howe.... random

Winter or No Winter? February Update

2012-02-10T13:10:00.000-06:00

What a strange year this has been so far. Almost no winter weather to date. We did have a little bit of snow one time, but it was gone fast. Not much to speak of. I guess that is really not that unusual for Oklahoma, it is just that the last few years we have had so much snow that I have come to expect it, and love it. We do have some winter weather predicted for Sunday night and Monday, and later next week too (eeek!). That is something to look forward to (for me).

I have been continuing on my journey to health. I am still trying to get to the gym four times every week. Most of this year has been a "fail" in that respect. The last two weeks I have corrected my behavior. I can feel the difference too! When I only go a few times a week I seriously start to feel the muscle going away and the flab returning. I am still overweight, and I fully expect that I always will be. But I am trying to get a little healthier every year. So far so good. I push myself (hard) at the gym. Several times I have had people come up to me and say, "Are you ok?" Apparently, I get really red in the face. I know I sweat A LOT!!! I am spending an hour on the eleptical or arc machine. I have been doing that for a while, so to amp it up, last week I bumped up the resistance to 100 (the highest level) for short bursts of time. By doing that in increasingly long bursts, I have increased my calorie burn in the same hour from around 800 to just over 1300 last night! Woo hoo!

The hardest part is eating. That is my downfall. I love to eat. I have really not changed my eating habits at all. So I did lose some weight, but not much, and it has mostly stopped. So maybe this extra exercise will help. And maybe I can find a way to adjust my diet in some form that I can live with, I can drop a few more pounds this year. I am just not willing to give up all the things I love.

Happy February!

2011--A Year In Review

2011-12-27T13:16:00.000-06:00

It would be nice if I were a musical person, or a songwriter and I could just write a song that would sum up my year. I am thinking of that Billy Joel song, We Didn't Start the Fire. But I am not, so I am trying to reflect upon what I have learned this year and as a whole, how I feel about the year.

Bad things first, so I can finish on a good note. As I think through the items that tally up on the bad side, I find it ironic that some of them will appear on both sides of the list. Life is full of irony.

Financially this was another staggering year. It is just not going to get better for about another year, or possibly two. We are working so hard to get back on top of everything that went wrong in years past that is so hard to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I find us still in a position of receiving charity. I am humbled by this because my foolish pride wants to be in a position to GIVE to others. It is much nicer feeling. I am embarrassed by how low I have fallen. It is ever so much harder to receive charity than it is to give it. I hope someday, when I am again in a position to give, that I will remember how it feels and be sympathetic and sensitive to others. God is working on my on this. I can see what he wants me to learn, but I am stubborn and thick headed, so it is taking a long time for me to accept it.

Pride makes an appearance again in this item. Jacob. He has decided to drop out of school. That was a low blow for me. I have probably been in denial about this for longer than I care to think about. He has just not been a committed student for the last several years. But he always told me that he WOULD graduate, no matter what. I held onto that. I took comfort in that. But now it changes. Upon examining my motives, I can see that pride is driving me again. I did not want to be the mother of a drop-out. To be honest, I still don't. I know that Jacob has above average intelligence. It hurts me so much that he won't apply himself. But I guess that is back to me. I have to move that pride thing out of the way and try to let Jacob focus on Jacob and what he wants from life. I have to let that go. It has to be his choice. I can no longer chose for him. Sigh.

Work. I want to quit my job so bad it hurts. The pressure and stress just seem like too much. I find I don't pretend to get excited about it any more. I won't play the games any more. I am just so negative about this part of my life. I know it is time for a change, but referring back to the financial paragraph above, making that sort of change at this point would be self destructive and stupid. I need to keep my focus for a year or two longer. At that point I will have more flexibility. I just keep chanting to myself, you can do this, you can do this. I am strong. I can do almost anything that has to be done if I keep my focus.

Enough of that painful stuff! On to the good!

I am blown away by the generosity of others. My brother-in-law paid to fly my sister and I to Pennsylvania to see by brother and his family. I know there were dozens of other ways he could have spent that money. I am so thankful for the chance to get to know my 2 nieces and nephew there. They are amazing and I will never forget how much fun we had there. Even the time spent with my amazing sister is  an incredible gift. We usually see each other when we are surrounded by family and distractions. We had a lot of fun during our trip and I am so glad we had the time to talk and laugh.

We were nominated by a work friend. Kristy to have a new furnace installed in our home. Hopefully they will be doing that this week. What a blessing. I did not know how we would be able to do that for several more years. The cost of a new unit would be beyond our reach for several years. I am so thankful to Kirsty, Channel 6 and Airco for chosing us. Just WOW!

