I'm Back!

Hi everybody! I'm sorry I haven't been on here for a little while...we actually got back late Saturday night, but the last few days have been pretty busy, and the next couple days will be even more busy. So I'm taking a few minutes here to bring everybody up to date, but I'm not sure when I'll get the time to go around and visit everybody, so forgive me if I don't get over to say hi for a little while yet.

Thank you all *so* much for all the kind comments you've left -- I can't tell you how great it feels to know that people all around are praying for our family and understand what we're going through. Thank you, Mrs. Theresa, Amy Elizabeth, Mrs. Connie, Mrs. Heather, Kate, A Heart of Praise, and Chris, for the sweet comments and for your thoughts and prayers.

My grandma's memorial was very good, and being with family that I haven't seen for years was wonderful. For the first time ever I was able to celebrate my birthday with all three of my mother's siblings present (and two of the siblings' spouses). Yes, my birthday was January 23rd, as some of you may know. I mentioned earlier that I will soon post a memorial for Grandma here on this blog. I had intended to do so by now, but I have not yet been able to compile everything that I want, and I'll be pretty busy for awhile, so I will probably not get that posted before another week or two go by. As a matter of fact, I may save the whole memorial to post on her birthday in June. We'll have to see how it all works out.

Tomorrow starts the California Expo of the Equine Affaire! We will be volunteering Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so if you attend, look for us! This will be the second year we've volunteered. It's a lot of fun watching the demos and clinics, and browsing in the shopping halls, and we really enjoy volunteering also. This year we are selling programs Thursday, and working in the Youth Pavilion on Friday and Saturday.

However, there's a bit of a hitch in our plans. Monday night, after we came home from my sign language class, I was romping on the floor with my Casey Baby, when my right big toe caught in the carpet and bent. The instant I felt the pain I reflexively grabbed my toe, and felt/heard a POP! I had socks on, so we couldn't see exactly what happened, but we're pretty sure that I dislocated my toe and then popped it back into socket. It hurt like crazy, but I could bend and wiggle it, and slowly the pain subsided some...and then the toe stiffened up and wouldn't bend, and hurt *so* bad if I tried to force it to bend. So I spent most of yesterday stuck on the couch, doing schoolwork and then watching movies. Mom even borrowed a pair of crutches from a neighbor and made me learn to use them. We weren't sure exactly what happened, and thought it might be necessary to visit a doctor today, since I could've broken it. But when I woke up this morning, praise the Lord, I could bend it without so much pain, I could walk! Mom still wants me to keep most of my weight off it today, and keep icing it, especially because I'll need to walk around some starting tomorrow. We are rejoicing and thanking God that it was not broken or otherwise badly injured, and that it seems to be healing...especially since I intend to wear my boots tomorrow, and we weren't sure if I could even get my foot into my boot with an injured toe.

One last thing before I leave -- we've been getting some chilly, rainy weather lately, and I am expecting another ant invasion any day now. We're getting the secret weapons ready, and preparing ourselves to meet and defeat the ants in battle!

Quick Update

I have just a moment, I'm at my grandparents'...I mean, my grandfather's house. It's so hard not to say "Grandma and Papa" any more, just to keep it to "Papa"... I miss my grandma something fierce, and being here without her being here just seems so empty...

The Lord is good -- the Lord is very, very good; He is not good because He has blessed us in many ways these last few days, but He has shown again and again His goodness. He provided last-minute (as in, the next morning) flights for not horribly expensive costs; He provided someone to house-sit and dog-sit for us on such short notice (the kennel we usually board Baby at was full); our pastor, wife, and my beautiful niece took us to the airport, since my dad is out of town; our flight from CA to FL had a stop in GA, which was very stormy, so our connecting flight from GA to FL was cancelled -- but we got onto the next flight to FL, a couple hours later, despite being on standby due to the plane being over-booked; our flights didn't even have much turbulence or such problems, were very uneventful; my dad, who's on a business trip to GA right now, was able to meet us at the GA airport and have dinner with us; and here we are, safe and sound!

