Welcome to my weekly Randomly Thinking post where I share random thoughts that pop into my head throughout the week. Enter at your own risk.

Why is it when I buy waffles, the children in my house no longer want them? Then, when said waffles have been eaten, a child invetibly asks “Do we have waffles?” My son does this to me all the time with ice cream as well. Like he’ll say, “I’d like some ice cream.” And I get him ice cream and then he doesn’t eat it so somone else in the family will eat it (not me because I can’t have most of the stuff in most ice creams) then he says, “Where’s my ice cream?”

The ice cream isn’t there for a week when it is eaten either. It’s there for two or three months without him touching it, and finally someone eats it.

The kids, of course, get this from my husband who will let my mom’s left over apple pie sit there for a week before he will touch it and I figure he isn’t going to eat it so I eat it and then he says, “Where is my pie?” Come on! No one leaves my mom’s homemade pie in the refrigerator for a week! Sheesh!

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Our six-month old kitten keeps running outside when we open a door to go anywhere. We usually spend anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes chasing her between properties and under bushes. I get really tired of trying to catch her when I need to be inside teaching children or cooking or loading the dishwasher. I will finally throw up my hands and declare: “That’s it! She’s on her own! I don’t care. Let her get eaten by a bear if that’s what she wants. I’m not messing with her anymore!”

Apparently I’ve said this too much because Monday my 6-year old daughter stomped into the living room and declared: “Scout is gone. I don’t care! She can be eaten by a bear for all I care. I’m done. I’m not messing with her anymore.”

Watching her declare all this with the sincerity of a 6-year old was hilarious and made me glad I hadn’t thrown in any curse words out when I was grumbling about the kitten.

The fact her expressions even looked like mine made it all that much more creepy.

(The kitten came back in on her own ten minutes later, incidentally.)

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One night this week I was reading a book by Charles Martin and part of it deals with the loss of a baby during labor and later their road to adoption. It made me all emotional and feel such gratitude for both my children. It was after midnight but I knew my son would still be awake. I didn’t want to climb out of bed (the dog was curled up at my feet) so I texted my son, telling him I loved him.

This was, apparently, unnerving to him.

Him: Love you too. Did something happen? Did someone die?

Me: Lol. No. Just reading a sappy book and it made me think how lucky I am to have you kids.

Him: You usually don’t text me at 12:34 so I was scared that some kid died a horrible and painful death.

Nice to know that telling my son I love him strikes fear in his heart.

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You know you live in a small area when the most exciting news of the day is that the town 20 minutes from us is gettin’ an Aldis! (I had to pause after writing this to call my mama and tell her!). I kid you not.

The reporter who works with my husband actually called at 9 p.m. to suggest they put it up on the paper’s website as breaking news. They put that story up as breaking news, but did not post that the governor came down with COVID as breaking news. Yes, this is a small, rural area. (Update: my husband says they did post the governor’s diagnosis as breaking news, but I told him I was leaving it that they didn’t because it was funnier for my blog post. He was not amused.).

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I was picking out some Christmas cards onine for my parents. I found one that I liked but I told my mom I didn’t feel the painting on the front could be historically accurate. I said, “It’s Mary on a donkey holding baby Jesus. She wouldn’t be on a donkey with the baby. She was on the donkey before she had Jesus. And by the time they were leaving Bethlehem, Jesus would have been a toddler because the Bible says it took the Wise Men at least two years to find him.”

Mom, as she often does, schooled me on her Biblical knowledge by telling me, “Well, actually she probably would have been on a donkey with the baby because they had to take him to the temple in Jerusalem and that has to be done when they are a newborn and in a certain amount of days.”

I don’t even remember what else she said. I was so dumbfounded on how, once again, she put me in my place when it comes to the Bible, and in such a polite way too.

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I think felines have short memories or almost no memories at all. Every morning my husband lets our older cat outside before he goes to work. Now that the temperature has dropped, by the time I come downstairs (usually a couple hours later because even though I am awake, I don’t want to get out of bed, especially if it is cold out), she wants back in and lets me know by standing on the table on our back porch and looking in the kitchen window.

I let her in, she takes a couple of bites of food and then she goes right back to the back door to be let out again.

I let her out but I tell her “you just came in, you know it’s cold.” And less than a half an hour later when I let the dog out, the cat comes in again after crying desperately at the window. A half an hour later she wants out again, but every time she goes out she looks bewildered, as if she is saying, “It’s so cold out here. Why is it so cold out here?” I always want to say back to her, “We talked about this before. It’s cold. Remember?” It’s our routine all day long. I’m wondering if it will hit her it’s actually winter by January.

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I’m looking at reading challenges to do in 2021 and wondering if I will actually do them. I hope I do. One of the challenges is to read one classic book a month. I definitely want to do this one, because I had already planned to read a couple more classics in 2021, including a couple of Jane Austen books and maybe another George Elliott book (even though my son has written a book report on Silas Marner, which we read last month, and declared her to be a very boring writer. She isn’t. He was simply mad that I made him rewrite the book report because he made too many jokes in the first one.)

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My husband and I recently watched a show about old, famous estates in England. The one episode was about Princess Diana’s family’s estate at Althorp. It was fascinating and though I have seen interviews with the 9th Earl of Spencer before (Charles Spencer) and know he’s very down to earth, it was interesting to see how much work he actually does to keep the estate running and why. His main reason is to keep the history that is there in good shape because there is not only British history there, but American history as well. He liked telling the interviewer that George Washington’s family “were essentially nannies for the Althrop family.” Despite seeming nice and sincere, he couldn’t seem to keep himself from reminding Americans their first president had once been a servant to his family.

“Don’t forget your place,” he seemed to be saying.

I’m kidding, of course. He didn’t say it that way at all, but I joked during it that was what he was trying to say.

Like many from the UK (or from our family), the Earl is quite pale, which led my son to remark, “That looks like a man who would find mayonnaise spicy.”

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Am I the only woman who doesn’t swoon at those movies about a woman falling in love with a man who she later finds out is a prince? With all the drama and attention that follows the British royal family, I can’t imagine having to deal with all that ridiculousness. Now, if that prince decides to give up his rights to the throne for me…. maybe.

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So those are my random thoughts for the week. What are yours? Let me know in the comments.