"When Life Gives You Potatoes, Eat Them."

The famous old saying: "When Life Gives You Potatoes, Eat Them." Or something like that. In any case, life has given Joe a potato--the fact that he is taller by several inches than his mother. When given an unpleasant command, he often stands and looks menacingly down on his glowering mother. Unfortunately, the realm of authority cannot be broken by height, and he is forced to obey the latest order. Anyway, with the onset of Spring and warmer weather, the boys have been shamelessly overworked, trying to make the yard look beauteous. Dads ultimate goal, it seems, is to reverse all parts of his property: ripping out vegetation where it is present, and planting new vegetation where it is not. He has this obsession with planting sticks, (oops, I mean trees) all over the property. Fortunately, most have survived, and are budding. Dad found a new joy, the passing off of another job to his oldest son: pressure washing. He was happy with the work that was done, in spite of the word BORING appearing on the concrete before the job was complete. Katie has had a frightening driving experience in the very recent past, taking out an election sign, and shaking up her entire family. She has since driven a couple times, but never again on a highway. Mom and Dad's newest insanity was allowing Sam to purchase a tablet from his grandmother. "Its new and exciting." Mom says, in an attempt to explain the hours spent on the screen. Hopefully, with time it will wear off. Anyway, scattered as it is, this explains our recent past. For my next annual post, I'm sure there will be something crazy to write. Adios.

New post

Many things have happened in the ten months since my last post. I can try to point out some of the worst. There was much work on the yard this year. Dad purchased 40+ trees for the yard. Although they weren't much higher than the weeds, the trees were at least distinguishable. They also laid mulch and sod. On any given day you could look out the window and see Dad standing insolently in the yard holding a hose, watering the precious grass. Amazingly, the grass survived the severe drenching. There were three turns of terror for Joe. First he had to rake the dirt. Next he had to lay the sod, and for the rest of the summer, he had to mow the sod. Fortunately, we are now in the fall season, when grass does not grow as fast. There have been numerous crimes in the Horne household, some punished, some not, all depending on the perpetrator. On one day, Dad was trying hard to clean the yard up. Joe decided to take that moment to dump a handful of golfballs on the grass and to begin whacking them into the woods. Dad expressed great annoyance at this guesture and the golfballs had to be immediately taken up from the area. At the present time many are sick in the household. As I am typing this, Sam is crouched a couple feet away from me wiping up the reruns of his supper. Everyone except for Dad is coughing excessively, and sometimes forces immediate ejection of the last respective meal. Even Rufus can occasionally be heard, "HAACKK!" The past few nights Mom has been quarantined to the guest room at night, because of her cough, but is returning to her room tonight. As I type, I glance over the room, the scattered dog toys, blankets, boots, and laptops. I hear the squabbling of the family members in the other room. I hear the dumping out of game pieces on the table. We are back to normal, if you can call it such.

News from the Horne's

Today the Horne kids were pleased to have a day off of school, but were then turned to grueling chores that took much of their time. For lunch, they had leftovers and Mom, Joe, and Sam played 2 games of Sorry. Joe won the first game, and by some streak of luck, Mom won the second game. They then sat down to play computer games. They then decided to watch a creation video. For dinner Mom decided to make burritos with leftover roast. Receiving approval, dinner was enjoyed, with a lot to drink to tone down the heaps of Hatch chile placed in the burritos. While Mom (and maybe even Katie,) cleaned the kitchen, Katie blasted annoying Christmas music from the Bose radio. Accomplishments today included the near completion of the Christmas decorating, which started yesterday, in spite of Joe walking around with a "Bah, Humbug"! hat and carrying a sign that said: "NO DECORATIONS". They also packed away regular decorations to the basement. Mom cooked a cherry pie and two pumpkin pies. If this house can be called peaceful, it won't be for long because (respectively), three noisy O,Dells will be sharing Thanksgiving with us in the midst of Christmas decorations. The other day Sam got a reaching claw that he has used to make trouble. Mom was pleased to see it break today. The newest invention from the editor of the Horne Gazette, Joe Horne, is the shower comic, which he made by placing comic pages in Ziploc bags and putting those bags in a binder. He received 1 dollar for his celebrated invention. There was some controversy as the binder belonged to the inventor's brother. THE END.

