Robinson

Friday night, Feb 25.

Honor, 8: "I don't like romance. It's mushy and it makes me tingle inside!"

At the prospect of Patience plugging in another Andy Griffith episode in which Andy and Barney are dating the girls.

Thursday morning, February 24.

Justice and I went to Charleston yesterday. He had a great time. We were there for the Life Gauge vote on the House floor. Details at

http://www.lifegauge.org/happenng.htm

Justice spent much of the time playing with a new kind of computer that is a table top. It had lots of games.

He played a game of checkers with Earl Monroe, the head football coach at WV State. In 1978, Earl was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs.

This is the game Genesis, a 3-dimensional view of space, with the ability to create, with your finger, suns and planets and star dust that move and orbit and collide. Neat game.

The WV State band. Good music.

Tuesday morning, February 23.

Yesterday morning Courage showed me a picture of a girl in a book and said that was him. I asked him if he is a girl; he said yes. I let it go.

At supper last night I asked him if he had a good day, and was it a girl day or a boy day. He announced he was a boy. I told him that's good, since God made him a boy. Also, being a boy, he could grow up and marry a girl, which is a wonderful thing. Courage got a bit red in the face.

Honor, to my right, muttered under his breath, "Sharing germs."

That is the opinion of marriage for my eight-year-old.

Bridge work continues. They have scooped out a lot of dirt, and are beginning to place vertical I-beams. The dirt is being placed behind. Some of it at the end of the landing strip, some of it for something else (I don't know what), seen in the background here.

How can you package beer and label it family?

Maybe the family is the Budweiser family, not my family. Strange.

Occasionally I get a visitor at my computer desk. Grace brought her own toast and blanket.

Yes I did "come down with something." Better now. Amazing how sick we can get, and how the body battles back. On Saturday I could hardly get off the couch without someone helping me.

No one else caught it. Yet.

Friday night, and I appear to be coming down with something. Intense stomach and some back pain is all so far. Pray it will be brief, relatively harmless, and that I can make it to Charleston Wednesday for the vote in the House, which I have been working toward for four years. I don't want to miss it.

Everyone else seems fine, but Faith said Courage did not eat much this evening, not a good sign.

Dutilleux Henri Joseph Constant - Path in the Forest 1864 This is a better picture of the painting I bought. I got this view off the internet. This painting on a stretched canvas, 22" x 27" (like mine), costs $300 plus shipping, at Allposters.com.

Why does that fact make me happier than I already was? Human nature.

Thursday night, February 18.

Friends from 50 years ago (they were adults when I was born, in Littlepage church in Charleston) have an apartment in Charleston where I stay once a year, when I'm doing Life Gauge. I was surprised to see my brother Max's drawing of two draft horses on the wall. It was probably there last year too, but I don't remember it. My memory is quite selective these days.

That's a mirror around the print.

Max had several hundred copies made. You can own the print for a small amount of money. I cannot remember the exact price.

I saw this thing beside Lowes in Kanawha City. Not sure what it is, but knew the boys would be interested.

A painting I bought at a thrift store this week for $6.50.

That is a ruler at the bottom; the painting is big.

I think it is wonderful; better than any I've found in my 30 years of junking. It is a bit darker than it looks here.

Looked the painter's name up on the computer. Henri Joseph Constant Dutilleux. 1807-1865. Paris. Painted this in 1864. Path in the Forest. He was an Impressionist, though this painting doesn't have all the typical characteristics.

Tuesday morning, February 16.

Three outlaws.

The orneriest outlaw.

Faith and the kids made a snowman yesterday.

Most assuredly, he is French.

Patience read this Charlie Brown cartoon yesterday:

At Awana Sunday night, the kids played a walk-around version of musical chairs. It was a Valentine's party. Justice is on the far right, in the blue sweatshirt. I think Mercy is in front of him. Honor is just to the left of the middle, with the gray hood on ( . . don't know why he wears the hood when inside). Patience is two slots behind Honor.

This is game where three teams try to move little hearts from the table into a bowl. Mercy concentrates.

Justice and Honor and I took Patience to the dentist in Clarksburg yesterday. There was a nice sunset coming home, seen from I-79 on the big mountains just north of Burnsville.

On Route 5, just this side of Sand Fork, the moon was a tiny sliver of light, on the bottom side of the moon.

After some thinking, I explained to the kids this meant that because the moon was setting soon after the sun did, light from the already-set sun was shining on the bottom of the moon. That's why the sliver is on the bottom, instead of on one side or the other, where moon-slivers usually are.

Patience reminded us all that the sun and moon weren't actually setting. The earth was just spinning. What a fine creation it is.

