Do you know how fossils are made? There are a couple of ways actually..

Sometimes a fossil is made when a shell, a foot, a whatever, leaves an impression in the mud and it hardens. Sometimes a fossil is made when something hollow fills with mud and hardens and eventually the whole thing becomes fossilized. This is particularly common with snail shells, clams and that sort of thing.

And I find it completely fascinating.

Living in this area has turned the kids and I into amateur fossil collectors. We enjoy digging through the dirt and seeing what we can find. I guess we’re weird. ;0)

A few days ago the kids and I got distracted by fossil hunting and came away with a handful of pretty things. See? (I hope I don’t bore with this sciency fossil stuff.. I promise there’s a parable in here at the end.)

Those are heart urchins, and they’re one of my favorites. They’re like prehistoric sand dollars.. and you can see the sand dollar pattern on the top. All the little bumplies? those are like hair follicles. Once upon a time, these were covered with little spines. the spines didn’t survive the fossilization process. But we can see and feel the “follicles” where they were. They’re awesome. =) We have a ton of these, ranging from dime sized to half dollar sized.

But here’s the cool part: these creatures have shells, and the shells filled with mud and eventually it turned into rock and became a fossil. If you look on the other side, you can see the fossilized shell flaking away. One has a huge divot (forgive the misspelling on the photo!), revealing the rock inside. What I find really cool is that when the shell flakes away, you can still see the star design and faint follicle marks underneath. Some of the fossils I find no long have any shell on them at all. They are just the fossilized inside rock, a cast (mold?) made from the inside of the urchin.

These are my absolute FAVORITE. Possibly because they’re the ones we have the hardest time finding. But also because they are so tiny, the size of a blueberry, and they have such intricate detail. I think they’re beautiful. =) See the 2nd one? It’s also flaking away. An inner beauty created in the hollow of the round sea urchin.

These, a kind of oyster, are actually my LEAST favorite. Probably because we have them coming out our EARS and I find them least impressive. This one, however… surprised me.

I found it like this.. this side an impression of the missing half of the oyster, complete with a bony looking ridge along the top created by the missing piece. And that would have been cool enough as it is… but then…

…It came out. A mold (cast?) I could hold in my hand, shaped by the two halves of the oyster until over time it fossilized. A perfect demonstration of how fossils are formed. Now THAT is cool.

Spiral shells are another common fossil around here. And I like these, too. Especially the big ones! The top one there is over 3 inches long!! Both of these are examples of fossils that no longer have their original shells. All we have now is a solid hunk of rock, a clone of the original but not quite. I often wonder: if this is what the INSIDE of the shell looks like, I wonder what the OUTSIDE looks like?

And here’s the lesson I learned while digging for fossils last week:

Most of the time in life, people would say that “nothing,” an “empty space,” (a hollow) doesn’t amount to much (or anything.)
Sometimes, though, a void is a lot. A hollow shell is an opportunity for a fossil to form, for example.

It reminds me of the glass half full or glass half empty argument. I’m not going to deny the empty half, it’s definitely there. But despite the empty half, my glass is always half full. What about yours?

Linked to Michelle’s Popinjay prompt: HOLLOW.

You know us Southerners. A little ice on the roads and we’re a mess.
Believe it or not, I do actually know what NOT to do while driving on ice. I’m not really all that skilled at what TO do.

Like, what do you do if:

The roads are solid sheets of ice, you go through a dip in the road, through “the one” melty spot, get your tires wet, and then lose traction halfway up the hill on the other side? In a standard. Front wheel drive. Little car, little engine.

The answer is probably “STAY HOME.”

If I did, I wouldn’t be sharing this story with you — now would I??

So as I’m driving up the incline I feel the tires slipping, I try to stay on the gas and keep the car moving at a steady speed but slipping changes to spinning and I’m going no where. I didn’t want to add skidding and turning to spinning in place so I stop. Brake. Take a breath and say, “PleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGod PLEASE help me get up this hill!”

I try again. It’s not working.

“PleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGod PLEASE help me get up this hill!”

Nada.

I call hubs, “Um? Any advice?” Not really. Not anything that was working. I didn’t want to slide back down the hill because the bottom of the hill was a “culvert bridge” over a creek with no guard rails — I didn’t want to accidentally slide OFF. And besides, when I did let the car slide back, it kept slipping back and to the left. I figured I was better able to be helped it I was still mostly straight and on the road.

So I stopped again.

In the middle of the road. At an angle. Almost but not quite blocking the other lane’s passage.