Health. This has been a much better year for our health. I had surgery last year and it dramatically improved my health. I feel so much better. When I read what I just typed, I am at a loss as to how to convey what a difference this surgery made for me. I feel like I can do ANYTHING now! I feel better than I have in 20 years. I don't think I even knew how bad I felt. Kim is doing well too. No more problems with his foot. He keeps a close eye on it, and is constantly baby-ing it so that another problem will not crop up. But he has been able to keep it under control for most of this year. That is a big deal because his diabetic ulcers have ruled our house for the past 5 years or so. I am so thankful for good health.

Jacob. I am so proud of him. He always makes me laugh. Even when I am mad at him. I am so filled up with love for him, and am so thankful that God blessed me with him. I hope I have been a decent mom to him. I wish I could do parts of his childhood over. I wish I could give him more. But I know I could never love him more, so I succeeded at that!

Friends. Amy, Necia, Kathy, Nettie, Emily, and so many others. What would I do without you? Thank you for keeping my feet on the ground and talking me off the cliff of despair so many times.

There you are, the good and the bad, all together. Goodbye 2011. Thanks for the memories. I am glad you are leaving, but thankful that you were what you were.

Negativity WARNING NEGATIVE CONTENT!! Read at your own risk!

2011-10-05T12:57:00.000-05:00

October is here. My favorite time of the year has arrived. I should be happy. Suddenly I find myself getting sucked into a hole of negativity. I don't like it. I am an optimist. I am a happy person. I do know why this is happening. First, things are catching up to me. Bad things. Things I should have done and did not do. Also, it seems that when things start to go wrong, it snowballs. I am attracting bad stuff on top of other bad stuff. Some of it I totally deserve, some of it is random. Last, work has been bad lately. I am expected to do the job of 3 people. I am pretty good at my job, and I can do that sort of thing for a few days, but it has started (after close to 6 weeks) to catch up to me. Anyway you slice it, I am tired of it. I want to be positive and up beat again. I am tired of stress and worry. I want to fling it off like I fling off the blankets in the middle of a hot flash at night (lol). But I just can't seem to shake it loose.

I hear people who say, "In the name of God, I reject this..." Why I can't I just speak this nonsense into oblivion? I have asked this question before, and I still struggle with it. How do I give this burden to God? How can I just turn lose of something so personal? Something that I mostly deserve. It is not God's problem. I know He is willing to listen, but what do I do to give it to Him? Can I just pack it up in a suitcase and drop it off at the gates of heaven? The problem is still here all around me. The worry is picking at me. Poking me and cropping up.

I know my life will never be free of worry. Life is a series of up's and down's. I am just really sliding down, quickly right now.

My first post in a while. Reading back over it, I feel the need to apologize. So, here I go. Sorry. this is depressing. Maybe I will feel better by venting. This is also a journal of sorts for my life, so maybe in a few years I can look back on this time and see how far I have come. Maybe I will be so thankful to God for getting me past this. So I am going to post it anyway, with a warning.

Taking Them for Granted...

2011-08-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

I was thinking this week about how fast you can lose someone you love. Life changes so rapidly. What you have today could be gone tomorrow. God gives us no guarantees that we will have the people we love for as long as we want them.

I find myself taking my family and friends for granted. "Take for granted". What does that even mean? I am just thinking this out... When I hear the word "granted", I think of a wish. As in, "your wish has been granted!" As in, you have what you always wanted. So if you have what you wanted, and you take them "for granted", it seems it means that you assume they are yours. Your possessions. A part of your life that you get to keep.

I can find no such guarantee or promise. Kim is not mine, neither is Jacob. I can't own anyone, not really even my dogs! They are here on loan to me, as I am on loan to them. Who will go first?  Who will be left behind, the last person standing? As a parent, I pray that is Jacob, and that God will "loan" lots of other precious people to him. So that when someone gets called home, he will have others with him to comfort him.

My thoughts wander back to "the last person standing". That thought takes me right to my Grams. She is 90 years old now. Her husband died over 20 years ago. Her friends have all passed away. Lee and Rudy, Vick and Thelma, Pete and Marge. Lots of others. All gone before her.  Now she is alone with her children, four of them. Her grandchildren, 10, I think. Her Great-grandchildren, I know of 17. And even two Great-great-grandchildren, maybe more. And yet she feels so alone. She is wealthy beyond reason, if her offspring are her treasure. She has a very rich legacy. I wish she could see that, and feel blessed.

So back to the "taking for granted" thought. I want to remember how blessed I am to have such wonderful people in my life. My family, my friends, even my silly dogs! I have a rich legacy, too! I am thankful for all that God has loaned me. I don't know how long I get to have you on loan, but whoever you are, I am thankful for your part in my life. Thank you for helping me build a legacy. If I check out before you do, just be happy that we got a chance to be family, or friends. We are blessed.

Ouch!

