Sample Testimony - David S.

We put short testimonies of people like David on our weekly show. I thought I'd put something on this blog so you could get an idea of the work I do. Enjoy!

Obed and the "common" yet rare and endangered barn owl So, the story goes that a storm came through our area a few nights ago with winds in the 60 mph range, and though it hadn't come through on our walk to Steph's parent's home, boy did that wind pick up when we decided to walk home later that evening. As you can see by my hair, the wind was pretty strong....I'm suprised that at my age I still had some left after that walk. So....we're walking down the street, dust flying all around, beating against our skin....so what do we do? WE RUN! And what's faster than running? FLYING! And by the picture above, can you tell who was doing what that night? You guessed it....the owl was running, and my hair was flying! My hair was flying 'cause I haven't had a haircut in almost a month, and the owl was running because it couldn't handle the strong wind and ended up hitting a stop sign pole at the corner of the street. Then, when I approached the owl to catch it, it starting running away. I decided I'd walk behind it so it couldn't see me, and wrap my hands around it's wings. Little did I know that, according to many websites we looked at to find information on what type of owl this was, I did exactly what you're suppose to do when trying to catch one of these rare birds! After catching the owl, we walked back to our apartment and found a box to put him in. Unfortunately, I let the owl get too close to Steph and when it felt Steph's arm with it's tallons, it grabbed her arm leaving Steph with a couple of small scratches and some tiny but deep holes from it's claws. Steph is okay, but her arm was sore for a few days and is still healing. Like I said before, we looked on the web for information on what to do with such a bird. We were able to get a hold of the Wildlife Conservation Dept. of Missouri and we met someone from there at a nearby town. They were able to take the bird and have it shipped to Columbia, Missourri....which is about 2 hrs. away. I'm sure the Owl is okay.....but my hair isn't. I still haven't got my hair cut. Looking back.....I kinda wish I had that owl's hair (yes, I know....they are feathers)....it sure did look beautiful.

Garage Sales

Last week on Saturday there was a community wide garage sale at Heartland from 8am-1pm. My mum was out early that morning before 8! So when Obed and I left the house at 8 right across the street from us two ladies told us "Hey your mom was buying baby clothes this morning - that could start some rumors you know!" I bought some baby clothes too, b/c they were so cute . . . then I saw my sister, Cathy, and her husband and teased her that I was going to buy her some baby clothes too. She said, "What? I was gonna buy some for you!" She keeps saying she doesn't want to have kids, but just a year ago she said she'd never get married, but she just got married May 5th! In the afternoon, mum and I went to Kirksville to pick up Ethan and saw lots of signs for more garage sales. So of course, we ended up stopping at some more. And we found some more baby stuff . . .

Sunday Lunch

Today we're having the Powell clan over for lunch - I tried a new recipe, we'll see how it turns out. Hoki (fish) wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven, Obed's going to make home made french fries to go with it. He's such a good husband -he helps me cook and clean!

Moving

Yesterday the sugar gliders moved to my parents house. We had a misunderstanding when we moved into our apartment (in March). So . . . we found out that we weren't supposed to have them in the apartment at all. My little brother is going to take care of them for us until we get a house. Hopefully sooner than later! In the mean time we're going to decorate our spare room and make it a baby room . . . there's no baby yet, but there may be one coming soon. =)

Obed and Steph

I was finally able to figure out how to put a photo of us on here . . . Obed helped . . . ok, so he told me how to do it! He's just so smart like that. So I went back and added a few photos of our trip to Mexico.

Sugar Gliders

We haven't written anything about our sugar gliders yet. Obed and I have 3 sugar gliders - Eshton, Fletcher, and Abi. Eshton and Fletcher are twins. We were originally only going to get Eshton, but his brother didn't have a home and after meeting him we just couldn't separate the brothers. We picked them up on Oct.19th which was my birthhday. Abi we couldn't pick up till a week later because she was younger and from a different breeder. We don't have many photos of them because we don't have a camera, but perhaps we'll find a way to get some photos on here sooner or later.

Spring cleaning?

I know it's not exactly spring anymore, but the spring cleaning bug bit me yesterday. After lunch, I went through all the extra boxes we had in the storage closet. . . eliminating several. It's so nice to know that everything is all organized in there now. A friend of ours gave us a beautiful hutch with glass covers on top and cabinets down the bottom. So while I was cleaning yesterday I discovered a few treasures hidden in newspaper that I'd quite forgotten. So the hutch is now full of interesting things from China, Japan, Israel, New Zealand . . . little things I had collected over the years. It was quite fun.