Nice, huh?

I called my friend, whose house I just left, who had a 4X4 truck and a tow chain and a bag of sand. She was hopping in her truck right away to come help me. Hubs called in (at home with the kids) and I let him know she was on her way and we hung up.

And I’m not kidding that within 30 seconds, another 4X4 truck came pulling onto the little county road coming towards me and stopped to help me.

Praise God for Good Samaritans, right?

He didn’t have a tow chain but he wanted to wait until my friend showed up in case we needed help. So he sat in the other lane across from me and we chatted a few minutes.

And I’m not kidding that within a few minutes ANOTHER 4X4 truck pulled into the county road coming toward me.

Good Samaritan #1 pulled forward and off to the side of the road so the truck could pass by us, but would you believe that he didn’t? He turned off the road right in front of me, backed up right in front of my car as close as he dared and hopped out with a tow strap in his hand and began hooking it to his tow hitch without saying a word.

By this point my friend is pulling up behind us, I mean, I was only a few minutes from her house so it didn’t take long for her to get there. She’s looking at all my help and says “I brought sand! You want it?” Good Samaritan #2 says, “Yeah, we might need it. Let me see if I can get her up the hill without it first.”

Well, it didn’t work, because I still had no traction and he lost traction once the tow strap was taut and I wasn’t going anywhere. So Good Samaritan #1 carried the bag of across the little culvert bridge for my friend so she didn’t have to.

At this point I should mention that walking on this stuff was like ice skating in sneakers!

Well that sand was just the trick and a little sprinkle in front of his 4 tires and my front 2 got me up that hill on the very next try. I was free!!

You’d better believe I said “Thank you” about a million times!! My friend was still looking around at the two Good Samaritans and telling me, “I got here as fast as I could,” as if to say, “Wow, it didn’t take me that long to get here, how did these people even have time to happen to pass by??”

Hopping back in my car I gave it gas gently and was able to get moving on that icy road. It felt so good. And I couldn’t help bursting out in my car, “ThankYouGodThankYouGodThankYouGod!” I mean, God is good ALWAYS, but I was just bursting praise and thankfulness!

Then I remembered the bewildered look on my friend’s face and I just started laughing to myself. God DID answer my initial prayer, “help me get up this hill.” I had kinda meant, like, on my own four tires. But God doesn’t always give us the answer we expect right? He didn’t just send me help. He sent THREE 4X4 trucks, a man with a tow strap and a friend with a bag of sand to my rescue.

~~

I realized after the fact that this post is perfect for Michelle’s Popinjay photo prompt this week, BEWILDERED.

bewilder

1 : to cause to lose one’s bearings

2 : to perplex or confuse especially by a complexity, variety, or multitude of objects or considerations

Jesus.

Babe.

Redeemer.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. ~Galatians 4:4-7

Long-awaited Messiah.

Sacrificial lamb.

Deliverer.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ~Colossians 1:13-15

High priest.

The prince.

The PRICE.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. ~Hebrews 9:11-14

3 Kings Day, January 6th: marking the end of Advent but not the end of waiting…waiting..One day, our prince will come. These letters, J-E-S-U-S, added for Advent will be swapped out with the F-A-I-T-H that normally hang there. As Advent passes, as the lessons of Christmas fade, may the love of Christ dwell in us richly throughout the year.

For Popinjay:Redeemed.

Extravagant:

1. Spending money excessively or immoderately
2. going beyond usual bounds
3. ostentatious; showy
4. exorbitant in price; overpriced

This weekend while hubs was out of town, we got a little extravagant with our breakfast.

After a couple of months of trying to eat very healthy and not buying refined sugary items, the kids and I went all out, “beyond usual bounds.”

And it was good. =)

This week’s Popinjay photo prompt was “extravagant.” Visit Michelle for more!

He was the littlest one out there.. but he didn’t know it. He was convinced he could stand up on the merry go round swing like all the big boys. And the big kids liked to go fast! Oh my Momma’s Heart, letting go on the outside, holding tight on the inside!!

This photo has been linked to Sweet Shot Tuesday at Life with My 3 Boybarians.

P.S. I swear he’s not picking his nose!

I love my little girl’s blue eyes. Uh, blue? Blue with sunflower centers?

It will be interesting to see if her eyes continue to change as she grows older. (Though I will be terribly sad if she ever loses all of the blue..) I love my girl’s blue sunflower eyes.

This week’s Popinjay photo prompt is “curious.” Visit Michelle for more curiousness.