What a Lovely Day -- posted by Momma

This morning I woke up to a red sunrise. The sand traps on the 18th hole looked like pools of pink champagne, and our "pet" hummimgbirds were busy sipping from the two nectar feeders attached to the window behind the rose rocker from which Miss Sally usually makes her video entries. I noticed because I was surprised to see them up so early. Sarah should aim the camera so y'all can see them. One is a very small ruby-throated hummingbird, rather skittish, and the other is larger, and bold enough to drink from the lower feeder, defying his "you know, a cat could easily eat me at this altitude" instinct. Gutsy isn't as cute as Ruby, but I like his moxie.

Speaking of moxie, our mild-mannered Miss Sally can be a regular Pitbull. Yesterday, I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time in a long time. Usually Sarah Grace accompanies me, and she has become my Jiminy Cricket of supermarket savvy! Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of her as I truly appreciate her knowledge and wisdom. She has managed to get our grocery bill BELOW the USDA allowance for the THRIFTY food plan even though we eat mostly pricey whole foods! Do you understand the magnitude of this accomplishment? Hold on to your hat... we spend $150-$180 per week (depending upon whether we have a treat like seafood or steak that week) for a family of 10! And 8 of those 10 are boys! Of course, she makes most everything from scratch, as she is our Frau Fru-gal.

So, yesterday I went to Publix, which is very close to my mother's house, to pick up a couple of items. Sarah Grace wanted me to buy a little bit of chicken so she could make chicken salad for my mother. (One of Momma's favorite things to eat is Sarah's chicken salad.) I grabbed a package of chicken and noticed that it was $8.47 for a couple of albeit large split chicken breasts. However, I was well aware that Sarah knew a whole large roasting chicken from Food Lion would be $4.00. Do you know I was actually AFRAID to buy the convenient yet over-priced chicken? I was afraid of the disapproval I would get from my Sally. Unfortunately, the Food Lion was close enough that I couldn't justify the purchase in light of gas prices, so I got back in the car, drove to another sizzling hades-just-beneath-my-feet-and-I'm-having-trouble-breathing parking lot to buy twice as much chicken for half as much money, thanks to my daughter's tutelage. If she keeps this up, I've got a dang good chance at becoming an awesome homemaker!

The good news is our Gators beat the Trojans 56-6. The bad news is they took our Tebow out of the game early to give the back-up quarterback a chance to play. The passage on Tebow's eye black strips was Mark 8:36. Go ahead and read all of Mark 8 while you're there.