A CHELSEA MORNING

I Witnessed a Miracle

2011-10-14T19:13:00.015-06:00

Sometimes in this life you get to stand on the sideline and actually witness a miracle.

Witnessing the birth of your grandchild, via c-section, is one of those times.

I'm just home from two weeks in Severance, Colorado, where my daughter Mandy and her husband Aaron and my brand new grandson Jayden live. I spent two weeks with them and it was a blessing to be with them during this amazingly special time.

I'm sharing some of the most special moments with you.

Mandy on October 2nd, one day before giving birth.

Aaron and I are about to enter the operating room - we were excited (and NERVOUS)

There are no words to explain how I felt, showing Mandy her baby for the first time. No words.

Jayden Gregory Vogt
8 lbs 14 oz - 21 inches long

A happy new family.

With all my heart, I prayed for this. My daughter, who struggled for years with infertility, holding her precious newborn.

And this Nana has yet another grandchild to love.

We're Having a Baby!

2011-09-29T20:58:00.003-06:00

It's been a wild ride. Ups. Downs. Some very sad downs. And the past three months have been crazy, trying to get all the logistics in place so that I'd be there for this baby's birth.

Until just a few days ago it was all a guessing game. Mandy and I have been on the phone almost daily, for weeks, discussing the results of her latest exam (she's had way more exams than most expectant moms do)and worrying about the difficulty of scheduling an Amtrak trip (severe flooding around Omaha affected train schedules for weeks upon weeks), and trying to figure out how to make sure I was there for this long awaited grandchild's birth. It was a worry because the Amtrak trip is eight hours long, leaves Grand Junction only once a day and all that time could make a world of difference as to whether I'd be there for the birth or not.

To miss this would break my heart. My daughter has struggled so to have a baby, it's just not thinkable that I would not be there.

I'll be there. :)

Because nothing about this has been easy, of course Mandy has full blown placenta previa. It was iffy for a few months and her doctors thought she might be able to scoot by, go into labor and deliver her baby.

Well, of course not.

And so...Jayden will be delivered via c-section on Monday, October 3rd at exactly 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And not only will I be there, I'll actually be in the operating room with them. :)

The name is for sure. The day and time are for sure. And my presence is for sure. :)

I love it that the hospital where Mandy's having her baby strongly believes she should have two support people with her during the delivery. When Jayden is born, and taken to the neonatal unit, Aaron will go with him. I'll stay with Mandy.

Something that makes me smile is that Krissy, who had both her babies (my sweet Cameron and Avery) via c-section, told me if she'd known how boring it would be to lay in recovery all by herself for a few hours, totally alone and totally numb from the waist down, she'd have brought a good book with her. LOL

I'll be honest with you. I'm nervous. I've been in operating rooms but you know what? I was asleep. I'm a bit nervous about this but I figure if Mandy can do what she has to do, I can stay on my feet and support her.

Mostly, I'm so excited about being there and witnessing the miracle, I almost can't stand it.

The past few weeks have been amazing. I went to Denver for my brother's wedding and two weeks later I went back for the baby shower Krissy gave her sister. I got to visit with family I hadn't seen in two years. It was a fantastic weekend.

And now I'm going back. This time I'm going for three weeks. In the thirty-three years we've been married, I've never been away from Rob that long and Cameron and Avery are going to have a hard time understanding why Nana is gone so long. I've never been away from them for more than two days. Seriously. They're just too little to understand and I'm going to miss them terribly.

But a miracle is going to happen next Monday afternoon and I'm blessed enough that I'll get to witness it.

Hello

2011-08-29T20:31:00.007-06:00

Our new baby is due in five weeks. :) Mandy's pregnancy has gone about as perfectly as any pregnancy could possibly go and she's absolutely glowing - maybe the most beautiful pregnant person I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure it's because she struggled so and suffered a loss and now it's finally happening. She's going to be a mommy in less than six weeks.

How I wish I could post new photos, but my amazing, wonderful, VERY EXPENSIVE digital camera's battery finally died and when I went to the store to buy a new battery I was told my amazing, wonderful, VERY EXPENSIVE camera is now a dinosaur. The sales person tried to be kind but she suggested that if I'm really lucky, I might find a new battery on eBay. LOL

So now I'm working with a quickly purchased $50 camera because I had a brother's wedding to go to and I needed a camera quick! Ugh! Ugh, ugh, ugh!

So what's new with our family? So many things.

I promise you as soon as I figure out this el cheapo camera, I'll try to upload some photos. Meantime, I'm buying lottery tickets in hopes of being able to buy another camera that's actually worth messing with.

Cameron is now in first grade. Seriously, he's six years old and as cute as he can possibly be. He's still a little guy - I don't think Cameron's ever going to be a big guy, but if attitude makes up for that, he's a really, really big guy. He's a sweetheart. Still adores his Nana and his parents are doing a truly great job of raising a fine young man.

He's very excited to be a first grader. I mean, "Nana! It's all day! I eat lunch there and everything now and even if Nathan and I have to be in separate classes, I still see him at recess!"

(Ahem. Apparently there were some issues with those two staying on task when they were in kindergarten together last year. I believe it was something like - SEPARATE THOSE TWO NEXT YEAR! )

And I'm really happy to report that Grand Junction finally got a pediatric endocrinologist. And she's helping all of us get a better grip on Cam's diabetes. He hasn't had a crisis in a year now and believe me, that's a huge, huge step forward. It means all of us who are involved in his 24-hour-a-day care are doing a better job.

Now about Little Miss Avery. Oh.My.Word. She's three. What a pistol! She was the quietest, easiest baby in the world. And then one day she exploded. She became Avery. You know, when her mom had me pulling my hair out by the roots, all I could think was, "How I hope you get a daughter just like you someday!"

And she did. LOL

She's beautiful. She's feisty. And she's adorable. And...she has attitude. She makes me proud. I absolutely adore her and her quirky way of talking and her don't-mess-with-me take on everything. Trust me when I say, Cameron's days of being the boss are history.

I'm assuming you wanted to hear all about my perfect grandchildren. Of course you did! LOL

I still have my Fridays with them. Nowadays, I call it freaky friday. It's funny how life turns around. For a couple of years, it was just me and Cameron on Friday. Then for a year it was all three of us on Friday. Now that Cameron's in school all day, it's just me and Avery on Friday. Actually, it's perfect because I have an amazing relationship with both of them. Somehow, we've managed to have such special time, one on one, that they think Nana hangs the moon.

And now the miracle we prayed for, for three years, is upon us. Mandy and Aaron's baby is due in five weeks. A boy. Jayden. Jayden Gregory (Aaron's father was Gregory.)

I've gotten a huge kick out of all the names they've told me were for sure going to be the name. But I like the one I'm almost, pretty sure, maybe, possibly is the one they'll go with.

So last weekend a momentous thing happened in our family. My baby brother got married. He's 53. There you go. Proof positive...you're simply never too old to find "the one." Our family couldn't possibly be happier to welcome Stacey. They've been together for several years and through a lot of ups and downs, and we're all so happy for them. Truly, this marriage was made in heaven - I haven't felt this sure that a couple is "right" in a long time.

It was the perfect reason to have a family reunion. The last time my entire immediate family (meaning my parents and my siblings) got together was at my brother Jerry's funeral. That was seven years ago. That's just way too long for a family to not be all together in one place. We're all so spread out. Bev lives in Texas. My dad lives in Kansas. My mom and three brothers live in eastern Colorado. I live in western Colorado. But we made it happen.

They got together last summer for my dad's 85th birthday but I wasn't able to go. This time, I made sure I was able to go. As you know, I'm that freak person who is suddenly terrified of driving, after driving in Denver traffic for 30 years, so I took an Amtrak train from Grand Junction to Denver last weekend. It's an arduous thing, when flooding in Omaha has Amtrak's tracks under 3 feet of water, meaning up to 12 hour delays, to take a trip on their train. But I got there.

I could go on and on about how exhausting it was...the constant worry about getting to the train station by their deadline only to sit for six hours waiting on their train...the lack of sleep because of such late arrivals...but I won't because it was truly a wonderful wonderful thing to be with my family again.

In two weeks Krissy and I will pack Cameron and Avery in the car and make a really quick trip to where Mandy and Aaron live because Krissy is giving her sister a baby shower and it needs to be where Mandy lives because, you know, that's where all her friends are. LOL We're leaving here on Friday and coming home on Sunday. And most of that time will be spent driving. Like I said, a quick trip.

And three weeks after that, I'll be back on Amtrak to go there and be in the birthing room with her. That's all up in the air. As we all know, two weeks early or two weeks late is considered "on time" when babies are born. I have no idea how to book my trip. If I wait for them to call me, it's an eight hour train trip on a good day and a lot longer if Amtrak's schedule is still not right. Ugh! I can't spend a whole month out there, but I surely don't want to go too early and have to leave before Jayden decides to make his grand entry.

What to do, what to do. Oh! I know. I'll do what I always do. Flow.

Yes. I will just flow.

xoxoxo

Da dump...da dump...da dump...

2011-05-03T19:23:00.003-06:00

So I got a phone call from Mandy last night. I have to tell you, for the past few months, when I've seen her number in my caller ID, I've gotten a bit nervous.

Mandy is just a few days away from being halfway through this pregnancy. But understandably, she's been a bit of a nervous pregnant person and I suppose some of it has rubbed off on me, in spite of all my "I've done this and you need to relax" wisdom. :)

So I answer the phone and I hear, "da dump, da dump, da dump." Just as I'm thinking there's something wrong with the connection Mandy comes on and says, "Did you hear that Mom?!!!"

Let me tell you how blessed I am that Aaron is my son-in-law. Um...Aaron is Mandy's husband but more importantly, he's the father of my next grandbaby. LOL

After such a struggle to even get, much less STAY, pregnant, Mandy was very comforted by the ultrasounds her specialist did every week for the first three months. That's every single week, folks. And each time, she got to hear the baby's heartbeat.

Once she was referred to her regular ob/gyn because she was no longer high-risk, the weekly ultrasounds stopped. That means the weekly hearing of the baby's heartbeat stopped.

Aaron knew that this upset her. After all, she still couldn't feel the baby move.

I get it. I really do. But Aaron REALLY got it!

So he went on line and ordered a Doppler for Mandy. See? How lucky am I to have him for a son-in-law?

But....when he ordered it, he failed to notice that it would ship from....are you ready?....CHINA.

OK, guess how long it takes to get a shipment of anything from China.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when she told me, weeks and weeks ago, that Aaron was giving her a Doppler but heaven only knew when it would arrive. LOL

It arrived yesterday.

And last night I picked up my phone and I heard, "da dump, da dump, da dump."

She now has a simple instrument that she can put on her tummy and hear her baby's heartbeat.

Mandy turned thirty on Sunday. That means it's been thirty years since I had my last baby. Let me tell you, times have changed. We had an educated guess that the baby would be a girl but only because rumor had it a faster heartbeat usually meant a girl. There was absolutely no data that I knew of to back this up, but I counted on it being true because I wanted another baby girl. :)

We certainly did not know, until the doctor held the baby up and said, "Yep. It's a girl!"

I have to tell you, I love technology. I often wonder if perhaps we've become too dependent on technology. Do little kids still go outside at dusk and chase fireflies? Do they actually walk away from their computers or Wii's or Nintendo DS'es long enough to go outside and breathe and do the things I did when I was little?

Is there even such a thing as a mom-to-be who doesn't know if she should decorate in pink or blue?

Sometimes I wish we could return to the days when things were simpler. But just this one time, I'm extremely thankful for technology.

Da dump...da dump...da dump....music to this Nana's ears.

Secret revealed.....

2011-03-31T12:01:00.005-06:00

I doubt very seriously this will surprise many of you. But this is a big, big deal, so I get to "announce" it. :)

After a three year struggle with infertility, a lot of difficult moments and one heartbreaking loss, Mandy and Aaron are going to have a baby. And here's the part I love sharing - she is safely past the first trimester and no longer considered high risk.

We're going to have a new baby in this family!

It was devastating when, several months ago, Mandy got pregnant and all of us made the big announcement as soon as we knew - and she lost the baby the very night of the day we announced it. So this time Mandy and Aaron let the immediate family and their closest friends in on the secret but only with the understanding that no one was to say a word publicly until the beginning of the second trimester.

Last Monday Mandy's fertility specialist told her goodbye and referred her back to her regular ob/gyn. I am beyond impressed with all he did for them - they were only one more month of trying away from the next and last step - in vitro.

She's had ultrasounds every two weeks for the past three months to be absolutely certain everything was exactly as it should be. So we now know the baby is perfect, is extremely active and is actually a little bigger than normal for this stage. And, as you can clearly see, he/she is as cute as can be. Well, of course - this is, after all, MY new grandbaby and that's the only kind of grandbabies I have. LOL

We won't know the baby's sex until mid June. Baby Vogt is due on October 8th. If it's a boy, Tyler is a real possibility. If it's a girl, Molly is very possible. (It's been Mandy's favorite name since her dad and I gave her her American Girl doll for Christmas when she was a little girl.) Another possibility is Carly Kristina. I really love that one.

Mandy is coming to visit while she's on spring break - she'll arrive this Saturday afternoon. I can't tell you how much I look forward to hugging my daughter, I'm so happy for her.

Hooray for happy news and thank you, God, for Your timing and for blessing this family yet again.

A Kidney for Kelli

2011-03-31T10:00:00.005-06:00

Kelli needs a kidney. It's as simple as that. Without it she will die. Her time is running short but you can help. Today's the day you can help make a lifesaving kidney a reality for Kelli Bach. Please open your heart and help her if you can.

Clicking on the above image will take you to her fund raiser site. You can read the story of her journey and her struggle there.

I've known Kelli for five years. I think almost all of us know her. Her courage and determination are an inspiration. Go. Read her story. And please, help if you can.

http://www.giveforward.com/AKidneyForKelli

Update: The goal is $20,000 in trust to help Kelli and John pay her donor's expenses, which are not covered by Kelli's insurance. As of five minutes ago, the donations had reached $8,744. Woohoo!

The best cookies ever....

2011-03-24T20:07:00.002-06:00

You're not going to believe how easy these are. And they're wonderful.

Krissy's Cake Cookies

2 boxes yellow cake mix (generic works great)
2 sticks butter (not margarine)
2 tablespoons water
2 large eggs
1 12-ounce bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Melt butter in microwave. Mix butter and cake mix. Beat in the water and eggs. Add chocolate chips.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

So my thoughts? Krissy has become very active in Cameron's school (PTO). Last movie night, she baked these cookies and she and Cameron took some to Papa, who works at Cameron's school at night.

Rob (Rob to me, Papa to Cameron :) came home and told me, "Get Krissy's recipe for those cookies - they're great!"

They're very rich and very, very good.

I'd show you the photo that's currently stuck in my camera, but my camera battery finally (after 7 years) died, and I can't download photos until I replace it.

But trust me, these are good, good cookies. Simple. 5 ingredients. I will warn you, the dough is very stiff to work with. But don't worry about that too much. Just plop spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet and they'll be fine.

You know, it occurs to me....this recipe calls for simple yellow cake mix and chocolate chips. But what if you were to try a different cake mix? Like, say, carrot cake? And maybe raisins instead of chocolate chips?

I think the possibilities are endless.

Enjoy!

I have a secret...

2011-03-19T21:32:00.004-06:00

...and it changes everything.

I'm sworn to absolute secrecy for two more weeks. But I can give you some clues.

My whole life has revolved around this one thing for more than three years.

It is wonderful.

And I cannot tell you what it is. For a couple of more weeks.

In a couple of more weeks, I'll share an amazing video with you. In two more weeks, I have the official go ahead to share my secret with you. :)

Meantime, the break I've taken from blogging has rejuvinated me. I'm actually working on cross stitch projects! I haven't done crafts for almost two years, I got so completely burned out with the little shop I did for a while.

Suddenly I'm making Barbie doll clothes for a certain little miss someone, and yesterday I brought out a quilt I pieced twelve years ago. Time to get it done now, and it's hand quilted. But only because I started it that way - I simply must get my sister Bev to tell me everything she knows about machine quilting.

Life is good. We are all well. My favorite little boy (Cameron) is five. More amazing is that my favorite little girl (Avery) just turned three and boy, she's a pistol! She's her mommy personified and that's because I begged God to someday give Krissy a daughter just like herself. LOL (paybacks) She's completely potty trained and will thank you very much to tell her how cute her Tinkerbell big girl panties are. LOL

Oh my word, my little grandchildren are growing by leaps and bounds.

I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I'm actually noticing every single thing about how they're growing. I know I went through all of this with Krissy and Mandy, but I worked full time. They were both involved in so many things (softball, volleyall, gymnastics, girl scouts, cheerleading, and on and on and on....) and I had a husband who worked nights and I was so crazy busy, I honestly don't remember the little details of raising my own two precious daughters.

But Krissy's kids? I'm aware of every last single detail, from the way Cameron is walking around my house counting to five hundred, to the way Avery is letting me know she's big and doesn't need my help in the bathroom.

Thank you for that last one, God. You knew. I was about over the whole potty training thing anyway. LOL

To all of you who have emailed me behind the scenes, telling you me miss me, and hope that I'm OK...I'm OK. I just completely burned myself out and hit a wall. All I could think was, "What can I possibly say that anyone wants to hear?"

Remember that horrendous spring cleaning I did two years ago? I cleaned this house so ruthlessly that I totally skipped spring cleaning last spring. So this spring I'm paying for that. Big time. Oh my word, the cleaning! And it's like having babies...women my age just shouldn't do it. LOL

But spring cleaning I am. Me and Advil.

I'll be letting you in on that secret very soon. :)

Sunday Meanderings....

2010-12-19T09:45:00.024-07:00

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,
keeping watch over their flocks at night.

An angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

This will be a sign to you:
You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel,
praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

~~ Luke 2:8-14 ~~

MERRY CHRISTMAS

You know when you go from doing more than 300 posts in a year to about 50, you've slowed down. :)

Hello. How are you?

Everyone in Chelseaville is fine. We've actually had a fairly uneventful year. No real serious emergencies with our diabetics. OK, Andy was hospitalized for a few days with extremely low blood glucose (he was sick with stomach flu and that wreaks havoc on a diabetic) and I've made more runs up to Cameron's school to give him insulin than I can begin to count, but that's life with Type I diabetics in your family and it's actually become rote for us.

Not really, but almost.

And get this. As if my daughter (Krissy) didn't already have her hands full with Andy and Cameron having it, they found out on Thursday that their dog (Cody - a yellow lab) has canine diabetes. Oh my word, if it were funny, I'd type LOL. But it's not. So I won't.

Kris says she has decided to just line 'em up every morning and dose out the insulin shots. LOL (sorry - not funny)

Before we move on to my fascinating photos, I have to mention this. And I have to be very delicate.

You know that my younger daughter Mandy and her hubby Aaron are struggling with infertility and suffered a miscarriage about four months ago. They finally found a real fertility specialist and after a couple of months of this and that (if you've been there you know what I mean), Mandy had exploratory surgery last Thursday. She's recovering from that and because she's a school teacher, she has the next two weeks off so the timing is wonderful for her.

The worst news we could have gotten is that there's nothing wrong. Undiagnosed infertility. Guess what? There was something wrong. And the surgeon fixed it. And he thinks she's free and clear now to get pregnant.

And if you have a moment, a little prayer in that direction would be more appreciated than I can ever tell you. :)

We are beyond excited. You were there when they got married so you know they've been married 3+ years. Mandy will be 30 in May. It's time to get this little family going!

OK, let me share some photos with you.

This is one of my favorite things to see in December. That's Rob hanging the icicle lights on our house. We also put four deer on our lawn. Lighted deer of course. It's all very precious. LOL

Last year we got a heavy snow in mid November and it didn't melt for four months and Rob never got to prune the huge flower bushes in front of our front window and therefore couldn't get a ladder up to the house and we had no lights and I was heartbroken because our house looked dark and a little bereft without house lights.

I love Christmas and the perfect Christmas is snow on the ground that doesn't trap you in your house and lights on the house and deer on the lawn. I've never even considered any other lawn decorations. I like my four sweet little deer.

One died this year. As did half the house lights. When they sit in their boxes for two years, you don't know what you're going to get when you bring them out again. So we bought more icicle lights but bet me I'm buying a deer until AFTER Christmas when I can get him for maybe 70% off. Right? Right.

Does anything in the world look worse than the very beginnings of assembling an artificial Christmas tree? I ask you - look at that!

I'm not allowed to have a real Christmas tree. Rob was a volunteer fireman for too many years - went to way too many Christmas tree fires, including one very sad fatality - and he absolutely refuses to have a real tree in our home. Maybe I'm lucky. I haven't bought one in 33 years now, but I hear they're quite expensive.

I love a real tree and I miss the smell, but I know for sure I never have to worry about a fire in this house because the dog drank all the water out of the tree watering thingie and the lights set it on fire. Or whatever.

A little part of me thinks it would be perfectly fine to have a real tree in this house. But ask me if I like to argue with Rob.

So Rob puts the lights on our very fireproof non-spruce-tree-smelling tree.....

....he puts 1,000 twinkle lights on the tree. This year I wanted white lights. Next year I may go with the colored lights. Who knows. It depends on my mood, and actually I'd rather have the colored lights this year but I'm not brave enough to tell that man, after all that work, "Would you please take all those lights off and put these colored lights on instead?" Oh no, I'm not that brave.

In spite of the fact that he's watching football on TV while he's doing it, putting the lights on the tree ranks right up there with poop-scooping the backyard for Rob.

White light will work fine this year. LOL

But look! If you're a lousy photographer like I am, the lights look like they're colored! I really should get the manual to my digital out someday and look at it. I mean, I've only had this camera for seven years now.

Can you even believe this? Wouldn't you just know these are my grandchildren? SOCK MONKEY HATS!

And no, I did not knit these hats for them. I've tried, Lord knows I've tried, but I just can't knit. I've crocheted for forty years now and somehow I can't seem to make the transition.

Their daycare mom, Nancy, was in Steamboat Springs this summer and she saw these in a shop and because she knows about Cameron and Avery and their sock monkey thing, she couldn't resist buying these for them. The first day Cameron wore his to school (kindergarten) this year, I think Krissy got fifteen notes and phone calls from teachers in the school wanting to know where she got them. Adorable. Absolutely adorable hats and warm too!

Avery is almost as big as this Santa this year. I collect velvet Santas and just set them out in random spots all over the house. She fell in love with this one.

I added some Christmas art to the decorations this year. If you are in any kind of relationship with a five year old, you understand how important it is to display these things. Tacky doesn't count at Christmas! This is Cameron's countdown chain until Christmas. When he arrives at my house every morning, the first thing he does is run to this and he tears off another chain. And then we count how many sleeps until Santa comes.

I have to tell you, Cameron is blessed with the teacher he got for kindergarten. Every single day he comes home completely enthralled and excited about something he learned in school that day.

And you don't even want to know how much of his art I now have on display in my very white-beige-seafoam green, minimalist house. LOL

A NEW YEAR IS UPON US

I've struggled with posting for the past year. You know, I simply woke up one day and thought, "What on earth can I say that I haven't already said?" A person only has so many recipes and cleaning tips and doggie stories to share before it becomes redundant. I think I needed a break.

It doesn't mean I haven't had all of you in my thoughts. I have.

Perhaps this coming new year I will get back into the swing of it all.

In the meantime, never worry about me. I'm fine. If I weren't, one of my daughters or both of them would let you know.

I'm looking forward to 2011. I'm hoping to share the best news of all, the expectation of a new grandbaby. Oh, how I'm praying for that.

Rob and I are doing well and we hope you are too.

And Chelsea wishes you...

A Very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year!

The best laid plans....

2010-11-23T20:40:00.013-07:00

Someday I will learn. LOL

I had this holiday planned down to the very last detail of course. :)

Beginning tomorrow Rob has five days off and I'm so glad to have him home for such a long span that he can actually relax. You know. Watch some football. Smell the great things I'm cooking. Eat. Eat. Oh. And eat.

No school tomorrow. That means no Cameron at 7:30 in the morning. Both kids going to Nancy's daycare home tomorrow.

That's perfect because I always have that one last quick shopping trip, the day before the holiday, to get the fresh things that I don't buy a week ahead of time. You know. The salad greens and the bakery fresh French bread that I make my croutons out of and the toilet seat to replace the one that came apart today in our main bathroom.

Krissy called me at 5 o'clock this afternoon. Avery is sick. She's not desperately sick but she's run a 100 degree low grade temp all day and Nancy would prefer she not be at daycare again until we know what's going on with her. I totally understand she can't have a child who might have something contageous around all the other children.

So my plans for getting up with the birds and getting my last minute shopping done kind of flew the coop.

Tomorrow I'll be taking care of two little ones who aren't up to par. Avery's actually sick with something. Cameron isn't really sick, but he's not really feeling great either and not feeling great is a problem with him. When he's the least bit off, his blood sugar drops and we have to monitor him a lot more closely than we normally do.

Mandy and Aaron are due to arrive tomorrow afternoon and I may or may not be home when they get here. Walmart the afternoon before Thanksgiving? Who knows!

And of course there are weather advisories for the mountains. Mandy and Aaron have to drive through the Rockies tomorrow and there are heavy snow warnings out.

They have a Jeep, but still....I won't completely relax until they're sitting in my living room. She has a key to the house, so if I'm not here, they'll let themselves in.

Meantime, I've made darn sure she knows about that toilet seat! Use MY bathroom until Rob and I get home.

