Sometime ago both Principled Discovery and LeftCoast
Onlooker tagged me with naming 7 Things That People
Probably Don't Know About Me. I am woefully behind
on this but here goes...

1. Flies-I am pretty good at killing flies with my
bare hands. It is easy really; you just need
to realize that flies jump up and back when
they are spooked. First, hold your hands apart, as
though you were getting ready to clap, about 10
inches above and slightly behind them. Then,
clap hard. Open your hands up and you've got a
dead fly! This is really a necessary skill when
you have cows and goats in the yard most days. A
lot of flies make their way off the critters and
into the house. It is truly a more foolproof way
to eliminate a fly than a flyswatter is.

2. The number 5-Kent asked me one day which number I
most disliked writing. After considering for a few
moments I said, "The number 5."

"Really?" he asked. "Me too!"

It is hard to keep 5's from looking like S's. They are
just plain messy numbers.

3. Staid-I am, and always have been, rather staid in my
personality, and besides that, I think it is a lovely and
underused word. I'd like to bring it back into fashion.

4. Stayed-I am stayed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
foundation of all life.

5. 500# Pig-I once, in the dim and dark past, helped Kent to
lift a 500# pig into the back of a truck. It is a great
story...but I will sum up. We had been trying to load
these pigs for hours and we had tried everything people
had told us to do. The only thing left on the list of
"Ways to load pigs 101" was to have a person on the left
side and a person on the right side, reach under the porker
and grab wrists and lift quickly. I saw Kent look out of
the corner of his eyes at me in a speculative manner. "Oh
no," I thought, "he can't really be thinking what I'm
thinking he's thinking." He was.

But he modified it. Joel, who was probably 11 at the time,
and I took one side and Kent took the other. Kent yelled,
we grabbed and Billy (age 8) stood behind and pushed with
all his strength. After we got Mr. 500# loaded, Mr. 4 hundred
and something pounder was a breeze!

6. Banana seat-I won a banana seat bike when I was a kid. One
of my favorite things to do was to get going really fast
down the street and then stand up on the seat with my arms
raised straight up in the air and careen through the
neighborhood. It didn't kill me, but I can't imagine why
not.

7. Going to the Philippines-I leave next week for the Philippines
with my sister. I am going as her traveling companion/protector.
She has a lot of work to do there for the Church Planting
Mission she is with and we will be doing a lot of hopping
around and meeting with people. I love the Philippines and
am very excited to go. May God bless the trip and allow it
to be used for His eternal glory! I probably won't have much
access to a computer, but if I can snatch a minute here or there,
I'll try to post some about our time there. I'll just be gone
a little less than two weeks.