2011-08-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

I hate it when I notice qualities about myself that are unattractive that I never noticed before. Even worse, when someone else points it out to you. It sure hurts to look at yourself and see painful, ugly qualities that you have stubbornly refused to see for a long time. That deep, raw look you take in the mirror can be brutal. And for me, just the thought that other people could see it so clearly, and I couldn't feels so awful. It makes my heart hurt, or maybe my pride hurt, to think about what I was doing.

But isn't a good hard look at yourself pretty important? No matter how ugly your reflection is, I think you have to do it now and then. Maybe you need someone to prod you, like I did. Someone to nudge and poke you into seeing what they see. Or maybe even throw it at you in a moment of painful confrontation. What everyone can see. Everyone but you. But me.

It hurts to know that I have qualities that ugly. I get to thinking sometimes that I am good enough. That I am better than average. Just another reminder that there was only EVER one perfect person. I know I will be forgiven, and I am thankful, but still just feeling a little bruised.

School Days...

2011-08-21T23:25:00.000-05:00

My last post was about Summer. Well, it is still Summer. I just can't seem to summon any sort of enthusiasm about it any more. I am so ready for September, October and November. Those are my favorite months of the year.

School starts tomorrow. The first day, of the last year of Jacob's Tulsa Public Schools education. Seems like it was just a few years ago that I was holding his hand on the way into Kindergarten at Hoover. Time flies. He is mostly grown up now. Just by appearances he is fully grown. But I know he still has some growing to do. He will be 18 in just a little over a month. That will be the end of an era for me as a mom. I have been trying to let go of some of my control. But I still want to be the boss of everything. Such a struggle for me. I picked out his clothes for the first day of Kindergarten. Now there is so little that I choose for him.

I wonder if he would let me choose his outfit for tomorrow? Ha! I wonder if he would be embarrassed that I called it an "outfit". No doubt, it will be t-shirt and shorts. Poor kid. His bad mom did not order him any new school shoes yet. You would think after 18 years, I could get that right for his Senior year! Starting the senior year Holy is one thing but with holey shoes is quite another. I guess he will survive.

I am feeling sadder about it than I thought I would. I am not one to get too sentimental about stuff like this. But he is my one and only child. This will be our last year like this. With me in charge. Am I really moping about him growing up, or about losing someone I could control?

Summer Thoughts...

2011-06-26T12:59:00.000-05:00

Summer has officially begun. I can sure tell. The heat is on, and everyone is traveling or making plans to travel. That alone makes this time of year exciting. However, sometimes it seems more like my family is all making plans to go our seperate ways. I suppose that is all a part of Jacob growing up. When he was little, I would never dream of going away for any length of time without him. Or if I did take a short trip, it would be excruciating. So far this summer, Jacob is heading out to Texas for a few weeks. I am going to Pennsylvania for a few days, then off to Texas to fetch the boy. There is no telling what else will crop up. Summer is still young. Maybe Kim and I can find some time to get away somewhere cooler.

Since I did not grow up in a traditional American family. I never had the chance to experience the "family vacation" I have heard others describe. Packing up the station wagon and loading the kids in for a trip to Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon. I feel like I missed out since I didn't get the chance to bicker with my siblings in the back seat. You may roll your eyes and say that I did not miss much, but I bet those memories are precious to you. They should be. I feel like I may have missed out on something crucial, something that I can't share with Jacob. I guess that is ok. I have other, more important things to share.

I was thinking some deep thoughts lately about child abuse. Do the scars that are left from the absence of somthing leave as deep damage and shape us as much as the scars left from actual impact? Who hurts worse? The child who was physically abused, or the child who was neglected? I don't know. Is there really a "worse" in a situation like that?   I have known both kinds of kids. I don't really classify myself as either. I had some bad moments in childhood, it you might even call my childhood tragic. But I don't think I was ever really abused. But I saw it. I lived with it. It slept in the same house. Both kinds. Both are ugly and damaging. Deeply damaging. One of those bad gifts that keep on giving.

Probably if you were a victim of one or the other you would think it was whatever you experienced. My siblings and I were neglected a bit by our mother, who was mentally ill. But it never felt like she abandoned us. I feel that she always loved us. I never once doubted that. Our Grandparents loved us. Their home was a safe haven of food, and attention. My father deserted us and I don't believe he loved us, but since I never knew his presence I don't think I missed it much. At least not until it was time to make an adult relationship of my own. Missing out on a father made me confused and awkward. I floundered. I wonder if is the same for boys who don't have a mother? Thank God, Jacob has both. We are so flawed, but both present in his life.   Hopefully that will be a better gift, and hopefully Jacob can pay it forward in an even better way to his child or children.

Well this was sort of RANDOM and depressing as I read back over it. But at least I posted. That means I won, again!

Nothing to say....

2011-06-20T22:28:00.000-05:00

I finally have my computer back. I have all evening to think of something to say. But I have nothing to say. This is so..... underwhelming. I guess I'll just say.... later. But at leasted I blogged. So, I won at that. Write that down. I won.