When I first tried to take this shot, the result was too dark. Patience reset the camera to a night setting, and it worked.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2010-02-08-ceocolors08_ST_N.htm?obref=obnetwork

Click on the address above for an article about a color test. If you want you can take the test, and it's supposed to have some accuracy describing your personality and abilities/tendencies.

I looked at a ten-day forecast yesterday. The temperature is not supposed to climb above freezing until next Thursday, February 18.

A 2009 study led by the Mayo Clinic found that almost 9 percent of U.S. surgeons who responded to the survey said they had made a major error in the previous three months.

Monday morning, Feb 8.

Honor helps with the salad. The clip on top of his head is what we tie his tether to.

Patience made a pie.

The road to Cox's Mills Sunday morning was beautiful.

The horse at the mouth of the hollow . . .

. . . was set in a world of white.

Our pastor, Alan Neal, 81, will be married this coming Friday in Canton, Ohio, to Julie. A friend is paying for their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Alan will retire from the pastorate in June. Sunday evening he hosted his annual -- and last -- pastry party. He was a baker for many years in England.

The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.

Tacitus

Daddy: Where's Honor?

Justice: He's getting talked to momma by.

Daddy: That was quite a sentence. (pause)

Justice: No, Daddy! Don't put it on the blog!

Friday evening, Feb 5.

The new ceiling light. I took it out of a house when I put in a ceiling fan.

When we moved several rooms around a couple of weeks ago, we piled so many books on the kitchen table that it collapsed. You can see it here in the background, legs up in the death position. We ate on a glass table I salvaged . . .

. . . and on a short-legged play table someone gave us recently.

Now the dining room table is fixed, and we're glad to have it back.

Honor and I were on the road Wednesday and Thursday. In Mount Hope Thursday morning, we saw this display of 3700 little crosses, representing the number of abortions every day in this country. The crosses were put up by the Mount Hope Methodist Church.

Have no doubt. There is a great judgment coming.

Wednesday we drove through Grantsville, Clay, Gauley Bridge, Fayetteville, and on to Beckley for the night. Thursday morning we drove through Mount Hope, up 16 and 19 to Ansted, and took Rt 60 all the way to Charleston. We stopped at Hawk's Nest State Park, where we took this photo.

The bridge looks just like it looked forty-plus years ago when my parents took me there.

All the time we were in Clay and Fayette counties we stopped at churches, left Life Gauge information about an upcoming vote at the legislature, and met a few pastors and members. We wrote down information for about seventy churches.

Passed this interesting-looking business.

Nice falls. Hard to see how big they are because Honor is so far in the foreground. The falls are very high.

Kanawha Falls, on the Gauley River (I think).

At the Capitol, Honor with the sheriff of Cabell county (r) and his deputy.

Honor exchanges greetings with West Virginia's Governor, Joe Manchin.

Sunrise, early Thursday. When I took this photo Honor and I were already on the road, just north of Beckley.

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

- Erin Majors

"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate."
- Ambrose Bierce

"Two-thirds of Haiti's 9 million are said to practice Voodoo, a melange of beliefs combining animism from west Africa and Catholicism." (from an on-line article by AP)

Saturday morning, January 30.

At 10 am, Faith and Patience and Mercy and Grace (see her apron around her neck) are making waffles . . .

. . . while Justice and Honor and Courage play in the snow.

Friday night, January 29.

Patience went with me to the Capitol this week, Tuesday and Wednesday.

This is what Holt Run looked like as we left, through the Subaru's windshield.

At the Capitol (not much snow in Charleston).

Patience as a page in the House chamber. She is walking toward the door, dressed in a white top. Not the lady by the door; Patience is the one with the long hair.

When the session ended, after about 20 minutes, Patience and a friend wandered across the chamber. Tom Louisos, a delegate who will introduce a controversial motion Feb 24, is in front of Patience. He is the most courageous man in the legislature. Votes his conscience and his constituents, ignores the leadership and their games, and pays a heavy price for his nobility. Pardon me, I'm getting carried away.

It's a new TV show . . . Grace and Friends.

Three daughters.

Sunday morning, January 24.

I picked up a good collection of sun hats and sunglasses at a thrift store in Charleston Wednesday. The kids made good models.

We didn't just move furniture yesterday. We changed whole rooms, and moved a couple of thousand books. Unknowingly piling books on the dining room table, it caved in in the afternoon, ripping screws out of holes and leaving the thing without the underneath sliding boards that hold it together. No table (broken), no chairs (full of stuff), nowhere to sit and eat. We worked on it from dawn til bed time, and there is more do be done. Lots more.