Rob told me today that when the house smells like Chex party mix he knows the holidays are officially here. I make tons of this between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Chex party mix is not actually blue - only in MY photos. :)

As I was assembling everything on the kitchen counter today it hit me....I'm saving myself a ton of money when I make this because without even thinking about it, I buy generic. The funny thing is, this generic cereal actually works better - it doesn't crumble as much as the more expensive cereal.

So we have a wonderful Thanksgiving coming up in spite of a slight change in plans.

I haven't seen my daughter since the first week of June. I am beyond thankful that she will be here tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. May your day be blessed with family and good food and thoughts of....

Oh My Gosh! It's only four weeks until Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-20T16:33:00.012-07:00

How can it already be Thanksgiving? Where on earth has this year gone!

Here in western Colorado it's beginning to get pretty cold. Amazingly, we haven't had any serious snow yet. It's not at all unusual to get completely snowed in, in October and here it is, mid-November. Everyone out here got all atwitter one day last week because it actually started snowing, but seriously, I think maybe 16 snowflakes fell and it stopped. But the sky is looking pretty ominous this afternoon and as crazy as this will sound, I honestly think it smells like it's going to snow. :)

Of course it does. Mandy and Aaron are leaving Wednesday morning to make the drive across the Rockies to come out here for Thanksgiving. According to the weather gurus, it's supposed to start seriously snowing in the mountains Monday and continue all week. Of course. Thank goodness they have a 4-wheel drive vehicle (Jeep) but still, the mom in me isn't thrilled about them making that drive in those conditions. It does help to know the ski resorts all throughout the Rockies do a pretty good job making sure the skiers can get to them.

However, I.have.not.seen.my.daughter.since.the.first.week.of.June.

Ridiculous. We've never ever gone this long without seeing each other and I'm beyond excited about them arriving Wednesday afternoon.

I've already waited so long to post these photos, I was tempted to just wait and post them for Christmas instead of Thanksgiving. LOL But what kind of nana would I be if I didn't show you how cute my little grandkids looked on Halloween. This was before they went trick or treating and little Avery wasn't sure what was going on. But she caught on very quickly once she realized a lot of chocolate was involved. She's such a girl - LOVES chocolate!

The first time I saw Cameron's costume, his mom had called me and asked me to run down to her house real quick. Didn't say why...just said she had something to show me. When I got there, I was standing in her kitchen and Cameron jumped out of the laundry room, in that costume, and I almost wet my pants.

That had nothing to do with having a 60 year old bladder - he just flat out scared me half to death. :)

So Cameron was a real scary dude, and....

...Avery was a ladybug.

Please notice that she is wearing her big brother's red crocs and they are on the wrong feet. Those shoes are way too big for her but she loves them and Krissy just avoids the tantrum by letting her wear them. All the time. Everywhere. LOL

You know, I totally remember how much I hated Playdough when my girls were little. I swore I'd never have it in my house again. And then I got grandchildren. And now I don't care. This stuff keeps them occupied for hours when they're here with me on Fridays.

They rummage around in my kitchen drawers and find "tools" and away they go.

And on a bit of a sad note, the plant you see in the first photo is the avocado tree you all watched me grow from a pit, starting over a year ago. It's toast. No matter what I did, I couldn't make that thing be "not ugly" and every time I looked at it, I got mad at it, so I picked it up one day and tossed it in the trash.

I shall start a new avocado pit. And it will be more cooperative and become a bushy, pretty little tree. Or else.

Like all of you, we're getting ready for the holidays. We'll be having our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, as we do every year, so that Krissy and Andy can go to his family's on the holiday itself. And you know, I kind of like that. It gives me an extra day to float my Butterball in the bathtub since no matter what I do, I never manage to get my turkey completely thawed in time. And it gives me the perfect excuse to totally avoid Black Friday. :)

I made a big decision about Thanksgiving this year. We'll have all the same things we always have, but downsized. I have no idea why I've always thought I had to buy absolutely the biggest turkey I could find. A 28 pound turkey is just hard to deal with, all the way around. Hard to thaw. Hard to handle and move around and hard to make space for on the table.

And hard to eat for two weeks after the holiday, since that's what Rob and I end up doing year after year. So this year? Smaller turkey and smaller amounts of everything.

I'm trying a new appetizer this year. I saw this in the Sunday paper last month (Parade Magazine). It's a Pillsbury crescents recipe - bacon cheddar pinwheels. They look wonderful and if you're interested, the recipe is here. There's even a little how-to video which cracks me up because I swear, it's about 15 seconds long, yet it's actually helpful.

If that link doesn't work, just go to Pillsbury.com and look for bacon cheddar pinwheels because truly, there's no way I'm typing in all the letters and numbers in that URL!

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me behind the scenes to make sure I'm OK. I'm fine. It took me a long time to completely recover from being so sick early last month. The biggest challenge was getting my energy back, and my enthusiasm for much of anything, to be honest. But I did get it back and quickly jumped into fall cleaning which was particularly challenging since I totally skipped spring cleaning this year. LOL The blinds. Oh my word, I think I hate them. I love the way they look, but cleaning them is right up there with ironing and scrubbing toilets.

If I weren't fine, one of my daughters would commandeer this blog and let you know. :)

I hope you have a wonderful holiday planned. And I hope you're a lot farther along in getting ready for Christmas than I am! I'm not remotely ready but you know, somehow it always comes together and our little family has a very nice Christmas. It's mostly about the being together of course.

As we approach Thanksgiving, be aware of all you have to be thankful for. We all tend to forget that our cups are half full. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The face of the earth...

2010-10-24T19:51:00.003-06:00

...I really haven't fallen off it.

But I have been just incredibly sick for two weeks. I've been so sick that for the first time in five years, I asked my daughter Krissy to make other arrangements for morning and Friday daycare for Cameron and Avery.

They both had runny noses and little colds and at first I thought I'd caught that from them. No way did I catch what they had because as little as they are, if they'd had this stuff, they'd have been in the hospital.

There were a couple of nights I woke up in a panic because I simply could not breathe and I almost went to the emergency room.

I have no idea what this stuff was/is. The worst part, other than those panicky nights, is that my ears were completely plugged up for ten days. Hearing anything at all was like hearing under water and let me tell you, a little bit of that is OK, but not ten days of it. Rob and I reached the point we wished we knew how to sign. And I'm not kidding.

So I'm better now. Today, for the first time in two weeks, I was able to get dressed and go out of the house. I was two weeks behind in grocery shopping and it got to the point Rob was making little emergency runs to the grocery store for things like margarine and toilet paper and toothpaste. Ridiculous, running out of one essential thing every day and sending him to the store.

I get colds like all of us do. But this was way worse than a cold and the last time I was this sick was the month that it took us to move from eastern Colorado to here in western Colorado, seven years ago. A month. I was so sick, even with a van company moving us, it took me a month to accomplish the move.

So. Whew! I can finally breathe again. We are so lucky for some of the wonderful over-the-counter cold meds we can buy. I don't think I'd have stayed out of the hospital this time without Mucinex. I finally woke up this morning and thought, "I feel much better. I'm not taking any more medication." And by 10 0'clock my ears were plugged again (sinus).

So I'm not over it, but I think I'm out of the woods. LOL (You know you're not going to EVER read a post on this blog that doesn't include at least one LOL.)

As soon as I feel totally human again, I'll be back with a pithy and exciting post.

Meantime, it's amazing how our weather is turning. There have been a couple of days in the past week, if it had been just a couple of degrees colder, we would have had snow!

Sunday Meanderings.....

2010-10-01T11:01:00.021-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

His Wondrous Handiwork

Is anything impossible for the Lord?

~~ Genesis 18:14 ~~

God is a miracle worker. Throughout history He has intervened in the course of human events in ways that cannot be explained by science or human rationale. And He's still doing so today.

God's miracles are not limited to special occasions, nor are they witnessed by a select few. God is crafting His wonders all around us: the miracle of the birth of a new baby; the miracle of a world renewing itself with every sunrise; the miracle of lives transformed by God's love and grace. Each day, God's handiwork is evident for all to see and experience.

Today, seize the opportunity to inspect God's hand at work. His miracles come in a variety of shapes and sizes, so keep your eyes and your heart open. Be watchful, and you'll soon be amazed.

Are you looking for a miracle? If you keep your eyes wide open and trust in God, you won't have to look very far. ~~ Marie T. Freeman ~~

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publishers

AUTUMN!

It couldn't possibly be more beautiful anywhere on earth than it is here in western Colorado. I'm not saying we had a difficult summer - actually, it seemed mild considering we normally have unbelievably, relentlessly hot weather for three months, without a break - but autumn has arrived in all its glory and it's just wonderful. I have my windows open all day (and night) long right now and that's such a treat. There's such a short time span between needing the a/c and then the heat, it's my favorite time of year. Fresh air in the house!

As you know, I'm not one for refrigerator art. I'm very minimal, interior decorating-wise, and I just don't like "stuff" all over the place. That's been my motto forever. Of course, I thought "minimal" was great, until I became a Nana. LOL

This is the first paper Cameron brought home from kindergarten. He brought a lot of papers home from preschool, but really, that doesn't count, right? Kindergarten papers are SERIOUS!

I guess you'll laugh at me, but this is the very first time Cameron wrote his own name and for some reason, it just moves me beyond words. I wonder how many times he will write his name during the course of the rest of his life, but this is the.very.first.time.ever that he wrote it, and Krissy let me keep this and I will treasure it forever.

Every time I see this, I smile. Oh my word, look at his "m" - is that not the sweetest thing you've ever seen? Maybe not. But to me? It's sweet. :)

A CELEBRITY IN THE FAMILY AND A LOT OF FUN FOR THOSE OF US WHO KNOW IT!

I have a niece. Her name is Leslie. She's my sister Bev's daughter. She's my other niece, Sarah's, sister. And she's created a new web site that has taken off like a firecracker in Pennsylvania, where she lives.

My sister Bev has a blog. Sweet Tea and Sass

My niece Sarah has a blog. Owl Creek Cottage

Neither of them are to be missed. They are wonderful blogs.

But I digress.

Cameron goes to kindergarten every day and Avery goes to her play group (daycare at Nancy's) every day. But they are all mine on Fridays and I'm not giving up my Fridays with them until they are both in school all day long. We have such fun.

I don't just "babysit." I read to them. We play pretend. We go outside and search for roly polies for their special roly polie jars. ~~We watch Finding Nemo or Elf all day long.~~ I try to be a creative Nana and have "surprise" projects lined up when they arrive on Friday. It's gotten to where they walk in my front door and say, "It's Friday! What's our surprise, Nana?"

This past Friday it was egg carton caterpillars. I tell you, my niece Leslie is a creative genius when it comes to keeping preschoolers entertained.

I saved egg cartons for a couple of weeks. All I had to get for this fun project was WASHABLE markers (trust me, get the washable ones), a little package of wiggle eyes, some pipe cleaners, or as Hobby Lobby calls them, chenille stems, for pete's sake, tacky glue, and twist ties.

Please tell me that going to the grocery store and buying one white onion and taking ten twist ties does not constitute stealing because that's exactly what I did. LOL (I don't save twist ties.)

Avery is two and a half years old. Cameron is five. If you have kids this age, you understand how short their attention span is. Look at the concentration here. Just amazing, how intent they are, using their special new markers and coloring their caterpillar bodies.

By the way, I get extra point for this. I bought TWO packages of washable markers and two special tin containers (Tinkerbell for her and Spiderman for him) because it seemed the best way to avoid any arguments over the markers. They thought they were pretty special, to each have their very own markers with their very own "cool" containers for them. Do I know how to avoid a problem or what!

Such hard work! Avery finally decided to just settle down to it and get comfortable. And if her fat little feet aren't the cutest thing ever, then I don't know what is. I LOVE her fat little feet! LOL

All done - caterpillars!

Whew! Cameron's thirsty and Avery's simply in love. :)

Look at her. She just cracks me up. Now don't get all upset with me. I was watching her closely. But she's a little monkey and the positions she gets into crack me up. And by the way, if you think, "My grandkids will never jump on or abuse my furniture" is going to work, really, you need to sit down and rethink that. Just as I said when my daughters were little, I'm now saying, "Someday I'll just get new furniture." LOL

It really is amazing to keep little ones this age entertained beyond fifteen minutes, but look at the caterpillars they made. We did this for two hours Friday afternoon. And I totally stole the idea of photographing them in the grass from my niece Leslie.

Geez. I stole those twist ties, too. I may be on the way to becoming a criminal! A thief!

Funmoms. org.

You.will.love.this.amazing.website

Life is good. The weather is wonderful, everyone is healthy and life is simply good.

Sunday Meanderings...

2010-09-19T16:50:00.016-06:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

HIS WONDROUS HANDIWORK

Then God saw everything that he had made,
and indeed it was very good.

~~ Genesis 1:31 ~~

As we pause to examine God's wondrous handiwork, one thing is clear: God is, indeed, a miracle worker. Throughout history He has intervened in the course of human events in ways which can't be explained by science or human rationale.

God's miracles are not limited to special occasions, nor are they witnessed by a select few. God is crafting His wonders all around us: the miracle of the birth of a new baby; the miracle of a world renewing itself with every sunrise; the miracle of lives transformed by God's love and His grace. Each day God's miraculous handiwork is evident for all to see and to experience.

The Psalmist reminds us that the heavens are a declaration of God's glory. May we never cease to praise the Father for a universe that stands as an awesome testimony to His presence, to His power, and to His love.

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? I'M FINE :)

Where did summer go? Good grief, it flew by! Out here in western Colorado it's still getting pretty warm during the day, but let me tell you, it's becoming a little challenging to sit on the patio with Rob every morning as we share our first cups of coffee together. Chilly! But...I love it. I love being able to keep doors and windows open all morning long, until early afternoon.

Except for a minor cricket invasion this summer, we've enjoyed it immensely. Oh, what am I saying! The crickets were unbelievable all summer long and how on earth they get into this house, I'll never know, but I've lost count how many I've "relocated" to the toilet. And huge - I've never seen such big crickets. Surprisingly, I have not had a single one singing in my bedroom though. You may recall the one that almost drove me insane last summer. LOL

Sadly, these days are behind us now. School has started and life has settled into the school year routine, so afternoons in the little pool are over. You'll notice that this is pool #2. Pool #1 is toast. But...these pools were less than $20 at Walmart and for the fun Cameron and Avery had in them, it was well worth going through two of them. They're practically disposable. LOL

Please note two things. The kids are tearing into those surprises frozen in half gallon milk cartons I told you about. What fun, to play with a big block of ice, with a surprise frozen in the middle, when it's 95 degrees out. And...you seriously have to notice that this pool has cup holders on each side. Check out the sippy cups. Cracked me up, but these two thought that was slicker than...nevermind. :)

There were lots of days I had both the kids all day long. Daycare providers go on vacation. Daycare providers have family emergencies. For a while there, I had them so much, keeping them entertained became a quest. We watched lots of movies and read lots of books, but that started getting a little old.

One afternoon it occurred to me to dig into my scrapbooking supplies. I'm not going to tell you how vast my scrapbooking collection is - it would embarrass me. But it's amazing how long they stay entertained with something as simple as some colorful paper, some paper punches, and some glue sticks.

I had a wonderful time with Cameron and Avery this summer. It was a summer full of water play, indoor play, long naps, roly polies (they each have their own special jar with holes poked in the lid with an ice pick and a big fat twig inside for the critters to climb :), popsickles and ice cream cones and a few fun day trips. I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss summer with my two favorite little people.

He may be a big boy in kindergarten now, but my sweet Cameron still goes absolutely nowhere except school without Monkey. Monkey isn't allowed at school, so he brings him to me every morning and I babysit Monkey. I have to say, Moneky is pretty easy to babysit. lol

If your BFF was the Febreze company, you'd get as excited as I do when the Fedex truck stops by.

For several years now, they've been sending me their new products to try out and then review. I ask you. How lucky can one person be? They never just toss the product in a box and send it to me. It's always special, a very pretty package with some very nice things thrown in, in addition to the new product. I love the Febreze people.

This package included their newest product, the Febreze set & refresh, which simply stated, is a stand alone room freshener. You don't have to plug it into an outlet.

This special package included Febreze napkins and an apron. OK. Who on this whole earth besides me has Febreze napkins! I seriously love them and plan to put them out during the holidays and I'm not kidding because they are truly unique.

What could be more simple than this? It's pretty and you simply put the scent cartridge into the little holder and put it anywhere you want it. I have mine sitting on a bookshelf in my hallway. The scent they sent me is wonderful - "linen & sky." I'm thinking these would be perfect in your bathroom.

Wonderful new product. I've always loved everything Febreze, but this may be my new favorite because it's just so simple, and best of all, it works.

And I'm sure you're going to agree with me that nothing in the world could be more fitting than this - Barb wearing a Febreze chef's apron! LOL

I'LL BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS

Apparently, in addition to camels and sheep, there was an elephant present at the Nativity.

Cameron and Avery sure seem to think so. They love to play with my Willow Tree Nativity. As you know, I never put it away. It's on display in my living room year round and it's one of my most treasured possessions. And yet, I don't mind them playing with it because they are ever, ever so gentle. They know the figurines will break. They know how special it is to me. But they are intrigued with it and can't keep their hands off it and I would never tell them they can't touch. (I keep a tube of super glue on hand, just in case. lol )

There's a lot of cuddling and kissing of baby Jesus and a lot of rearranging of things, and as you can see, I never know what new addition I'll discover after they've gone home. I think it's very sweet that there was an elephant at the Nativity. :)

NEW SEASONS

Autumn is just around the corner. I'm looking forward to the changing season. I'm praying for a nicer winter than we had last year, but I'm really looking forward to the trees changing color and the cool, crisp mornings and evenings. Summer was wonderful, but you know, three months of it was enough. God knew what He was doing when he decided each of our seasons, at least where I live, should last about three months.

I feel a fall cleaning attack coming on. Can't say I spent a lot of time cleaning this summer and I suspect I'll be paying the price for that, real soon. The blinds are dirty, the clutter has accumulated again, the carpet could stand to be steam cleaned....ugh.

I hope you're feeling as blessed as I am. Life is simple, calm and easy right now.

Mexican Chicken

2010-09-07T10:41:00.003-06:00

I was at Krissy's house yesterday and her kitchen smelled so wonderful, I had to peek in her slow cooker. This is what she was making and it's so good, and so easy to make, I have to share it with you. :)

MEXICAN CHICKEN

2 to 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, sliced
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 can Ro-tel tomatoes
1 8-ounce package Velveeta, cubed

Place chicken, onion, soup and Ro-tel tomatoes in slow cooker. Cover; cook on low 6 to 8 hours or high 4 hours.

Break chicken into small pieces. Add Velveeta. Cook on high until Velveeta is melted.

Serve over hot cooked spaghetti.

There you go. Five ingredients. Nothing could be easier and let me tell you, it's really good!

My grandchildren are cuter than yours...LOL

2010-08-25T20:41:00.004-06:00

Oh, I kid. But seriously, are mine not adorable?

Cameron (5) and Avery (2) at the Denver Zoo, two months ago.

These two little people just light up my life.

Sunday Meanderings.....

2010-08-22T17:11:00.012-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

TRUSTING HIS ANSWERS

Trust in the Lord with all your hearts;
do not depend on your own understanding.

~~ Proverbs 3:5 ~~

God answers our prayers. What God does not do is this: He does not always answer our prayers as soon as we might like, and He does not always answer our prayers by saying, "Yes." God isn't an order-taker, and He's not some sort of cosmic vending machine. Sometimes -- even when we want something very badly -- our loving Heavenly Father responds to our requests by saying, "No," and we must accept His answer, even if we don't understand it.

God answers prayers not only according to our wishes but also according to His master plan. We cannot know that plan, but we can know the Planner...and we must trust His wisdom, His righteousness and His love, always.

Often I have made a request of God with earnest pleadings
even backed up with Scripture, only to have Him say "No"
because He had something better in store. ~~ Ruth Bell Graham

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

So last week was a big deal - my birthday. Normally my birthday really isn't a big deal. It's funny, but when you're the mom, your birthday stops being a big deal when your firstborn has her first one. Don't you think?

But this birthday was a big deal. I turned sixty.

I truly have no idea how that happened, how it happened so quickly. You hear people say things all the time, like "time flies" and "the older you get, the faster time goes by." Guess what. It's true.

I vividly remember my mother-in-law telling me, in the sixth year of her battle against two kinds of deadly cancer, and she was in her late seventies, "Barb, I swear, every time I look in a mirror I'm shocked at that old woman. I don't recognize her." :-) (How I miss her.)

I think I'm thankful my family didn't do a big blowout for this one. I think I'm thankful that this birthday just sort of passed quietly by and no one made a big deal out of my turning sixty because this one bothered me. I didn't mind turning 30. What the heck did I know when I was only thirty! And I didn't mind turning 40 because I was so busy with two teen aged girls and their crazy busy lives I'm not sure I even remember turning forty. Fifty didn't upset me much for some reason. I'm not sure why, but it didn't.

But turning sixty? That's a show stopper. You suddenly qualify for senior discounts. And young men open doors for you and call you ma'am. Oh dear.

I'll get over it. Soon. I'm sure. LOL

So last week Krissy and I finally went to the big Farmer's Market that Grand Junction (Colorado) does every Thursday evening, all summer long. I've lived here for six years and I'm embarrassed to say, I'd never been. They shut down six blocks of the streets in downtown Grand Junction from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m., every Thursday, all summer long, and it's just a fresh produce-craft booth-wonderful food booth-singers on every corner- celebration.

What fun we had! It was hotter than blue blazes of course, but you keep moving and try to convince yourself the sun isn't constantly shining right on your back, that you're outrunning it, and you survive. LOL

I was excited about the fresh Olathe sweet corn (it's like Rocky Ford melons - the best in the world) and the fresh tomatoes (I can't tell you how much I hate grocery store tomatoes and how little I think they actually taste like tomatoes). Krissy was excited about the fresh bread booths. The very first thing she bought was bread. Lots and lots of fresh specialty breads. I think the bag weighed fifty pounds and I had to smile, watching her struggle to carry that bag as we moved along. Krissy is so petite, and I thought that bag of breads would bring her to her knees.

We had such fun, right up until we got in the unbelievably long line for the Amish people's green chili burritos, which we'd been told were just to die for. There were lots of food booths, but the line for this one was nuts. About ten minutes into our wait, Kris looked into her purse and realized her wallet was missing.

Let the fun begin. I swear, we both just panicked. So we jumped out of the line (made the people behind us happy) and literally ran to retrace our path. Thank you, thank you Lord, one of the booths we'd visited (the pepper jelly lady, a friend of Krissy's) had found her wallet and was holding it for her.

So we were good. And relieved. So back to the Amish green chili booth, to the back of the line. And then Kris realized she was missing a book of checks. So out of the line and off we went. Again.

Let me tell you, Krissy is 31. I'm not. As you know, I'M SIXTY. I was huffing and puffing like crazy.

So of course she found that checkbook in the bottom of her purse. So for the third time off to the Amish people's green chili burrito booth we went and for the third time, we got into the very back of the unbelievably long line. And here's the corker.

Their burritos suck! They were awful. Next year Krissy and I will go to the hotdog stand.

I think keeping up with my daughter could kill me if I let it. LOL

Still, we had a blast and I came home with two new kinds of pepper jelly (it's the stuff you pour over a block of cream cheese and serve with Wheat Thins and I'm saving mine for the holidays), and a big bag of fresh corn and fresh tomatoes. I spent a total of $18 and that included the awful green chili burrito dinner.

COMING SOON...

Cameron starts kindergarten this week, on Thursday. I have no idea how my favorite little boy in the whole world can possibly be starting kindergarten. Wasn't it just last week I held my first grandchild in my arms for the first time? But yes, kindergarten. His first day is Thursday. So life changes again.

We're so thankful he got into the morning class. Rob's schedule changed this week too and and he goes back to his evening shift, so it's perfect. Krissy will drop Cam off here every morning before school, Rob will take him to school and then pick him up at noon and take him to Nancy and then go to work at 2:30 We couldn't ask for a better schedule. If Cameron had ended up in the afternoon kindergarten class, it would have been really difficult for all of us.

All it means for me is that I have to set my clock to be up every morning (like I'm not already up anyway). And I get an hour and a half every morning with my sweet, sweet grandson who is still young enough to think Nana hung the moon. :)

ONE LAST THOUGHT

You know, I live in western Colorado, about as close to Utah as you can get without actually being there. West, west. And it's desert country, hot, dry, and did I say hot? But we've had an unbelievably mild summer out here. Normally, it's so hot, you can't breathe when you go outside. There's no humidity. It's just stinkin' hot. But this has been a very mild summer. We hardly ever get rain out here. Everyone landscapes with things that don't need much water.

For the past three weeks, we've had rain almost every day and it's been wonderful, overcast, cloudy, NOT HOT.

I think God decided to do something special for me after the horrible, miserable, never ending, depressing, awful winter I survived last year. And because...

I'M SIXTY! I do think God decided to give me a nice summer so that sixty wouldn't seem so terrible. LOL

AND ON A REALLY SHALLOW NOTE...

First, I will confess almost everyone who sent me a birthday gift sent me FarmVille game cards. Except my father, who sent me his hearing aids because he got new ones. I think he feels bad because he knows hearing loss is hereditary. LOL (I'm sending them back to him - they don't remotely fit into my ears, which is a shame because heaven knows, I could sure use them if they fit!). I should also mention, my Daddy sent me a nice check too. Amazing. He turned 85 years old in July and still thinks of me as his "baby" and when he called me he told me, "I can't believe my baby is sixty. I must be getting old."

I love his attitude!

