Thursday, October 30, 2008

I really am crazy!



I am accepting the challenge from Jenny over at Mama's on a Playdate. 30 days of blogging....oh my, can I do it? It'll be a breeze, I have all the spare time in the world. Don't you? Come on, take the dare with me. See ya Saturday, surely I can think of something to say the first day.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

children

There isn't any pain like the pain in your heart when your child makes stupid choices and hurts themselves.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

My friend!

Last Sunday in Sunday school we had to share if we were still friends with anyone we went to school with. Sadly, I had to answer no and that has had me thinking about my friends and friendships all week. I am so very blessed with many friendships but my thoughts keep returning to my oldest, in more ways than one ;0 friend. Twenty five years ago I walked into the Party Barn Flower Shop in Mount Vernon to order yet another potted plant to send to a deceased great, great someone's funeral in my family. It was late summer, I was enormously pregnant with Cody, my feet were swollen and I just wanted to go home to my momma. As I approached the desk, the owner of the shop at the time, Dorothy Jordan was busy working on a beautiful casket spray and was having a SERIOUS cry. I'd done a fair amount of business there and sort of knew her. I asked if she was okay. Dorothy said she was fine, just really busy. She had two funerals to get done, her mom and sister that helped her were both home with a virus and her pregnant daughter had just called and she also had the virus. Her daughter just wanted her mom to bring her a sprite and some chicken noodle soup. Dorothy had to tell her I'm sorry, I just can't come. She helped me send a plant to my relatives and as I was leaving I told her I would take her daughter some soup and sprite if she would tell me where to go. Us pregnant girls have to stick together, even if we are strangers! I got the supplies and headed off to the address I had been given, walked up the walk and knocked. The door opened and there she stood. That was no stranger. That was the mean grumpy customer service person at my bank. Notice here that she is the mean grumpy one. Of course it was NOT me, I was the nice, gentle customer. I shoved the sack at her and hissed in my nice, gentle customer voice, here, your mother wanted you to have this stuff. She opened the sack and then stared at me, turned and bolted to the bathroom dropping the sack. I thought to myself, well crap, serves her right for being so mean. :0 I picked the sack up and walked in the house. Don't really remember what we said but twenty five years later, me getting that virus from her, five kids, a few husbands, an across the state rescue, the divorce of her parents, the death of my parents, some serious hard times of all kinds and my friend is still a phone call away. There are alot of things in my life that I am not sure of but one thing I know for certain, Lynn is a phone call away. She's been here in a couple of hours to keep the girls when I had the flu and she'd be here in a couple of hours with a shovel to help bury Kevin in the backyard if I need her. We are completely different souls, haven't ever nor will we ever agree on everything but I love her with a fierceness few would ever understand and I know she feels the same about me. I can look back on times when her hand was the ONLY thing that kept me above water. So, although I have lost touch with all of my childhood friends, God has dropped a perfect replacement in their place. I love Lynn Jordan and I am looking forward to the good and bad times of the next twenty five years!

God, I am so grateful

I was just having an IM conversation with a friend in Afghanistan. Noah serves as a civilian government contractor there. I asked how he was doing and he told me okay, just missing stuff. I asked him what specifically he was missing that I take for granted. He told me grass and animals. Wow! This morning I came home from my 24 hour shift, walked across MY grass to get yesterday's mail, walked into MY house to be greeted by MY enormously happy to see me dogs and somewhat happy to see me kids and never once gave a thought to how lucky I am to live in a country with the freedom to take these things for granted. He also said he missed long, hot, uninterupted showers and good food. This 5 minute chat has changed my focus this morning. Wow! Grass, pets, showers and good food. All things I am enjoying this morning. Have a good day my friends and as you go through your day, give thanks for everything we have and ask blessings on our people serving for our freedom all over the world!

Friday, October 10, 2008

I wanna win!

I wanna win! I really love to win. I never win. :( My blogger friend Tammy is having a special giveaway celebrating her new blog design. She is a very special lady as you can see from her personal blog above. But do yourself a huge favor and check out her ministry blog below. This woman has climbed over mountains and is still climbing to reach the challenge God has laid before her. Read her blogs, enter her contest, but more importantly add her and her Chrysalis House to your prayer list!

Monday, October 06, 2008

anniversary

During all the homecoming festivities we celebrated our 10th anniversary. If you can call our version of the day celebrating. I was at work for 24 hours and he did the yard. But here we are, 10 years later with my kids, Skylar, 3 dogs, a hamster, some fish, a bird, a turtle, a mortgage and some car payments. Some would be angry that such a milestone was spent in an ordinary way but I like our ordinary.

Homecoming 2008

He was extremely honored that she asked him to be her escort.
She looks pretty good.



I can't believe that she is this grown up.

school homecoming pep rally


and the school pep rally.

Homecoming Parade 2008



And the homecoming parade/pep rally. Skylar is proud of her big sister and here's another one of the loser boyfriend. Can you tell I don't like him?

