diabetes, insulin pump, pump user, diabetic, Kentucky, arthritis, migraine, neuropathy, glaucoma, recurrent erosion syndrome, Stephens-Johnson Syndrome, SJS, TENS, birds, bird watching, flowers, garden, poodle, pets, dogs, nature, outdoor photos
June 19, 2009
file box: (fluffy pie, takin' care of business) by g~

Hello, Blog.

Yes, I know. I am terribly sorry for the way I’ve been neglecting you. And you know I have no real reason. Life. You know, I mean REAL life seems so often to get in the way.

Oh, you remember those posts about how I am now addicted to playing PackRat on Facebook? OooOOOooh, okay. So maybe it’s not REAL real life getting in the way. It’s just my unbelievable obsession with that blasted game. *sigh*

But wait, dear Blog, there actually IS some REAL real life stuff in there. For instance, did you know that I have been working a temporary job for the past two weeks? Hmm? How about that?

Oh. Yeah, I guess you have a point. If I didn’t post about it, how would you know?

*sigh* Okay then… maybe you should keep in mind the fact that the job itself is one of the things that can get in the way… just like the fact that we’ve been trying to regularly attend Sunday School and evening services along with helping out with the Wednesday night kids’ program. And we’ve put out a garden in the backyard this summer. Aaaand the 4H Shooting Sports program has started back up again and as coaches, we have a lot of responsibility. Besides that, just getting a place to hold practices has been an effort us coaches had to undertake ourselves! (but that’s a whole ‘nother story!) And for future reference, I’ve been tapped to teach a class at VBS which is coming up next week.

So, Bloggy dear, don’t get TOO high and mighty with me over this whole neglect thing, okay? I DO have a life outside of you. *hmph!* Besides, do you have any clue how much aggravation I’ve had with just trying to keep you from going haywire? Just tonight I had to google how to get to my login page when there was NO LINK to the login page actually on you?! Hmmm? Yeah.

Okay, I REALIZE that is probably due to having a lousy template that’s been poorly coded, but that’s not actually MY fault now, is it? What?!! PAY for a nice template for you?! My dear Blog! Do you realize that I already have to pay for the domain you so casually enjoy? AND the web space you amply fill? Did you ever even consider that? Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?! Hmmm?

I think maybe you just need some time alone to think about how ungrateful you are, that’s what *I* think. So you just sit there in that corner and study on how much energy and money it takes to support you and when you think you can talk to me in a kinder tone, you know where to find me.

What? Oh. Well, when I know where I’ll be, I’ll come post about it, okaaaay?



May 28, 2009
file box: (news & stuff) by g~

A lot of you out there may have already seen this one in your inbox. I always try to investigate a little to see if there is truth behind these kind of email news flashes, so I went on snopes.com to check it out. What I found there was that they could neither confirm nor deny verification of this letter, so without further adieu, I wanted to share it with you::
=====================================
April 17, 2009 The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally. You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America .

You are responsible to the citizens of the United States. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth. I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe?
Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century? Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States?

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this? Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don’t show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can’t find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don’t want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What’s the matter with you? I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it. What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members — on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven’t said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn’t!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that’s $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million — not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven’t you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now. I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do.

We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country. Sincerely,

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro, MO 63050



May 05, 2009
file box: (just fyi) by g~



April 28, 2009
file box: (life as we know it) by g~

Can someone tell me HOW on this EARTH could a so-called president of the United States think we’d believe he was not aware of the unconscionable, thoughtless Air Force One fly-over in NYC?

Is he serious? And if that is the truth, then we need to know just who IS running the show in Washington?? And how can someone, even your average Joe, think that a 747 being followed by a US fighter jet isn’t going to cause alarm when it swoops down over Ground Zero?!?!

People, this country is doomed for we have a bunch of absolute idiots running the thing. Purebred IDIOTS!

I am SO furious about this. Mayor Bloomberg is fully within his rights to be enraged. I’m right there with him. What a stupid stunt for the “leader” of the free world to pull!!! Talk about making us all look like an ignorant country! Barak is doing it and then some.

Like we needed him to further cut America’s world standing? I mean, wasn’t it enough that he traveled to a foreign country and APOLOGIZED for our insensitivity and ungratefulness to a continent that WE came to rescue in decades past?!?!?!?! Good Lord, deliver us!