And Krissy took me to see Eclipse for my birthday. I am totally, unashamedly entranced with the whole Twilight thing. Read all the books. And I froth at the mouth, waiting for the next movie. It was wonderful. We could have gone to see Eat Pray Love, and I totally love Julia Roberts, but I read so many bad reviews about that movie and the whole "can't get my life together" theme, it didn't sound good to me, so when Kris asked me which I'd like to see, you can bet I jumped on Eclipse.

I LOVED it. Love, love the whole ridiculous vampire thing.

Maybe that means that although I really AM sixty, I don't act it yet, right? I mean, vampires?

LOL

Do you know, AUTUMN is just around the corner? My favorite time of the year. I can't wait.

Happy "the kids are back in school" to all of you.

xoxoxo

Minutiae...

2010-08-09T14:35:00.004-06:00

According to my trusty, battered old Webster's, the definition of minutiae is, "small or unimportant details." Perfect title for this post!

It never rains in western Colorado. Well, hardly ever. By mid summer we're all craving a few rainy days. I finally figured out how to make them happen.

All you have to do is buy an expensive bag of Scott's Plus, weed 'n feed for your lawn. You're supposed to lightly water your lawn before you spread it and then not water at all for at least 24 hours. I'm not kidding you. Three times Rob has checked the sky (he's a former air traffic controller - he can read the sky) and spread the stuff on our entire lawn and three times it has started raining within four hours.

If that happens, you have to spread it again. I'm glad he bought the big bag.

And we still have clover and some strange, very destructive crabgrass-like stuff in our lawn. Sigh.

This past week was the first time in more than two months that I had a normal week, schedule wise. The little ones (Cameron and Avery) were only here on Friday which is the plan. It was really nice, after some very busy recent weeks, to have a little quiet time around here. But you know, by Friday, I was missing them like crazy. LOL

All that changes in another week or so. Cameron will be starting kindergarten. We still don't know if he'll be in the morning or afternoon class, but I'll have him with me either before or after school. Absolutely the only inconvenience to me is that if he's here before school, I have to set my clock at night but the truth is, even when I can, I never sleep in. So summer break is about to officially end around here.

It's hard to believe he's starting kindergarten. He's pretty excited. :)

I checked out some interesting books from the library Saturday. Both are non-fiction which is very unusual for me. I'm reading The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. It was reviewed in People Magazine a couple of weeks ago and somehow I thought it was a sort of user guide but it's not. It's the story of the creation of the company and how it's changing the world.

I had no idea that Facebook was created by a nineteen year old Harvard sophomore (Mark Zuckerberg) in his dorm room. Good heavens, what a fascinating story.

And I'm just shallow enough to be drawn to, out of curiosity only of course, Oprah by Kitty Kelley. You know. The unauthorized biography everyone's talking about. If even half what I'm reading in this book is true, I'm convinced falling out of love with Oprah a couple of years ago was the right thing to do.

Krissy and I are going to the Farmer's Market on Thursday after she gets off work. The Farmer's Market is held every Thursday afternoon and evening in downtown Grand Junction, all summer long, and after living here six years, I have yet to ever once go. There's lots of local produce of course, including Olathe sweet corn (best corn in the world) but there are all kinds of craft and goods booths too, so I can't wait. What fun!

This is an awful story, very sad. Nancy had a family emergency last week, involving her brother-in-law. (Nancy is Cameron and Avery's daycare mom.) Nancy's brother-in-law is also my son-in-law Andy's best friend Ty's father. Did you follow that? So the people in this story are all interconnected to each other and it's affecting a lot of people I know.

Apparently this man (Ty's father) was bitten by a black widow spider a couple of months ago. Believe it or not, although you'll get very sick if you're bitten by a black widow, the bite is rarely fatal in adults. (Black widows are as common as can be out here in western Colorado.) But Ty's father turned out to be deathly allergic to the bite and he did in fact almost die. A special anti venom was flighted in from somewhere down south and he survived.

Two weeks ago he was hit broadside at a major intersection near Mesa State College, by a pickup truck. It turns out the driver of the truck is a baseball coach at Mesa State and although this isn't funny, it almost is. He had 450 baseballs in the bed of his truck and his truck flipped, sending those baseballs flying all over that intersection. People were hit, windshields were broken, and so on. It was such a mess, it made our local news that night.

Meantime, there were no major injuries from the accident but just to be on the safe side, Ty's father was taken to the hospital and a CT scan was done to rule out head injuries. And a massive, massive brain tumor was discovered. He had brain surgery the very next day, but they could not get all of the tumor and it's malignant. His family has been told that even with radiation and chemo, he has less than a year left.

He's a young man, early fifties, and it's just a heartbreaking story. I feel bad for his whole family, especially his son, Ty.

There's not much new and exciting going on in Chelseaville, other than the fact that the population of Grand Junction has no idea they should thank Rob for all the nice rain we've been getting. :)

Minutiae...at it's best, right?

Sometimes, your heart just gets tugged at....

2010-07-30T20:11:00.006-06:00

My little grandson Cameron is five now...has been for a month. He was only two years old (24 months, in baby language) when he was diagnosed with juvenile (Type I) diabetes. But of course you know that by now because it's been the subject of many of my posts.

Getting his blood glucose checked (finger pricks) and getting shots of insulin are just a part of his life and really, he was so young when he was diagnosed, he's doesn't remember not being diabetic.

If you've followed me for a while you know that one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life was the first shot of insulin I had to give him.

Looking back on it all, and after giving him hundreds and hundreds of shots, I wonder that I was so nervous and skittish about plunging that syringe into his little butt. I do it now without even thinking about it.

Cameron absolutely never reacts at all to either the finger prick or the shot. As a matter of fact, he's recently insisted that I let him do the finger prick himself. We do it with a very simple "gun" type thing and of course he's into guns and things that go bang, so I let him. All I need is that one little drop of blood so it doesn't matter which one of us makes it appear, and it seems to make him feel good when I let him know I think he's a big enough boy that he can do it himself.

Lord knows, it won't be long before he'll be testing and injecting himself all on his own.

Cameron is very much a five year old little boy. Adorable, full of energy and imagination. How I love to watch him when he goes off into his imaginary play world.

So yesterday morning I was totally unprepared for what happened.

He has to have his blood glucose checked before every meal. We have to know his levels before he eats, and then make an educated guess, based on what he eats, as to how much insulin to give him. It's just a normal routine any more but it means he gets pricked before breakfast, before morning snack, before lunch, before afternoon snack, before dinner and before bedtime. And depending on the day, maybe even more times than that.

So yesterday morning, I did what I do every single morning that he's with me. I pricked his little finger and then I gave him a shot of three units of insulin.

And he surprised me by reacting. He never does. But this time, he looked up at me with huge, huge tears in his eyes and he said,

"Nana. I don't want to be diabetes any more."

That's exactly what my five year old little grandson said.

And I tell you, it broke my heart into a million pieces because of course he will always be "diabetes."

I tell you, sometimes things just fly out of nowhere and break your heart. I know for sure that Cameron could have something a lot worse than diabetes, and that we are blessed when you look at it that way, but oh my word, I hate it more than I can say that he is diabetic and that it's forever and that at only five years old, he seems to be realizing that.

I'm a pretty strong woman. But yesterday morning, a very simple and honest statement from my precious little grandson just about broke my heart.

Sunday Meanderings

2010-07-18T23:59:00.005-06:00

FOOTPRINTS

"One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.

'Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You, You'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed You most You would leave me.'

The Lord replied, 'My son, My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.' "

~~ Author Unknown ~~

A LITTLE OF THIS...A LITTLE OF THAT...

Scenes from one heck of a great birthday party:

It's hard to believe my little Cameron is five years old now, isn't it? You know, when my kids were little, I gave some wonderful birthday parties for them. But my daughter Krissy totally outdid anything I ever did, with this one.

Cameron clearly thinks his Spongebob cake is great!

Kris had his party at Bananas, a fun park here in Grand Junction. I'd never been there before. My word, what a great place for a kid's birthday party!

I never saw kids run around and play so hard, for so long, as Cam and all his little buddies did at this place.

This just cracks me up - he was a hot, flushed, sweaty puddle, but nothing a slice of pizza (surprisingly good pizza) and a diet soda didn't take care of in a few minutes.

Such a little lady, Avery is. Isn't she adorable?

Here's what his mom and dad gave him for his birthday. It took his dad, his papa and his uncle three evenings to put this together.

His Aunt Gigi gave him this.

And one of his little friends gave him this.

So with one little birthday party, Cameron and Avery went from having just about nothing to play with in their back yard, to all these fun things.

There's a lot to be said for being a summer birthday boy!

This photo is for my mom. She sends me a big package about once a month - books for Cameron and Avery. Mom, I thought I'd show you how much they love the books you're sending them.

Oh look! Two half gallon milk cartons with the tops cut off!

But...look inside.

Southern Comfort, at Life In The A-Frame, recently left me a comment, sharing what I think is one of the best ideas I've ever heard.

Take a milk carton, put some fun little toys in it, fill it up with water and freeze it, put the cartons in warm water just long enough to loosen up the chunk of ice and then put it in the kids' swimming pool. They'll have a blast trying to get that chunk of ice to melt so they can see what their surprise is. And when it's a hundred degrees outside, like it is here almost all the time during the summer, playing with that ice will be even more fun. :) Isn't that just the best ever idea?

Avery's carton has a mermaid doll in it and Cameron's has a batman figurine in it. They don't know about this yet - but I can't wait for Friday to arrive!

Krissy recently decided she needed a new car. She's been driving a mom car (a mini van) forever so of course I thought she'd get a new mini van. Nope.

Look what she got. This just makes me smile. She's always, always wanted a big pickup truck and that's exactly what she got. My petite little daughter driving that big truck is a sight to see. LOL But she's tickled pink over her new "car."

Here's what Andy drives. (Wouldn't you think he'd drive the truck and she'd drive the car? They're so funny.)

And although you can't really tell, the whole little family is in that car, getting ready to go to Denver. They left this morning. This is a little mini vacation, to take the kids to the wonderful Denver Zoo and Ocean Journey. I've been to Ocean Journey and it's an amazing place. Cameron and Avery are going to be absolutely enthralled with all the sharks and whales and octopi. Octopi, right? Not octopuses, right? What do I know!

Aunt Mandy and Uncle Aaron, and Krissy's cousin Jennifer and her kids, are meeting them at the zoo tomorrow. What fun they're going to have.

At any rate...these kids are traveling in style. Here they are, hooked up to their individual DVD players.

Boy, this is NOT the way we traveled with OUR kids when they were little! LOL

So summer is just moving right along here in Chelseaville.

I can't remember when I've ever been so lazy, but you know, it started when I decided to skip the whole spring cleaning thing. I'm using my energy, which seems to be in smaller supply with each passing year, to putz around in the yard and play with my flowers (and my grandkids) this summer. It's been a while since I felt "crafty" but I feel the urge to get out the counted cross stitch supplies again. I haven't done counted cross stitch in ages and I may make myself some new kitchen towels. I have the most wonderful ocean themed pattern book.....

I don't feel the least bit guilty about taking the summer off. I'll just do a big fall cleaning. Or not.

LOL I hope you're having some lazy moments this summer too.

We survived...and then we upsized!

2010-06-29T20:24:00.017-06:00

My poor family has been sick, sick for the past six weeks. I swear, it was just a series of unfortunate events...one thing right after another and everyone caught everything from each other. Chest colds, strep throat and ear infections, another head and chest cold and then the always popular stomach virus...and I got to factor an abscessed tooth and extraction into it all. I was honestly beginning to think we were never all going to be well at the same time again.

My poor son-in-law Andy actually ended up in the hospital, in the ICU, for three days. Diabetic ketoacidosis. It's a horrible complication of diabetes that often happens when a type I diabetic has any kind of infection in his body and let me tell you, it's scary. Untreated, it leads to coma and in some cases, is fatal.

So we've had a rough go for over a month here in Chelseaville, but I'm happy to report, everyone, every last one of us, is finally well again.

I made an executive decision. I tried really hard to convince myself that I was set up well enough for my little grandchildren, Cameron and Avery, to have a fun summer at Nana's house. But the dinky little baby pool I had on hand just didn't feel right.

So we upsized!

Clearly, Cameron and Avery were doing their best to enjoy the pool I bought when Cameron was a baby, but it really was beginning to get a little crowded in there once Avery joined the party.

I'd had my eye on this pool at Walmart for weeks and weeks. I hesitated because it's a soft side pool which means one sharp poke and it's toast. But I thought, what the heck. Teach them to be careful and go for it.

By the time Rob and I bought this last weekend, it was marked down to twenty bucks. I already know it's been a long time since I spent twenty dollars so well. They LOVE this pool! And so do I because when they're here at my house, they're in and out of it all day long and are having so, so much fun.

Cameron will be five tomorrow. Mandy and Aaron are here and our family had a big cookout last Sunday. They gave Cam his birthday presents early because they bought him a ton of back yard water toys. Slip 'n slide. Buzz Lightyear blastoff sprinkler. And Papa and I bought him a radio control speed boat.

So now, my back yard is like Water World! I love it. They're just having so dang much fun and our lawn is getting a lot of extra watering. lol

Cameron's first official Little League season is over. Tee ball. We've been going to two games a week for two months (when we weren't too sick, that is) and what fun it was. I can't tell you how cute four and five year olds are, trying to learn to play baseball.

This shot is very sentimental to me - Rob and I spent many, many springs and summers in the stands for years and years because both our girls played softball all the way through high school. Both our girls always did this - they stuck their fingers in the holes in the batting helmet to hold it down because they were so afraid it would fly off their heads. How funny that already Cam does this too, but really, that's the smallest batting helmet they make and it was HUGE on his little head.

"Good game, good game, good game..."

Remember that? :)

Waiting for our burgers and cheese fries at the concession stand, after the game, was one of our favorite parts of the season. lol

Mandy and Aaron showed up for their week long visit on the day of Cameron's very last game, last Thursday, so they just showed up at his game and surprised him. You may know, Uncle Aaron is one of his favorite people in the whole world and Cameron was just stunned and thrilled to look over toward the stands and see him there.

After the game, we all went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for dinner.

And for the first time in years, I accidentally managed to get my whole motley crew, my entire little family, in one photo. This is in the waiting area at the restaurant.

We're such a normal looking, typical looking family, aren't we? Except that Rob and I aren't in the photo. Because, you know...we were sitting on the other side of the room from them and...nevermind. But still.

I love this photo. :)

So Mandy and Aaron have been here for a week now. Tomorrow is Cameron's birthday and his party is at a big amusement park here in Grand Junction (Banana's) so they've extended their visit for one day so that they can be there with him. They're actually going to make the long drive back home after the party tomorrow evening because they have an appointment with their fertility acupuncture specialist at 11 on Thursday and nothing, but nothing, messes with the whole "cycle" thing.

I'm still confident I'll have good news to announce soon. We've all recovered as well as you can when you lose a pregnancy, and are very hopeful that they'll be pregnant again soon.

Meantime, it just feels so stinkin' good to not be sick! And finally, we're jumping right into this gorgeous (hot, but gorgeous) summer and enjoying it. Next up? Krissy and Andy are driving through the Rockies to go visit Mandy and Aaron on their side of the mountains and a big trip to the Denver Zoo and Ocean Journey is going to make the little ones very happy.

And me? Why, I'm actually beginning to believe my weeks will return to normal and the never ending taking care of sick grandchildren is finally going to end.

Peace and quiet. Two of my very favorite things. I love my grandchildren, but I also love being well again and having a little quiet time occasionally. :)

I hope you're making the most of your summer too. Good heavens, I'm STILL glad the terrible, horrible, awful winter we just had is over! LOL

Sunday Meanderings...

2010-06-13T22:00:00.007-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Passion and Purpose

May He grant you according to your heart's desire,
and fulfill all your purpose.

~~ Psalm 20:4 ~~

We all need to discover a purpose for our lives; a purpose that excites us and causes us to live each day with passion.

Anna Quindlen had this advice: "Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived."

If you have not yet discovered a passionate pursuit that blesses you and your world, don't allow yourself to become discouraged. Instead, keep searching and keep trusting that with God's help, you can - and will - find a meaningful way to serve your neighbors, your Creator, and yourself.

A Prayer: Lord, let me find my strength in You. When I am weary, give me rest. When I feel overwhelmed, let me look to You for my priorities. Let Your passion be my passion, Lord, and let Your way be my way, today and forever. Amen.

CATCHING UP WITH THINGS IN CHELSEAVILLE

I can't begin to imagine how many times I've said, right here on this blog, that I hardly ever get sick. It's true. For years, it was rare for me to even get a cold. Along came the grandchildren and guess what? That is just no longer a valid statement. This time, Rob and I are both sick - as hard as we tried to avoid it, we caught the awful crud Avery had for the last two weeks. Dry, raspy cough, sore throat and worse of all, earache. Ugh. What it is about getting an earache that makes me feel like a four year old!

I tell you, once your grandchildren start going to preschool and daycare, they become walking germ factories.

Avery and Cameron are both finally over everything and doing great. Me and Papa? Uh, not so much. lol

Here's Cameron's little preschool graduation, two weeks ago. He's the third one from the right... the one kid in the whole photo you can't see of course. You wouldn't believe the crowd I was digging my way through, trying to get one photo. They were performing a little song, in English and then in Spanish.

He got a certificate of course, but he was far more interested in the goody bag his teachers gave him.

I know. You wish you were as accomplished a photographer as I am. :) (I am truly a terrible photographer.)

Avery wouldn't go down the slide - she was wearing shorts and the slide was a little too warm for her - so my daughter Krissy sat her in her lap. The three of them had a lot of fun on the playground equipment.

Nana stayed off the equipment and just took terrible photos of all the fun. lol

It's hard to believe how big Avery's getting, isn't it? I don't think she could possibly be cuter and I love every square inch of her sweet little self. She's maybe the best natured little kid I've ever known in my life.

She does have one little bad habit though. She's a hair twister. Once her hair got long enough to wrap around her finger, she started doing this. She sits and twists her hair around and around her finger and then she somehow manages to tie it in a knot. You can tell she's not even aware she's doing it but let me tell you, if we have to cut very many more of those knots out of her hair, she's going to be bald on that side.

She scared me half to death last week. Normally, she wakes up from her nap with a big smile on her face, in a happy mood. I went in to get her last Friday and she was sobbing. This is so completely unlike her that I was really concerned, but she'd been sick after all and I thought maybe she just didn't feel good. So I cuddled her in my lap and still she wouldn't stop sobbing. Finally, I realized her hand was stuck to the side of her head. When I looked closer, I couldn't believe it. She'd twisted her hair around her index finger so tightly that she couldn't get her finger out and the worst thing of all? The whole end of her finger was BLACK from loss of blood flow. It scared so much, I just grabbed my scissors and intended to cut the hair, but it was so tight around her finger, I couldn't get the scissors in. So I went with my gut and just broke the hair off. I'm sure it hurt her but I had to get that hair off her little black finger.

Good grief! We don't have a clue how to make her stop - it's a subconscious habit.

I'm happy to report that the pool is officially up and running for the summer here at Chelseaville.

That's the smallest kiddie pool you can buy I think. And this is its third summer with us. We planned to get a bigger one this year but guess what? A bigger one won't fit into our Explorer. LOL

It occurs to me, however, that the size doesn't bother the kids one bit. Fill that pool up with water balloons and they couldn't care less that it's a tiny little pool.

Guess who makes the water balloons? I get completely soaked in the process and you don't want to know how sore your fingertips get from tying all of those little suckers.

I need to remember to thank Krissy for buying them in the first place and then making sure Nana never runs out of them. Arrggggh!

I also intended to buy some new pool toys for them and haven't gotten around to it yet. So I used my imagination and gave them our plastic buckets (the blue one is Rob's and the pink one is mine, of course :), my houseplant watering cans and some squirt bottles and they were in water play heaven.

It's so sweet, how easy it is to entertain children this age. Something like watching the rolie polies they caught crawl around Nana's living room floor amuses them for hours.

Maybe that's because rolie polies are allowed to crawl around on the living room floor at Nana's house. They're not even allowed IN their mommy's house. lol

Cameron and Avery run poor Chelsea ragged on Fridays and this is what she looks like about five minutes after their daddy picks them up...a pathetic puddle of pooped puppy. :-) But I think it would break little Chelsea's heart if they stopped coming down here to play. She has a ball with them.

Like me, it just takes her a day or so to recover. :)

SUMMER HAS DEFINITELY ARRIVED...

...in western Colorado. After a record-breaking cold winter, we had a record-breaking high temperatures week last week. Last Tuesday it was 102 degrees here. That's hot, people! Thankfully, there's very little humidity out here so it's bearable but you can't sit on our uncovered patio for two minutes before you fly right back indoors where the a/c is working like crazy to keep up.

I love it. I can assure you, after the endless cold, gray, dreary winter we just had, I'm never going to complain about the heat. Never.

There's nothing real exciting going on around here right now. Cameron's going to be five on June 30th and his birthday party is at Banana's this year - that's a big amusement park here in Grand Junction. Mandy and Aaron will be here and he's just beyond excited. He keeps asking me how many sleeps until his birthday - "sleeps" is how he measures days. :)

And of course we're looking forward to Mandy and Aaron's visit. We haven't seen them since they lost their pregnancy and I want to hold my daughter.

They're both in a good place with it all now though. And by now I guess everyone knows that Celine Dion is finally pregnant, after struggling for something like eight years, with twins, and attributes it to acupuncture fertility treatments. Very encouraging for all of us since Mandy and Aaron are also receiving those treatments.

I'm hoping to have good news to announce again soon. :)

I hope you're all enjoying summer. To those of you who live in the gulf coast region, my heart goes out to you. You know, I grew up in Beaumont, TX, right on the gulf coast, and it's sickening to me to imagine what all the beaches I went to so many times must look like now.

If anything exciting, earth shattering or even mildly amusing happens around here any time soon, you'll be the first to know.

Boring and mundane is right up my alley right now. I'm loving it.

Talk to you again soon!

An email to my sister.....

2010-05-30T23:22:00.006-06:00

I didn't get around to doing my Sunday Meanderings today, but I did finally find time to email my sister Bev. And then it occurred to me, if I HAD done Sunday Meanderings, this is exactly what I would have said:

Hi there,

I'll bet you thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth. Me too. :)

I swear, it's been such a busy week, I've lost track of where you are and what you're doing. So I'll just assume if you're not home, you will be soon.

Where to begin. About Mandy. I won't beat this to death, but I'll say this...I'm amazed how quickly she and Aaron just accepted losing the pregnancy and decided to move on. She immediately found a new doctor and has already seen him. She really, really likes him and his whole attitude toward "chemically induced" pregnancies. He told her how he plans to treat her and if it doesn't work within a reasonable amount of time, he'll refer her on to the fertility specialist she was all set to see just before she got pregnant. He'll only do that if he thinks they need to seriously consider in vitro. Meantime, her biggest concern, and I don't blame her, was that although the baby was gone (absorbed back into her system) she was told she had to actually go through a "miscarriage" and it wasn't happening. She waited for four days and then went to her acupuncturist. He gave her the same treatment he uses to induce pregnant women who are at 40 weeks, and within ONE HOUR the miscarriage started happening.. I truly am astounded with this whole acupuncture thing, but I tell you, it seems to be very, very valid.

So she's all over it now, physically, and ready to start trying again, this time without all the clomid and progesterone. She believes she'll get pregnant again, soon. She threw away the charts. For two years, she's been setting her clock for 5 a.m., seven days a week, to take her basal temperature. She said she's just sick to death of it and wants to try to go natural, with the help of acupuncture.

So thankfully, they got through this and are moving on with a positive attitude. The one thing she said to me that really moved me was, "Mom, I was so afraid of this happening and now that it has, I'm surprised at how strong I can be."

Still, I'm sure you understand that it was just so sad, for all of us. I was so thrilled for them, that they were pregnant, but like Mandy, I had a sort of "bad" feeling about it, too. I was very nervous and the night she called me, I knew what she was going to tell me before she said it. It felt like my heart was literally breaking for her.

Cameron and Avery have been here a lot the past couple of weeks. She was sick and I caught it. Rotten chest cold I'm still getting over and of course it hit me right in the middle of all the drama with my tooth. Then he got sick, with strep and an ear infection, so of course he couldn't go to school or Nancy and poor Krissy took so many days off between Avery being sick and then him, that she just had to bring him to me. Her attitude is that if her kid is sick, SHE stays home and takes care of him or her. But she truly couldn't take any more time off. So it was a little scary, having him here with strep and trying not to catch it. I survived that and then of course Avery came down with the same thing. So she was here a lot last week. She's still pretty sick, poor little thing. But so far, I'm not showing any symptoms.

So babysitting-wise, a crazy week!

When I could finally come up for air, I got in touch with Derrell*. He got here last Sunday and I talked to him on Thursday evening. I couldn't believe it, but he was heading home the next day. He wanted to come by for a short visit on his way out of town Friday morning, but I told him, I've got both kids and they've got strep. He said, no way, no way. He won't go near strep. So I was sorry, and so was he, but we never connected. Somehow, I thought he'd be here longer, but he was only here a few days. Still, we had a really nice long chat and you know Derrell. I now know more than I'll ever need to know about the work he and Dennis did while they were out here. LOL

What else. This will make you laugh. The pay period that Rob and I budgeted to buy a new weed eater, my emergency dental thing happened. So no weed eater. Ours is toast. Because of the concrete curbing all around the perimeter of our yard, you really need a weed whacker to polish off the lawn after Rob mows. I couldn't stand it any more, all the tall grassy stuff surrounding the edges of the lawn, so I went outside with my scissors today and.....let's just say my knees are sore, but the yard looks great! LOL

I went to Cameron's preschool graduation last Tuesday. So, so cute. The teachers did it at a really beautiful local park - an afternoon family picnic. What fun it was. And the food was good too. And Cameron was just bursting his little buttons when he got his certificate, his goodie bag and his hugs from his teachers. So, so cute. I've been in his classroom far more times than Kris, because of all the times I had to rush up there to give him insulin, so Nana being there was just a given.

