cookies and controversy....and where's the chlorine?

 

Chocolate chip cookies with some peanut butter chips and peanut butter M&M's on top...

Regular old chocolate chip...

These are just chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, Camille loves them this way.

On Saturday, after three hours of church cleaning, we went home and had bacon and eggs...then Paul went off to fish.  Char, Cam, and I went to Walmart, Char needs sweatpants.  Do you think we could find ANY sweatpants in that store?  We even checked the boys' and men's sections, none except a few XXLarge pairs.   I told her we could just order them online, it's her birthday gift, to go shopping for sweatpants...

We did find a nice pink pot, in which we rehomed a succulent.  

We got some hot dogs, buns, and s'mores supplies:  marshmallows, Hershey bars, and graham crackers, for the girls to bring to their friend's house, they were having a campfire, volleyball, and just general good clean fun.  We stopped at the hardware store for mulch, and to fill the propane tank (yay for grilling season!).  We stopped at the little coffee place, they got frozen lemonade things...and cold brew for me.

After putting things away at home, I drove them to their friend's place, then home...ah, home...all by my lonesome.  I puttered around and made the cookies, then read my book in complete silence...poor me, ha.

Here's something random, a pic from 4 years ago this summer, all eleven of my daughters, one granddaughter (it was Lydia's first birthday, a Curious George party!). Little Miss Sunshine was just a little puppy...

Kathryn, Margaret, Suzanne, Molly with Lydians, Emily, Abigail, Sonja (after her first knee surgery)

Evelyn in the front with Sunny, Mariel, Camille, Charlotte Claire in the pink romper.

Then this one, which you've seen before, but wow, back when TEN KIDS went to school each day...ten kids in school!

Aaron, Molly Rose, and Joseph in the back corner.  Margaret in the dark pink shirt, with Sam in green next to her, with Miss Mariel.  Front Suzanne, little Sonja K., cool Kathryn, and Evelyn Joy...

Emily, Abigail, Benjamin had already graduated, and were in college, and on the younger end, little Jonathan was 3, Miss Charlotte Claire was 16 months, and I was seven months pregnant for Camille, the little caboose, #16.

Now, onto the controversy...I found this, and thought it was interesting:

Not sure you can read it, but you can probably look it up.

Did you know that when ivermectin was discovered/invented/made, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura?  Did you know that drug giant Merck had a patent on ivermectin, which expired in 1996?  Did you know that after Merck issued a statement against using ivermectin for treatment of Covid-19, then immediately afterward was awarded 365 Million to develop and produce MK-7110, to treat Covid-19?  (It has since discontinued, but I want to know, did they return the money ha?).   If you think this whole vaccine thing is all about your health, because your government cares about you, I sort of envy you for that naivety.  The thing is, these Covid vaccines were approved for emergency use, because in the definition of emergency use, there is no other suitable treatment, so ivermectin was trampled down as an option, discredited.  Is it a good treatment?  I don't know, I am not a doctor, but what has happened is nonetheless questionable.  

And, on to the chlorine...Walmart did not have ANY pool shock.  I didn't need any, but I wandered over to check,  out of curiosity.  There was a fire in a Louisiana production plant last year, and now:  prices soaring, none to be found.  The problem is compounded by the huge influx of new pools, since people are home more.  I hope the public pools in cities get what they need!  

Life is starting to seem a tiny bit like the dream I had years and years ago...

...I was in a grocery store with my dad, and all the shelves were empty, except for some random cases of canned corn...my father had a huge handful of cash, hundreds of dollars, and he was buying me a case of corn, which would cost all of that money...everything was dim, and felt hopeless...

My dad has passed on, been gone since 2007, I'm glad sometimes my parents didn't have to live through these times.  My heart aches for older people who have been separated from family, and for those who don't have much to begin with, I think inflation is going to go through the roof.  

But this post is taking a dreary turn, so let's turn it around.  

If you woke up this morning, that is God's goodness.  You have something to be thankful for.  Trials abound, big and small, annoyances and indignities and misunderstandings...we can't control everything in life, but we CAN control how we choose to react in these things in life.  Did you know that it's written in the Bible, James 4:7...submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  I think that is fantastic, encouraging news.  Say NO to bad thoughts about your spouse, or to anxious thoughts, or to feeling sorry for yourself, stick to that NO!!!  NO!!!  and then, that devil will flee from you.  He can't get anywhere, so off he goes.  

Sonja gets home from California tonight, I've missed her.  Jonathan will pick them up from the airport.  His car is working fine, he put that new clutch in, with the help of his friend Seth, and a new flywheel (?  I am only pretending I know what that is), and he says it drives like a new car.    

Yesterday we had some of that cow...grilled into burgers, mmm.  I made a pasta salad, Emily brought over some kielbasa, and some seltzer, and some raspberries, and joined us.  Adrian was here with Wulf, too.  It started raining as I grilled, then got really dark and rainy and cozy.  

Now, the sun is out again, and I have a couple of blueberry bushes to plant...I've swept and mopped, and put in a load of laundry...and here I sit...