Isn’t it enough that he went down to visit with his buddy in Cuba? That he wants to turn loose all those poor terrorists and tell the ones we haven’t caught what to expect in case we do? Or rather, that we’ll stop being so ‘mean’ to them.

WHAT MORE CAN THIS IDIOT DO TO INJURE AND DEGRADE OUR COUNTRY!?!?!

God, have mercy on America. She elected an immoral ignoramus to run her business but not all of us were complicit. For our sakes Lord, please grant us Your mercy!!

This post isn’t open for debate. You wanna discuss these topics, great. I welcome it. But don’t start an argument about the facts I’ve stated. I don’t wanna hear it.

Thanks.



April 23, 2009

…treat their own kids so badly??

*sigh*

I’m feeling really frustrated right now. If you can figure out what this is all about, good. If not, well, I’m going to refrain from posting too many names here out of respect for my daughter-in-love and NOT for the sake of anyone else.

So, yeah, poor Melissa seems to be plagued with problems when it comes to her parents. If you’ve known me since last year, then you might recall how childish the mother’s behavior was and how many petty things she found to complain to Melissa about. Most of it had to do with me because it seemed I was the one who always made myself available to do many of the wedding prep things that had to be done with Melissa. And I loved it. I mean, it wasn’t out of any sense of obligation that I did them. I wanted to help. But it seemed her mother couldn’t be bothered with those things… and then she would be mad at Melissa for having the audacity to take ME along. ARGH!

I don’t want to resurrect any of that awful stuff though. But I have to say that they’ve repeatedly treated both of the kids (my Corey and Melissa) rudely and with no respect. They take every opportunity to stir up trouble and try to manipulate Melissa into feeling guilty or … or … SOMEthing! I just don’t know WHY they would act the way they do.

I’m fine with the fact that Mel’s mother hasn’t really even spoken to me since before the wedding and even then it was only the very basic have-to-know type of information. I don’t care about that. If it makes her feel better somehow then good. That’s great. But then she still finds it somehow necessary to treat Melissa and Corey this way?

She’s going so far as to involve Mel’s four younger siblings. They’re from age 13 down to 7 - 8 years old. I tell you that so you can understand the lengths this woman goes to trying to “get to” Melissa. The mother won’t call Mel up and tell her what’s bothering her. Nope. She puts one of the two older kids on the phone, then tells them what to say to Melissa… when Mel can hear her perfectly talking in the background. I just think that’s pathetic. And I’ll never, ever understand that.

It seems that Melissa, horrible daughter she is, didn’t call to “remind” her family of when Corey’s birthday was. I’m not sure how they found out other than maybe Mel told her sister while they were im-ing. She had planned for weeks to have a family dinner for Corey… like I said in a previous post… us, my parents and Tommy’s parents, Corey’s grandparents, ya know?? So apparently the sister told the mom, who then I suppose said something to the effect, “Melissa doesn’t want us to be involved in Corey’s/our son-in-law’s/your brother-in-law’s life!” And from there it went from bad to worse with Mel’s little brother hanging up on her and her sister refusing to chat with her online anymore.

Melissa doesn’t say much about when she’s upset with her family’s “antics”, and she rarely shows that she’s hurt by the things they do so when I saw her visibly shaken over this horribly petty, nasty treatment, I thought, as a certain commentator says, “blood was gonna shoot out my eyes!” :mad:

I ended up taking her for a long Saturday of flea marketing and we had a lot of fun together. I’m so glad that we have this kind of relationship, but it grieves my heart to see her so hurt by the things her family does.

*sigh* I wish I could somehow fix it for her, but I can’t. If it wasn’t for worrying about her brothers and sisters, it wouldn’t be such a dilemma for her…. but she DOES worry. She sees that a chasm is being forced between she and them and it just breaks her heart.

Lord Jesus, I pray that you would take the scales from their eyes… let them see how wrongly their actions are and how much they’re hurting their daughter. Give Melissa a peace and the strength to do what she should do, whatever that may be. Give me the wisdom to be a good supporter, sounding board, friend without giving more advice than is wanted. Don’t let me be a stumbling block.

…. pray with me for Melissa when you think of it, would you? I’d be very grateful if you did.