Rob is working days again now, until school starts again in the fall, so now we're able to go to Cameron's tee ball games together - his games are at 6 p.m. So we caught a couple of those this past week too. You can't imagine how cute, four and five year olds, playing baseball. Such fun. And Cameron just beams when he sees us in the stands. Actually, he comes over to the stands to visit with us right in the middle of the game, but the coach is working on that. :-)

The wind has been blowing out here like you would seriously not believe, for two solid weeks. Today, finally, it stopped and Rob and I both felt like we could breathe again. Amazing, how it gets on your nerves when the wind just won't stop and it's so strong, you're afraid the fence is going to come down. I'm so hoping it's over. It's windy in Grand Junction in the spring, but I don't remember it ever lasting for two solid weeks.

So we had a real barrel of fun last Tuesday night. Thank goodness it was Rob's last night of working nights. When he got home at 11, he heard water running. I didn't hear it because for one thing, I can't hear worth anything anyway, and for another, I was in bed. So he came in and woke me up and told me it was going to get a little exciting around our house in a few minutes because we had a geyser gushing on the side of the house. You know, when the property maintenance guys came out to turn our sprinkler system on, by the time they left, Rob and I had nicknamed them dumb and dumber. Nice guys, but real bumblers. And the one guy...I swear, when he got down on his knees to try to figure out what was going on, his entire rear end showed. Seriously. It was so ridiculous, so cliche, I had to go inside to laugh so he wouldn't get his feelings hurt. He didn't have a clue. I couldn't believe it.

They almost never got the system turned on. Our turn-on valve is seven feet !! below the surface of the ground, so of course they didn't have a long enough key to turn it on. Left and came back with the right one. Then when they turned it on, water started flying everywhere. So they had to go to Home Depot to get a new something-or-other. Three times they went to Home Depot before they got the right something-or-other. Meantime, water gushing everywhere. So they were all done and left. And last Tuesday night it all blew up because apparently the something-or-other they installed will handle up to 65 pounds of pressure and our city water pressure is ONE HUNDRED and 65 pounds of pressure so of course it blew.

So last Tuesday night, at midnight, we had an emergency crew and the city water department out here. No one but city water department employees are allowed to turn off the water to a private residence. Stupid. But that's what they had to do. They turned off our water. What else are you gonna do at midnight, for pete's sake.

And I slept through the whole thing. LOL So I get up the next morning and see four water glasses full of water sitting on the kitchen counter with a note from Rob. "Barb, the water is turned off. Didn't want you to run out. Guys will be back before 8 a.m. to fix this mess and turn the water back on." I laughed until I thought I'd die, that Rob left me four glasses of water to get me by. So I thought, it's OK if I don't brush my teeth until noon, and meantime, I've got myself four glasses of water if I get thirsty. LOL

You have to love the way men think sometimes, don't you? (But I'm very aware how lucky I am to have a thoughtful husband like Rob.)

Krissy bought a new car this week. Actually, and this will make you smile, she traded in her mommy car for a truck. She has ALWAYS wanted a big fancy truck. I swear, Andy's driving a swanky Charger and Krissy is now driving a very classy pickup truck. And she's happy as a clam. Cracks me up to see petite little Krissy sitting behind the wheel of such a macho vehicle. So Andy's happy with his sports car and she's happy with her macho truck. LOL

Not sure what your Memorial Day plans are, but we're having a little family cookout here tomorrow evening. Krissy's bringing the (Schwan's - yum) steaks and I'm doing the baked potatoes and, by request, my California salad. The yard's all set up now for lots of water play for the kids and bubbles and patio chalk and, unless I can figure a way out of it, the dreaded water balloons. And if this weather holds, meaning if the wind is finally done, we're going to have a fantastic day outdoors and good food on top of that. Doesn't get much better than that.

So that just about covers my last week or so. Forgive me for not responding to everything you said in your last email. I've just flat out lost track of things down your way.

And yes, 138 MILLION people play FarmVille. LOL

I hope you are well and I hope it doesn't take you as long as it took me, to get back in touch.

Love you,

Barb

*Derrell is my youngest brother. He's an electrician and was here in Grand Junction, this past week, working on a job.

Life goes on....

2010-05-24T16:14:00.006-06:00

I just got off the phone with Mandy and she sounded so much better, it lifted my spirits. She and Aaron have accepted that this baby wasn't meant to be and are moving forward. They're seeing doctors, including their acupuncturist, tomorrow and will have a clearer idea what happened, but in the meantime...she sounds so much more upbeat and so less sad, it's just a blessing.

So in the interest of changing the subject and moving forward, I thought I'd share a little randomness with you.

First and foremost, my summer break officially begins tomorrow. Tomorrow is Cameron's last day of school, so he won't be coming down here in the mornings until school starts again in late August. So beginning right now, I'm off babysitting duty all week long, except for my special Fridays with my two favorite little people in the world. No more setting the clock when I go to bed at night. Hooray!

This is how my little avocado tree is looking these days. It's turned into quite a pretty plant, don't you think?

And speaking of plants, look at the beautiful petunias I finally bought, yesterday, for the white picket fence planters on my front porch. Actually, the dark purple, light purple and white ones are for the front porch. I wasn't going to put flowers on the back patio this year, but I just couldn't resist those red petunias. Red isn't my favorite color, but boy, those scarlet petunias are beautiful.

Nothing's getting planted until the wild winds we're having here in western Colorado die down though. You wouldn't even believe how the wind is blowing out here - nonstop for three days now and it's beginning to get on my last nerve. LOL

So I sat all my new petunias right outside the patio door so I can walk by and look at them a hundred times a day because I think they're so pretty.

This is one of the pots the red petunias will be planted in and when I drug it out from the side of the house, I laughed out loud. That big old weed is so perfectly centered and growing so nicely, it looks like I deliberately planted it there, doesn't it?

Chelsea went to the groomer this morning. You can tell that, not by the way she looks, but the way she's not looking at me. She stays mad at me for several hours after she gets home...pouts, and refuses, absolutely refuses, to look at me. LOL

I'll leave you with this. I'll bet you thought I was kidding when I told you I do this. Try it. It works! :-)

Sunday Meanderings.....

2010-05-23T19:21:00.017-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

When We Lose Hope

Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart,
all you who hope in the Lord.

~~ Psalm 31:24 ~~

As every woman knows, hope is a perishable commodity. Despite God's promises, despite Christ's love, and despite our countless blessings, we frail human beings can still lose hope from time to time. When we do, we need the encouragement of Christian friends, the life-changing power of prayer, and the healing truth of God's Holy Word. If we find ourselves falling into the spiritual traps of worry and discouragement, we should seek the healing touch of Jesus and the
encouraging words of fellow Christians. Even though this world can be a place of trials and struggles, God has promised us peace, joy, and eternal life if we give ourselves to Him.

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publishers

A SAD WEEK IN REVIEW

And so...when she got the positive pregnancy test result, Mandy told me that she and Aaron didn't want to say anything until the 14th week, which they considered to be the point that the pregnancy was secure.

You have to understand, they've struggled with infertility for more than two years. They've been through all the things you hear about, and she's been on Clomid and Progesterone, she's been charting her temp before dawn, every single morning of her life for two years, they've spent more money on ovulation predictor kits and pregnancy tests than I spend on groceries, for more than two years.

I said, "You must be positive. You must celebrate this miracle and you must share this wonderful news with all your friends."

I believed that a positive attitude was simply crucial, because I so wanted Mandy to enjoy being pregnant. I wanted her to enjoy every moment of it and not lose the first trimester to fear. They finally agreed with me and we all went public with the announcement Friday night.

I was so wrong.

My daughter was seven weeks pregnant yesterday. And last night she lost her baby.

I honestly don't know what to say. I've never dealt with a loss like this, and I've certainly never dealt with a daughter in this kind of pain. I'm not talking about the physical pain. The emergency room doctors told Mandy and Aaron last night (after an ultrasound) that there simply was no baby any more. The embryo had been absorbed back into her system and simply was no more.

I suppose there's some level of comfort in them telling her that this only happens when there's just something devastatingly wrong with the baby.

I suppose.

So now my poor daughter is waiting for the actual miscarriage to happen. She's armed with prescriptions to handle the pain they told her to expect.

I know that the statistics are high...her own doctor told her one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. I know that.

But I have to tell you, if Mandy and Aaron had just decided, "Let's have a baby," and gotten pregnant, and had a miscarriage, I think I could just say, "I'm so sorry - let's just try again."

But they've struggled so, to even get pregnant.

As a mother, I have to tell you, I've spent a lot of years of my life (about 30 now) thinking I'm smarter than my kids and know best.

Fortunately, both my daughters still think I'm pretty smart, too.

But this is a new one for me. This time, I'm feeling a little inadequate.

I'm just so sad for my daughter, and her husband. I'm sad for all of us...we were so excited. But mostly, I'm just so, so sad for my baby girl, that she finally got pregnant and then lost her baby.

Mandy and I talked again this morning and I was so relieved that she sounded so much better. She and Aaron have so much faith in their acupuncturist that they've decided they're not going to do the fertility drugs any more. No more Clomid. No more hormones. None of that.

So we shall see. But the main thing is, they've both accepted that this baby wasn't meant to be. And they're both convinced that they'll get pregnant again.

I really don't have much else to say tonight. Cameron's hives are much, much better, which tells me it must have been directly related to the antibiotic he was taking because of the strep throat. His last day of school is Tuesday and Rob's work schedule changes Thursday. He'll start working days now. That means, I have no grandchildren during the week at all except for my special Fridays with them, and no husband home during the day (arrgghhh! I have to start cooking dinner every night again!).

But you know what? No matter what life throws at you, you survive.

Life goes on. And on. And with any luck at all, new life begins.

I'm fine, my sweet friends. I'm just so incredibly sad for my daughter.

Thank you for your comments, your prayers and your words on encouragement. Mandy and Aaron read my blog and they read the comments you leave. You have no idea how much it means to them.

And me. xoxoxo

Heartbreaking news....

2010-05-22T20:49:00.003-06:00

I can't think of any way to say this, except to just say it. Mandy and Aaron lost their baby tonight. My heart is broken for them and I can't tell you how much your prayers would be appreciated.

Poor little Cameron just can't get a break....

2010-05-20T09:38:00.008-06:00

He's absolutely covered in hives, from head to toe and everything in between. This photo doesn't do those hives justice, but you can see how puffy and swollen his little face is. (That's a cracker in his mouth, by the way.)

Of course Krissy and Andy took him to see his pediatrician yesterday. His doctor is mystified as to what's causing this.

Cameron's been taking amoxicillan for the strep throat and ear infection he had last week, so on the off chance that it's the culprit, which he doesn't think is the case, the doctor has switched him to a different antibiotic. He had a light rash with the strep but it quickly went away once he started taking the antibiotic.

Krissy hasn't changed laundry detergents. They've gone over everything they can think of and just can't find the source.

Meantime, we're giving him Zyrtec in the morning and Benedryl through the day and cool oatmeal baths. He's pretty miserable because it itches so much, although you wouldn't think that from that photo, would you?

I've never seen anything like this. Krissy got hives when she was his age but it was easy to figure out, in her case, that rolling around in the grass outside was the thing that caused it. She outgrew it. At least I think she did, but then she doesn't roll around in the grass anymore either, so who knows?

Little Miss Avery wants it to be clear that she does NOT have hives on her tummy.

Note (in response to some of the comments) - the doctor ruled out scarlet fever. But I've suspected the amoxicillan all along, even though he's been on it for seven days. Nothing else makes a bit of sense. Hopefully, switching the antibiotic will clear this up. He's being awfully good about it, but his feet are driving him crazy, they're so itchy.

Sunday Meanderings...on Monday

2010-05-17T16:08:00.013-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

What to Do?

The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack,
tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven,
kept taut by hope.

~~ Colossians 1:5 ~~

"What on earth does God intend for me to do with my life?" It's an easy question to ask but, for many of us, a difficult question to answer. Why? Because God's purposes aren't always clear to us. Sometimes we wander aimlessly in a wilderness of our own making. And sometimes, we struggle mightily against God in an unsuccessful attempt to find success and happiness through our own means, not His.

Sometimes, God's intentions will be clear to you; other times, God's plan will seem uncertain at best. But even on those difficult days when you are unsure which way to turn, you must never lose sight of these overriding facts: God created your for a reason. He has important work for you to do. And He's waiting patiently for you to do it. And the next step is up to you.

The Creator has made us each one of a kind.
There is nobody else exactly like us, and there never will be.
Each of us is His special creation and is alive
for a distinctive purpose. ~~ Luci Swindoll

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

A LITTLE CATCHING UP

The remarkable thing about today is...for the first time in two weeks, I feel like my old self again. My word, the past two weeks were something else.

If you read the last couple of things I posted, you know I've been dealing with an abscessed tooth. I'm the world's biggest whiny baby and I freely admit that, but let me tell you, it wasn't fun. I ended up losing the tooth but it was such a blessing when the pain stopped, I didn't even get upset, not one tiny bit, about losing a tooth. It's not like it shows and that molar has been a pain in my ~~butt~~ mouth since I was 14 years old. Good riddance.

Unfortunately, there's a recovery involved when you have to have a tooth extracted and it's not much fun either, but in my case, it was really trying because right in the middle of all this, I caught a bear of a head and chest cold from my little Avery. Factor in that Cameron had strep throat and an ear infection last week so of course he couldn't go to school or daycare and stayed with me instead. Were we pitiful or what?!

Let me just say it all came to a halt Saturday when I woke up with a pounding migraine that lasted two days. lol

I woke up today feeling completely well. It's like a miracle or something. lol

So after a rough couple of weeks, everyone is well again and we're all back into our normal routines.

I'm happy to report that Monkey is safely back home again, after spending the weekend hiding out in a crawl tunnel in Nancy's backyard. Avery was inconsolable until Papa ran over to Nancy's and rescued her special monkey, the one I made for her. As you can see, Monkey had to go to the emergency room after her ordeal, but she's all patched up, been through the washer and dryer and will never, ever go to Avery's daycare mom's house again. She stays home where she belongs!

We've had a lot skies like this, this spring. It actually snowed here in western Colorado just last week. It didn't last long, but for pete's sake, it's like winter was saying, "I'm not done with you yet!" On the up side, we've gone six weeks without having to run heat OR a/c. When it was halfway nice out, I opened doors and windows. When it was like that photo, I closed them. And the utility bill for gas and electricity that arrived last week was $105. That's a FAR cry from the $300+ utility bills we got for six months! So that was nice, nice. But...today's the day! I went outside this afternoon to do a little yard work, which is code for walking around the edges of the yard and yanking a couple of weeds, and guess what happened? I perspired! I did! It's borderline HOT today for the first time since early last fall. Oh, summertime, how I love you.

I haven't even bought my petunias yet. Normally, they'd have been planted in the white picket fence planters on my front porch two weeks ago. But I'm convinced summer is really going to happen, so tomorrow morning, I'm off to the greenhouse. I'm so giddy about the warm weather, I may break down and shave my legs and get out the capris. Shorts,you say? Uh, I think not. lol But I'm ready to get the capris out again.

A PLEASANT SURPRISE

Remember the story about our mysteriously disappearing next door neighbors who live there but don't, the ones we haven't seen a trace of since last October? The ones who, because they're rocket scientists, poured Roundup all along the fence which connects to our yard? You know. The one who killed all my shrubs and bushes on that side of the yard? Yeah, that one.

Check this out. Three of the four bushes made a huge effort and survived. The fourth one is deader than a doornail, but those three surprised the heck out of us when they just suddenly sprang back to life. I'm not sure why the two of them aren't the beautiful purple color they're supposed to be. But hey, off-color is a lot better than dead.

And don't laugh at me, but seriously, I'm thinking I may throw some morning glory seeds in the ground under the huge dead bush in the back corner. Everyone knows nothing kills morning glories. And I'm thinking that big dead bush actually might make a good trellis sort of thing for morning glories to grow up and in and around. Then I'd have a sort of morning glory "bush" which would look a lot better than a definitely "dead" bush, don't you think?

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

Life just goes on, here at Chelseaville. There's nothing new under the sun happening here.

Oh wait! Of course there is! Mandy's pregnant! My third grandbaby is due January 9th and after a long, long struggle with infertility, after a lot of tears shed every month, Mandy and Aaron are pregnant. And you will never in a million years believe me when I tell you how it happened.

They went through the whole battery of fertility treatments we all know about, just short of in vitro, which was next. They actually had an appointment with a specialist to discuss this option, and were also already looking into adoption, when not one, but several, friends told Mandy that after their own struggle with infertility, they were helped by acupuncture.

So Mandy and Aaron went on line, did a lot of research, and found an acupuncturist near them who specializes in infertility. I'm not kidding. I know this sounds strange, but this doctor told them he has treated sixty-one women for infertility. Sixty of them got pregnant, carried their babies full term and are now mothers. The only one who didn't was forty-eight years old and entering menopause.

So they made an appointment. One visit. One treatment (they were both treated). And Mandy is pregnant. When Mandy told her OB/GYN, she told Mandy she wasn't surprised, that she's friends with this acupuncturist and his success rate is phenomenal.

Obviously. So as skeptical as I was when she told me what they were going to do, you can bet that I am now a believer in Eastern medicine and tiny needles. On their first visit, he told them, point blank, "You will not need to keep that appointment with the fertility specialist. You will be pregnant before then. I guarantee it." He told them he knew he sounded boastful and cocky, but he assured them they'd get pregnant. I was a little upset because of course, after trying for two years, they were both so, so hopeful and I wasn't at all sure about this, but I now say, that man has every right in the world to be cocky. Sixty-one out of sixty-two women he's treated with acupuncture were pregnant within three months after their first treatment.

I don't understand acupuncture. I don't even really want to understand acupuncture. But I do have a whole new respect for it's validity.

So really, other than surviving an abscessed tooth, mising treasured sock monkeys showing up again, summer deciding it will arrive after all, dead bushes springing back to life and my daughter getting pregnant because someone stuck a bunch of tiny needles all over her body, there's just nothing new at all in Chelseaville.

I hope your life is going along just as smoothly as mine is right now. For one.whole.day. my life has gone smoothly. :-)

Problem solved...

2010-05-04T15:08:00.002-06:00

Alrighty, then. That tooth is never going to bother me again. It's never going to bother anyone again. That tooth is toast. It's outta here.

So my goal for the next 48 hours is to not dislodge the clot and end up with a dry socket. I know...TMI.

Having a tooth extracted is a little grueling, but I have to say, dentistry has come a long way and the whole experience this morning was actually not awful. The recovery is a little tiresome. I'm an idiot. I knew there was a chance the tooth would have to come out and do you think I ate anything before I left? Of course not. I can't eat when I'm nervous. Trust me, I was nervous. LOL

I'm starving! And all I can have is ice cream until 10:30 Thursday morning. I don't even like ice cream. OK, I like coffee ice cream. But for two days? It's not like I'm six and just had my tonsils removed and am ecstatic that all I can have is ice cream.

I want meat! LOL

Meantime, it's actually a huge relief to be rid of that tooth. It's given me fits since I was 14 years old and had it capped. 14 years old. That's back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

So a bit of a rough morning, but I survived.

Besides. MY DAUGHTER IS PREGNANT! So who cares about one little tooth extraction. :)

Three little words...and everything changes

2010-05-03T17:32:00.003-06:00

*
*
*
Mandy is pregnant.

:-)

I'm so excited right now, if I tried to talk about the process and what it took, I'd trip over my own words. I'll be sharing more details soon, but in the meantime, Mandy and Aaron have asked me to specifically ask that this not be even remotely mentioned on Facebook, if by chance you and I are connected on Facebook. They have a million people to tell and they don't want them hearing this news on Facebook.

But...I couldn't wait to tell you!

And so a more than two year struggle with infertility comes to an end.

My daughter is pregnant and all is again well with the world. xoxo

So much for THAT idea....

2010-04-29T13:32:00.002-06:00

...the one where I was just going to hope for the best with my dumb abscessed tooth and hold out until our dental insurance kicks in, about six weeks from now.

So I tried my best, but man alive, I couldn't take it. And then I caught the "turrible cold" Cameron has, and when the two collided - the abscessed tooth and the chest cold - I said Uncle.

This is going to make my friend Becky (and everyone else who commented on the last post) happy.

I called my dentist. I told him my whole pathetic story about not having insurance for six more weeks but being in so much pain I just couldn't stand it any more, and he agreed to work with me.

So I now have a prescription for amoxicillin in my hot little hands (seriously, hot - I'm running a fever with this whole mess). And I have an appointment for next Tuesday morning.

I know antibiotics will cure the infection in my tooth. I also know antibiotics don't touch a chest cold. But hey! I might get lucky, right?

The tooth...the whole tooth...and nothing but...

2010-04-26T13:02:00.004-06:00

OK. Who sneaked in the prayer? Someone did, so 'fess up. If you read the previous post, you know I've been in misery for days now, because of an abscessed tooth.

I don't have dental insurance right now, but I will, in about six weeks. So the timing wasn't real slick.

So yesterday it occurred to me that if I took double doses of ibuprofen every four hours, it would help the pain a little but mostly, it would reduce the swelling which I'm convinced is what causes the pain. My liver might explode from all that ibuprofen, but I don't think an exploding liver can possibly hurt as much as an abscessed tooth.

So I did. I even got up once during the middle of the night and took ibuprofen.

Guess what? When I woke up this morning, it had stopped hurting. Completely stopped!

So obviously, someone out here said a little prayer about my stupid tooth. Whoever you are, thank you, thank you.

If I can just keep it at bay for six more weeks or so, the visit to the dentist will be a lot less painful...at least to my pocketbook!

A special round of applause for my own antibodies and immune system, too. LOL

Hooray! I'm pain free!

PS...the property management people who take care of the house next door are here today, turning our sprinkler system on. Guess what? They NEVER EVER EVER use Roundup on any of the lawns they take care of. The mysterious disappearing neighbors are the ones who poured it all along the fence and killed my shrubs and bushes. So there's no one to go to, to recover damages. But right now, I just don't care, because my tooth doesn't hurt any more!

Sunday Meanderings....

2010-04-25T13:37:00.008-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

What's Your Grade?

The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who
exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble
themselves will be exalted.

~~ Matthew 23:11-12 ~~

God's heart overflows with generosity and mercy. And as believers in a loving God, we must, to the best of our abilities, imitate our Heavenly Father. Because God has been so incredibly generous with us, we, in turn must be generous with others.

Jesus has much to teach us about generosity. He teaches that the most esteemed men and women are not the self-congratulatory leaders of society but are, instead, the humblest of servants.

If you were being graded on generosity, how would you score? Would you earn "A"s in philanthropy and humility? Hopefully so. But if your grades could stand a little improvement, today is the perfect day to begin.

Today, you may feel the urge to hoard your blessings. Don't do it. Instead, give generously to your neighbors, and do so without fanfare. Find a need and fill it...humbly. Lend a helping hand and share a word of kindness...anonymously. This is God's way.

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith, LLC, Publisher

CATCHING UP

The very first thing I should say is...ready?...I have an abscessed tooth. I am in pain. Really, really bad pain, and I have no dental insurance. Isn't that wonderful? However, I'm calling my dentist first thing in the morning and we're going to see what we can work out because really, if you've ever had an abscessed tooth, you know that it is not to be borne nor is treatment to be delayed. About one more episode like this and I swear, I'm going to talk to my doctor about dentures. Seriously, I think it would be absolute heaven to never, ever have to worry about your teeth again.

I have to share this, too. My dentist's name is Dr. Toth. And that cracks me up because one more "o" and his name would be Dr. Tooth. LOL

Meantime, I WILL have dental insurance in June when Rob's benefits open enrollment arrives.

So how are you? Other than my stupid tooth, I'm fine. :-)

OK, actually I'm a little ticked. Wait 'til you hear this.

Have I mentioned that we have mystery neighbors next door? They moved in last summer and the last time we saw them was last October. They just disappeared. We never saw them move out. There's still a bottle of shampoo sitting in the bathroom window (I can see it from my patio.)

Every month, an eviction notice is taped to the front door for about a week. Then is suddenly disappears. And the house just sits there, all dark and almost scary looking, although it's not a scary house since it's identical to mine and my house is not scary. Normally.

The yard also just sits there, untended. The yard is all rock and desert plants which is a highly popular way to landscape here in western Colorado, although I personally hate it. When a yard is all rock, eventually weeds start growing up through the rock and you have to stay on top of that or it quickly becomes a big mess.

No one's living there so no one's staying on top of that. So the property management company sent their grounds maintenance people over to take care of the weed problem in the back yard. And guess what they did? They poured ground kill (Round-Up) all over that yard and all along the fence that borders our property. And guess what happened?

One of my very favorite things about spring is watching all the trees and shrubs start to bud out and turn beautiful again. I'm not kidding when I say I go outside every day and check each one's progress. All the shrubbery on the other side of our yard is growing beautifully and making me very happy. My little crab apple tree is covered in pretty pink blossoms too.

This does not make me happy. THEY KILLED ALL THE SHRUBS AND BUSHES ON THAT SIDE OF OUR YARD! Can you believe that? Dead. They're all dead. And of course they're the shrubs and bushes I can see from my patio or my dining room.

This is a mature, six-year-old bush and was gorgeous - all deep purple. I truly loved this bush. Now look at it.

This one's trying its best, but you can see it's half dead. If we cut the dead stuff out it's going to look terrible.

