod or anything.

A closer view and just to be ubber fair...which is the theme of our summer (what is fair and what is not fair) one hand is my youngest daughter and one is my oldest.

shhhhh...don't tell the oldest. These are just my middlest dd's feet.

Like I said, fairness...that's the motto at our house. And that fairness is not gender exclusive. LOL. I'm sure someday he won't want me to paint them anymore **said with a little frown**

Seeing as most of the day has gotten away from me I decided to post something a little different for Just Write Tuesday. Today is a list of things I would rather be doing than making dinner:

1. Visiting naked island off of Jamaica;

2. Taking a bubble bath without being interrupted by my children and having my legs shave themselves;

3. Painting my kids fingernails red, white and blue (oh, I should definitely do that before bed time)

4. Drinking a margarita;

5. Getting a massage;

6. Watching my housekeeper, let's call him Marco for the purpose of this fantasy, fold all of our laundry;

7. Listening to my husband say, "Don't worry, babe, I got the dishes;

8. Scrapbooking with my sister in Emerald Isle, N.C. (OMG, is that a beautiful place);

9. waving a magic wand and having my couches magically put themselves back together (kids were making a tent);

10. Using that same magic wand to get the bathrooms to clean themselves.

While in my craft room with my dds one of them came across the wonderful 12x12 pattern paper featured in these cards. ***sigh*** I remember getting this piece of paper in a gift bag at a benefit crop, but that's about all I remember about it.

So the conversation goes something like this:

DD#1 "Mommy, can I have this paper? It's sooooo pretty?"

DD#2 "No you can't have it, it won't be fair if you have it. There is only one piece."

DD#1 "I saw it first"

DD#2 "Na-uh, I saw it first."

Mom, trying to defuse the argument. "Let's make something from it and then we won't have to fight about it."

DD#1 "How many cards can you make with just one sheet of paper?"

Mom, light bulb going off in her head. "I don't know let's find out."

So that is how this challenge came to be. Seeing as I haven't had a comment on my blog for about two weeks, I don't have high hopes that many of you will play along. ***sighs and secretly hopes that Okie and Robyn will link her blog to theirs and send some traffic her way***

As you can see from these not-so-great photos I made twelve cards with one sheet of 12x12 paper and one sheet of black 8 1/2 by 11 paper. The card bases were pre-made and ready to go. A few of the cards have some ribbon on them as well.

I think they turned out rather cute. They were simple and most importantly they ended the argument between my daughters as to who got to have the sheet of paper. The answer....MOMMY.

So my challenge to you....can you make 12 cards from one sheet of 12x12 paper and one sheet of 8 1/2 by 11 paper and if so would you please ***pretty please*** link your cards to my blog so it looks like some one is reading mine. I would much appreciate it.... ***sigh***