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April 16, 2009
file box: (ain't that special?) by g~

*sigh* April is such a rough month for me. And isn’t that terrible of me to say?! I mean, part of the reason it’s usually so “rough” is because both my boys’ birthdays are in April. So, yeah… you guessed it.

Corey turns TWENTY today! ACK!! I have such a hard time dealing with the changes that my double-whammy birthday month make. And this year, there’s a THIRD WHAMMY!! (yes! who knew there were others?!) And that was Casey getting his permit on top of them making me all older again. *sheesh!*

Corey’s little wifey Melissa hosted a big dinner with both sets of grandparents, us three and my sister and a friend. It was a trailer full, that’s for sure! But everyone had a really good time. Corey showed us a bunch of pictures on his whopper 42″ LCD tv, which was awesome because it just made the pix pop SO much! He then showed them how he’d modded his xbox 360 so it plays old Nintendo games! It sounds kinda “Eh, so what?” unless you see it. He’s been talking about it for weeks, but once I saw it I had to admit, it was pretty cool. Hearing Mario Bros. music took me waaaay back in time!

Anyhow, it was such a nice time and we KNOW that for sure because unlike the grandparents’ usual custom of leaving shortly after the meal and/or festivities are over, they stayed until well past 10pm! Talking and laughing the whole time!

So, so nice. :)

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby boy!

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April 15, 2009

YAY!! Casey got his permit today. (and yeah, I’m still alive! LOL!)

There was a whole bunch of crud we had to wade through since Monday, but that’s for another time…right now is celebration time!

I guess I won’t be needing my car keys anytime soon….

;)

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April 13, 2009

Casey’s going to test for his permit. *biting fingernails* I hope he does well! Since we home school, he’s not entirely experienced in “formal” test taking. I just hope he doesn’t get flustered.

Well… here we go!!! :shock:

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April 02, 2009

How in the world did I get here?

That’s how I feel right now. My youngest, Casey, is sixteen today. And I am flabbergasted! I guess it’s just the “reality” of his birthday actually being here that makes it so crazy to me.

I’ll post a pic asap because I’m in a terrible hurry right now… cakes to bake, party hats to don, all that stuff. ;)

He’s been going over the driver’s test manual for weeks now… and I think I’m flabbergasted now? …just wait til I take him for that test!!! YIKES!

;) TTFN—

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March 30, 2009

That’s me. ;) I can’t seem to think of a single thing to write about. In general, my real life is pretty boring. And the old gray matter is just not what it used to be, so I’m definitely not so good at spinning goofy tales anymore. *sigh*

Depressing, right? Well, yeah, except for my Savior. He makes everything okay. Not perfect, because what good would that do? To give ease and luxury to Your followers. How would You know if they loved You and weren’t there just because You made life easy for them?

In the same way that God gives us a free will, He also leaves our lives on the same plane as the rest of mankind. God doesn’t want mere humaniods, devoid of decision-making capabilities. What good is devotion that is “forced”… or really not even that… it would be manufactured. As if we assembled a troop of barbie dolls & soldier action figures around us and posed them in prone position and imagined that they were all chanting “Hail thee, O Great One!” to us.

Silly, huh? Yeah. That’s how it would be for God to have “made” us to love Him. Even though we are all made BY Him, He gives us free will to choose to love Him or not. And keep in mind that when one of His creations, you and I, choose to reject Him it causes great heartache. Just as it does when a child or dearly beloved person rejects us. It’s horribly painful.

And yet? God granted us this freedom. I struggle to understand how people can reject God after being presented with all He has done for them. I know there are a multitude of reasons, all with their own complexities. But still…how can people reject God?

I have a new burning desire to see people come to know God and trust in Jesus as their Savior and Lord of their lives. Somehow, the urgency is stronger than before. Maybe it’s just me maturing a little bit in my walk. I dunno. But the feeling of expediency is so, SO strong.

Jesus has been SO good to me. He’s brought me through a multitude of medical and physical trials. Times when I should have or could have died. But He didn’t allow it. Times when my children or husband or parents could have been instantly taken away, but He spared them. For my sake? Maybe not, but even so, I was blessed by having them with me… not having to deal with the terrible pain of losing them. He’s blessed me with healthy, loving children when “reality” would say that I couldn’t have healthy babies. My reality is Christ.