I truly cannot believe grounds maintenance people would pour ground kill along a fence that borders right next to the neighbor's property. Don't worry - they'll be hearing from us right after I call the dentist tomorrow and it's unfortunate for them that I'm not only unhappy about my dead bushes, I'm also in severe pain. Meantime, ground kill stays in the soil for three years, so I have no idea what we can do.

Maybe I'll go to Hobby Lobby and buy a bunch of plastic flowers to stick in the ground on that side of the yard. Sigh.

SOCK MONKEY CRISIS

Avery lost her sock monkey last week...the special "girl" sock monkey I made for her, the one with the cute monkey skirt and red hair bows. If your child has ever been insanely attached to something like a sock monkey, or a blanket, or a teddy bear, then you know this was truly a disaster. She goes no where without Monkey and she has slept with it every night since the day I gave it to her.

Krissy was understandably distraught. Avery was so upset, and Krissy couldn't for the life of her figure out where the monkey was lost. She called Avery's daycare mom Nancy, but she said it wasn't at her house. Kids are discouraged from bringing toys to Nancy's house since it can cause arguments among the little ones. For some reason, Nancy decided at 9:30 at night to check her back yard and sure enough, she found Monkey hidden in a crawl tunnel Avery likes to play in. She put Monkey in her mailbox and bright and early the next morning, Rob ran over there, rescued her and delivered her to Avery.

Papa is now Avery's hero. (And Krissy's.) :-) Good grief, I'm so glad they found her. I could easily have made her another girl sock monkey, just like that one, but it wouldn't be the same because after two years of constant love, I'd have to wash it a hundred times and really beat it up for it to be the same. LOL

So except for my tooth and my dead bushes, all is well in Chelseaville. I'm expecting a normal week this week but then, I've definitely learned to rethink what's normal. :)

The weather here is gorgeous. We haven't had to use heat or a/c for almost a month. The pleasant spring weather is lasting longer than usual - it seems like we usually get maybe two weeks of bearable weather before the a/c has to go on. Once it heats up out here, believe me it heats up!

I'll let you know how it goes with Dr. Toth. He's the nicest dentist (yes, I know that's an oxymoron) in the world, but good heavens, his name makes me smile.

Happy new week everyone!

Sunday Meanderings....

2010-04-11T14:57:00.019-06:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Our Best Friend

No one has greater love than this,
that someone would lay down his life
for his friends.

~~ John 15:13 ~~

Who's the best friend this world has ever had? Jesus, of course. And when you form a life-changing relationship with Him, He will be your best friend, too...your best friend forever.

Jesus has offered to share the gifts of everlasting life and everlasting love with the world and with you. If you make mistakes, He'll stand by you. If you fall short of His commandments, He'll still love you. If you feel lonely or worried, He can touch your heart and lift your spirits.

Jesus wants you to enjoy a happy, healthy, abundant life. He wants you to walk with Him and to share His Good News. You can do it. And with a friend like Jesus, you will.

Jesus was the Savior Who would deliver them not only
from the bondage of sin but also from meaningless
wandering through life. ~~ Anne Graham Lotz

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

I've been dying to show you what my avocado plant is looking like these days:

You can see that it has branched out pretty nicely, but I wanted it to be a bushier plant, so look what I did. I added two more rooted pits to the plant when I repotted it into a larger (and very pretty) new pot.

It didn't work. For the first time in forever, neither of those two new pits did well and the little plants in the tops of the pits shriveled up and died. But the little tree I've grown is very sweet and maybe a little later down the road, I'll try this again.

So. What a week!

Mandy arrived the Saturday evening before Easter to spend her week-long spring break with us. Cameron and Avery were thrilled to death to see Aunt Mandy.

And it had nothing at all to do with the fact that she brought this with her.

I still haven't managed to get a Wii. They're just so danged expensive and then you have to buy the add-ons and the whole setup is pretty worthless if you don't buy games. Just not in my budget. Krissy and Andy are seriously considering giving Cameron a Wii for his 5th birthday on June 30th. But this nana would love to have one, too, so I haven't given up. Avery's still too little, but boy, Cameron is an ace at a lot of these games. He beat the pants off his mother in bowling, and she actually bowls on two leagues. lol

Cameron and Avery adore Aunt Mandy. So really, this had nothing to do with how excited they were at all. **snort**

Mandy's visit got off to a busy start the very first night she was here. Of course we had to dye Easter eggs. And of course we had to do it at MY house. lol I have no idea why. Maybe because I have a big dining room table? Or maybe just because they like to come to Nana's house? I'll go with the second one I think. :)

And that same night, Cameron had his first ever official teeball practice. I didn't go but Mandy did and Krissy got these adorable photos.

My girls didn't play ball when they were this little. They focused on gymnastics at this age, although both of them went on to play high school girls' softball. But my word, I don't know when I've seen anything cuter than all these little squirts. Four and five. They don't have a clue what they're doing, but they're catching on fast. The batting helmets on those tiny little heads just make me smile. And the way they stand there and watch to see how far the ball is going to go, if they accidentally hit it, instead of running to first (or sometimes third)...makes me laugh out loud.

Yesterday I went to his first game. He's very proud of his uniform, especially his ballcap. Just like a man, huh. Ballcaps. lol

I'm sharing this photo simply because I love it. Cameron is a goofball, a fun, fun, fun little goofball. lol

Mandy ended up being sick almost the whole time she was here - chest cold. But with as much rest as she could manage and Mucinex, she didn't let it slow her down.

Now don't laugh, but on Easter Sunday, instead of doing the big traditional ham dinner, you know what we did? We cranked up the grill and had a big ol' cookout. We did. And every single one of us thought it was great - the perfect way to celebrate not only Easter but also the arrival of spring. After a long, miserably cold winter, a cookout was exactly what we all thought would be perfect, and it was.

Of course Krissy was here a lot while Mandy was here. I took care of Avery one afternoon so Krissy and Mandy could take Cameron to see How to Train Your Dragon. I know darn good and well they went because KRISSY wanted to see that movie, since Andy took Cameron to see it two weeks ago. lol But they had a great time and this afternoon out with his mom and his aunt, combined with popcorn and a diet soda (the diabetes) made Cameron felt pretty special.

Krissy had to go to Denver while Mandy was here (she attended her company's big annual awards dinner because she was named outstanding home loan processor of the year), so the kids arrived Thursday morning and were here all day, overnight and most of the next day. Let me tell you, it's really fun for me, with Cameron, Avery AND Chelsea in my bedroom. Avery slept in the porta crib, but I slept smooshed in between Cameron and Chelsea. They're both snugglers. I think I got maybe twenty minutes of sleep Thursday night and I was a zombie Friday.

Mandy had a very full and busy visit. We played lots of cards, she and I worked three jigsaw puzzles, she got her class plans for the rest of the year finished up, and then factor in Cameron's teeball, movies, a crowd for dinner every night and the Wii going every moment that Cameron was here - it was a busy week for her. But fun!

Yesterday was her last day here. We started the morning by going to Cameron's game and then we took her to the Amtrak depot, only to be told her train's engine had broken down and there would be a long delay in its arrival. Krissy and Andy and the kids were at the station, too, so we all just walked next door and had a wonderful, big breakfast, at Pufferbellies, the restaurant connected to the train station. (Do you not love that name? Pufferbellies) A nice way to end her visit...

She got home very late last night, with all the delays, and I'm sure she was exhausted, but as much fun as we all had with her here, I know she was happy, happy to see her hubby and her dogs again. There's no place like home, no matter how much you love your parents and sister and niece and nephew.

I'm so, so glad she chose to spend her entire spring break with us. We won't see her again until she and Aaron come to Grand Junction sometime this summer.

On the fertility front, no baby yet. But they've been referred to a fertility specialist, they're going to see an acupuncturist, and they've decided they'll go all the way to in vitro if they have to - they're not about to give up. Prayers for them continue and of course, your prayers are greatly appreciated by me but even more, by them.

Have I mentioned that Avery absolutely loves chocolate? Chocolate anything! This photo her mommy took just cracks me up. Better her house than mine. lol

Like all messy kids, she cleans up nicely though. Now if we can just get her to lose the phony smile when we ask her to smile for the camera....

NOTHING NEW IN CHELSEAVILLE

I'll have both kids tomorrow. Nancy's daughter's wedding was Saturday and Nancy has a houseful of relatives. After that, the week should proceed normally. I don't know why I even bother to say that since a normal week almost never happens around here, but one can always hope, right?

I'm not going to do the ridiculous massive spring cleaning I normally do. I plan to steam clean the carpet (again!), keep the dust down to safe breathing levels, maybe go through some closets and the garage to get rid of stuff next week during Grand Junction's spring cleanup event, and then I'm calling it good.

I'm so darn happy that it's not necessary to run the heat OR the a/c right now. Windows and doors are open, the house is airing out and it's warming up around here. The sprinkler system and the air conditioning system will both be serviced next week, in preparation for our horrendous summer heat, but let me tell you, I'm loving it that spring has finally arrived and after the winter we had, you'll not hear me say a single bad thing about the heat when it arrives. It gets hotter than blue blazes here in western Colorado and we only have about a two week window of time, before we switch from heat to a/c.

I'm sitting in my office right now (duh - that's where my computer is), with the window open, hearing lawn mowers going in the neighborhood. And one of my neighbors is grilling chicken.

Music to my ears AND my nose!

And I'm getting ready to cook that great all-American dinner...fish sticks, French fries and corn. Yes, occasionally Rob and I eat like little kids because the truth is, we both love fish sticks. lol

Happy new week, everyone. :-)

Sunday Meanderings...on Monday

2010-03-29T18:07:00.013-06:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Don't Be Worried...You Are Protected

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will worry about itself.

~~ Matthew 6:33 ~~

Because we are fallible human beings, we worry. Even though we, as Christians, have the assurance of salvation -- even though we, as Christians, have the promise of God's love and protection -- we find ourselves fretting over the countless details of everyday life.

If you are like most people, you may, on occasion, find yourself worrying about health, about finances, about safety, about relationships, about family, and about countless other challenges of life, some great and some small. Where is the best place to take your worries? Take them to God. Take your troubles to Him, and your fears, and your sorrows. And remember: God is trustworthy...and you are protected.

Worship and worry cannot live in the same heart;
they are mutually exclusive. ~~ Ruth Bell Graham

A Woman of Prayer, 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

IN REVIEW...

Before I say another word, I want to thank you all, so much, for your response to my last post. I was reluctant to do that post, but Mandy calls me every Sunday, it came up in our conversation and she asked me to ask you to pray for her and her husband as they go through this very frustrating and often heartbreaking struggle with infertility. She called me a few days after I published the post, to tell me that she and Aaron were reading the comments every evening and were greatly encouraged by them. So many of you shared or share the same struggle and by sharing that in your comments, I think the biggest encouragement of all to them is that they know they aren't the only young couple going through this. I've been there, too, and I know that after a while, it's easy to start feeling like everyone in the whole world is pregnant but you...a very lonely feeling.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. And they do too.

Mandy is arriving here in Grand Junction on Saturday, to spend a whole week with us. It's her spring break and I'm so thankful she's traveling over the mountains (via Amtrak - a gorgeous trip) to be with me and her daddy and her sister. Of course we wish Aaron were coming with her, but they work in different school districts and don't have the same spring break.

I simply cannot wait to have my daughter here. I feel an overwhelming need to just put my arms around her and tell her that everything is going to be OK. I know in my heart, she and Aaron will have a family, no matter what it takes to do it.

So yesterday was my husband Rob's birthday! He and I have had rather quiet birthday celebrations for the last several years, but that all changes when you have a four year old grandson and a two year old granddaughter. Birthdays.are.a.big.deal.

I'm sure Cameron and Avery wonder why we didn't have Papa's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. lol

So of course we really played it up. We let the little ones stick candles in the German chocolate cake (blech) Krissy made for her dad. (I'm obviously just visiting this planet because I'm not fond of chocolate). But German chocolate cake is Rob's favorite and it really touched him that Krissy made his favorite cake.

Can you tell we let the kids stick the candles in the cake? lol Cameron said to me, "Nana, we need a LOT of candles, huh."

The reason all the candles are melted right into that cake is that Avery was gouging out icing with them before I could get them all lit. My word, that child LOVES chocolate! She didn't get that from me - she's normal. :-)

This may very well be the last time I try to squeeze her into that high chair. She's truly outgrown it. But once I got her wedged in and put that cake and ice cream in front of her, I don't think she really cared if I was ever going to free her from that thing.

I tell you, I've gotten my $23 worth from that chair. (baby consignment store) I think this one has seen its better days - I think I'll just go all out and buy a brand new high chair when I get the happy call from Mandy. :-)

Cameron was only interested in the ice cream. You know, it's strange, but Cameron isn't particularly fond of candy and cake and sweets. It's almost as if his body is telling him it's not good for him. I don't think he understands that he has juvenile diabetes yet. He is, after all, only four. But he very rarely wants sugary stuff - he's big into granola bars and sugar free cookies and Cheetos. (Yes, I know...the carbs aren't good either since they turn into sugar.)

But he loves ice cream and I'm ever so thankful for "no sugar added" ice cream. I don't think he feels deprived at all.

Here's the birthday boy. I met Rob exactly one week before his 34th birthday. And yesterday he turned sixty-six. Hard to believe. Trust me when I tell you, the years simply fly by so fast you wake up one day and wonder what on earth happened.

This man is my whole world - has been since the very first moment I met him. It really was love at first sight in our case - and you know, he doesn't seem sixty-six to me. Is that old? I don't think so. I sure hope not because he's six and a half years older than I am and that means I'll be sixty (SIXTY) in August, which is just surreal to me.

Happy Birthday again, Rob! For the record, I gave him my babysitting money in a birthday card. Apparently I bought him some very.important.drill.bits for his very.important.drill which I gave him for Christmas three years ago. Am I a good shopper or what! LOL

JUST THE THING TO MAKE YOU CRAZY

I love games. I love puzzles. Actually, if I start a jigsaw puzzle, I get so engrossed, I let everything else slide until I finish it.

Mandy loves them too, and I promised her we'd work a puzzle while she's here next week. Last time we did this, she put two big tables up in my living room and there they sat, in the way of everything, for a week. So this time, I bought a smaller puzzle.

And of course I had to open it and of course I had to work it because I couldn't stand it just sitting there in the package, unopened, unworked. :-)

But look at this! This is called "World's Smallest 1000 Piece Puzzle." Look how little it is! It took me two days to figure out how to handle the tiny little pieces.

Notice my glasses sitting there, for perspective. And then...notice that one little puzzle piece sitting in my glasses. What's your worst nightmare when you're working a puzzle...that a piece will be missing, right? There was an extra piece in this puzzle! I tell you, it almost drove me nuts, trying to figure out where that one piece went and I didn't know it was an extra piece until I was down to the very end of it. Arrgghhhh!

I haven't decided whether I'm going to throw that extra piece back into the lot before Mandy starts working this puzzle. That would be mean, right? LOL

CRAZY DAYS

My daughter Krissy is so busy, it makes my head spin. She works full time of course. She's has a husband and two children. Her husband and son are diabetic. (You'd be surprised how busy that keeps you.) She's a Pampered Chef consultant. She bowls on two leagues. And she has girlfriends who like to go to Saturday matinee movies.

She also has a husband who is going to be competing in a big fishing tournament in May, at Lake Powell in Utah.

So Andy and his buddies are now going to Lake Powell every other weekend to practice. I didn't know you could practice fishing but apparently it's all about the lures you use and the fish that are biting and all that fishy stuff I don't understand.

What this means to me is that on Fridays, Andy isn't here to pick the kids up in the afternoon. By now you know I have both my grandchildren here with me on Fridays. And Krissy bowls in a Friday night league now.

So my Fridays? They start at 7 in the morning and end at about 10 at night. I tell you, Fridays kick my behind! Cameron and Avery are really good little kids, but they're four and two and I'm not and last Friday I thought I would drop dead. I went to bed, slept until 9 the next morning and woke up with my eyes swollen shut and moved like a zombie for the whole day. Good grief. How did I ever survive raising two kids this age! LOL

So I've been very busy around here and I find that the older I get, the longer it takes me to recover from some things, but all in all, things are great in Chelseaville. The weather has finally turned. It's crispy cool here, but sunny, and for that I am so thankful.

It's spring time in western Colorado which means the wild wind will kick up soon, but for now, it's like being in heaven, just to finally be able to wear flip flops and sit on my sunny patio again.

I hope it's as nice where you are. Happy new week!

With a humble heart...

2010-03-18T21:19:00.004-06:00

...I ask for your prayer.

Some things are not ours to share with the whole world (the Internet).

When you're a mom and nana who shares all the mundane, day-to-day details of your life with your blogging friends who have become real friends, it's easy to forget that.

But I've been especially careful with this one thing.

If you've been following me for the last almost five years, then you may remember that about two and a half years ago I announced, with a happy heart, that my daughter Mandy and her husband Aaron were ready to start their family. They were officially trying to get pregnant.

I haven't said a word since that announcement. Not one word.

Because it isn't happening.

As a mother, you can't imagine how it breaks my heart, the montly phone call telling me that she's not pregnant. Again. The brave, positive attitude, along with the sadness in her voice, just about kills me.

I love my daughter so much...more than life itself...and it's almost more than I can bear, that she and her husband Aaron are going through this.

If you've been there, then you know. If you haven't, then you have no idea how hard it is to want a baby so badly and just not be able to get pregnant.

They've been through the grind and now they've been referred to a fertility specialist.

I would never have said a word, but Mandy calls me every Sunday, faithfully, and last Sunday she said, "Mom, do you think your friends would pray for me and Aaron?"

And I said, "Of course they would, my love."

Meanderings....

2010-03-11T14:57:00.016-07:00

Spring arrives in ten days!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

COMFORTING THOSE IN NEED

Do not withhold good from those who deserve it
when it's in your power to help them.

~~ Proverbs 3:27 ~~

We live in a world that is, on occasion, a frightening place. Sometimes we sustain life-altering losses that are so profound and so tragic that it seems we could never recover. But, with God's help and with the help of encouraging family members and friends, we can recover.

In times of need, God's Word is clear: as believers, we must offer comfort to those in need by sharing not only our courage but also our faith. In times of adversity, we are wise to remember the words of Jesus, who, when He walked on the waters, reassured His disciples, saying, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." (Matthew 14:27). Then, with Christ on His throne - and with trusted friends and loving family members at our sides - we can face our fears with courage and with faith.

So often we think that to be encouragers we have to
produce great words of wisdom when, in fact, a few simple
syllables of sympathy and an arm around the shoulder
can often provide much needed comfort.
~~ Florence Littauer

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

A LOOK AT THE PAST FEW DAYS

We celebrated a birthday! It's hard to believe Avery is already two years old. How can two years have possibly passed so quickly!

Krissy and Andy had a big family party for Avery last Sunday. Their house was full to the brim. I think she was a little confused at first, but it didn't take her long to figure out that this celebration was all about her. And presents. And cake. And ice cream. :-)

This is the baby doll I gave her for Christmas. As you can see, this is a well-loved doll. lol So Papa and I gave her a new baby doll for her birthday. This one makes sounds that sends the cat running to hide somewhere and it crawls - the doll, not the cat. The cat runs. :-)

It was the first present Avery opened and she was so fascinated with that noisy, crawling doll, Krissy had to hide it so she'd show some interest in her other fifty presents. lol (The kids in our family are NOT spoiled on their birthdays. No sir!)

Her birthday party theme was Tinkerbell, so naturally I gave her a Tinkerbell costume. Not too sure she was all that impressed with it at first. The wings were a little heavy and wobbly.

Ahhh. I think she likes it after all! And check out that Tinkerbell wand and all her new jewelry. lol

Twenty grownups and a couple of cousins were singing Happy Birthday when I took this and clearly, Avery didn't know how to react to all of us staring at her and singing at the top of our lungs.

As soon as that awkward moment passed, she realized she could finally get into the cake Mommy had kept out of reach all afternoon. That's her great-grandmother sitting behind her. On the left is her Aunt Gigi and on the right is her Uncle Nathan (Andy's sister and brother). (And that's the face she makes if you tell her to smile for the camera.)

What can an exhausted little girl do but plop down in her new Tinkerbell chair and try to smile just one more time for someone's camera. lol That doesn't even look like my little Avery does it?

She had a great time and I think she totally gets "birthdays" now. Next up? Cameron will be FIVE in June. Good grief, I'm getting older by the second!

GOODBYE WINTER - I HATED YOU. A LOT.

I watched the snow in our back yard constantly, begging it to disappear. Our back yard was full of snow that fell late last fall. It refused to go away because it was just so stinkin' cold here, all winter long.

Know what this is? It's the very last little spot of snow. I was so excited I actually took a photo to share with you. An hour later it was gone. Gone! All the snow in our yard was officially gone!

I have never been so glad to see ugly brown winter grass in my whole life.

So naturally, this is what I woke up to the very next morning. Good grief. This was all gone by noon, but it's like winter had to have one last laugh on me.

LOOKING AHEAD

Spring arrives in ten days. I plan to wear shorts and flipflops on March 21st, even if I have to wear them under my coat. I'm as sick of sweats, double shirts and triple socks as I can possibly be.

This has been a quiet week. It's spring break so Cameron has been out of school, which means he and Avery have both gone straight to Nancy's house every day this week. I haven't seen either of them since the party Sunday if you can believe that. Krissy is so busy every single night after work, there's been no time for visits.

But I'll be making up for that tomorrow. Fishing season has officially begun for Andy and his buddies, so they're off to Lake Powell in Utah tomorrow afternoon. The kids are both here with me on Fridays, but Andy normally picks them up in the afternoon. Not tomorrow. Krissy bowls in a league on Friday nights, so Cameron and Avery will be here from 7 in the morning until about 10:30 tomorrow night. At 10:31 Nana will fall in a heap and crash. lol

I'm kidding. Kidding! Fifteen hour days with my grandkids do NOT wear me out. At all. OK. It's some kind of weird school holiday tomorrow and Rob is off. So he'll be here all day long. He's a huge help to me when he's here with me and the kids. So maybe I won't fall in a heap after all.

And then on Saturday, well, Krissy already had a movie date with girlfriends planned, before she knew Andy would be gone. So guess who's babysitting? Moi!

In just a little less than two weeks Mandy will be here. She and Aaron teach in different school districts so their spring breaks are different. So Mandy's riding Amtrak through the mountains to come out here and spend a week with me. Truly, I can't wait. I miss her all the time and I will never, ever get used to her living far enough away that we only see each other 3 or 4 times a year. I know some people live a lot farther away from their grown children than I live from Mandy, but somehow it doesn't comfort me and I do not feel lucky.

I want her here! :-)

All is quiet on the western Colorado scene right now. The weather's still chilly, the heat still runs a lot, but it's sunny and beautiful outside and for that I am so grateful.

I hope you're having a nice week too. xo

A very special day, indeed....

2010-03-03T11:50:00.016-07:00

Happy Second Birthday, Avery!

The very first time I held her.

Chelsea laid claim to her immediately.
She's HER baby!

Her big brother Cameron
fell in love with her right away.

And look at her now!

I love this photo of Avery because her devilish personality
shines right through, chocolate on her face and all.

She's a feisty, fearless, chocolate-loving delight to us all.

Her birthday party isn't until Sunday, but her mommy took today off to spend it with her. Cameron and Avery helped Krissy make cupcakes this morning and they're on their way to deliver them to Krissy's coworkers. I ran down the street to see them before they left, and Avery was singing, "Happy Birfday to me!" lol

ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT...

Well, sort of. I mean, I'm still talking about my two grandchildren, but not birthdays.

It will never cease to amaze me how much little children love to be read to. It doesn't cost a single thing except a little bit of your time. It's not flashy - no bells and whistles like all the movies and video games they're surrounded with. Nothing could be simpler and yet I can't think of a single thing that my two grandchildren love more than to sit with me while I read to them.

The little book on the left is Avery's favorite. And the one on the right is Cameron's. I bought these two books last fall, when I went to visit my daughter Mandy. The elementary school where she teaches was hosting a book fair and I couldn't resist.

I'm a sucker for books, even children's books. :-)

The great thing about Cameron's favorite book is that his preschool class is also reading from the Five Little Monkeys book. It's adorable to watch how he acts out the stories as I read them to him.

We've established a routine. Cameron comes to my house every morning for an hour before Papa takes him to school. He walks right in the door, right over to the special spot where we keep his book, picks it up and brings it to me. It's all I can do to get him to take his coat off!

Before we started this before-school routine, he headed for the cupboard where I keep snacks - not good. I try to keep sugar free things on hand for him, but it's really hard to guess how his blood sugar levels will react if he eats a bunch of snacky things before he goes to school.

Now? All he cares about is that I'm going to read to him. So I guess you could say that reading to a diabetic four year old is actually good medicine, in more ways than one. lol

Here he is, reading a ladybug counting book my mother brought with her last fall when she and my sister came to visit. Simple, simple little book and yet he loves it.

I've read this to him so many times, he's got it completely memorized, so here he is, "reading" it to Avery (and Chelsea, who really couldn't care less about books). He can't read yet of course, but don't try to tell him that! Avery thinks he reads like a champion.

Don't ask - because I just don't know. lol

I remember how busy I was when my two daughters were this age. I worked full time, with a husband who worked a lot of shift work, and by the time I had the kids settled down for the night, I was ready to drop.

But I always found time to read to them. Always. And I make time to read to my grandchildren now.

I honestly can't think of a better gift you can give a child, even if it's not their birthday.

Meanderings.....