The Pretender

2011-04-26T12:54:00.000-05:00

My sister, Debbie, posted this a while back on her blog. These are her words about our experience growing up in a children's home.

We had food, a roof over our head and a bed to sleep in, the things that would keep a child’s body safe.

The ones that could have been our examples went in their room each night and shut their door. They closed up their hearts and left us to cling to each other.

We were wounded and broken. We were not shown our individual value.

All of us had dreams, some were grand but most were simple.

It was our spirits that begged for attention. We knew they never expected us to succeed.

We were all scattered at different times to different places. It has been amazing when we find each other again. There is a joy that we feel to know that another of us made it out.

We all have heard the same response when people hear our story. “You seem so normal to have had such a horrible childhood.” But we are not normal.

We just became very good at hiding our pain. No matter how hard we try to cover up where we came from it cannot be changed. We were the unwanted. No matter what we succeed at we never believe we are good enough. How can we be? We were the thrown away trash.

The strong personalities and the stubborn will are the tools we used to pull us up so we could show everyone that we do have value. It started as a front to show the world. It becomes a wall that we make everyone face, even the ones we love.

Debbie hit the nail on the head. Sometimes I feel like a survivor of some sort of tragedy. I can only imagine a small piece of what others feel who also go without food and shelter. At least we had that.

But don't all kids deserve just that little bit more? Don't they deserve to be held accountable for their choices, and be asked to rise to a certain level of behavior and achievement? Would it be so hard to listen to what they say? I feel like the bar was set really low for us. So when someone gets to know me and they notice that I can hold down a job they are amazed.

What might have happened if someone had cared just a little more? Asked me how my day was? Quizzed me on my times tables for math? Heck, maybe even gave me a hug? Maybe I wouldn't think that I have to solve all my problems myself, alone, without even God to count on. Maybe I would be able to do mental math instead of counting on my fingers (sneakily). Maybe my physical personal space would not have to be quite so big.

Am I stronger? I don't know. Probably not. I am just a really good pretender.

100 things about me....

2011-04-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

This was inspired by my friend Nellie. It was hard, too!

You should try it!

