Dear Deer

My cousin Jacob hit a big deer the other night. Luckily, he wasn't hurt, but the deer and the car were hurt badly (and dead, in the case of the deer, unfortunately).

Yesterday, Jacob was dealing with the insurance company when he was asked an awesome question.

The insurance lady said to him, "Do you know who the deer belonged to?"

Ode to a Pillow

It was embarrassing, but it had to be done.

When we moved, we bought a king-sized bed. Hal picked up some king-sized pillows for us a couple of weeks ago.

After several weeks of tossing and turning and punching the pillow and aching necks, we gave up. We had to find some different pillows.

Tonight, we went out on a quest for new pillows.

Now, I've always had a problem with buying pillows. It always seems like the pillow doesn't work until I break it in. I've also never understood how you are supposed to know what pillow is going to be good for you by just feeling it in a store.

Hal agreed -- and came up with a solution.

It was embarrassing, but it had to be done.

We tried out the pillows. On the floor. Of Target.

I don't even want to think about how dirty those floors were. At one point in time, Hal had picked his pillow, and I, after dragging my feet in the whole "experience the essence of the pillow" process, had three pillows lined up on the floor. I tried each of them. I tried them while lying on my back and my stomach and my side. I got over the embarrassment.

And I picked a pillow.

A pillow that does not form a "V" when I lay on my back, blinding my peripheral vision and making me feel like a dog in a cone.

A pillow that isn't so huge that I sleepily try to burrow into it at night.

A pillow that hopefully won't leave me with a slightly stiff neck in the morning.

What happened to the other pillows? They've been made into the sham pillows, the decorative ones we throw off the bed. Our bed is going to look so FANCY with all these pillows.

I will give a full report on the new pillow, which is, according to the label, "Firm." I hope the embarrassment is worth it.

Odds, Ends, and Stingrays

After running around camp for a week of 5 hour sleep nights, I took it easy this weekend. We watched Changeling on Saturday and then went and saw Harry Potter tonight. We enjoyed both films!

I also spent some time uploading some of my pictures from the cruise we took from July 5-12 with the family.

When we were in Grand Cayman, Hal and I decided to take a trip to Stingray City, a sandbar out in the ocean where stingrays naturally congregate (helped along by food from the tourists who now head out there). This trip started with a half-hour boat ride out to the sandbar and culminated with getting up close and personal with some wild stingrays.

Highlights of the trip included Hal getting whipped across the face by a stingray tail, leaving a red welt that made him look like a pirate (unfortunately, it isn't visible in the picture below -- it's on the side that he has turned away from the camera). We also learned that the large stingrays are female and the male stingrays are much smaller. I enjoyed watching the tour guides interact with the stingrays -- there was much love and respect for the stingrays. One guide told us that his favorite stingray was not at the sandbar that day -- her name was "Bubbles" -- and the stingrays seemed so calm and at ease when being held and handled by the tour guides. Our guide told us that he had been stung once and the only way to easy the pain, said the doctor, was to drink it away. It was a very interesting and educational trip!

A random plus to pictures with stingrays is that they cover up all the parts of my body that I don't like to display in a bathing suit. Which is to say, everything but my head!

(I will say that taking the digital camera off the boat and into the open ocean was very scary -- but we managed to get some pictures without getting the camera wet. Don't try that at home, though.)

Bad Haiku Friday

(I am swiping this idea from Laura at Catholic Teacher Musings. I hope she doesn't mind. Because I got back from camp today and am EXHAUSTED, a haiku in honor of breaking out of the dorm living was in order.)

A Haiku on the end of camp:

Camp is over now
I get to sleep in my bed
And no shower shoes