2010-02-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

THE BREAD OF LIFE

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never go hungry,
and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

~~ John 6:35 ~~

He was the Son of God, but He wore a crown of thorns. He was the Savior of mankind, yet He was put to death on a roughhewn cross made of wood. He offered His healing touch to an unsaved world, and yet the same hands that had healed the sick and raised the dead were pierced with nails.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born into humble circumstances. He walked this earth, not as a ruler of men, but as the Savior of mankind. His crucifixion, a torturous punishment that was intended to end His life and His reign, instead became the pivotal event in the history of all humanity.

Jesus is the bread of life. Accept His grace. Share His love. And follow His footsteps.

In your greatest weakness, turn to your
greatest strength, Jesus, and hear Him say,
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength
is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9)

~~ Lisa Whelchel ~~

A Woman of Prayer - 365 daily devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT CHELSEAVILLE

How are you? I'm fine. :-) Things have been rolling along very nicely for the last couple of weeks. No emergencies. No one's been sick - both grandchildren are healthy in spite of one being in preschool and the other being in daycare, where they're likely to be around kids who have little colds - it's just unavoidable. But right now, Rob's well. I'm well. (I'm one of those people who uses the alcohol wipes the stores provide, to wipe your grocery cart down. :-)

All this good health is amazing considering the weather we've been having. It snowed again all weekend. But this time, it didn't stick around so that tells me spring may actually make its appearance this year. I was seriously beginning to wonder. We still have hard packed snow in our yard that fell last Thanksgiving! But it's finally beginning to go away.

Last month's utility bill was almost double what we'd normally pay this time of year. This month's was only half again as high, so see? Winter's finally loosening its nasty grip on us. The sun is shining today. It's like some kind of miracle or something.

You know that I have both my grandchildren here on Fridays. And by now you know Friday is happy meal day. When Papa picks Cameron up from preschool at noon, they go get happy meals. Krissy told me that Cameron wakes up on Friday mornings and immediately starts singing, "It's Happy Meal Day - It's Happy Meal Day!" You know, I don't think it's the happy meal itself, as much as it is that it's become a ritual and he knows he can count on it.

But Rob told me, Cameron is always a tiny bit disappointed when he realizes they're going through the drive through. Our McD's has the big play room. So last Friday we decided to surprise him and Avery. Instead of going through the drive through, Rob brought Cam home and we loaded them into the car and took them there. We let them play for an hour before we even bought their happy meals.

And a very touching thing happened.

There were several kids there of course but no matter where Avery went in the play gym, Cameron stayed right with her. She's absolutely fearless. Seriously, I don't think anything scares her. She and Cameron were staying about midway up in the gym when she suddenly decided to go all the way to the top. Cameron's not quite as fearless and doesn't go up there. So it never occurred to him that she would. When he turned around and she wasn't there, he got hysterical because he'd "lost" her. He couldn't find her. I was shocked at how upset he was that he'd lost his little sister. Avery finally figured out that he was upset and she crawled back down to his level. He was ecstatic, but he also got himself and her out of there quick as a flash. It really scared him.
Rob and I were very touched that at only four years old, he's already so protective of her.

Ready for a real show stopper? She'll be two years old in eight days. Two. I swear, I don't know where those two years went. (She's having a Nemo birthday party. Surprise, surprise...her favorite movie!)

I'm beginning to feel the urge to do some spring cleaning. I sure as heck don't plan to clean like I did last year, but I did get the carpet steam cleaned last weekend. What a job! I also tore my aquarium apart and thoroughly cleaned it. I realized it's woefully bare of fish. Fish come. Fish go. And I need fish. So this week's field trip with the kids is a trip to the fish store. They'll love it.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO CHEAT

Here's what the tree I started from an avocado pit, good grief, last spring, looks like now. I swear, I nipped and pinched and did everything I could to force it to sprout a new branch and finally, after waiting about six months, it did. Right at the top. Right where I don't want it because what I don't want is a tall spindly avocado tree.

(That mess next to the pot is my aquarium cleaning project in progress - just pay no attention to that.)

Actually, my little tree has sprouted more than one new branch, but they're right at the top. I wanted them to be at the bottom. I want a bushy plant. Not gonna happen. This is one stubborn pit!

So I decided to sprout a couple more avocado pits and I'm going to repot my tree, with these two pits, and I'm by gosh going to have a bushy looking avocado plant! I'll let you know how that works out. lol

I SERIOUSLY LOVE THIS...

...and not just because it's a Febreze product. OK, maybe a little because it's a Febreze product. I love all things Febreze. Did you know that? LOL

Have you seen the new flameless luminaries Febreze has come out with? Actually, they're not brand new because I love these so much, I included them in Christmas packages this past year. :-)

It's such a simple concept. The starter kit comes with a battery operated wooden base and two "lamp shades." There are several really nice scents, each with a different design on the shade, but my favorite is Green Tea Citrus. And at Christmas, I gave the Vanilla Frost set as gifts. Two reasons - the design on the lamp shade was adorable snowmen and...the shades smelled like a Christmas kitchen!

They look like flickering candles. I have several of these throughout my house but I especially love the ones I put in the bathrooms when we have company. They're so, so pretty.

See? And it flickers! I found these in the air freshener section of Walmart. The starter kit is a little pricey, I think, at about $14. But once you have the base, you can buy packages of two replacement shades.

Things like this make me happy. :-)

SOME LAST THOUGHTS

I mentioned yesterday that Cameron and Avery's daycare mom Nancy had a family emergency...her father-in-law lay in the hospital dying. He did in fact pass away yesterday afternoon, God rest his soul.

Nancy was so upset, of course, that Rob went to her house and brought the kids to me for the rest of the day. And until early this morning, I thought I'd probably have them all of this week. But Nancy decided that she'd rather have the little ones around her right now, during the funeral planning process, which her husband's family is handling, so although I'm on call as needed through the rest of this week, they won't be here constantly.

I adore my grandchildren. (I'll bet you knew that too.) But constantly is hard on this Nana.

Meantime, I promised them some fun things this week, like that trip to the fish store, and McDonald's Playland, so I'll make good on those promises as I can.

So are you watching American Idol? I'm loving that the real competition starts tonight. That added to the fact that Survivor is all heroes and villains, and Bachelor Jake is going to be making his decision next week...I'm practically giddy with TV goodness. I hardly ever watch TV, but I do not, under any circumstances, miss those three shows.

I know. I'm a very, very shallow person. LOL

I hope you're having a nice week and I sure hope it's drying out and warming up where you are. I'm getting so excited about spring approaching, I think I'll put all my flipflops through the dishwasher!

"Flexible" is my middle name.....

2010-02-22T11:18:00.003-07:00

Nancy's father-in-law is dying. He's going to be taken off life support later today.

(Nancy is Cameron and Avery's daycare mom.)

So Rob has gone to pick Cameron up from school and then he's going to Nancy's to get Avery and both my grandchildren will be here for the rest of the day. It looks like they'll be here all day tomorrow too and I'm sure Nancy will have to take more time off as the funeral approaches.

Very, very sad. But thank goodness I'm here and available when something like this happens.

So my Sunday Meanderings post, which is already late, is apparently going to become my Monday Night Meanderings post. :-)

Sunday Meanderings.....

2010-02-14T00:04:00.005-07:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

THINK ABOUT THIS...

COMPASSION AND LOVE

Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another.

~~ 1 John 4:11 ~~

Charles Allen once made this statement: "Some people seem to have such a passion for righteousness that they have no room left for compassion for those who have failed."

I pray that would never be true of us. God, our Father, has shown us such great kindness and gentle mercy. May we ever reach out to the lost in compassion and love to bring them gently to Jesus Christ. Jesus, "when he saw the multitudes...was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd." (Matthew 9:36).

Let me share these lines from an unknown poet:

Just to be tender, just to be true,
Just to be glad the whole day through,
Just to be merciful, just to be mild,
Just to be trustful as a child:
Just to be gentle and kind and sweet,
Just to be helpful with willing feet...
Just to let love be our daily key,
That is God's will for you and me.

Hope for Each Day, Words of Wisdom and Faith,
The Reverend Billy Graham - Thomas Nelson Inc., Publisher

MY WEEK IN REVIEW

A truly wonderful week. Nothing special, but this...the sun finally decided to appear again! I'm not saying it's been warm around here...I'm just saying the sky wasn't gray, day after day after day. The sun showed up again and oh my word, what a blessing.

I told my sister Bev in an email recently, I can't remember a winter that got to me like this winter has.

I think maybe I've mentioned I love Fridays. :-) Fridays are the days I have both my little grandbabies here with me.

Friday is usually the only day of the week I see Avery. Cameron is here every morning before school, of course, but Avery goes straight to Nancy's house during the week. My daughter Krissy and her little family live three doors down from me, but they're so busy, I don't see them nearly as much as you might think I do.

I try really hard to make Fridays special. Cameron and Avery wake up on Friday mornings and immediately tell their mom," It's Nana and Papa day! It's Happy Meal day!" (It's the only day of the week the get fast food.)

This past Friday morning, I decided we'd bake cookies. Of course I could bake cookies when there are no little ones around to help, but why on earth would I do that.

I'm constantly amazed at how little it takes to make kids this age feel like they're really helping you.

It stops me in my tracks sometimes that Cameron is getting so big. It's hard to believe he's going to be five in June. He's delightful - such a sweetheart.

I remember taking photos of Cameron doing this - standing in front of the oven door, watching the cookies bake. Avery isn't even two yet and she know there's good stuff in that oven!

We made The Butler's Chocolate Chip Cookies. If you're still using the recipe on the bag of chocolate chips and your cookies are turning out disappointingly flat, try his recipe.

And if you want to meet a truly special woman, go meet Becky, his wife. The Butler is a pastor who also happens to be an excellent baker and his wife is someone who will inspire you. I'm blessed that she is my friend.

So Avery is a chocoholic. I swear, she didn't get that from me because as you know, on a scale of one to ten, I'd give chocolate, on a good day, maybe a two. But she LOVES chocolate. A lot.

And she's stinkin' cute too, huh?

I HAVE FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES...

...and I get personal mail from them. :-)

You'll be hearing more about that in the next day or so.

I hope you have a nice week - mine is going to be easy. There's no preschool next week (the teachers take the week off to do individual home visits) so I get to sleep in every day next week but Friday.

It's not breaking my heart that I don't have to get up early for the next six days. LOL

Happy new week!

Valentine's Day...I'm ready for you

2010-02-10T18:29:00.007-07:00

Never let it be said
that I do not decorate my house
for Valentine's Day. :-)

(thank you, Cameron)

And definitely never let it be said
that I do not have special food in my house
for Valentine's Day.

A lot of people are dealing with a LOT of snow right now. By comparison, we're in good shape out here in western Colorado. The snow that's been on the ground for months is finally going away and we're actually beginning to see the sun again.

It's comforting to know that as Valentine's Day approaches, spring is just around the corner. I don't know about you but I'm ready to stop wearing two pair of socks and get back into my flip flops! :-)

Seriously?

2010-02-09T15:11:00.003-07:00

Rob told me something this morning that had me rolling on the floor laughing.

Apparently a fifth grade boy at the school where Rob works got really mad at his teacher yesterday.

So he went into the boys' bathroom and wrote in huge letters across the wall...

#!*% you, Ms. Jones
~~Connor

Yep. He signed his name to his nasty graffiti. Because school kids sign their names to everything they write in school.

I wonder if he's a future "America's Dumbest Criminals" enrollee. :-)

Chicken Enchiladas...

2010-02-03T19:02:00.006-07:00

In my last Sunday Meanderings post, I mentioned that my daughter Krissy tried a new recipe and brought some to Rob and me for our Sunday dinner.

These enchiladas were so good I knew I'd have to share the recipe. I thought they had cream cheese in them. I was wrong. But trust me. These are so good, you'll never miss the cream cheese. LOL

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS

3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2 cups sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 4-oz. can chopped green chilies
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
10 8-inch flour tortillas, warmed

In a large bowl, combine 2 cups Cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, chicken, sour cream, soup, chilies, onion, pepper and salt. Spoon about 1/2 cup down the center of each tortilla, roll up. Place seam side down in a greased 13 X 9-inch baking dish.

Cover with foil and bake at 350* for 20 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle remaining Cheddar cheese over all. Bake 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Here's the only change I made: I poured a large can of green chili enchilada sauce over the enchiladas before I covered them with foil and put them in the oven to bake. I baked them for 30 minutes, until the enchilada sauce was bubbling. Then I uncovered them and sprinkled the Cheddar cheese over them.

You don't have to make that change of course, but I thought they'd be a little dry without the sauce on them.

And of course the easiest way to come up with chopped cooked chicken is to boil some boneless skinless chicken breasts. But you could also buy a roasted deli chicken and remove the meat from it if you really want to make it easy on yourself.

Absolutely delicious. I know for sure these are going to be a regular meal at Chelseaville from now on. Rob loves them!

And neither of us missed the cream cheese. :-)

Sunday Meanderings...

2010-01-31T18:39:00.022-07:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

SHARING THE JOY

Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Look to the Lord and His strength;
seek His face always.

~~ 1 Chronicles 16:10-11 ~~

God intends that His joy should become our joy. He intends that we, His children, should share His love, His joy, and His peace. Yet sometimes, amid the inevitable hustle and bustle of life here on earth, we don't feel much like sharing. So we forfeit, albeit temporarily, God's joy as we wrestle with the challenges of everyday life.

If your heart is heavy, open the door of your soul to your Heavenly Father. When you do, He will renew your spirit. And if you already have the joy of Christ in your heart, share it freely. When you discover ways to make your joy become their joy, you will have discovered a wonderful way to say, "I love you" to your family, to your friends, and most especially, to your God.

A joyful heart is like a sunshine
of God's love, the hope of eternal happiness,
a burning flame of God. And if we pray,
we will become that sunshine of God's love,
in our own home, the place where we live,
and in the world at large. ~~ Mother Teresa
A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

I love Fridays. Friday has become my favorite day of the week. It's the only day of the week that I have both my grandchildren here with me. Avery is in a loving daycare home during the week. Cameron started going to Nancy when he was barely two and Avery started six months ago, at about a year and a half.

I balked of course. I didn't want my grandchildren in daycare when I'm right here, three doors down, and available. But my daughter Krissy knew they needed to learn to interact with other children, to be ready for preschool. And she was right. Half the little children in Cameron's preschool class still cry every morning when mommy drops them off. He hugs them and comforts them, every morning. On the very first day of school, Cameron just marched right in and decided he loves school and my word, everyone in that whole school knows him and loves him. School is one of his favorite things in the whole world. He looks so stinkin' cute when he leaves with his Cars backpack every morning. :-)

So my daughter was right and I was wrong and I can assure you, you won't hear that coming out of my mouth very often!

But Fridays, they're all mine. I see Cam every morning. Papa takes him to school and picks him up three hours later and takes him to Nancy. But Friday is often the only day of the week I even see my little Avery.

So we've established quite a Friday routine. Both kids get excited about coming to my house for that day. Friday is "Happy Meal Day." When Rob picks Cameron up at noon, they go to McDonald's and bring home happy meals for lunch. It's the one day a week they're allowed to have fast food and it's a treat.

Avery has me and Papa all to herself Friday morning while Cam's at school, and just about the time he gets home and we all have lunch, she's ready for her nap. She still takes a two hour nap every day - Cameron sure as heck doesn't!

But...Avery's naptime is Cameron's computer time and oh my word, he starts bugging me before she's even finished her lunch, to put her down for her nap. lol He knows he and I can't sit at this computer when she's awake and loose in the house somewhere. She's such a busy little thing, I'd never ever let her out of my sight for two seconds.

I found a wonderful web site for kids Cameron's age. He's four. It's called Starfall and it teaches kids his age phonics and beginning reading. I discovered the site in an article in Woman's Day Magazine last fall. The site was created by the people who founded BlueMountain.com, the on line greeting card company. Wonderful web site and fun, fun.

So we play that for half an hour and then he gets down to some serious farming and fishing. He LOVES to feed and sell fish in FishVille and he loves, loves, loves cranking up the red tractor in FarmVille and harvesting crops. He also loves to change my avatar's hair to bright blue, but that's another story. I just let him have at it. I always make sure I have both games set up so there are fish to feed and sell and crops to harvest. It's such a hoot to sit here with him in my lap and watch him have fun on the computer. For such a little guy, his computer skills are simply amazing.

Meantime, little Avery gave us a scare this past week. She's been battling what we thought, at first, was a diaper rash. It turns out it's some kind of topical bacterial infection. It took two trips to the doctor before he finally figured out what was going on. So she's been on new prescriptions, a steroid cream and an oral antibiotic.

Friday morning I was changing her diaper and realized that she was covered, head to toe, all over her little body, with red spots. I truly panicked, called Krissy at work, and said, "Avery has measles!" I swear, in spite of her vaccinations, I knew for sure she had measles. So Kris left work, rushed here, picked her up and took her to the doctor immediately. They got her in right away.

Not measles. Something called Id syndrome, which apparently can happen when such a tiny little person's body is overwhelmed with steroids and antibiotics. I'd never even heard of that. Good grief, it scared me! She's getting better every day. She's got super sensitive skin and we really have to stay on top of keeping her dry and clean.

So my Fridays can be a little crazy, but you know, I love them. A lot.

SOME GREAT READING

I love low country authors. Mary Alice Monroe is one of my new favorites. I love her books almost as much as I love my library card, which is one of my most treasured possessions. This past week, I read two of her books. Both of them were, on the surface, about subjects I wouldn't have thought I'd be interested in. Shrimping and the men who do that job, and of all things, women who fly fish.

Obviously, the books cover much deeper subjects. I thought I'd share them with you and I can assure you, both books are wonderful. I highly recommend them.

From Mary Alice Monroe's web site:

On an otherwise ordinary day, in a small shrimping village off the coast of South Carolina, a boat goes missing. The entire town rallies as all are mobilized to find the lost vessel. Throughout the course of one day, flashbacks of Bud Morrison, the captain on board, and Carolina, his wife, reveal the happier days of a once-thriving shrimping industry juxtaposed with the memories of their long term marriage.

Mia Landan is recovering from breast cancer in a mountain cabin near Asheville, NC, when she discovers the journal of a sensational fly fisher of the 1920s, Kate Watkins. The inspiring words of a woman she never knew finally lure Mia from her shell to connect once more with the world around her. As she learns to fish, she uncovers secrets that span generations--secrets that have the power to change not only her life, but the lives of those in her new community.

A SPECIAL TREAT

I didn't have to cook tonight. Krissy surprised me last night by showing up with our Sunday dinner. For a girl who avoided the kitchen and everything to do with the kitchen, especially washing dishes (we didn't have a dishwasher), like the plague when she was a teen, she amazes me. She's constantly trying new recipes. Last night she made chicken enchiladas. OK, I know. Chicken enchiladas. Yawn. But hers have cream cheese in them! The recipe made a lot more than she and Andy and the kids could eat and the one thing I will say is still weird about my daughter and all things cooking related is that she absolutely under no circumstances does leftovers.

I LIVE on leftovers. But she cannot abide reheated food. So she just showed up out of the blue with a whole dish of the enchiladas they couldn't eat. And let me tell you, they are WONDERFUL. I called her a little while ago and said, "I need that recipe! Blog! You know?"

The moment she brings me a copy of the recipe, I'll be sharing it with you. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Truly delicious.

A LAST THOUGHT (or two)

Mandy calls me every Sunday. How I miss her. How I wish my other daughter lived here and not just far enough away that we only see each other maybe four times a year. I'll never get used to it. Never.

But speaking of food, she told me that her husband, Aaron, is reading a book about eating healthy and of course I can't remember the name of it right now and I'm not going to stop typing and call her, but...it's all about the way we eat in this country. I do remember that she said the author says half the food Americans eat isn't even really food. It's so "processed" that it's more like an edible science experiment. lol

So she and Aaron went on a "whole foods" grocery shopping trip today. They do their weekly grocery shopping together because they're both really into cooking.

OK. That's a lie. HE'S really into cooking! She's really into HIM cooking. lol

Anyway, their goal was to not buy a single thing that wasn't just pure food. Nothing processed.

She told me that it took them hours. She also told me that "rice" is only one of the FIVE ingredients listed on a bag of white rice. They bought brown rice. The only ingredient listed on a bag of brown rice is "brown rice." Interesting conversation. But she said they love the whole "whole foods" thing and will not buy anything processed, ever again. Hmmmmm.

It's still cold, gray and gloomy here. I tell you, I am highly sick of this winter. This had better be a fluke, this awful winter, or I tell you, Florida or Arizona is sounding better and better every day.

Another lie. I'd never in a million years move that far away from my kids and their kids. But I tell you, I want it to be spring!

Some of my blogging friends have had some pretty amazing and unusual winter weather this past week. All of y'all posting your snow cream recipes and photos just warms my heart. :-)

And that's good. Because the only part of me that's been remotely warm for the past two months is maybe my heart.

Sure as heck hasn't been my feet!

Happy new week everyone.

My friend Kelli....

2010-01-28T19:40:00.009-07:00

I met Kelli four years ago, through our blogs. We connected right away and became friends.

In one of our first email exchanges, she mentioned to me that she only had one kidney and it wasn't doing a very good job. She thought she might have to slow down and even give up her job.

My, my, it's been a long four years for Kelli. She has no kidney function at all now...she began dialysis in May of 2006. Her health has declined dramatically and she needs a kidney.

You can read about Kelli's journey here.

I am so moved by Kelli's situation, I could go on and on forever. I think it would be better to let her talk.

Thank you for offering to be a part of the call for living kidney donors, and to help with our fundraising efforts. It is a true blessing for this family, and we love you all.

Here is the basic info on being a living kidney donor and the process:

1) I will be listed with OHSU in Portland, OR. If someone is interested, they should contact us at jkbach@comcast.net and we will get them the contact info they need.

2) Because of some complications, I will most likely not be able to use a cadaver donor, although I have been listed with another hospital on the UNOS list for 3 years.

3) I will need a donor with the A or O blood type. If you don't know your blood type, they will have you get tested.

4) All medical costs are billed directly back to OHSU where my insurance covers 100% of all incurred costs. This allows the donor candidate to have all testing up to the end done at their local hospital or Dr. office at no charge to them.

5) Pre-screening involves an over the phone health questionnaire, then a simple blood test where my blood and theirs are combined and cross-matched. If that is ok, then they will have a series of tests done locally to them and billed directly to my insurance.

6) All this will lead up to a scheduled date for everyone to meet in Portland for transplant. The process, from the time a suitable candidate is found, is about 3 months to the actual surgery.

7) Fundraising is currently under way for all costs not covered by insurance (all non-medical). This includes things like travel and lodging for the donor, my housing and support for the month or more I am required to stay in Portland after surgery, etc.

Thank you again everyone, and please let me know if I can give you more information.

Kelli

If you think you'd like to be tested to see if you're a match for Kelli, please contact her at jkbach@comcast.net.

If you'd like to make a donation to help Kelli and her husband John meet all the non-medical expenses their family is going to incur during this process, you can do that by going to her fundraiser site:

http://www.giveforward.org/kidney4kelli/

I know I speak for Kelli, her husband John and their two teenaged children when I say, anything you can do to help, whether it be being tested to become her living donor, a financial contribution or just your most fervent prayers would be appreciated.

This I know for sure. If I needed a kidney to live and she had a spare that was worth a hoot, she'd give it to me.

Cream of wheat....

2010-01-27T11:17:00.002-07:00

It's absolutely unbelievable how hard and fast it's snowing here in Grand Junction today.

Arrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh!

Spring! Wherefore art thou?!

There's only one way I'm gonna get warm...I'm going to take a big steaming bowl of cream of wheat and sit in a steaming hot bath and eat it.

Really. I am.

Sunday Meanderings

2010-01-24T12:58:00.019-07:00

Thank you, Microsoft Clipart

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

BEYOND PESSIMISM

But we are hoping for something we do not have yet,
and we are waiting for it patiently.

~~ Romans 8:25 ~~

When you decided to allow Christ to rule over your heart, you entitled yourself to share in His promise of spiritual abundance and eternal joy. Have you claimed that entitlement? Are you an upbeat believer? Are you a person whose hopes and dreams are alive and well? Hopefully so. But sometimes, when pessimism and doubt invade your thoughts, you won't feel like celebrating. Why? Because thoughts are extremely powerful things.

If you've allowed pessimism to creep into your mind and heart, you should spend more time thinking about your blessings and less time fretting about your hardships. Then, you should take time to thank the Giver of all things good for gifts that are, in truth, far too numerous to count.

A Prayer: Dear Lord, let my thoughts and prayers honor You. When I become fearful or discouraged, let me trust You. And when I encounter the evils of this world, let me turn to You for strength and wisdom. Amen.

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

It's been a long time since a daily devotion spoke to me as profoundly as the one I'm sharing with you today. It practically jumped off the pages.

I've decided this unintentional break I've been on should have a name. I think "blogger block" fits very well. However. When I woke up this morning, I honestly wanted to do a post and trust me when I say, it's been a while. I can't explain it any better than to say, for weeks and weeks I've felt like I had absolutely nothing to say.

This cold, endless, gray winter hasn't helped one bit. I swear, we've got snow in our yard that fell at Thanksgiving. Rob and I have lived in Grand Junction (as far west in Colorado as you can go without crossing over into Utah) since October 2004. The weekend our moving van showed up we got an unbelievable snow storm and those poor movers had to deal with three feet of snow. But that was truly a freak occurrence and winters have been as mild since then as we expected when we relocated from the eastern side of Colorado where the winters are truly horrendous.

This winter has been relentlessly cold and I'm beyond weary of it. And gray skies. I'm beyond weary of those too. I'm ready for summer and 98 degree days!