The Horne Gazette.

Many things have been happening in the household of the Hornes lately. We took the Farr kids and met Sister Bishop at Cracker Barrel and dropped the Katie's off with her to go with her to Tennessee Convention. After Sister Bishop had taken the girls, we went to Bass Pro Shops. A trout almost took Joe's finger off after he dangled it in the trout pool, mimicking a worm. Then an employee saw me and said that we didn't need to be trying to catch the fish. What a grouch. He said that they have their natural habitat and pretty much if I stuck my finger in the water, it would disturb their habitat. Whatever. We went on to the shooting gallery and Joe got the score of 770, which beat everyone else. He made sure that this feat did not go unnoticed. They went to the gun section where we were able to hold and get the balance of a couple of pistols that we picked out. Then we left. That's all for now. I'll write after convention and let you know who our new pastor is.

Family camp

On July 9, the Horne family went to Family Camp, taking the Farr kids with them. Joe was put with two ten year-olds in a cabin but halfway through, one of them left to stay in a different cabin. Joe made the mistake of using his special technique on four-square which meant that after he had been in the king's position for 15 minutes, any other time he tried to play, he was the main target to get out. Joe's cabin allied with the smaller boys cabin for a water balloon assault on the 15-18 year old cabin.
We surrounded their door, a good ten of us, all bearing water balloons. Before they knew what was up, Michael and Scott came out and got soaked, which was an act Joe was proud to be a part of. The older cabin threw cold water and water balloons out the window, while we taunted them and called them sorry shots. They mouthed off right back when they opened the window. Bad mistake. I took a toad and threw into Scott's gaping mouth. It finally came time to go to the gym and so Brother Brian, the smaller kids counseler, hid a big balloon in his pocket, and when Michael walked up to the gym, SPLASH!!! He got soaked, not to mention the cup of water that followed the balloon. We all had a great time and can't wait for next year.

The Joe Show

The Horne family has been busy the last couple of months. Joe got a 114-e Grand Auditorium Taylor guitar. In his opinion it was the best sounding guitar in guitar center. One or two weeks ago, Dad, under tremendous pressure because of upcoming events, decided quite suddenly and tensely that the kids were not doing enough work. So they were all put to work, occasionally allowed to rest their sun-bloated, gnat-eaten bodies. So hard was the verdict that all of their privileges were taken away. In other words, no audio-books, no television (stink!), and no video games. It was, of course, time for Joe to put on the Joe Show to mock the latest decisions. For example, one of the Joe Show's went like this with illustration: "There once was a blob with mush for a chin and upon that chin he wore a big grin. One day he passed by a nice little hovel, where a dad was spanking his kids with a shovel. 'What happened?' he asked, the dad replied then, 'The kids have been watching too much TV in the den!' 'Then throw it out,' the blob said wearing a smile, 'Crush it up fast in a nice little pile.' 'That's great!' the dad said, 'I'll do it tonight!', while the eavesdropping children all quivered with fright. The blob oozed away his words had prevailed so he went back home, and watched VeggieTales." This Joe show was mocking when there was no TV for a week. Nicely illustrated, they either give a good point or make the new decisions look unreasonable. After a new episode of the Joe show we decided to meet in the middle. So now we have our privileges back. That's it for now.

The last 7 months sarcastically put.

Since the last time I blogged a lot has happened. I will just hit the high points. I forgot to write southern. Sorry. Wall, thu most exciting thang thets happened to us would mebbe be the tornader.
The tornader ripped up our yard and house. I caught a baby rattlesnake under one uh the boards thet blew off our house.  It's 9:30 and time fer devotions. Gud-bye