A memory to get me through the winter

After stressing about it for months (years?) I finally went to get my Indiana drivers license. Only because my Michigan one expires on my birthday August 5th. I was supposed to get it within 60 days. That was two years ago. So I tamped down my agoraphobia and went in and failed the written exam. Gah! Now I have to go back tomorrow and try again. I tried downloading the manual (pdf) beforehand and it stalled out. So I ask them if they had a booklet today and they said they were all out. Now isn’t that helpful?

I don’t have a clue why I must be tested on the complicated rules for getting a learners permit if you are 15 or 16 years old but apparently I need to memorize them. It also might have been extremely helpful to know WHICH questions I missed! That is to remain a secret however. I’m thinking about wearing long sleeves and writing the answers on my arm :p I know I guessed at some of those things about distances but I looked after I got home and I guessed right, so how am I supposed to know where I went wrong? Geez, that’s lame. Like I have any clue when I’m following a car if I’m 200 feet behind it or not.

Plus, some of the questions were stupid, like a semi will go wide to the left when making a tight turn. Huh? doesn’t that depend on which direction it’s turning? There was no “none of the above” choices. I think they should let me write the test for them so it doesn’t leave you wondering what the heck they are talking about. Then there’s the rural vs urban highways and what is the speed limit. But it doesn’t stop there, they can be broken down into other variations to complicate it even more. Why can’t I just LOOK at the speed limit signs to know what speed is allowed? How do I know when I’m on a rural vs urban highway? Nothing says, now entering urban highway. Okay, off to study the pdf if I can get the thing to download.

My garden as of today. I think I found a radish. I don’t remember planting radishes. I pulled it because I thought it was a weed. Maybe it’s a weed that looks like a radish? If I did plant them it’s odd only one came up.

My pretty vines.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
~Joyce Kilmer, "Trees," 1914

Spiders are good for your garden and your house too I reckon if you have little bugs bugging you. Hanna at This Garden Is Illegal has a great post about Wolf Spiders. I really don’t mind spiders but I really hate the hairy ones! Yes, that would be wolf spiders.

When I was in California, we had Black Widows all over the place. They didn’t bother me much except worrying that my kids might get bit. I was always cleaning them out of the patio in the backyard. I did find out that they can play dead and they can jump really well too!

These giant webs are the most bizarre though. This one was in Texas and contained 250 specimens in 12 families. Talk about a community, that’s going too far for me Have I given you the creepy crawly willies yet?

Edited: so if you click it you’ll see a real beauty!

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Today we honor them and their sacrifice.

This is a test using the media upload thingy. I don’t actually know if that was Lissy’s first ice cream since that was like 20 years ago. lol But from the look on her face it could have been

I had to take another picture. I’m so refraining from feeding them a few worms myself No matter how much they eat they are always hungry.