So what's new and exciting in Chelseaville? Nothing. Nada. Not one darn thing. I haven't even tried a new recipe this winter. LOL

Y'all know I take care of my two sweet grandbabies during the week. Cameron is here for about an hour every morning, before Papa takes him to preschool. After school, he joins his little sister Avery at their daycare mom's house. But they're both still spending Fridays with me. I'm very reluctant to give up those Fridays and believe it or not, Fridays are almost the only time I even see Avery.

Fridays like this past one are the reason vitamins for seniors were invented. Cameron and Avery were here from 7 in the morning until 11 that night. Krissy and Andy had a post-holiday party to go to.

A Nana couldn't ask for better grandkids than mine. But they're four and almost-two and I'm not. Let's just say I'm as close to 60 as you can get without actually being there and man alive, as good as they are, by the time they left Friday evening, I was in a stupor of exhaustion.

It helps that I adore them and it helps that my daughter makes sure I know, all the time, how much she appreciates me. :-)

You know I'm not going to do a post that doesn't include a couple of photos. LOL

Here's what Avery looks like every Friday morning when she shows up at Nana's house. She goes absolutely no where without both the sock monkeys I made her. She's not cute or anything, is she? (Good heavens - don't look at my filthy dirty houseslippers!)

Those two monkeys are by her side all day long. Of course it makes me feel wonderful that she's so attached to the monkeys I made for her, but I have to wonder if her future husband is going to mind sleeping with them too. (hahaha - you can't see the bottom of her socks!)

When Cameron realized I was taking monkey pictures, he had to get in on the action. That's the $5 monkey Papa gave him for his first Christmas. Boy, that monkey has seen better days, but like Avery, Cameron goes no where without it. It took some doing to convince him he couldn't take it to school with him and still, if I'm not looking, he tries to tuck Monkey into his backpack. LOL He's not cute either, is he? Look at those huge brown eyes. But I digress....

His cheeks are bright red because....

....Avery chased him all over heck with this. She loves my little cordless vacuum.

Why in the world do we spend perfectly good money on toys when they'd rather play with something like this!

Last Friday, just when I was pretty sure I was going to drop dead if they didn't slow down, they did. It was so remarkable, I had to take a photo. Truly, this is rare - they never sit still! (Yes - that's a sippy cup dripping on my carpet - ask me if I care.)

Thank you, Finding Nemo. It was worth playing you six times last Friday, just for this quiet moment. LOL

A NEW WEEK...AND A NEW BEGINNING

I feel myself coming out of the fog. I actually feel enthusiastic about blogging again and for sure, I feel the need to reconnect with all of you. I've been very touched by all your kind emails, telling me you don't want to bother me, you know I've been a little out of it, but am I OK?

I'm better than OK. I'm very good. Heck! I'm in the mood to start trying some new recipes! I'm not going to get really wild and crazy and go on a cleaning frenzy or anything (not gonna happen) but my daughter Mandy gave me Ree's cookbook for Christmas (The Pioneer Woman Cooks) and I'm pretty sure I've got at least 20 of her recipes sticky tabbed because I HAVE to try them.

A LAST THOUGHT

Erma to the rescue:

Giving birth is little more than a set of
muscular contractions granting passage of a child.
Then the mother is born. (and the Nana :-)

Spend at least one Mother's Day with your respective
mothers before you decide on marriage.
If a man gives his mother a gift certificate
for a flu shot, dump him.

And one of my favorites....

When mothers talk about the depression
of the empty nest, they're not mourning
the passing of all those wet towels on the floor,
or the music that numbs your teeth, or even
the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down
the shower drain. They're upset because
they've gone from supervisor of a child's life
to a spectator. It's like being
the vice president of the United States.

Yesterday I shaved my legs. And I finally filed my fingernails down (a chore I hate).

I'm obviously back!

Happy new week, sweet friends. Stay warm!

Holiday memories....

2010-01-06T20:51:00.010-07:00

It's been so bitterly cold here in western Colorado for the last five weeks that I feel like I'm living in an igloo. I'm not kidding. It's not that we're not running our heat. It's that in spite of running the heat, I can't remember the last time I felt warm. I shudder to even think about our next utility bill, it's been that cold. The thing is, this is western Colorado...desert country...so we just don't expect weather like this. Snow out here is rare and rarely sticks around. I've got snow in my yard that fell six weeks ago and it's not melted because it hasn't gotten warm enough for it to melt.

Rob and I moved here five years ago, from the eastern side of Colorado, not only to be nearer our girls and their husbands and children, but also because we were just sick of blizzards and seriously horrible winter weather. Apparently, we brought some of it with us. lol

All that to say...

...we had a wonderful Christmas and New Years with our kids and their families.

I'll be honest and admit that it takes me a little longer these days to recover from the holidays. But I'm proud to say I had Christmas up, enjoyed, and down before New Years Day.

Doesn't it just feel so good to have it all packed away again and your house restored to normal? If you know me, you know I don't like clutter. And as much as I love Christmas, by the time I get all the decorations set out, and start going nuts in my kitchen, and look at stacks of gifts that need to be wrapped, it all starts closing in on me.

So now my house is back to what is, for me, normal. Decluttered. Minimal.

I know, I know. But it's the way I am.

I only have two children (Krissy and Mandy) so the fact that one of them (Mandy) lives on the other side of Colorado makes me feel like half my little family is missing most of the time. The very best thing about Christmas is that she and her husband Aaron are HERE. And my family feels complete.

Here are some scenes from our holidays:

We are a game playing family. I swear, Rob and I played cards with each other before the girls were born and as soon as they could sit at the table without wobbling over, we progressed to Candy Land Bingo. And we never looked back. This year, the new game was canasta. What fun!

This melts my heart. I gave Avery her first official baby doll last Christmas. You should see it. She got her hands on her mommy's ink pen. Truly, it's sad, but Krissy promises me she'll save it because it's the official first baby doll.

Look at her. Santa brought her a new baby doll, one without all the tattoos she put on the one I gave her last year. lol

What moves me about this is first, Krissy told me that when Avery discovered the bounty Santa had left, she immediately grabbed that new baby doll and hasn't put it down since. The second thing is this. She's not even two years old yet, but obviously the mothering instinct is there. She loves, loves, loves this doll and like Cameron's monkey, she goes no where without it.

Avery will be two on March 3rd. She's amazing and I think she's beautiful. Such a sweet baby she is, even if she thinks she's a mother. :-)

The classic Christmas morning photo. I ask you. How many grown men does it take to help a four year old play with his new race track? Honestly. You'd have died laughing at these men.

I baked. !!! A lot!!! I thoroughly enjoyed lots of quiet days that I could just bring out my favorite Christmas recipes and have fun. Here's one of the trays I did. Some of it is stuff I bought but most of it is stuff I made.

I try to make each person's favorite. For Mandy, it's divinity. I have to make divinity and that means I have to wait for the right weather. Never, ever try to make divinity on a humid day. For Krissy, it's cookies. This year I made thumbprint cookies. I'd never made them before, if you can believe that.

For Rob and Andy and Aaron, it's whatever. They love it all! lol

But here's what surprised me. Back when the girls were little, and I'm talking way back (1980's), a friend of mine gave me a recipe for a very simple but pretty Christmas cookie. (She and I were wives of volunteer firemen, members of the Embers - the wives of volunteer firemen). Her name was Bonnie.

Have you ever seen these? Probably you have and I'm just out of sync. But these are Christmas Holly Wreaths and the thing that surprised me is that I hadn't made them in maybe fifteen years and when my girls saw them, they were delighted.

These flew off the tray.

So because I'm so with it these days, here's a Christmas recipe for you. All you have to do is remember this eleven and a half months from now.

Seriously, you can change the color up and make these for almost any occasion. I promise you, kids (even grown kids) love them.

Christmas Holly Wreaths

1 stick of margarine
10 to 12 oz. package marshmallows
6 cups cornflakes
green food coloring
red hots (candies)

In a very large bowl, measure corn flakes. Over low heat, melt butter; add marshmallows. Stir til melted. Stir in food coloring. Pour over the corn flakes and very quickly but gently mix until the corn flakes are covered. Drop onto wax paper. Using buttered hands, shape into wreaths and decorate with red hots.

Allow to cool and store in air tight container.

So obviously, you can use any color food coloring you want and shape them into any shape you want. I see red food coloring and heart shaped cookies.

Happy New Year to all of you. I know that my complaining about the cold weather speaks for a lot of us. My word, I'm sick of it and I imagine you are too.

xoxo

O, Holy Night....

2009-12-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Candy canes and cookies....

2009-12-23T06:13:00.016-07:00

Don't even ask me where the last two weeks went. I'm still looking for them!

It's been crazy busy around here. I haven't figured that out yet either. I honestly don't know why. I suspect that I've been crazy busy because Krissy has been crazy busy. Funny how that works. When her life gets nuts, mine always seems to, too.

And in spite of how busy we've been, I'm still not quite ready for Christmas. I actually have to go shopping today - good heavens, it'll be insane. You may recall we got blasted with a huge winter storm two weeks ago. It's been so cold here that THAT snow hadn't melted off the streets yet and we got blasted again yesterday. Of course Krissy and I were out in it - she's off all week but wanted to take Christmas goodies to her coworkers, so we went to her office and then we went shopping.

So far, every shopping trip I've made has been with her, so guess who Rob and I are shopping for today? lol

Cameron and Avery have been down here with me quite a bit lately. It's ridiculous for Kris and Andy to try to shop or go to a movie they can't wait to see (Avatar) or anything else, with two kids in tow, when they can come three doors down to Nana's house. But when they're here with me, I can assure you I don't get anything else done.

I finally figured out the secret to all of us enjoying it when the grandkids are here is to simply not TRY to get anything else done. We've watched Gremlins, Elf and Frosty so many times, the music from those movies goes through my head all night long when I'm trying to sleep. I've only had to glue one leg back onto a Willow Tree lamb from my nativity. The only ornaments on my tree that have bitten the dust are the candy canes I always put all over the tree because.....

...guess who accidentally discovered
that those ornaments are edible. And delicious!

Is she not absolutely adorable? Avery is a joy. She's always happy. She's the easiest little child in the world to take care of. Even now, with a rotten cold which she so generously decided to share with me, she's delightful.

Cameron is fascinated with the snow that's apparently never going to go away. It's crunchy on top and looks solid but of course it's not, so he got a big kick out of stomping around and breaking through the surface.

Look how big he's getting. And look at his crazy hair. That's the remnants of the mohawk our family hairdresser, Kree, always gels in for him when he gets his haircut. He's too funny.

It's surprising the things that they entertain themselves with. This was a laundry basket race. Seriously, they played with these for hours.

It's nice for me when Rob's home - as you can see, he's one of their favorite things to play with (I'm talking about all three kids) and that's a big help.

My daughter Krissy decided she wanted to make cutout sugar cookies this year.

So we did.

Monday we made sugar cookies for half the population of Grand Junction.

Clearly, Krissy enjoyed it.

Cookies.

More cookies.

And still more cookies.

I'm not kidding you - this was a marathon. We started at noon and we finished at 11 o'clock Monday night. I thought I would drop dead, I was so tired of making double batches of cookie dough and baking 12 at a time (we made 12 dozen - good grief!) and frosting and sprinkling. I think she plans to give a plate of these cookies to everyone but the milkman and that's truly only because she doesn't have a milkman.

I stopped making cutout cookies ages ago because I didn't think they were worth it. They never tasted good, you always risked breaking a tooth if you actually tried to eat them, and you couldn't stack them because they stuck together.

And then one of Krissy's coworkers, her boss Kelly actually, brought her grandmother's recipe for sugar cookies in. I'm tickled to death. They're delicious. They're edible. The dough is actually nice to work with and the frosting hardens just enough that you won't have to find a dentist if you eat one, but they don't stick together either.

SUGAR COOKIES

3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter (trust me - do NOT use margarine)
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. Mix all together, roll out, cut and bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 stick butter (again, don't substitute margarine)
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 box (16 ounces) powdered sugar

Cream butter, add cream cheese and vanilla. Mix well then add powdered sugar. (Add more powdered sugar if you want the frosting to dry faster.)

You're welcome. :-)

So this is how our Christmas is going to go. Rob and I are finishing our shopping today and then I don't plan to go outside my front door again for at least a week and I'm not kidding. The streets around here are miserable because Grand Junction never gets this kind of weather and they just don't know how to clear it up. It's stinkin' cold so the snow isn't going anywhere for a while.

I think I'll be babysitting today so Krissy can go to her office Christmas party. That means I need to get out, get done and then get home before about 3.

Mandy and Aaron are not driving out from Greeley until Saturday, so we're celebrating Christmas on Sunday. I'm making a ham dinner. I always do. :-)

So I think Rob and I will go to a movie on Christmas Day. He really wants to see Holmes. And with this timing, I actually have a couple of extra days to get everything done, so it's quite possible that my kitchen floor may get mopped.

So although it feels like it's been a zoo around here for the past two weeks, the truth is everything is going pretty smoothly. I'm nonstop busy but not stressed. Sharing this rotten cold with Avery has slowed me down a bit, but as is almost always the case, it could be a lot worse, right?

Merry Christmas, sweet friends. I hope yours is wonderful.

You should Febreze your dog too.....

2009-12-11T22:32:00.008-07:00

I have a husband who gets home about two hours after I'm sound asleep. He sits in his recliner in the living room and either watches Fox News or reads a book. And he always finds something to snack on.

And I have two grandbabies who love popcorn. They beg me to make it and I do and they don't finish it, and I'm so wiped out when they go home, I just leave it sitting around the living room somewhere.

And some time during the middle of the night, the popcorn they didn't finish just magically disappears. :-)

My new popcorn bowl.

The Febreze people love me
because I love Febreze.

And if you don't Febreze your dog, well, you should.

Because then you could have a cool popcorn bowl like the one they sent me this week.

:-)

Oh..the weather outside is frightful

2009-12-08T13:34:00.008-07:00

So the phone rang at 5:15 this morning. And my first thought was, "Oh no! Cameron!" (Bad news about Cameron and his diabetes always, always comes in the wee hours.)

Imagine my surprise when the caller was the school secretary, calling to let Rob know the district had declared a snow day.

So I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. (Sorry - 'tis the season :-) I ran straight down the hallway into the kitchen, to the back patio door and saw this.

It took me all of ten seconds to decide I wouldn't be sitting on my patio with my first cup of coffee today. :-)

Chelsea is always one step behind me when I get up in the morning, waiting to be escorted outside to do her business. She took one look at this and looked at me as if to say, "You're kidding, right?"

So Rob went out there to shovel a path for her precious little self. If you look closely, you'll see that she's right behind him, saying, "Hurry, Daddy, hurry!" LOL

This is what I saw when I opened my front door. He's out there shoveling that right now. And it's still snowing, off and on, today.

Of course we get snow here in western Colorado, but this much snow is rare enough that we get kind of excited about it.

So today turned out to be an unexpected surprise. It's toasty warm inside, I'm working on Christmas things and when he's not shoveling snow, Rob's watching TV - Fox News of course, which is talking all about this storm which is on its way east and is considered to be a "massive" storm. We still have lots of the beef stew I made Sunday and that's pretty perfect for a day like today.

Oh! And guess what? These are available again. I did it - I finished the Santa star Christmas ornaments. You can get the details on ordering a set by going here. They're $20 plus $4.50 shipping for a set of three ornaments.

>

I hope you're staying nice and warm today. When this stuff arrives where you live, just say to yourself, "Hey! This storm was just at Barb's house!"

Nice of me to share, don't you think? :-)

Sunday Meanderings

2009-11-30T09:26:00.018-07:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Whom Do You Trust?

The one who understands a matter finds success,
and the one who trusts in the Lord will be happy.

~~ Proverbs 16:20 ~~

Where will you place your trust today? Will you trust in the ways of the world, or will you trust in the Word and the will of your Creator?

If you aspire to do great things for God's kingdom, you will trust Him completely.

Trusting God means trusting Him in every aspect of your life. You must trust Him with your relationships. You must trust Him with your finances. You must follow His commandments and pray for His guidance. Then, you can wait patiently for God's revelations and for His blessings.

When you trust your Heavenly Father without reservation, you can rest assured: in His own fashion and in His own time, God will bless you in ways that you never could have imagined. So trust Him, and then prepare yourself for the abundance and joy that will most certainly be yours through Him.

Sometimes the very essence of faith
is trusting God in the midst of things He knows
good and well we cannot comprehend. ~~ Beth Moore

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publisher

THANKSGIVING WEEK IN REVIEW

What a nice week it was. Mandy and Aaron arrived Wednesday afternoon and were here until Saturday. Rob and Krissy both had extra days off during the week (too much vacation on the books and they had to use it). We didn't have our Thanksgiving dinner until Friday (Krissy and Andy celebrate with his big family on the day itself) so I had an extra day to get all the cooking done.

We had the same feast we always have - a huge turkey and all our favorite appetizers and side dishes and desserts. Aaron's mom Jan joined us so we were seven adults and two little ones which is just about maximum capacity for our house. LOL

As chief cook and bottle washer, I've made an executive decision and my whole family is OK with it. I bought a 23-pound Honeysuckle White turkey this year and it was delicious. But. We made a small dent in the white meat and everything else went straight into the trash. Not a single person in my family eats the dark meat and certainly none of us eats the skeleton. And Rob and I are going to be eating turkey for the rest of this week, there was so much left over. So next year I'm buying a turkey breast. Period.

The turkey was so stinkin' big, if I'd put it on the table there would have been no room for anything else. So I carved it at the kitchen counter and served a plate of sliced turkey. I ask you. What's the point? So next year - a very nice turkey breast.

Honestly, I'm already relaxing about next year, just knowing there won't be a huge turkey taking up my whole oven when I need to be heating six side dishes.

These are the leftovers Rob and I are working our way through this week. Krissy and Andy don't do leftovers. I know. But they don't, so they didn't take anything home with them. And Mandy and Aaron live on the other side of Colorado, so they couldn't take anything home. Thankfully, Rob and I both love Thanksgiving leftovers.

Cameron and Avery were easy to entertain Friday because Uncle Aaron brought his Wii and lots of age appropriate games. Cameron played all day long. Avery is still too little to actually play, but she thinks sifting through all the amazing gidgets and gadgets that come with a Wii is a lot of fun. It amazes me to watch Cameron play these games - he's four years old and I swear, he's so good with all the controllers, I'd never attempt to play with him, much less beat him at any of the games.

I have no idea if I can swing it, but if I can possibly can, I so, so want to give Cameron a Wii for Christmas. It's so expensive, but his reaction to opening that gift would make it worth a month of baloney sandwiches for dinner.

The adults play quieter games. Like what has always been our family favorite, progressive rummy. As you can see, they take progressive rummy very seriously.

But. For six years, Krissy has been telling me about a game Andy's whole family always plays, for hours and hours, when they get together for holidays. I'd never even heard of it but I do remember that about four years ago, this game was on Krissy's Christmas wish list and we bought it for her. So she brought it with her Friday.

This game is so much fun, and so loud and rowdy, I'm pretty sure it's now officially the game we'll be playing when we're all together during the holidays. If you've never played Pit, you should try it. It's been around since 1904 (who knew that?!!), it couldn't possibly be easier to learn to play and I guarantee you, even the quietest members of your family will shock you at how loud they can yell and how excited the can be if they win. Fun, fun, fun game!

Krissy and I celebrated all our hard work putting Thanksgiving together by giving ourselves Saturday afternoon off. We went to see this movie. You either read the Twilight series or not. You either really got into the whole mythical world of vampires or not.

We did. Mandy did too and we'd hoped she could go with us, but they needed to go home on Saturday morning.

We loved this movie. Loved, loved it. And the popcorn and the previews weren't bad either. LOL (Nothing and I mean NOTHING is going to stop me from seeing Nicholas Sparks' Dear John. I read the book. I have all his books by the way. And I can't wait to see the movie. It's next on my list. :-)

Kris participates in three different ornament exchanges at Christmas (her bunko group, her bowling league and her office). So after the movie we went to Hobby Lobby. Honestly, is Hobby Lobby just not the most fun place this time of year? A month before Christmas and everything is already 50% off. I actually bought a new centerpiece for my dining room table. It involves pine cones and berries and spruce branches and a wonderful big spruce scented candle. And I added to my clip-on bird ornament collection too.

So all in all, simply a great week and a fantastic Saturday afternoon. Just what the shrink ordered. :-)

A NEW WEEK

This week I'll be busy rearranging the house and decorating for Christmas. I'm excited about bringing out my Willow Tree Nativity and displaying it again. I used to keep it on display all the time, but it's just way too tempting to little toddlers and you can only super glue the figures back together so many times before you get smart. :-)

And it will be a huge victory for me if I can announce that Santa stars are available again. I should have been working on them all year long - they take forever to make when you make them in the quantities I make them in. But as you know by now, it wasn't one of my better years. So I'm working away and hope to have them available by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

I normally never buy myself anything this time of year, but I had to have this book. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King, but his last few books weren't all that wonderful in my opinion. This book, however, is amazing. He's back in his original form like he was when he wrote The Stand, a million years ago. This book is big - 1072 pages long. And it's only by using all my willpower that I can put it down to work on Santa stars.

SOME LAST THOUGHTS TO SHARE

Last year our family had a little reality meeting and decided that because all our budgets were tight, instead of shopping for each other, we'd only buy gifts for Cameron and Avery.

It sucked. It really did.

Our thoughts were in the right place, but we went too far. So this year we came up with the idea of drawing names among the adults. The rules were simple. You couldn't draw your own name and you couldn't draw your spouse's name. Everyone had to give Krissy a wish list and she typed it all up on one neat sheet for us.

I was tickled pink to see how much fun everyone had drawing the names out of Andy's ballcap. The other rule is none of us can reveal whose name we got. So we'll each be shopping for Cameron and Avery of course, and one adult in the family. That way, everyone will have something under the tree.

I did not put Under the Dome on my wish list. I knew I wasn't going to wait another month to get that book! LOL

You know, no matter how organized you are, no matter how much you do ahead, the holidays are simply exhausting, aren't they? For me, I think it's all the cooking. I loved every single thing about Thanksgiving this year, but the truth is, I didn't start to feel recovered until I woke up this morning.

Rob and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary Sunday. I'm using the word "celebrated" very loosely here. We took one look at all those leftovers, the ones we've been eating all weekend long, and we went to Burger King. I'm not kidding. It was wonderful.

When you've been married for 31 years, you don't squish yourself into panty hose and your husband doesn't put on a tie and you don't go out for an elegant and expensive dinner.

You go to Burger King. Especially if you got married as close to Thanksgiving as we did. LOL

Obviously, Thanksgiving wiped Chelsea out too. She was doing quite well with all the confusion until we all started playing Pit. The shouting and non-stop laughing and shouts of victory just got on her last little Shih Tzu nerve.

Last night I saw her snuggled up next to Rob, and I couldn't believe the way she was sleeping with her new Christmas baby cuddled in her little arms.

I give you, the world's sweetest little dog.

And I wish you a happy new week. xo

It's official...it's the holiday season in Chelseaville!

2009-11-23T18:33:00.011-07:00

Like most of you, I probably cook more between the beginning of Thanksgiving week and the end of New Year's Day than I do the entire rest of the year.

Just think - if all those leftovers were safe to eat for ten months, why we'd not have to cook from January second until the third week of November. LOL

For me, it all begins with Chex Party Mix.

I started yesterday afternoon and finished about 2 o'clock this afternoon - eight batches. I'm pretty sure I have enough to get us through the holidays, but I'm not dead sure. I'm not kidding. This stuff goes in the blink of an eye around my house, during the holidays.

It takes an hour to make one batch. Eight batches equals eight hours of cooking time. I've made it in the microwave and it was perfect, but you need a large microwave and I don't have one any more. Because we don't use our microwave for much more than heating a quick lunch of leftovers, or in Rob's case, a cup of stale coffee (ugh), and because I'm only willing to sacrifice a limited amount of counter space for a microwave (we don't have an over the range microwave), ours is perfect for us but it's too small to put a 9 x 11-inch glass baking dish in.

So I did it the old fashioned way. I used my oven.

If I didn't put up a Christmas tree, if I didn't put my Willow Tree Nativity on display in the living room, or if Rob and I didn't cover our house and yard in outdoor illumination, my kids would be upset.

If I didn't make Chex Party Mix, they'd call the little men who arrive with straight jackets to pick you up and cart you away.

I've been making the original Chex Party Mix since it first came out - good grief, maybe 25 years ago? Maybe longer than that? It makes me smile when I buy Chex cereal now and see the "original" recipe on their package because it's not even close. I'm thinking when they say "original" they mean as compared to all the knock off recipes for party mix. The recipe on their box this holiday season is so different from the one I use, I'm beyond thankful that I wrote that recipe on a card and put it in my little oak recipe box, when I first started making it.

Meantime, I started a tradition with my little family, years ago, that I love.

I make tons of this stuff because I also buy cute Christmas containers and give them to my kids when we're all together for Thanksgiving, full of the mix, and with the understanding that they can bring the container back any time they want for a refill.

Is that not sweet?

(I love it when they show up and say, "Please. May I have some more?" - it makes me feel necessary. LOL)

Not to worry - here's the very first recipe that was ever published for Chex Party Mix:

1 stick of margarine (they say Parkay - I say generic)
1 1/4 teaspoons seasoned salt (I use Lawry's)
4 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 2/3 cups corn Chex
2 2/3 cups rice Chex
2 2/3 cups wheat Chex
1 cup salted peanuts
1 cup thin pretzel sticks

(trust me when I tell you, generic cereals work)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

I place the margarine, seasoned salt and Worcestershire in a two-cup glass measuring cup and microwave it in 30-second spurts until it's melted and very hot, so that the salt melts.