1. I do not like to exercise. But recently started doing it anyway.

2. I love food. Eating makes me happy, soothes me, cheers me, and comforts me.

3. I love to read more than almost anything. Only fiction.

4. I have a wonderful supportive husband, Kim. He is just right for me.

5. I have a son, Jacob who is 17. He amazes me and makes me laugh.

6. I do not like chocolate cake. NO.THANK.YOU.

7. Nothing smells better to me than baking bread.

8. Breaking an addiction to QT Vanilla Cupcake cappuccino almost broke me.

9. God has been my friend for many years.

10. I love people, but strongly suspect that people secretly don’t like me.

11. I stupidly worry a lot about what people think about me.

12. I have 3 dogs, two are big, Bonnie and Clyde, one is smallish, Pixie.

13. My Grandmother is 89. She has had a hard life, but just keeps going.

14. I have an older brother and sister, 3 half brothers and 2 foster brothers.

15. I lived in a children’s home from Second grade through 5^th grade.

16. I lived in a foster home from 6^th grade until I graduated from High School.

17. I really wish I could be a homemaker.

18. My foster mother was amazing lady. I would love the chance for one more day with her.

19. Burgundy/Maroon is my favorite color.

20. The number 25 is my favorite number.

21. I regret that I haven’t had the chance to get to know my brother’s kids in Pennsylvania.

22. I love babies. Sigh. I really do.

23. My favorite season is Fall. The trees and the colors just make me so happy.

24. I am constantly amazed at how God has moved in my life.

25. I have secrets.

26. My sister, Debbie is amazing. I love her with all my heart.

27. I played basketball in high school and fantasize about playing again.

28. I was a really bad basketball player, but in my mind, I was awesome.

29. It really hurts me when people who I thought loved me walk away.

30. Sometimes I forget to be careful of other’s feelings.

31. Coffee on a cold morning is a comfort, but only if I have cream and sugar!

32. I get really grouchy when I get hot.

33. My senior year of high school really was one of the best years of my life.

34. I love to knit, sew, cook, embroider, or just anything creative.

35. Mean people make me very angry.

36. I very often forget to pray. My focus is weak.

37. Studying other religions is fascinating to me.

38. When I see an old house, I want to know the story of its life. Who lived there, when and why?

39. Most of the people in my family are very mischievous, I am no exception.

40. I like to make people laugh, but often get carried away.

41. I desperately want to be a light for God, but worry that more often I cast shadows.

42. I have very little will power when it comes to my diet.

43. I won’t show my toenails unless they have been painted.

44. I used to KNOW I was smart, now I KNOW how little I will ever know or understand.

45. I often feel helpless and frustrated.

46. I have a lot of questions for God. Just a lot.

47. I usually think that you need to know what I think. So it pops right out of my mouth.

48. Pasta, pasta, pasta. I love you pasta.

49. I crave security.

50. I don’t care what kind of car you drive. It surprises me that people think anyone cares.

51. In my dreams, I can fly.

52. My father is still living, but I have not seen him or spoken to him in over 20 years.

53. I am not afraid to die. But I don’t want any pain. Ha!

54. I do not like artificial sweetener.

55. I love Sharpies.

56. My mother lives in a nursing home.

57. I am not afraid of germs. Bring it!

58. Rolo’s are my drug of choice.

59. Bacon.

60. I flipped off Santa when I was a child.

61. I love Survivor, the television show.

62. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

63. I am extremely allergic to poison ivy and get it nearly once a year.

64. Sock monkeys creep me out. They are the “Chuckie” of stuffed animals.

65. I can’t grow stuff. I kill plants.

66. My mother has schizophrenia and I am afraid sometimes that I do too, and no one is telling me.

67. I do not visit my mother as often as I should, this produces guilt.

68. Baby giggles, OH YEAH!

69. I don’t like to be late, and rarely am.

70. I like thunder storms.

71. My finances depress me.

72. I do not like being tall.

73. I am very loyal.

74. I am ashamed of my house.

75. I think it is creepy when people say “sexy”.

76. I sneeze a lot. No, really, a lot.

77. I usually cry every time I think about my foster mom. There, just teared up typing this.

78. I like to go shopping.

79. Cinderella was my favorite story as a child.

80. My name is not Lisa.

81. I love country music.

82. I find myself attracted like a magnet to funny people.

83. I like the smell of Liquid Paper.

84. My best friend lives in Texas. I miss her.

85. Sometimes I text and drive.

86. I love to travel.

87. I have to doodle when I am on the phone, or listening to people talk.

88. I do not like to drink from a plastic cup unless I have a straw.

89. I could easily eat potatoes with every meal.

90. I am so happy we have email.

91. I have little ears.

92. Sometimes if I get really mad, I throw stuff.

93. I am very sad that Jacob does not like to read.

94. I know I have a guardian angel, and he is good at what he does.

95. I try really hard not to have an “entitled” attitude, but sometimes, I think I deserve more.

96. I have disappointed many people in my life, and that breaks my heart.

97. I wish I could go back to college.

98. I like to talk to elderly people about their lives.

99. I love prairie stories, like Little House on the Prairie.

100. I like to draw pictures.

Brunch at Sarah's, a Restaurant Review

2011-04-01T13:14:00.001-05:00

This is my first official restaurant review. Quite possibly my only one. We'll see.

Today I had lunch at a local restaurant called Brunch at Sarah's. Someone had brougnt a menu by our office and since it is located just down the street from the office at 80th & Yale, I thought it would be a great place to try. I have to be honest here, I have never reviewed anything, and I don't know if there is a preferred format or what. So I will just do it how I want.

First, what is offered. A variety of breakfast and lunch items, including omelets, eggs, wraps, pancakes, waffles, soups and sandwiches. The bread is from Farrell Natural Breads, which is right next door. Very convenient and fresh.

Next, what I ate. The Cranberry Orange Club on whole wheat. Smoked ham & turkey, cheddar and Swiss cheese, hickory smoked bacon, cranberry orange sauce, spinach, red onion & tomato. It comes with a choice of sides. Fries, potato chips, mixed fruit, potato salad or pasta salad. I chose fries. I had a moment of weakness when I went to pick up the to-go order and popped for a cranberry oatmeal walnut cookie. The lady who rang me up said she had just made them and they were fresh and delicious. Last but not least, and icy cold Pepsi to wash it all down.

The review:

I will start with a small critique and get that out of the way. Best to end on a good note. This is tiny. Very small. Well two, ok 3 little complaints. When I was ready to call in the order, there was no phone number on the menu. I said tiny! No big deal, I can google! Next, no pickle!!! It was supposed to come with a pickle spear and I was robbed of my pickle. This was a little traumatic, I admit, because I have a special feeling about pickle spears, but I will get over it. Last, when I asked my friend what she thought of her lunch (which was identical to mine) she said there was an awful lot of meat on the sandwich. Now, I don't think it is fair to complain about that, too much??? So let's just forget that one. I will throw in one last concern. I like to keep my lunch budget small. I am just a poor girl. Eating out is a splurge for me. I usually pack my lunch, and this cost about double what I would normally pay for my lunch when I do eat out. The sandwich & fries were $7.99. I was a little dubious for that reason, but fear not! The sandwiches are HUGE! Really more like a sandwich and a half. You can easily split this between two people making it quite economical.

