• It was nice that the Fourth of July was on a Sunday this year: it made for a whole weekend of celebration. We went to the Cowpens big fireworks display on Saturday night, our church had a big cookout for everyone Sunday after church, we enjoyed Sunday afternoon naps as usual, went to Jason and Mittu’s house for personal fireworks Sunday evening, and then Jim had Monday off as well. I was pretty wiped out, though, Monday! We had one little mishap at Jason’s house when one of the fireworks tipped on its side and ignited some underbrush under a bush in a vacant lot, but that’s why Jim keeps a bucket of water on hand when we do fireworks.

• I mentioned a few days ago some baby birds in a hanging plant on the patio. Whenever one of the parents comes to feed them, we hear the babies chirping away. This plant is right by the door to the sunroom, so I can’t open the door and watch the babies feeding without scaring away the parents. Monday night Jim was out on the patio watering the plants, and then from the kitchen window I could see him and Jesse bent over the patio like they were looking for something, but I couldn’t tell what. When they came in, Jim said that when he went to water that plant, though he was trying to be careful, he accidentally frightened the baby birds, who fluttered down to the patio. By the time he turned the water off, they were no longer right where they fell. So he and Jesse looked around trying to find them and put them back in the nest. Jesse said he had heard that parent birds would reject a baby that had been handled by a human: Jim said he had heard the opposite, but either way, they’d fare better back in the nest rather than wandering about where other animals could get to them when they couldn’t fly away yet. They found two of them: one had gotten all the way over to a neighbor’s bush. I don’t know how they found them — they’re pretty much the same color as the ground out there. I had only seen two birds when I looked, but Jim was sure he saw three fall, so he kept looking, and finally found the third one just inside our door. Then when we were eating dinner, he saw one of them back on the patio, so he went out and restored it to the nest again. The feeding and chirping has resumed, and all seems to be well again at #1 Hanging Plant Lane, at least for now. The babies aren’t far from being able to fly out on their own.

• We finally told Grandma about moving. We had mentioned the possibility some time back, and her only concern was that we take her with us, which we assured her we would do. But she would forget in-between conversations and we’d have to go over it all again, so we decided to just wait until we got closer to moving and could tell her something definite. Jim wrote out for her what led to the decision to move and what was likely going to happen when so that she could have it with her to refer back to — plus she seems to comprehend written things better than spoken ones, anyway. He included some pictures of the place he found for her. She’s so secure in her own little spot and so rarely leaves it that we thought she might be apprehensive about moving, but we figured it couldn’t be nearly as much of a shake-up for her as it was to move here from Idaho. But she seems fine with the whole idea. Now her mind is running with things that need to be done, and every visit involves some conversation about all of that which I am sure we’ll discuss several times over before we actually move.

• We have a contract on a house in TN, and now they’re doing home inspections, title searches, etc. There was one potential problem with an outbuilding that looked to us like it extended over into the neighbor’s property. but the sellers paid for a survey, and it is actually within our property lines though still a little too close to it. But Jim talked with the powers that be to make sure that would not be a problem in the future, and everything seems to be satisfactory. The outbuilding isn’t a plastic or metal shed — it’s built like a little house — so it wouldn’t be easy to move. We could tear it down if it was ever a problem — but we hope we won’t need to.

Here is a little glimpse inside the house — but I’ll wait to show more til everything is finalized.

One thing I love about this house is that it is all one level — no stairs anywhere!

• I finally got Jesse registered for his new school and got back loads of information this morning about uniforms, supplies, finances, etc. My head is spinning. I glanced through all of it and passed the financial stuff off to Jim. I’ll have to deal with the other things later — but not too much later.

• Jesse wants to have a last party with all his friends and classmates. I am not sure when we will work it in, but I told him to bring it up again this weekend when we’re all in one spot and can confer on the best time.

And I think that’s about it, for now, in the land of Stray Thoughts. There are other things developing which I can’t share quite yet, but that’s probably more than enough for one post, anyway.

Happy Wednesday!