Happy FOURTH!!! or How To Count

Okay kids, I know you were more interested in girls in school than the math class, so I'm going to play teacher and give you a quick lesson in arithmetic.  It's called COUNTING.

Hold up your left hand.  No, that's your RIGHT hand.  Amazingly, you have FIVE appendages on your left hand.  Thumb is number ONE.  The second finger is TWO.  The third finger is THREE.  The fourth finger is FOUR, and so on.

Here's how you count them out.  July 1 is your thumb ... it stands for ONE.  July 2 is your second finger and it stands for TWO.  July 3 IS NOT July 4 and therefore I should not hear booms and bangs all night long ... mostly because IT'S NOT JULY 4TH YET!!!!

Your FOURTH finger is when you get to light off all that illegal fireworks, keeping everyone up and starting fires across your neighbor's back yards, not to mention scaring all the neighborhood dogs to death.

If you really want to show your kids (and grandkids) a great fireworks display and hear all that loud noise, go to your local fireworks show sponsored by the City (or whoever).  They have fire trucks just to keep fires down and the neighborhood safe.

Not that it IS safe, but at least I won't worry about fire in my back yard.  On the other hand, just four miles away, there was a gang shooting with one dead and one injured.  I have no problem with that .... one day they will all kill each other off and we won't have to worry any more.  It's okay, at least it wasn't next door like a couple years ago!!

Yesterday I had my morning coffee with a friend parked on my lap.  Cooper called the lap-dog rule where I can't move until he wakes up.  I'm surprised that the fold-up jail is working so well.  We all slept like logs last night, except for the first two hours of bangs and booms.  I'm happy to say he seems to be almost back to normal ... but I'm not taking any chances.

Miss Jessie is scared to death of loud noises.  Tonight will be even worse.  This morning I actually tied her up with an old scarf, sort of like a thunder shirt.  This evening, I'll find an old running shirt and truss her up.  I'll try anything to keep her from shaking all night long.

Having seen blogger Patsy's beautiful wildflowers, picked around their property in Canada and made into bouquets, I decided how nice it would look if I did the same.  There wasn't much to choose from.  Two little dandelions and some star jasmine.  Everything else has withered from the heat.  Not big enough to cheer up the house, it added a little color to the stove.

Here's block 2 of the Quilt Challenge.  This is where the blok 'n lok plastic square came in handy.  I used it to square up these HST's.  Yeah, I had to look that one up ... half square triangles.  I had no idea what HST stood for.  The measurements on this one came out perfect.  YAY!!  

I hope you thoroughly enjoy the Fourth of July with SAFE AND SANE fireworks.  If you have puppies, PLEASE PLEASE keep them inside.  There is nothing sadder than reading about all the lost dogs on July 5 because someone left them in the back yard while the neighbors played war.

I'll give you a play by play of the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.  It wasn't pretty but I survived.