As long as I'm posting pictures of my brother's children, I may as well post my favorite of his son.  I am still sad Bill Watterson stopped creating Calvin and Hobbes, but this picture gives me great hope that the spirit of Calvin live's on.

My mom sent me this because she knew I'd get a kick out of it, and I did.  I especially like the use of the dog.   Perhaps this is something to log away for next year as unique and personal way of sending Mother's Day greetings.

No wonder my brother was always the favorite!

Having resisted including any of these images in my Mother's Day post, and in giving readers pictures of sweetness and light in warm and cuddly mammal yesterday, I am indulging myself  today.  I'm pretty excited about these pictures, actually.  This first one is three common water snakes sunning themselves and sharing body heat on a cool day.

The second is a close up of a common water snake. Though it's pattern has by and large faded to better blend in with the mud, in its remnant you can still catch some of the beauty of its coloration (if you are still reading, I figure you can join me in appreciating it for the marvel it is.)

Next is a first-time find for me:  an Eastern Worm Snake.  Small and shy, they have no interest in being found so I had to look close to come up with this one.

And finally, whatt probably could have been a decent picture if my flash had worked.   I heard these two black racers quickly crawling throught the leaves into the privacy of this log before I saw them.  The fact that they were mating didn't seem to slow them down a bit.  

In honor of Mother's Day yesterday, here's a very pregnant doe.  Notice how she has her ears trained in opposite directions, listening both ways.

And here's a couple animals I was surprised to see during the day.  They didn't pay me much mind, probably because they knew if it came right down to it, I was going to get the worst end of the deal by far.  I have a bunch of other pictures, but I thought this one was most interesting.   They waddle more than they walk, holding their tails straight out in a way that emphasized the motion and creates a rather comical effect.

And finally, here is what is perhaps my favorite picture I've taken so far.  After missing so many shots by just a second, I felt like I was in just the right place at just the right time for this one, when the ground hog (not Kirby) stuck his head out of the hole.  Look at those teeth!

If you’ve ever studied psychology, business, or social dynamics, you may well have heard of the “perspective gap”. Basically, research shows that we have a hard time actually taking another person’s point of view. Even when we think we’ve adopted their perspective, the truth is that we tend to stay within our own frame of reference. Trying to understand another person by thinking about how we would I feel in a given situation is not the same thing at all as what they are experiencing.

The perspective gap creates parenting challenges. Will we foster the interests of our children even when we don’t share or perhaps even understand them? Will we pass our fears on to our children, even when what scares us presents no real threat to our kids? How deeply will we insist that our children conform to our expectations for them?

The answers to questions like these are not always straightforward or easy. But for answers to even be possible in the first place, we must find a way beyond the perspective gap.

I am glad my mother did. How else would you get a boy who came through childhood with his love for snakes intact?

I only had a brief window of time to get in a workout today that consisted primarily of bench pressing.   Unfortunately, the gym was packed and all the benches were taken. 

One of the benches was occupied by a  guy  was doing a set of bench presses and then going off and doing a whole bunch of other exercises before coming back to do another set.   In other words, though in actuality he was hardly using the bench at all, he was keeping it tied up for a very long period of time (he was still using it when I left).

I hate it when guys do that.  But instead of being totally frustrated,   I tried to remind myself that this could be an opportunity to Grow in Grace instead.

You know what?  I don't think I like opportunities to Grow in Grace much either.  Fortunately, another bench opened up.

As we all know, tomorrow is Mother's Day.   It's a day when we spend lots of time thinking about the perfect gift for our moms.  After all, our mom has done so much for us, we want to do something special for her that let's her know how much we love and appreciate here. 

Perhaps I can help you with that.  Do you have an ant problem in your house, maybe in your kitchen?  Or maybe you don't have an ant problem, but it's because  you spray toxic chemicals in your home.   Wouldn't you like to be able to stop using insecticides? 

So, the gift I'm suggesting promises both an ant and chemical free home.  The solution?  Tiger beetles.  Catch a few, box them up with a bow, and then have mom let them go where they are needed most.  An added bonus:  they are very decorative.  Their color will no doubt brighten up a room.

You don't have to thank me.  Just knowing I've helped is enough for me...

One of the most important skills we can learn in life is to find joy in the ordinary, to see the beauty that is all around us, to find blessing in the common, and perhaps even to experience the presence and glory of God right in the midst of the routine of everyday life.

Spring means tadpoles and lots of them.  There is a very cool picture on Bing.com today (I have no stake in Bing; I just love their pictures), and some easy links to learn more about them if you are interested.  These will become American Toads.

I'm thankful for the last few day's rain.  It has refilled the puddles and vernal pools, some of which had already dried up and others which were about to.   Today's storm even made for a very nice rainbow.

Just in case you missed this in Miriam's comment yesterday, here's another part of Kari Patterson's Faithfully Frugal that really hit me:

It’s sobering that the total annual income of American churchgoers is $ 5.2 trillion, that the amount available if each of them gave 10% of their salary is $ 520 billion. That the estimated annual cost to eliminate extreme poverty in the world is only $ 65 billion. That the annual cost for universal primary education for ALL children in the world is $ 6 billion. That the annual cost to bring clean water to most of the world is $ 9 billion. That the annual cost to bring basic health and nutrition for the world is $ 13 billion. That, therefore, the total amount needed to eradicate the world’s greatest problems: $ 93 billion (just 1.8% of American Christian’s income). Quite simply, the world God loves in dying and we are … doing what?