Here comes the good part. It was delicious!! The bread is nicely toasted and tasted good enough to eat alone. The spinach and tomato were fresh. The cranberry orange sauce added a nice tangy zip. The meat had a nice smokey taste, that contrasted nicely with the zippy sauce, and there was NOT too much. I mentioned before that the portion was huge, so this is more than most people (except Jacob) eat for lunch, but I forced myself to eat it anyway, it was too good to leave. I had to leave some of the fries which were crispy and delicious, too. The cookie, oh the cookie! JUST.GO.EAT.ONE. My word, I have a new addiction! A side note, there was a lady checking out as I was waiting for my order, she said that she and her husband eat there a lot. She favors the Veggie Wrap, and her husband likes the Spinach Omelet.

I highly recommend this restaurant for lunch, and I hope someday I can revisit for a breakfast item. Sorry, I don't know what their hours of operation are, but I can tell you the phone number, 918-488-1855. Located at 81 & Yale area, in the shopping center with the Food Pyramid.

A Big World...

2011-03-15T12:57:00.000-05:00

What a crazy world we live in. Beautiful, dangerous, incredible. It is amazing to me how God created each tiny detail to work together with every other tiny detail. It grows and changes and functions. Sometimes it might seem like it "malfunctions". I don't think so.

I think that the world functions, primarily, in a natural way. God set it up to evolve and change, like we do, like our bodies do. He created it to explode now and then, volcanoes. Crack open and shake, earthquakes. Sometimes it floods, freezes and boils. But all of those things happen in the natural course of this planet that God created, with brilliance.

It can all be explained by science, of course. But science cannot explain how it was created. I know that God did it. He did it right. Yes, people die. Babies and innocent children, old people we love and middle aged people that we need. But everyone dies sooner or later. There is no promise of 90 years or even 9 years, days or minutes. That breaks our hearts. But the planet still spins.

God's plan still moves forward. That moves me in a deep way. I want to be a part of that plan. My life is so small. I wonder how many other lives I can touch in my tiny little ink blot of time here? Will I touch them in a good way, in a God way? Will I matter at all? Will my faith have made any difference? Will the dent I leave on this planet be a good one? Who will care, in 100 years, about me?

I don't especially care if anyone knows my name. Maybe I will be an old photo that makes someone smile. But I would like to leave a legacy. A legacy of love and service. I would like it A LOT, if someday, 100 or more years from now, a little girl, somewhere, with curly hair and brown eyes has an abiding peaceful love of her Maker, because of something I did or said to someone else in my life here and now. I have to make that mark on my son, or on someone, or it will never happen.

I am praying earnestly about that these days.

Pain

2011-03-04T16:45:00.001-06:00

March is here. Spring is just around the corner. As much as I love winter, I am ready for this one to end. Although I would not mind one more snow fall. I know that makes me very unpopular in Tulsa!

I have had some ideas scrolling through my head lately. Mostly I have been wondering about the pain that we are all hiding. Don't we all have something painful that shaped us and causes us to behave a certain way? We all deal with it differently. Some of us eat, do drugs, abuse alcohol, lie, steal or do just ridiculous unrelated things to mask our pain caused by abuse, cruelty, depravation or neglect. Mostly, for me it is eating. So when you look at me, please, realize I am more than a fat girl. I am a soul, with pain. I probably won't share any or much of it with you. It is too personal and or embarrasing. So don't make fun of overweight people. It is probably more than just poor eating habits. When you are dealing with a control freak, try to be patient and imagine what sort of pain has led them to this behavior. He or she is probably desperatly trying to hold his/her world together with some small freakishly odd measure of control.

Lucky people realize what they are doing. They try to find a way to be healthy and function. I try to control my eating with my new habit, working out at the gym. But the stuff that makes me medicate with food is still in there. Needling me. What needles you? You don't have to tell me. Just think about it, and try to be be kinder to the people around you. Aren't we all just the walking wounded?

Maybe...

2011-02-24T09:30:00.001-06:00

Maybe I am tired of worry.
Maybe I am tired of pressure.
Maybe the "big change" will be something I decide.
Maybe every failure will be someone else's problem for a change.
Maybe I, with God, will control my destiny.

After all, I am the only one who gets gray hair and looses sleep from my worries.
After all, I am the one who bends until she is about to break from the pressure.
After all, what do I have to lose? How much worse could it be?
After all, my efforts are not appreciated, so perhaps they should be redirected.
After all, He is really already in control, I just keep letting other people distract me.

Restless

2011-02-21T12:00:00.001-06:00

I feel restless. I can't pin down why. Dissatisfied and anxious. Not panicky. Just Antsy. Grouchy, picky, agitated and well, just restless.

It feels like change is in the air. That can be good or bad. Maybe this is just Spring fever since the weather has been so pleasant for the past week. I cannot justify my mood and I can't explain. But change is brewing. We all know that change can be good or bad. Perhaps that is why I feel restless?

Now I have to wait. Keep busy, do what is right and wait. Tick, tick, tick...

