One Step Over the Border

The EF-3 tornado that swept through about thirty miles north of our area was so destructive, it's path can be seen from space. This picture is from NASA's home page. The thin diagonal line going up near the center is the path of the tornado. It did millions of dollars worth of damage and knocked down tens of thousands of trees, mostly pine. A woman I spoke to at the library today said that she traveled through the area about two hours after it hit and the smell of pine was overpowering.

Molly has turned into a glow in the dark lobster. While I took Mia to the doctor yesterday, Molly went swimming at the beach. I thought she had applied sunscreen before we left home, but she forgot. So she spent four hours unprotected in the sun. She's wearing a halter top today with a wet towel draped across her back, and I'm applying layers of lotion every couple of hours. She gave me a nice compliment today. Today I put on the quarterly conference for pastors at the hospital, and organizing it always throws me into a bit of a tizzy. It went well, and I met a new pastor whose church I definitely want to visit. I called Molly on the way home to ask how she and Mia were doing. When she didn't ask how my conference went, I teasingly thanked her for asking. She said, "I know it went fine, because you planned it." My girl definitely has her sweet moments.

I got another ego boost at the library today when I stopped in. The librarian is setting up a blog for the libray and asked for some technical help. I still consider myself a neophyte at blogging, but it was nice to be able to help, and she asked me to teach a weblogging class there sometime in the future.

One Step Over the Border by Stephen Bly is a surprising good read! I'm not a fan of westerns or cowboys, so when I first read the description of this book, I was a bit hesitant to read it, but I'm certainly glad I did. This book redeems cowboys from the Brokeback Mountain curse! Hap Bowman has spent nearly his whole life searching for the girl named Juanita who stole his twelve-year-old heart, but all he knows about her is her name and the horsehead shaped birthmark under her ear. Laramie Majors a quiet peace-loving cowboy with a painful family history hooks up with Hap and they work as cowboys , spend time on the rodeo circuit and rescue beautiful women all in the search for the elusive Juanita. Hap and Laramie's exchanges are stellar, and the humorous situations they fall into a hoot. Bly evokes the simplicity of the cowboy lifestyle while gently teaching that life is less about the destination than about the journey. Both men fall in love with strong unconventional women, but Hap learns that the pursuit of his quest may cost him what he values most. This book put a smile on my face every time I picked it up.

I'm going to another library book sale tomorrow, plus a couple of church rummage sales. The whole town is havingrummage sale tomorrow. Molly doesn't want to come along, so I'll be off in search of bargains early.