That’s where I get peace. That’s why I’m not really frightened by anything. Not worsening medical problems. Not lack of money and overabundance of bills. Not the looming economic disaster.

Why should I worry? Jesus is in control of it all. God knows what is going to happen, and no matter what it is, He will keep me in His hands, safe and secure. Even if I die, even if the worst possible scenario happens to me, I can have peace. Isn’t that amazing? I know that no matter what happens to me, Jesus knows about it, it is in His plan and He will not forsake me.

“And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” ~Luke 4:47

“2 Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”
~II Corinthians 1:2-4

“Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.” ~II Thessalonians 3:16

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: …. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” ~John 14:27

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” ~Matthew 10:28

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March 26, 2009
file box: (just fyi) by g~

*sigh* I know, I know… you think I’m just an awful person for abandoning my blog this way! And you’re RIGHT!! But I didn’t MEAN to! :) Really. It’s just that I got so busy with the stuff on Facebook and then… y’know, the real life stuff gets a little hairy sometimes.

The scoop on us right now? Well, a couple weeks ago we took a surprise trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The kids, Corey & Melissa, had planned a trip to a cabin there back in December as their Christmas gift for each other, so they’d gone down there on Thursday evening.

It came up this freak, sudden snow storm that laid down 2 inches in about 15 minutes and overall, at least here at the house, we had almost 4 inches total! Very freaky! And so… when the kids were about 35 minutes away on the interstate, they lost control and wrecked!!

:shock: I was SO stunned! Thank God, they weren’t hurt and neither was the car, but it was clearly God’s doing because they did a 360* spin and then a 180* spin and ended up facing north in the southbound lane with one big, fat, not-made-for-off-road tire in the median and the other just barely off the yellow line.

And there they sat. AAAHHHHHH!!!

It was kinda funny because Tommy was talking to Corey on two-way at the time talking about the weather as we were looking at a radar map. He overheard Melissa say, “We got this far, we’re not going back now!” Then, apparently in a split second, they wrecked! Tommy and Casey left here in our 4-wheel drive, sliding all the way to the end of our road which never gets salted…

I was so worried! The plan was to transfer the kids to our vehicle and Tommy would bring the Mustang home. The closest exit was further south about 6 miles, and by the time they got there it was mostly rain and the snow was going away. They decided to just keep on going in the Mustang and really, that was probably safer. That thing’s not made for anything but hard asphalt and Tommy wasn’t too comfortable with trying to drive it back in the awful snow that we still had at the house.

So… that chaos behind us, the kids called every night and Friday Corey had an “idea”. Why don’t we come down and spend the night Saturday? Hm. Sure, it sounded great to me! Then I figured out why… *heh* or at least part of the reason… Corey wanted to buy a large flat panel tv and couldn’t get it in the Mustang! LOL! :lol: What a stink!

Well, we headed off with enough clothes for two days, Tommy said, “Just in case.” We had a blast at the cabin with the kids. We grilled steaks, we watched movies, we played in the hot tub… it was great! Then we went out for breakfast the next morning and to buy the tv.

By that time, Tommy had decided we would stay another night. :smile:

Since it was Sunday, we found a nice motel room for cheap and stayed right in Gatlinburg. Monday we were kinda leaving it up to Casey what to do. He wanted to go skiing! None of us have ever done that before, but he was all ready to give it a try. So we boarded the tram and headed to the top of the mountain. Once there though, we found out they had closed the ski slope just the day before!! :( But Casey soon found something else he wanted to try… ice skating! :shock: I was forced to don blades and give it a try, too. It turns out that as long as I can keep moving my feet, I’m fine, but when I try to just coast? ForGET it! After two very public, funny falls I decided my feet and legs just couldn’t take it anymore.

Casey, on the other hand… he took to it as if he’d done it for years! Even Tommy could get around the rink without much trouble. But not this gal. Nope. I don’t think I’ll be trying that again!

Next the guys decided we’d try snow tubing. Hmm. I wasn’t much interested in that either, but again, Tommy said he was buying the ticket and if I didn’t like it after one try, that would be fine. Gah! I was aghast because those tickets were $20 a pop! But he was determined and so up the conveyor I went with my tube and then DOWN the slope I went…

The initial drop was the worst part. The first time, my heart jumped up in my throat, I think. But after that? Weeelllll, it was pretty fun! We spend almost 2 hours going up that slow conveyor to the top and then shooshing down in wet snow with alternating sprinkles of rain or a fine wet mist.