This week....

2011-02-14T14:46:00.000-06:00

This week I would like to be the owner of a big 5 bay car wash.

I just visited one to wash the muck and grime of 2 weeks worth of nastiness off of the Taurus. OK, reality check, it was filthy before the blizzard hit, but it was beyond filthy this morning. Here is why...

A month ago I gave Jacob a $20 bill and told him to go to Wal-Mart Market and get a bag of Pedigree for the dogs. I got home and he had, instead, gone to his store, Warehouse Market, and gotten a big (bigger than big) bag of dog food, an off brand, for less than the medium bag of Pedigree. The dogs ate it one night. The next night they ate half of it. The next night they vomited all over the house. After that they literally went on a hunger strike. So we caved in and bought Pedigree for them and had the HUGE bag of gross dog food left. What to do? I can't bring myself to throw it in the trash. Kim said he would take it to Mohawk and feed the birds with it. Didn't happen. We had a blizzard instead. So during round 3 of our Snowstravaganza he decided to feed the starving birds in the front yard with the terrible dog food. How did they thank us? You guessed it. My car got poop bombed. It all looks just like that dog food, too. Thanks Birds, thanks Kim. Oh, and yes, thanks Jacob!

just a thought...

2011-02-08T14:07:00.003-06:00

"You’ve equated God’s silence with his absence. He isn’t speaking in your relationship with a friend. He isn’t showing up in your marriage. He isn’t leading in what is next for your career. He is silent and feels absent.
But God’s silence is not God’s absence. God’s hiddenness is not abandonment.
You are not alone. No matter how silent God is for you right now…He is not absent."

Justin Davis

Emily shared this with me today... Thanks Em.

Sigh

2011-02-08T14:03:00.000-06:00

It is one of "those" days. Work has not gone well today. I feel unappreciated and well, just spent. Don't you hate to be compared to someone else and found to be lacking? I feel like I have value of my own. Not like anyone else. SHE is not my yardstick. I measure myself elsewhere. I resent someone using her against me. We are friends, she and I. When you smack me with her, it hurts us both. So measure me on my own merits and demerits, please. Not against her.

OK, moving on...

I was thinking today about my Grams. She is 89, soon to be 90. She made me who I am, second only to God. She is fading. Like a picture from an old album. She used to be bright, sharp and colorful. Now I see confusion, fear, and apathy. She has mentally surrendered... to what? I don't know. I do wish I had captured more from her before she faded. We did not take the time, and she did not like to talk about her feelings very much. Mostly, she would answer your questions, and now and then start talking. But mostly she listened. I wonder what I did not hear. What did I miss?

Wow! What a depressing post. I hope you had a better day than me!

It feels great!

2011-01-26T13:03:00.000-06:00

I am so glad to be back on the treadmill. As much as I hate exercise, I feel so much better about myself when I am exercising! It makes no sense because I am no thinner today than I was on Sunday, but for some reason I feel skinnier! And I feel sore too. Maybe that is it. I hurt every time I stand up, sit down, or walk around the room. The pain reminds me that I feel it because I earned it on the treadmill. I like that feeling. Sometimes pain is good. I am not setting any records for time, but I am increasing my speed by .1 each night, so in a few weeks, I will be right back where I was 6 weeks ago. Hopefully next week I can resume my weight lifting, too.

Projects... I want to start a bunch of them. I am currently working on a little camera bag for Rhonda's mother in law. I need to wrap it up since it is a birthday gift, and her bday is in February! Yikes! I want to make some more dish cloths. It has been a while since I knitted those. My aunt wants me to make a baby afghan for her great grandson. But she has to buy more yarn, and some circular needles. I also want to make a headband ear warmer thingy. My friend Adriene has one. I found a pattern. I tried to start one, but it rejected me. :o( I will keep trying. It will not defeat me!

Have a great day!

Just a Short Note

2011-01-24T15:40:00.001-06:00

Tonight I am going back to the gym for the first time since my surgery. I have not been in 6 weeks! Yikes! I have to go back, I am feeling like I have lost my weight loss momentum. I suspect I have gained some of my 22 pounds back. Panic!

Not sure how this will work. I am not used to be physically limited. I like to compete with myself and get a better "time" on the treadmill. I guess I just need to set the pace tonight. A modest pace. Then work at getting better every night.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day! I will try to update tomorrow about how this went.

Hiding

2011-01-21T09:32:00.000-06:00

My sister posted recently on her blog ("Working on it" See sidebar for link) a remark about how people hide behind a smile. I have to admit that I do that a lot. Does everyone? Are we lying with our smiles? I have been taught to put a good foot forward. I have been told that a smile makes you prettier. Keep a stiff upper lip (what the heck does that mean?). Buck up. Suck it up. So I do. I know I have a lot to hide, but never thought much that other people were doing the same. What is going on behind your smile? Are all those smiles hiding pain and secrets like mine does?