Shopping at Target....for baby stuff!!!

We decided we start to buy baby stuff so we went to Target...'cause that's where the crib we want is suppose to be sold at (according to the website). Well, we found out that Target stores are separate identities from the online store. So, it appears that just because it's online doesn't mean that a particular store will have what you are looking for. Now....to many of you this might already be common knowledge..but to new target shoppers like us, that is not the case. So we decided to take a 2 hr. trip to the nearest Target...and guess what. THEY DIDN'T HAVE WHAT WE WANTED! So we kept calm and collected and decided to ask where we could find another Target store. We were told there was another store about a 1/2 hr. trip away. So off on another trip we went. Different Target store....same story.....but a little more deceptive. This store did have a floor model of the crib we were looking for, and they even had those little papers that say..."give this to a "someone" and they will get you one from the back...'cause that is where we keep them...IF WE HAVE ONE. And......they didn't have one. Geees...how far do we have to travel to buy a simple crib? We ask the question again...."where is the nearest Target store?' It turns out that the next store was 45 minutes away. NAH......we're not going there. A 2 hr. trip was starting to turn into a 5 hr trip....and don't you just hate it when that happens? Well, we didn't want to waste a day by not getting anything for the baby so we put our heads together (not literally) and decided to buy something else....AND WE DID! What did we buy you ask? We bought a swing and a mobile and a mattress and I think that is it. Oh no...we also bought a couple of outfits that were on clearance (LOVE THOSE SIGNS). We don't know if we'll have twins...but if we do...we'll have something to put on them. If we do have twins, they'll need to be different genders 'cause we got one outfit for a boy and one for a girl( it would be really awkward if we dressed one of them wrong 'cause the twins were the smae gender). I'm really just rambling on....so I'll quit now. But I hope you enjoyed the story.

Mexico, Aramberri, El Salto

Obed's dad (Jose) droving us to Aramberri - you can see how big the mountains look already they were several miles away! A view of the valley from the road side - there is a park below the large rock with a very steep coblestone entrance which was all done by hand. Obed's uncle helped with the road and building the park. This is where the goats were kept. Obed's cousin took care of them. My younger brother took care of goats for 4-H so we thought this might be interesting for him to see. One of the many gorgeous falls at El Salto. We hiked all the way to the top where the water comes out from under the rocks! It starts out so small and yet makes all these waterfalls. Farmers take turns down stream watering their fields with this same river. Recently went on vacation to visit some relatives in Mexico. Obed's Dad's family live up in the mountains in a place called Aramberri. There was a little river that Obed used to play in when he was a kid. His aunt cooked some really good food - all home made of course. We have some photos of making corn tortillas and how to make a great taco. One night we stayed in El Salto. There are huge waterfalls and absolutely gorgeous scenery. So we took lots of photos of the waterfalls and scenery! While we were at the cabin in El Salto I had told Obed a joke about a guy that had gas (farting) . . . later we translated it and wrote it down (becuase I couldn't remember all of it in Spanish) and then the next night when everyone was sitting around talking after dinner, Obed told his dad that I had a joke to tell. I was kind of embarrassed because I thought I was going to mis-pronounce something and then at the end of the joke no one would laugh (awkward!) . . . but I put all fears aside and read the joke! . . . everyone laughed, they thought it was hilarious. So, I'll write it here just so you don't feel left our (whoever you are reading this page) Once there was a man who had A LOT of gas. But, you couldn't hear them and they had no smell. The man thought he should go see the doctor, just in case it was something serious. So he goes and tells the doctor "I have a lot of gas! you can't hear them and they don't smell . . . but I thought I should come get it checked out just in case it was something serious" The doctor writes him a prescription and says take this once a day for one week and come back to see me to tell how effective the medicine is. So the man takes the medicine for a week and comes back to see the doctor. The doctor asks, "How effective was the prescription I gave you?" "Doctor, I don't know what the medicine was . . . but I still have A LOT of gas! You can't hear them, but now they smell REALLY NASTY!" The doctor looked at him calmly and replied, "Good! We've taken care of your nose problem. Now let's work on your ears." Later when we went to Monterrey to visit Obed's cousin we told the joke again and his cousin was laughing so hard her face turned red!

July 8, 2007

Testing, testing, testing . . . just checking out this blogging thing. We'll see how well this turns out.