By the time we were done, I was soaked. There was only the two spots on the front of my thighs that was dry-ish on my jeans. The rest was drenched. I had on a zipper hoodie over a t-shirt and that was saturated but not “drippy” wet and my hair was soaked through! The boys were all wet, too of course. So we stood in line to get those overpriced pix they take… but they were so good, we couldn’t resist them. :) See??



By that time, Tommy had already been mulling over staying another night… so we, shivering the whole while, decided that the room MUST have a hot tub! Not a jacuzzi, but a hot tub. We stopped at about three places right there in town, but none of those had hot tubs. So… we decided that since it was the same price to get a jacuzzi room as a cabin with a jacuzzi AND a hot tub… we’d just get a cabin!

It was pretty slick… we called Corey and told him our plan. He got on the ‘net and found a couple of cabins that looked really nice AND were not occupied. We stopped at trusty Walmart and almost froze while we picked out some nice steaks and breakfast foods AND some clothes! Then headed on to the cabin rental place… We went in and asked to see those cabins Corey had told us about, looked them over and quickly made our decision.

It was SOOO nice to be in a cabin instead of a hotel room! There was a wood-burning fire place so the boys immediately started a fire. Oooh, how nice!! :D We lounged in the hot tub while the steaks were on the grill, then dried off, ate our yummy supper by firelight and yeah, hopped back in the tub for a few more minutes. We all slept like rocks that night!! ;)

Next morning we… well, mostly Casey (!) voluntarily made a great breakfast of pancakes, steak and eggs! We took our time packing up, snapping pix (I’ll get some up here asap!) and just enjoying the sunshine after the days of rain. We spent pretty much all of Tuesday shopping for a four bedroom cabin for all of us to stay in around Christmas time.

Corey came up with the idea and we thought it was great, of course. We’d been mentioning it to my parents but never got much response. Tommy’s parents, after mulling over whether they could afford it, decided yeah, they would be all for it, too.

Then my parents, when confronted with the idea, slammed on the brakes. :( I dunno why they’re like that. Dunno if they’re thinking they couldn’t stand being “cooped up” with the rest of us that long or what. I am certain they don’t understand what kind of cabin we’re talking about… with TONS of room and awesome views, etc., etc…. But either way, whether or not they come, at least us and the kids will go and Tommy’s parents talked like that would come even if mine didn’t go… so… it’ll be kinda sucky to make that our Christmas to each other and then Mom and Dad not there. *sigh*

Well, there’s time, but not much!, to talk them into it. We just gotta sit them down and coerce them a little. ;) Yeah, whatever… they’re more stubborn than a mule sometimes so we’ll just have to see how it goes. *sigh*

I’d better quit now and get to work. Hope you have a beautiful day!!

God bless you,
G~

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February 14, 2009
file box: (ain't that special?) by g~

Check out my recently published content on AC:

Stupid Cupid



January 28, 2009
file box: (just fyi) by g~

VERY, VERY RED!

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted an entry here! What an awful blogger I’ve become, right?

Well, yeah, you’re right. But I really HAVE been pretty busy. And you can blame it all on Facebook! If you haven’t been reading here before now, you don’t know how I only signed up on Facebook to be able to play a game called PackRat. And how horribly addicted I became to it and how I had to completely STOP visiting Facebook because of how much time I was spending playing!! Gah!

And if you haven’t been reading here, you don’t know that I am really NOT the type of person who gets that caught up in games. I’ve never been a really big “game person”, probably because I’m not very competitive in things like that. But then, PackRat isn’t a exactly a competitive game, either.

ANYhow… I ran across a few friends from high school… and then a few more… and then I had about 13 or so pals that I’d either graduated with or with some of their siblings or just a year or so behind or ahead of them. I wondered if it wouldn’t be lots easier to just make a “Class of” group for my high school. But that’s where I’d found some of the friends now on my list.

It needed to be bigger… so I settled on creating a group for the entire 80’s decade. So, we’re the 80’s Edition of my high school’s alumni.

