Monday the boys and I spent the day together. I had to run some errands in town, so they went with me. Since we were in town, I thought that it might be fun to go to Books-a-Million and look for a book about pirates…you know, research for our adventures. I spied the perfect book.

But, to get to it, you had to get past

the store’s super hero section. Needless to say, Hudson and Denton never made it past that isle. Not only that, they were finding things left and right that they were sure they needed … only the items were a little too pricey.
I finally convinced them that there were other things in the store that they might like better, with prices that I might like better. So,

we made the rounds. I told them that they needed to make sure they

were satisfied with what they picked. Finally, near the back of the store,

they spotted something that they would be satisfied with, which also happened to have a price that I was satisfied with.
They each chose a bag of Legos, that when snapped together, would form strange looking creatures with long fingernails and toenails…certainly not something you would want to meet up with in the dark…or the daylight for that matter.
They carried their bags of Legos to the front of the store, and we took our place in the checkout line.
When it came our turn, the nice young lady at the register asked, “Did you find everything you need.” To which I replied, “Let’s just say … we found everything.” Then Hudson said, “We are satisfied with what we got. But, we’re just not sure that our Mammy has enough money to pay for all this.”
I just smiled at that nice young lady, and entered my pin.

Hudson and Denton stayed at our house last night and we had great fun…really. At their suggestion we watched a movie that neither Joel nor I had seen before, and would watch again.
Joel had to go to bed early because of work, so the boys and I went into one of the guest rooms where Denton picked up a guitar that was missing a string.

We all took turns strumming the thing and singing impromptu country songs. But after a few rounds of that, we decided it would be more fun to be pirates.
They came up with names for themselves and assigned me the role of Blackbeard’s grandma, a mean and awful pirate who also cooks.
We spoke of swashbuckling sword fights, hidden treasure, and pirate ships that appear out of the mist.
Then, we decided to make a pirate journal

that was written entirely

in secret code. And, we took turns

reading it aloud. Then, when morning came, we placed the journal

in the ship’s trunk at the foot of the bed … until we sail again.

There’s a lot of talk about global warming and it’s causes, from the burning of fossil fuels, to deforestation, to methane production by dairy cattle, and … anything in between. Now, if you’ve ever walked across a parking lot on a sunny July afternoon in the Deep South, you would probably add all the acres of concrete to that list of causes.
They say, that in addition to increased temperatures, droughts, fires, floods, and heat related disease, global warming could mean harsher winter weather , which we have certainly experienced over the past month.

First we had snow.

The next week we had sleet, which tends to get a little slippery. Trust me on that one.

Last week we had a little more snow, and this week

we had freezing rain.

Now, I really don’t know anything about global warming…or whether it be fiction. But, I guess it could be possible

that winter has come to Woodworth…thanks to global warming.