Homecoming Bonfire




The first homecoming activity was the bonfire. Here is a picture of her cheering and the fire and even one of the loser boyfriend. He usually manages to dodge all my picture taking efforts. Let me tell you that boy is every mother's worst nightmare in a first serious boyfriend. NOT! Don't tell him I said that we have a hate-hate relationship going. I don't want to mess with that.

Duchess in the house





We have a duchess in the house! Katelyn was named Senior Class Homecoming duchess. She always looks like a duchess. We planned to shop for dresses, duchesses need dresses you know, on September 13th. Thanks to Hurricane Ike and the forecasted 60-80 mph wind and deadly rain we were suppose to get, we had to postpone and then barely had a storm. We went on Tuesday, the 16th, after school. We made a mad run to Whatchamacallits, actually managed to find what we needed, didn't try to kill each other, ate at Cracker Barrel, and made it to bed at an almost decent hour. Go Us!

new teeth



I am so behind I am going to do catch up in increments. I promise, they will be winded but so is my life! First, I will tell you about Skylar's "new teeth." I have been concerned that none of her baby teeth were loose but anyone that knows her knows she is health "paranoid." She hates any doctor, dentist or anyone that might want to "look" at her. In light of this, I have kept my concerns to myself and of course, BOOM, they blow up in my face. The first week of August, she lets out a blood curdling scream and comes running to me, opens her mouth and fearfully shows me she has bottom baby teeth, that aren't loose, and 2 perfect, although too far back, permanent teeth right behind them! Holy crap, I am thinking while showing absolutely no concern to keep her from burying herself alive. That's just GREAT! I call and get her a dentist appoinment with a new guy that is suppose to be understanding and not hold her down like the previous 2 jerks,(that's a whole other post). Well, the appointment has to wait until after our Galveston trip, and after my nieces come for a week. So I am praying hard, please little baby teeth come out, please, please, PLEASE. No such luck. Two weeks pass and the appointment arrives, good parent that I am, I don't tell her the truth about where we are going until we get there. She is in freak out mode. The hygentist manages to convince her to go with her and sit in the chair. I was suprised. Then the most non-traditional looking dentist in jeans and a ponytail convinces her to open her mouth. She does and lets him poke around. Yes, she likes him. He tells her, new teeth, that is FABULOUS, you get a prize. He assures me that he sees this everyday and that we will just wait until November or so and if the babies don't come out he will "help" them out with her on sedation. Yes, I said sedation, I will let them sedate her. You come try healthcare for her any other way! Well, thank you Jesus, in the whirlwind that is our life those babies came out at school. Yes! Not without drama but out, they are gone! As you can see from her picture above the new teeth are moving up to the right places quickly. Yea, problem solved itself. Now maybe that molar with the cavity will heal itself before November! Anyway, thanks Lorraine and Bekah for telling us about the pediatric dentist KING!

my nieces


On the way home from our Galveston vacation, I met up with Stephanie and traded her my Jetta for her Suburban and 2 kids. Here are a couple of pictures of my nieces while they were here for a week. I really loved having them here although the girls and Skylar together are a handful! I am so glad I had this opportunity to really get to know them, their likes and dislikes. I feel like I really am their Aunt and when I talk to Stephanie I understand what she is talking, frustrated and/or concerned about. I can't wait until next summer to have them again. We are going to plan their trip around Summer Week of Choir at church. It will be GREAT! It will be even better if there aren't any thunderstorms that week.

Galveston





Because we weren't sure how the surgery would turn out we didn't plan a vacation. When things turned out great, we decided to go to Galveston the same week as my friend Mindi and her family. Katelyn and her loser boyfriend, JJ (I really don't like the kid, you know teenagers, if she thinks I like him she might dump him so I am sticking to the I don't like him story), Kevin, Skylar and I went. We had a great time but Mindi's family may never tell their vacation plans again! Skylar wasn't sure about the ocean water, I think we failed to tell her in advance it was salt water. We played at the beach, at the pool, fed the pigeons off the balcony,played some serious putt-putt and had a great night out at the Rainforest Cafe. We all needed the break and this one was perfect!

Happy Birthday to me!



I've had a tumor in my throat for some time and in the spirit of denial, I have been denying its existence. For a year or so it has been causing me problems with swallowing. Apparently from the look of my big butt, not nearly enough problems. But in all good cases of denial, it blew up. Well the tumor didn't literally blow up but it did get too big to ignore. So for my birthday, I got my throat cut, literally. All the tests came back benign and I have this awesome scar that looks like a bad wrinkle and a little yellow pill daily for the rest of my life. I will take it, it could've been worse. Surgeon is a pretty good seamstress don't ya think?

blogger moron

Okay, I am a blogger moron. I found some blogs that I thought I posted that were actually saved so be ready for blog overload. Comments always welcome. Have fun reading.