Friday, January 15.

Honor dumped out sunflower seeds for the birds. He put it in the apple tree cage so the cats wouldn't capitalize on the bird gathering.

Skeeter in a tree. This is the cat with the personality. Scooter, the other cat, is more distant, less seen.

Cleaning out the debris that catches on the low water bridge. The ice, which froze all the way across the river, reduced water flow even further, and puts more pressure on the bridge.

Closer shot, same photo.

Sunday, January 10.

Once again we miss church. More snow fell last night. The temperature was 6 degrees this morning. We stayed home.

Courage spent a lot of time in the snow this afternoon.

photo Faith

Daddy reads to the little ones, before Courage's nap.

Bill and Sandy gave Grace a Leapfrog reader. She likes it a lot, and so do the other kids.

Grace, trying to communicate to momma that it's OK to go outside. Momma would not be buffaloed.

Courage.

Tuesday, January 5.

More snow last night and all day today. I stayed home, though I have a lot of work to get done in town.

I finally got the phone line run to my computer from under the house. The kids played with some new games they got for Christmas: Clue and Battleship.

We all went sledding for an hour and a half this evening. It's dark now, and the three big kids are still out there.

a closer look at the same photo.

All eight of us were out in it, and no one enjoyed it more than Grace, the baby.

photo: Faith

We sledded on the driveway beside the house, and kept going higher and higher to start. The big kids got some good speed. This is Honor and Patience, in motion.

Do you see a pained expression behind the smile?

I had just hit, with my weighty posterior moving thirty miles per hour, a pointed rock at the bottom of the driveway, sticking five inches above ground level. It hurt. I cleared around it and kept sledding, with my eyes open. The kids piled those rocks there a couple of months ago, playing in the driveway.

Patience pulled Courage and Grace.

Time to go in and start supper.

Monday night, January 4.

Snow, snow, and more snow. Justice and I just barely got back up the holler from town this evening. It looks like we won't be going anywhere tomorrow.

Courage is a wannabe cook.

A barn on the way to church. We drove to Troy Christmas Day, only to learn that the Christmas morning church service had been cancelled.

Friday afternoon, December 25.

We went to Christmas Eve service at St Marks last night. Grace liked their toys.

A small crowd, before the service began.

Christmas morning. Stockings come first.

Momma makes it out to join us. Grace tries to figure out this stocking thing.

Mine!

New mittens for Mercy.

A new skirt for Patience. In the background, you can see Courage's Bob the Builder video.

Cap guns for the older boys.

Another skirt.

Mercy's stuff.

Courage got a Thomas the Tank Engine flashlight, but of course older siblings have to check it out. Grace wanted everything everybody touched.

Thank God that He sent Jesus to cover all of our sins.

Sunday morning, December 20. No church today.

Daddy with Patience, Justice, Honor, and Courage. Mercy took this shot from the front door.

The apple tree in the front yard.

Mercy rescues Courage from the deep snow, taking him into the warm house.

The shed roof shows how much snow we got. More than a foot.

Winter wonderland.

We sang a few Christmas carols last night. Grace decided to help. (What appears to be a crooked photo on the wall is actually a mirror, showing a photo on the opposing wall.)

Wednesday afternoon, December 15.

Patience, answering with one word a complicated question in her math workbook:

"Because."

And last week she yelled out to her mom . . . "One times one is two, right?"

The Japanese are getting worried, I'm sure.

Wednesday morning, December 15.

We went to Micah's burial yesterday. Many of his high school friends were there. Must have been fifty vehicles crammed up in the end of the remote holler where the Ramseys live. Micah was buried on top of the mountain, on a beautiful day. We walked up.

He will not return to us; but we will go to him.

The sun was getting ready to set as the men finished putting the dirt back in the grave. By then the crowd was back at the house, eating and talking.

Yesterday was Courage's birthday. I took him to breakfast at McDonald's. He ate pancakes. He turned four.

After the funeral we came home and opened some presents, and had root beer floats.

A kiss from his mother. Grace has more important things to do -- ice cream.

Patience was in a dance performance Saturday evening, as part of the annual Christmas program.

Equipment and materials are in place to start the new bridge over the river.

Leaving the hollow yesterday morning.

Sunday morning, December 13.

Our friend Micah Ramsey, 15, died Friday night, of Ewing's Sarcoma. He loved Jesus. He went with great courage and grace. We love his parents, who we met during our time in Rosedale: Clark and Dani, and his brother Jeremiah and sisters Charity and Joy.

Thank God for His Son Jesus.