I have had a BLAST connecting with people I haven’t seen in over 20 years. I’ve rekindled old friendships, discovered new ones with people I saw every day, but never had an opportunity to know back then. It’s just been a real blessing and in less than a month, the group has grown to almost 175 members. That’s without any advertising. There are a few people I’ve noticed who are technically too young to be there… some of those wanna-be’s from the graduating classes of the 90’s… but you can’t really blame them for wanting to be with us.

The 80’s will always rule as the Decade of Cool! :cool:

Besides all the friends from high school, there are all of my PackRatting buddies. All told, I now have almost 400 friends on my list!!! :shock: I know!! Whodda ever thunk that? ;)

And now, because I know that at least for the time being, I will spend more time there managing my buttload of buddies (eww!) here’s my link on Facebook.

Come by and add me to your friends list if you want to catch up with me. Let me know you’ve been here at my blog.

More later… (notice, I didn’t say how much later, but I am working toward having a more cohesiveness to this blog and writing more regularly)

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January 08, 2009

ARGH! I know, I know… I feel just AWFUL for leaving my poor blog all on its lonesome for such a long time!!

You KNOW what I’m going to say, right? “I’ve been busy!” ;) Always and forever. Just BUSY!

Isn’t that just kinda the way of life in the 21st century?

Okay, so… we had an awesome Christmas. Somehow, at the last minute it seemed, we found out that there was going to be a special service at church on Christmas Eve, so we pushed back the get together at my sis’s house til after that.

It was a late night, but very nice. Sis’s husband is still pretty out of sorts with us around. He seemed to really want us to leave the later it got. And to be honest, everyone was ready to go, too. We were so tired!

Several years ago we decided to go “simple” with our eats on Christmas Eve. I mean, who wants to be so tired from cooking all day that they can’t enjoy the festivities?? Anyhow, so Melissa made potato soup and I made a ton of chili. I used TEN POUNDS of meat!! Eight pounds of hamburger and two pounds of ground turkey. I’d use more turkey if it were just me, but the boys start to whine if foods get “too healthy”. But adding at least SOME ground turkey seems to make the rest of the burger a smaller, smoother texture. I don’t like chili with huge balls of burger in it! Ugh!

Mom fixed a layered salad and this wonderful chocolate truffle. I made some spinach dip, which, because I seldom ever measure anything, always comes out a little different. This dip… this night.. it was AWEsome!! Everyone was shoveling it in and talking about how great it was. YUM! :D

I also made one of those “Extract Cake”s. The bundt cakes that you put a bunch of flavored extracts in and then drizzle a very thin glaze full of extracts, too. It is SO yummy!! My father-in-law went wild over it… I took one to their house, too. I think they said he ate like five pieces while we were over there, they kept 3 slices and he ended up eating all but a half slice of those!! :shock: So.. I made sure I had ANOTHER one around for Christmas morning.

Even though, had it been up to me alone, I probably would have foregone the big Christmas Morning Breakfast here at our house. I dunno why… I was just tired! Anyhow, Tommy pointed out to me that we really HAVE to keep this tradition going. It’s really the only one that is uniquely ours. If we stopped doing it, when WOULD we all gather together to just visit??

We have my in-laws, my parents, sis and her dh, now Corey and Melissa and usually at least one family friend… most of the time it’s 3 or more. So, it’s a big deal and we just eat breakfast, relax over coffee, chat over sweets, laugh over games… it really IS one of my favorite times at Christmas and I’d be sick if we didn’t do it. *sigh* I just get tired sometimes and it seems like too big a task.

But… it was wonderful. Am I’m thankful to have a helpful family!

New Year’s Eve was spent at a wonderful church service with The Rowlands (less Kyla). We had a fellowship meal of sandwiches and desserts (always desserts! :) and then we prayed in The Year 2009. It was tiring, which isn’t very unusual obviously, but I wouldn’t have missed it!

Now? Now I am in the middle of trying to wean off a LOT of my nerve pain meds in an effort to STOP my frequent typing of the phrase “I’m so tired.” :)

So far, so good. I might explain more about all that later. Right now? I’m… what else?

TIRED. :(

Slide Show w/PicLens Lite (if available) PicLens


December 12, 2008
file box: (fluffy pie) by g~

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
~Author Unknown