I put all the cereal and peanuts and pretzel sticks into a large bowl, pour the melted margarine mixture evenly over it all and stir it very, very gently with a big wooden spoon. Don't get carried away with the stirring or you'll break the cereal pieces up and it'll be a crumbly mess.

I put the mixture into my big open roasting pan. It's the same pan I roast our turkey in. :-)

Bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. In other words, once you put it in the oven, you can't go away because you need to open the oven and stir it, every 15 minutes. Again, stir it very gently so you don't break the cereal pieces into crumbly pieces.

Spread on absorbent paper and allow to cool.

I always have rolls of brown mailing paper on hand. I simply use masking tape to tape a doubled over piece of brown paper to my kitchen counter.

When I first started making this, I used brown paper bags from the grocery store. Remember those? White plastic bags don't work. LOL

Let it cool, and store it in an air tight container at room temperature.

We'll be having our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. My daughter Krissy married a man (Andy) who has a big family, much bigger than us Reids, and of course the whole family goes to Andy's parents' house for Thanksgiving.

I learned a long time ago (six years ago, actually - Krissy and Andy just celebrated their six year anniversary) that the date on the calendar doesn't matter one whit. What matters is being together.

My other daughter, Mandy, and her husband Aaron are making the drive through the Rockies (always dicey this time of year) to be here and I'm beyond thankful that they're still newlywed enough that they will come "home" for the holidays, although they've now established their own sweet home on the other side of the mountains.

It's so funny how things come together. My husband Rob and my daughter Krissy both had too many vacation days left on the books and were asked to take two days between now and the end of the year, so they both took Wednesday off. And Mandy and Aaron are arriving early Wednesday afternoon.

So guess what. I'm in heaven.

My whole little family is going to be gathered in my home for Thanksgiving.

And guess what? I just happen to have plenty of Chex Party Mix to get us through all the Monopoly and Pincochle games we can possibly play.

Sigh. I am content.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

The Pits...:-)

2009-11-17T20:01:00.006-07:00

Awwww. Come on. You know you love the title of this post because I'm updating you on the progress my little avocado tree is making. You know. The one I grew from a pit. LOL

So here she is, six months or so after I stuck an avocado pit with toothpicks and put it into a glass of water.

I've nicked the top out of this little thing about three times now, determined that she's going to grow at least one more branch, but boy, this is one stubborn avocado tree! Still, I think you can see that I am in fact growing a little tree.

I love avocado trees grown from an avocado I bought to make guacamole and instead of tossing the pit, I thought, "Hmmmm. Maybe I'll grow a little tree."

"Little" being the operative word here - this tree isn't going to ever, ever produce avocados.

But it's fun.

One thing that's really neat is that when it needs water, your little tree just completely droops. But I swear, fifteen minutes after you water it, it perks right back up.

If you want to try this, these two posts will show you how to grow a funny looking but cute little avocado tree:

Getting started.

The first pruning to force multiple branches (which obviously doesn't always work LOL).

Sunday Meanderings

2009-11-16T20:25:00.014-07:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Kindness in Action

Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord's
royal command found in the the Scriptures:
"Love your neighbor as yourself."

~~ James 2:8 ~~

As believers in Christ, we are commanded to treat others as we wish to be treated. This commandment is, indeed, the Golden Rule for Christians of every generation.

Kindness is a choice. Sometimes, when we feel happy or prosperous, we find it easy to be kind. Other times, when we are discouraged or tired, we can scarcely summon the energy to utter a single kind word. But, God's commandment is clear: we must observe the Golden Rule "in everything." God intends that we make the conscious choice to treat others with kindness and respect, no matter our circumstances, no matter our emotions. Kindness, therefore, is a choice that we, as Christians must make many times each day.

When we weave the thread of kindness into the very fabric of our lives, we give a priceless gift to others, and we give glory to the One who gave His life for us. As believers, we must do no less.

A Woman of Prayer, 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publishers

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

I'm a little late, but I'm here. That's a good thing, right? :-)

I can't tell you how much the comments on my last post have meant to me. And the personal emails behind the scenes? There is simply no way I could answer each of you individually, but know this. Your email, your advice, your assurance that you were praying for me..it turned the tables for me.

I truly feel better. Maybe it's because I'm so transparent that I share something like depression right here on the interweb with gosh only knows who. I have no idea how many people (or who they are) read my blog and that may be a good thing because if I did know, I might stiffen up and be afraid to be real.

My sister suggested that I seemed to be out of sync and asked if I was OK. She wondered if maybe I was depressed. She figured it out before I did.

I talked to both my parents this week.

My father is 84 years old. He just canned 60 quarts of tomatoes and he was making chicken gumbo when I called him. Good grief. He's amazing. He's so healthy it makes me think that if genes play a part, I may live to a hundred years old.

My father never smoked cigarettes. Ever.

My mom used to smoke. After 20 years she quit. When I talked to her a couple of days ago, she told me that when she quit, she went through a depression that lasted for almost a year.

Hello?

There is nothing physically wrong with me. I mean, my wrist hurts a lot but that's because I'm 59 and it's probably arthritis. Physically speaking, I'd be a lot happier if I could still get into my size 12 jeans, but I can live with size 14. :-)

Mom sent me an early Christmas package this year. I was so surprised to get a big box covered in Christmas stickers (I love it that my mom doesn't think I'm too old to love Christmas stickers). The box was full of books that she'd chosen for me and Rob and for Cameron and Avery. It was like she read my mind because I'd just told Rob, this is the year I have to start reading The Night Before Christmas to our grandbabies and there it was - a beautiful pop-up version that Cameron is already asking me to read to him before school each morning.

And also in that package was a big bottle of vitamins, heavy on the B complex vitamins. When I called her to thank her, she told me, you need to take those B complex vitamins. They help a lot when you quit smoking.

So mystery solved. I think I know why I've just not been myself for the last ten months. And I think the knowing, combined with all your encouragement, turned things around for me.

Why, I do believe I may actually start taking photos of Cameron and Avery and Chelsea again. And I've already bought everything Cameron and Avery and I will need to make Christmas cookies this year. I have all the different colored sprinkles and some Christmas cookie cutters sitting on the kitchen counter and Cameron's eyes just light up every time he sees them.

I see the light at the end of this tunnel and I thank each and every one of you. You are amazing.

THE NEW WEEK

My poor daughter Krissy has been sick. She was so miserable all weekend long, I convinced her to call in sick at work today and just give herself the day off. Rob and I took care of getting Cameron to school and Avery to daycare and by the end of the day, Krissy was down here to borrow a loaf pan and she looked about a hundred percent better. I ask you, how often do you get a day completely off when you have a four year old and a 21 month old? That in itself is as good as any medicine I can think of.

Cameron's pediatrician called Kris at work last Friday to let her know they had the H1N1 vaccine in and Cameron should come in right away to get his. Kris said fine, we'll bring him in sometime next week and the doctor said, "No, I was thinking NOW."

Apparently Cameron is extremely high risk because he's only four years old and has full blown type 1 diabetes. It's always scary when a small child gets sick with something like flu, but in Cameron's case, anything that affects his food and liquid intake is especially scary.

So he got his vaccine Friday afternoon and I'm happy to report he had no adverse reaction at all. Andy tells me the shot itself (it's a pretty hefty shot) didn't even phase him.

ALL THAT TO SAY...

I'm better and I'm going to be fine. I cannot tell you how much your encouraging comments and emails helped me.

Thank you.

And happy new week!

Sunday Meanderings

2009-11-08T21:20:00.012-07:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

Smile

Jacob said, "For what a relief it is to see your friendly smile.
It is like seeing the smile of God!"

~~ Genesis 33:10 ~~

A smile is nourishment for the heart, and laughter is medicine for the soul. But sometimes, amid the stresses of the day, we forget to take our medicine. Instead of viewing our world with a mixture of optimism and humor, we allow worries and distractions to rob us of the joy that God intends for our lives.

Today, as you go about your daily activities, approach life with a smile on your lips and hope in your heart. Look for reasons to laugh and to smile. The world needs every smile it can get, including yours.

The more you look for humor,
the more you will find it. ~~ Barbara Johnson

A Prayer: Dear Lord, You have given me so many reasons to celebrate life. Today, let me be a joyful Christian -- quick to smile and quick to laugh. And, let Your love shine in me and through me, this day and forever. Amen.

A Woman of Prayer, 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publishers

SOME NONSENSE

You simply cannot imagine how routine my week has been. For me, routine means that no one was excruciatingly sick (Rob and I both have colds - that's not excruciating) and I'm especially thankful that my grandbabies aren't sick, although I'd love someone to remind me why they ALWAYS have runny noses this time of year, even when they're not sick. Good grief. I wish I owned stock in Kleenex. (I'm lying - I should own stock in the roll of cheap TP I keep on my kitchen counter.)

I have nothing earth shattering to share with you, although I'd like you to hang in and read to the end of this post.

I made a really nice spaghetti dinner for my husband this week and it occurred to me, when I was cooking, that I've never shown you my favorite pot.

Check this out. My pasta pot! Honestly, I've had it forever and it just never occurred to me that it's kind of a unique pot.

Obviously, it's for long pasta like spaghetti or fettuccine, pastas that I cook quite often.

I know what you're thinking. She's really digging. But seriously, this is just the best pot ever.

I'll give you three guesses what I'm working on right now. :-)

I should have started this months ago, but I couldn't because about six months ago, my left wrist went completely nuts and it still hurts so much, all the time, that things like crocheting or hand sewing are really difficult. Santa stars don't require a lot of hand sewing, but when you're making 108 of them (36 sets), just the position you have to have your hand in, the repetitive motion, for each step, becomes difficult.

But...I'm by gosh making Santa stars. And that's a small miracle, because...

SOMETHING YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU'D HEAR ME SAY....

I know that the people who've faithfully followed me for almost four years have been wondering, what on earth is wrong with Barb. I haven't been posting. I haven't been doing craft or cooking tutorials. I haven't been visiting my blogging friends and commenting on their posts.

So here's what's going on. It took me a long, long time, ten months, to figure this out but it finally hit me.

All I want to do is sleep.

I couldn't really care less about food. Therefore, I've been doing the kind of cooking that gets you by but isn't inspirational. I haven't tried a new recipe in forever. Cooking tutorials are pretty hard to come up with when the best you can come up with is grilled cheese and frozen fries.

I've lost interest in blogging because I just don't seem to be able to come up with anything I think anyone would want to read.

I've lost touch with people who I really care about, especially my blogging friends, and I've been so snarlish, I've hurt some feelings too.

All I want to do is sleep.

Last Wednesday, I went to bed at 5:30 in the afternoon. And I slept for fourteen hours. And I woke up feeling tired.

So there you have it.

If this isn't classic depression, I don't know what is.

I have no idea why this has happened. But I do know this. Depression is not to be messed with. It's real and I'm telling you, it not only hurts, it's scary. It affects every last single aspect of who you are and it turns you into someone you don't know.

So I'm working my way through this. I feel like I'm climbing a moutain that just never ends, but I'm working on it.

I truly have no desire to do anything, but I so, so want to make Santa stars. So I make myself get up and work on them, every single day.

I'm forcing myself to go through the motions because I want the holidays to be special for my little family. I want to make it as special as I've always made it, and I think if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, sooner or later I will conquer this.

I'll tell you something. Depression isn't for sissies. So if you know someone who is depressed, please, please extend them some extra kindness, because it's awful.

I hope you never find out how awful it is.

Please don't give up on me. I WILL be back. I'm trying, really really hard.

xoxoxo

I have to share this....

2009-11-01T21:19:00.002-07:00

You know how almost all little trick or treaters say, "Thank you!"? I was sitting on my patio a few minutes ago, enjoying the extremely brisk air, and feeling more than a little envious of the smell of wood smoke (fireplaces) in my neighborhood, when it hit me. Last night, we answered our doorbell almost non-stop for three hours. And I'm guessing that at least half of the kids who came to our door broke out in huges smiles and said, "Thank you, Mr. Rob!" Because they know my husband. Because he works at their school.

It warmed my heart.

Sunday Meanderings

2009-11-01T13:45:00.017-07:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

A Grand Plan

I will instruct you and teach you
in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.

~~ Psalm 32:8 ~~

God has plans for your life that are far grander than you can imagine. But He won't force you to follow His will; to the contrary, He has given you free will, the ability to make choices and decisions on your own. The most important decision of your life is, of course, your commitment to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. And once your eternal destiny is secured, you will undoubtedly ask yourself, "What now, Lord?" If you earnestly seek God's will for your life, you will find it...in time.

Sometimes God's plans are crystal clear, but other times, He may lead you through the wilderness before He delivers you to the Promised Land. So be patient, keep praying, and keep seeking His will for your life. When you do, you'll be amazed at the marvelous things that an all-powerful, all-knowing God can do.

"God has no problems, only plans.
There is never panic in heaven." ~~ Corrie Ten Boom

A Woman of Prayer - 365 Daily Devotions, Freeman-Smith, LLC, Publisher

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

With Andy's return from a week long deer hunting trip (he got a six point buck, by the way), Krissy's life returned to normal this past week. That means mine did too. :-)

Cameron and Avery both had colds but weren't too sick to stay with their normal routine, so right up until Friday evening, my week was quiet and normal. As always, I use the term "normal" loosely. And, for the record, I woke up with a sore throat and sneezing fits today, so, as hard as I tried (constant hand washing, Clorox wipes, avoiding wet kisses), I don't think I escaped it this time. Ahhh. A nice cold to start the winter off right.

Krissy and Andy were invited to a costume party Friday evening. Of course I said I'd babysit, but it seemed ridiculous to either keep the kids up half the night, or wake them in the middle of the night, so we all agreed a sleepover at Nana's house was the best way to go.

I swear, I laughed my head off at Andy's costume. She's Little Red Riding Hood and he's the Big Bad Wolf. She didn't realize her costume was so short - I'm pretty darn sure she stood up very straight, with absolutely no bending over, for the duration of the whole party. LOL

I'm trying to show you the nose on that costume. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see my macho son-in-law in a granny gown with a wolf nose and hairy paws. It really was hysterical.

Going to a party without having to get home early to pick up the kids, and then sleeping in the next morning...that's a rare treat for Krissy and Andy and I was happy to help make it happen. For the first time in a long, long time, Krissy got to sleep straight through. Every night of her life she's up throughout the night to check Cameron's blood glucose level.

My poor little gourds are just about toast now. Avery has played with them until they have no hair, their stems are missing in action and they're a little pathetic. Oh well. They're gourds. They weren't going to live forever anyway, right? :-)

As often as I see and care for my grandchildren, it's a rare treat to have them around in footie pj's, ready for bedtime stories. I read to them for over an hour. It's amazing how much they love such a simple thing as having Nana read stories to them.

I made an executive decision to let them stay up really late because I knew we were all going to be crammed into my bedroom, and it worked. At 11 o'clock, I said, "bedtime," and within five minutes they were both sound asleep.

It was a special evening and I enjoyed every moment of it. And they both slept in so I even came out of it feeling relatively rested. LOL

Last night, Cameron, who is finally old enough (four) that he got really excited about Halloween, was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton.

When Krissy told me about the costume she'd chosen for Avery, I was less than impressed. But look at her. She's a garden gnome! Have you ever seen anything cuter?

It's been so cold here, for the last couple of weeks, I was afraid the kids would be miserable when they went trick or treating. But like some kind of miracle, it warmed up yesterday and they had the perfect evening for it.

I've learned to accept the fact that Cameron has juvenile diabetes. I've gotten pretty good at handling it. But occasionally, something tugs at my heart. A big one is when one of his preschool classmate's mom sends in a sugary treat for snacks. The teacher takes Cameron's away and gives him something sugar free to replace it and I hate, hate, hate that. I know his teacher goes out of her way to prevent him from feeling "different," but still, I just hate it.

So it tugged at my heart that he was so fascinated with the big basket of candy I had ready for the trick or treaters. He played with it all evening long Friday night. He knew without even asking that he couldn't have any of it. But he loved sorting through it. We don't keep candy and a lot of sweets around our house, but we don't hide them from him either. Cameron knows. He just knows and oddly enough, he isn't all that particularly fond of candy.

These are the candies he pulled out for everyone in his family. One is Daddy's, one's Mama's, one is for Papa and so on. He said to me, "I can't have this, huh, Nana. This will make me high."

That statement might be alarming, coming from a different child, but Cameron knows that "high" is bad - high blood sugar means a shot. He was diagnosed two years ago, at 22 months old, and I'm betting he knows more about diabetes now than most adults who've never dealt with it do.

I always sprinkle lots of spider rings into my Halloween candy. He loved that. No sugar or carbs in spider rings!

So all in all, it was a nice week around here. Saturday afternoon Rob took me to Appleby's for lunch. Then we went on a little shopping spree - we always make special Halloween gift bags for Cameron and Avery.

A REAL SURPRISE

When Krissy and the kids and I went to visit Mandy and Aaron two weeks ago, Mandy gave me a book she'd finished, along with several of my Jodi Picoult books she'd borrowed. I put this in my bookshelf and forgot about it, thinking I'd get around to it. Yesterday I found myself picking it up.

I realize I'm about a year behind everyone else. I remember seeing reviews of The Shack all over Bloggityville, about a year ago. (I think you'll enjoy the web site, so I'm linking to it.)

I started this book yesterday morning and finished it this morning. I could barely stand to put it down to answer the door and give out candy last night.

I don't know what to say except that this is such an amazing book, I honestly wanted to crawl into the pages and be there. If you haven't read it, do. The images are so powerful, and the text is so moving, I will never forget it.

I realize that's a pretty pathetic review. But I'm not trying to do a review - I'm just saying I was profoundly moved by The Shack.

A NEW WEEK

As silly as it sounds, it always feels like a little treat to gain an extra hour when the time changes. Going around the whole house changing all the clocks? Not so much. :-)

I find myself moving ahead and thinking about Butterball turkeys. As always, Thanksgiving will be at my house and really, four weeks isn't too soon to start making plans, right? I don't know what on earth I think I'm planning. It's not like the menu has changed in the last 30 years. LOL

And I'll admit, I find myself thinking about Christmas too. I'm not sure if I'm ten months behind or two months early, but it sure feels like I need to be thinking about it!

I hope you have a nice new week ahead of you.

And to all my farming buddies, isn't that new "save to storage" feature in Farm Town just the slickest thing ever?

:-)

Bring it on!

2009-10-28T18:34:00.008-06:00

Hello, Old Man Winter!

OK. You're a little early for western Colorado. You know, desert country. As in WARM almost all the time.

But we can handle you.

It would have been nice if you'd waited until the leaves had fallen off the trees before you dumped this wet, heavy snow on them, but that's OK. We can deal.

Chelsea thinks her "lady's room" sucks. But she can deal too.

And so winter has arrived. I'll admit, every single year, I pray that our weather will hold at least until the day after Halloween because I can't tell you how many years I worked and sewed and sewed and worked to make the most amazing Halloween costumes EVER for Krissy and Mandy, only to cover them up with big heavy coats and snow boots.

I guess God doles out answers to prayers based on merit because really, how important is that stupid prayer? LOL

The truth is, I love this weather, although I do worry about the trees and bushes when a heavy wet snow like this happens too early in the season. What I love is that I don't have to go out into this. For years, I did. I got up and trudged through all kinds of terrible weather, to take my kids to daycare and then go to work...and then pick them up from daycare and come home and do my other full time job - you know. The other eight hours you put in. Being a Mom. Oh! And a wife. :-)

I'm thinking, conservatively, that I did this for 15 years.

So I can't tell you how much I love it that I can wake up to challenging weather and know that all I have to do is just go get another cup of coffee and sit somewhere warm, where I can enjoy the looks of it all. I've always thought snow and cold and see-your-breath-in-the-air weather is beautiful.

It took me a few minutes this morning, to figure out what on earth happened to my pretty snow.

And then I realized...I was looking at my husband Rob's footsteps in the snow. As cold and wet and miserable as it was this morning, he went out there and filled the sweet bird feeder he built for me this summer because he was concerned that our little birds weren't quite ready for this weather. That struck me as very sweet.

And Chelsea is in this picture. Can you see her?

Three guesses where Chelsea went yesterday. And yeah, she was ticked off at me. That little dog has got pouting down to a fine art. Even I will admit, the Halloween decoration on her collar is a little annoying. But boy, she sure smells good. You'd never know she was a dog. Not that I've ever thought of Chelsea as a "dog." :-)

Happy winter! Let's just embrace it, shall we? :-)

Sunday Meanderings

2009-10-25T19:56:00.016-06:00

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - A DEVOTIONAL

What Kind of Example?

You are the light that gives light to the world.
In the same way, you should be a light
for other people.
Live so that they will see the good things you do
and will praise your Father in heaven.

~~ Matthew 5:14,16 ~~

Whether we like it or not, all of us are examples. The question is not whether we will be examples to our families and friends; the question is simply what kind of examples will we be.

What kind of example are you? Are you the kind of woman whose life serves as a powerful example of righteousness? Are you a woman whose behavior serves as a positive role model for young people? Are you the kind of woman whose actions, day in and day out, are based upon integrity, fidelity, and a love for the Lord? If so, you are not only blessed by God, you are also a powerful force for good in a world that desperately needs positive influences such as yours.

D. L. Moody advised, "A man ought to live so that everybody knows he is a Christian, and most of all, his family ought to know." And that's sound advice because our families and friends are watching....and so, for that matter, is God.

A Woman of Prayer, 365 Daily Devotionals, Freeman-Smith LLC, Publishers

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

It's been a while (all summer) since I've done Sunday Meanderings. I'm not sure I can even say why, except to say that I just lost it for a while. I've seen a lot of that going around in Bloggityville. Even I, who never runs out of words, ran out.

For some reason, it feels like this past summer just whizzed by me. Maybe it's because Cameron and Avery grew so much. It seems like they were baby/toddler one minute and suddenly they're "kids." Avery is suddenly running around all over and talking so that I can actually understand what she's saying. And Cameron is in preschool. He's doing really well and of course his teachers love him. They're both great kids.

Suddenly it's cold and wintry looking around here. Can you believe Saturday is Halloween? I've made a major decison regarding this autumn - I'm not going to go into my usual fall cleaning frenzy. I've decided this house is just fine and doesn't need a fall cleaning. I'm going to steam clean the carpet tomorrow and dust the blinds on all the windows and call it good. :-)

So Cameron has learned how to harvest my crops. LOL I'm not kidding, he knows how to harvest my Farm Town crops and my FarmVille crops. I have the animal sounds turned up so he can hear all the animals and he really gets a kick out of clicking on the crops and harvesting them.

On Fridays, Cameron and Avery are both here with me all day. By Friday, after a full week of preschool on Cameron's part and daycare on Avery's part, they're both just worn out. But still, when Avery goes down for her nap, Cameron (naps are in his past) loves to sit on my lap and help me take care of my farms.

This past Friday he seemed a little less than enthusiastic. He has a cold so he was tired, and I noticed that he kind of slid off my lap and laid down on the floor next to my chair. He started singing all the new songs he's learned in preschool - Five Little Monkeys - I'm a Little Teapot - The ABC song. He was just laying on his back, in a world of his own, singing away. I swear, it was so adorable because it was like I wasn't even here, he was so engrossed in his songs.

I'm sitting here harvesting crops and suddenly I start hearing a sound that's like waves coming in to the shore, at the beach. I thought, "What the heck?"

And then I realized Cameron had stopped singing and started snoring. And this is what I saw.

Sound asleep.

With his monkey as his pillow.
Papa gave Cameron that little $5 monkey for his first Christmas.
It goes everywhere except to school with him. :-)

He slept there, right on my office floor, without even twitching, for THREE hours! I tried my best to feel guilty about that. And then I said, whatever, and threw a blanket over him and let him be. :-)

CHELSEA

Here's Chelsea with her Barbie doll a few weeks ago.

She's pretty rough on her dolls LOL.

I don't know how summer turned into autumn so quickly, but tonight when I went out to sit on my back patio, I was driven back inside by the cold, cold wind. Good grief, I think winter is about to arrive.

Happy new week everyone. And don't forget to turn your clocks back next weekend.

xoxoxo

Autumn...I love it

2009-10-22T16:48:00.000-06:00

Here's the only thing I bought at the pumpkin patch Mandy and Aaron took us to last Saturday. Every time Avery sees these little gourds, she giggles out loud, so I've decided to stop kicking myself in the behind for what I paid for these.
:-)

I also bought a new rake recently. It's red. And it's all mine. Clearly, I need a rake. Look at the leaf fall from my crab apple tree! LOL

OK. See that? That's my next door neighbor's tree. I'll give you three guesses where all those leaves are going to fall. And THAT'S why I bought a new rake. A red one. (I really, really like my new rake.) Look at the three bushes growing right up against that white fence. See the one on the right? The one above Chelsea? It was out of control and I asked Rob to trim it for me. He took me quite seriously. Sigh. You have to click on the photo to appreciate what I'm saying here. I have no idea if that bush is going to recover from this "trimming."

Here are my tomato plants. Maybe it's because this was the first year I finally managed to successfully grow tomatoes, but I just can't bring myself to pull these up and toss them.

I can't use that excuse for these petunias. I've always been able to grow pretty petunias. This gets chalked up to sheer laziness.

Of all the bushes in our yard, this one is my favorite. It's so pretty when all the leaves turn bright red. Then they all fall off and it's ugly. But right now, it's gorgeous.

Looking out my patio doors yesterday at 4 p.m.

Looking out my patio doors today at 4 p.m.

It's true. In Colorado, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.

Autumn. I love every last single thing about it. :-)