The last two days have been 4:00 AM to 11:00 PM days for me, which is quite a bit longer than my usual 5AM-9PM day, so I am just dragging. I think I did get about 5-7 hours of sleep this morning, so I'm not quite as tired as I was yesterday, but I think I will sleep well tonight!

The memorial is at 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. There will be no viewing, since she is to be cremated, but we will have her memorial. We've been going through old boxes in the closet, sorting through old pictures... When we get back home and I gather up everything I want, I am going to do a post as a memorial of her, with pictures and memories...

It's been nice spending time with family today, since my mom and I, Mom's oldest sister with her husband and four kids (ranging in age from 25 to, I think, about 12 or 13), Mom's other sister (her husband and kids couldn't come), are all here, and, flying in tonight, Mom's big brother with his wife and their daughter (who's in her early 20's, but their two sons can't come). My poor mother, the youngest of the four children, is constantly being called (by everybody but me) the name of one of the sisters! It's pretty funny.

I'm going to stop now, but I hope to post again in about a week or so, hopefully with Grandma's memorial. Until then, God bless you all!

Change of Plans

Hi everybody -- I probably won't be posting again for awhile, as several of our plans have changed. At about 4:00 this morning we got a call saying that my grandma, my mom's mom, passed away this morning. It was very peaceful and quiet, she just went to sleep here on earth and woke up in our Savior's arms.

We'll be flying over for the funeral in another day or two, but we don't know quite when yet, so if y'all could keep us in your prayers we'd really appreciate it. Please pray for safe traveling mercies, and for flying arrangements (the lower the cost the better), and for the grief of our whole family. We are rejoicing that she is now with Jesus, but it still hurts like crazy! We've known for awhile now that this was very close...but we didn't know it was this close...

Later I will post a memorial for her, but for right now life must go on...

Comedy Part 1 = Mark Lowry

OK folks -- I decided awhile back to post youtube videos of some of my favorite comedians, so that y'all could get a good laugh out of them too. Everything on here should be pretty clean, however, if you find anything in any of these videos that offends you, please let me know! Also, I may not necessarily agree with all opinions and ideas contained in these videos.

That said, this series of posts will have five parts, one posted each month. This month it is my all-time favorite comedian -- please welcome Mark Lowry!!

Cool Water


Bill Gaither's song, Jake Hess's wig


Ducks and Fat


Presbyterian Baptismal/Being Single


The Old Sanctuary


The New Dentist (bad quality)


Take a Pill And Cook the Vegetables!


Gaithers sing Turn Your Radio On


Miss Barth


Lowry and The Trio -- Miss Barth and TV Tunes


Psychiatric Help


Mamma Had Enough


Turning 40

Please Welcome My Friend to the Blogosphere

When I was little my mom used to babysit the little neighbor boy, and he and I were best friends for years, until we moved away. His name was Prestin, and now he has his own blog! I haven't seen him in several years, as we live in different states now, but his mom and mine are corresponding again now, and Prestin is now a blogger, The Little Drummer Boy. Please welcome him to the blogosphere!

WARNING: As most of my readers are very conservative ladies, I must add the warning that the views expressed and the music played on his blog are not necessarily parallel to mine.

Random

O.K., for another random post. I only have a few minutes, so I'll make this quick.

Tonight begins my new Sign Language 2 class! Yay! We've had quite an adventure getting into this class, but, thank the Lord, I'm in, and it begins at 5:30 tonight. Wahoo!

I need to post some more pictures of my beautiful niece, but not quite yet.

My birthday is coming up -- the 23rd! Of course I can't say how old I'm going to be, because I don't want it on the public Internet. My dad will be gone on a business trip over my birthday, so we'll be having our family celebration tomorrow -- and we're doing something mysterious! I just love surprises, don't you? Then, the day after my birthday my mom and I will be going up to spend the 24th through the 28th with a family whose daughters are two of my absolute best friends. I have posted pictures of their horses before, and probably will again after our trip.

The ants have not invaded the house again since the Battle of the Chip Bag, but they did get into our hummingbird feeder on the outside of our dining room window. Oh, I don't like ants!

That's about it for now. I wish everybody a happy week!

Amazing Bird

You gotta see this -- really! Check it out!

http://upchucky.net/flash-fun/smart-bird.html

Make sure the sound is turned up and gather everybody around the computer! This bird is just amazing!

Motherhood Management

In my school Bible curriculum, Polished Cornerstones, I am in the chapter entitled "A Wise Manager". One of the projects assigned to me was to interview mothers, asking questions about how they manage their households, particularly their children. Could you ladies please help me out by answering these questions? Thanks.

1. Do you use the same methods of organizing and management that your own mother used? If not, how are yours different?

2. How do you praise/reward diligent obedience?

3. How do you correct/punish disobedience or carelessness?

4. Those of you with older children, how much of your management duties to you relegate to them?

Thanks again for your time and helpfulness!

I Don't Like Ants

I really, really don't like ants.

I never have.

I probably never will.

But lately my dislike of ants has turned into something close to hatred.

I have seen ants creeping and crawling in their thick little lines all over the kitchen counters.

I have seen them invading the cat and dog food.

I have seen them gorging on vegetable scraps thrown into the garden as compost.

I have seen them invading and infesting every part of the house, including the bedroom floor, the bedroom closet clothes-hangers, the bathroom floor, the bathroom counters, and even the bathroom ceiling.

I have even seen them feasting on old, gooey Jolly Ranchers left in an otherwise empty Treat Bag.

But this was worse than ever before.

I was home alone, and had just made myself a delectable bean and cheese burrito for lunch. I reached into the cabinet to get some potato chips to accompany the wonderful burrito. And then...I saw them.

All over the chip bag.

Under it.

In it.

It was too much for my poor, overwrought nerves. I threw the bag on the floor and rushed for the Ant-B-Gone. I sprayed that bag until dead ants lay in black clumps. I raked everything out of that section of the cabinet as fast as I could and sprayed the shelf. Dead ants littered the battlefield, having fallen prey to my all-powerful secret biological weapon of mass destruction.

And then I squatted on the floor and mourned the untimely death of the potato chips. Also, I may add, they were Rippled. And they were Ranch. Oh, how I mourned their sad demise.

So I will end this cheerful post by repeating, just in case you had not gotten the gist of my earlier comments:

I DON'T LIKE ANTS!!!!!!

Christmas Mice

I hope to post more recipes later, but as I have a sinus headache and a very sore throat from sinus drainage, I'll just make this quick. I have been asked by several people for the recipe for Christmas Mice, and here it is:


Mice

Ingredients
1 package double-stuffing sandwich cookies*
1-2 jars marachino cherries with stems, depending on volume of jars
1 cup, or 6 ounces, chocolate chips
2 teaspoons shortening
1 package Hershey Kisses
Slivered almonds
Red decorating gel

*You can use either name-brand (i.e., Oreos) or not; the non-name-brand cookies will be cheaper, but, having made the recipe both ways, I can testify that actual Oreos split better and more cleanly than the store brands. It's up to you, but either way, make sure you use the double-stuffing ones.

Instructions
Split sandwich cookies, leaving all the stuffing on one half of the cookie. Discard or eat the other side. Drain cherries well. In a pot or double boiler, melt the chocolate chips and the shortening. Once melted, dip a cherry into the chocolate. Place cherry on top of the stuffing half of a cookie. Immediately press unwrapped Hershey Kiss onto the cherry, and slide two almond slivers into the middle between the Kiss and the cherry. Repeat with other cookies. Let cool. Once cool, use red gel to make eyes on the kiss. You now have mice!



If you want to get really creative with these, you can arrange them on a plate or platter, and drop some chocolate sprinkles around like mouse droppings. I think these little guys are really cute, and it's a fun Christmas tradition, especially when you invite friends or neighborhood kids over to help create the meeces. Well, that's all for now, and I think I will go back to bed now.