So what is better? Do we let our expressions mirror our feelings? That would not be good either. I can't walk around and display my every feeling on my face. That would not be a good thing. It would wear everyone out, and I would look like a train wreck! But I also want to be honest. I don't like to think that my smile is a lie!

I have arrived at this conclusion after a few days of mulling it around in the space between my ears. I have to start the day with a smile. I have to buck up. The smile is not so much about my circumstance, or my feelings. It is about my joy. Not happiness, joy. I have joy regardless of my circumstance. So my smile is not a lie. It is a choice. I chose to smile regardless of my circumstance. If you dig a little deeper, there is a lot more going on, of course, than what the smile might tell you. And maybe if we are good enough friends, I can share some of it with you. I chose to smile because I have joy in my heart from the peace my Savior has provided. I MIGHT have a lot of embarrasing problems that I keep a secret, well, cuz they are ridiculous and embarrasing! But I know that my problems are here and now. God is more than big enough to fix them. Maybe He will chose to fix them, or maybe I will just have to live with them. But I have a reward waiting. Bigger and better than my problems. So I will smile. I will be joyful.

Hello New Year!

2011-01-09T15:42:00.001-06:00

I am so glad you are here, 2011! The old one was REALLY old! I hope you will be nicer to me than 2010 was, too. I guess it was mostly my fault, but that year was a real pain! I plan to be good, work hard, be diligent, worship faithfully and fully, and try to be the person God wants me to be. I have a picture of her, in my mind. I will focus on that snapshot and try to become her. She is smart, focused and tidy. She balances her checkbook, she saves money, she serves her God and her family and friends. She goes to the gym and work out 4 times a week. I hope you (2011) like this girl as much as I do. Be kind to her, she will need your assistance!

Borrowing Aunt Mary's laptop today to visit the cyber world. I needed a fix! Will probably go back to work one week from tomorrow, or maybe on Tuesday instead of Monday. I missed my blog!

I Was Right!

2010-12-20T12:52:00.000-06:00

Friday was a fun night. I had so much fun with my sister and brother-in-law. They are awesome people. My sister treated me to her delicious spaghetti. I love, love, love her spaghetti. Heaven! We wrapped gifts and made them beautiful. So much fun. She showed me all the clothes they had purchased for her adorable grand baby. He is one lucky little man! He is too little to know it, too. But I am sure he will figure out just how special his grandparents are in the next several years. I also got to visit with my favorite German Shephard, Shyanne (Cheyenne?? how the heck do you spell it??) She is the smartest dog ever, and almost the cutest.

Today is my last day at work, before the surgery. It feels like every hour is taking 4 hours to pass.  This is not a busy time of year in an insurance agency. So I am trying to answer every call since I won't be doing any work for the next 4 weeks. But at the same time, there is not much sense in starting any "projects". All in all, it is an odd day to be working.

My worry and stress are still there lurking, but I am dealing with it as it arrives. Trying not to let it overwhelm me. Remembering that God is in control, and that he can handle these small things, and any big issues that come up. Remembering that He is LARGE and IN CHARGE. Rememebering that I am small and submissive. God is good.

I finished 4 projects this weekend. That is a load off my mind, but I have so many more projects to work on, books to read and relaxing to do for the 4 weeks, that it is almost exciting to think about it! Ha! Who ever looked forward to a hysterectomy?

Maybe I will make a little journal to write down my thoughts and feelings and observations to share with you after the big event. I won't be able to post for a month, so I will keep track and then read them after and decide if there was anything worth sharing. Maybe some brilliant thought or observation will emerge. I will miss this blogging thing for some reason. I am not sure why. But rambling about my thoughts and feelings and activities is cathartic or something important, because I keep doing it!

So merry Christmas, and happy New Year to all 3 or 4 of you that read this regularly, and to any other random individual that stumbles across this blog. God bless you all!

Fun Night!

2010-12-17T14:26:00.000-06:00

Tonight I am going to hang out with my sister at her house. Why don't we do that more, Deb? I guess life just keeps us busy and we forget to spend time together. Not good.

She just had surgery on her neck and has a ton of gifts to wrap since she can't really move her head and neck around much. So I am going to help her wrap her Christmas gifts. Did you know that I LOVE to wrap gifts? I LOVE IT!! I use way too much tape and I care deeply about each gift looks. That is a part of your gift after all... the wrapping needs to be beautiful!

I hope you get to have some fun wrapping, and bonding with your sister. This will be my first wrapping of the year. I have not wrapped even ONE gift this year! Gasp! It is already 12/17!! I need to wrap at least one before I go to Owasso tonight! Looking forward to this evening if you cant tell. I love my sister a lot and we don't get to spend much time together. Usually when we see each other there are 15 other family members around. She is a wonderful person, with a beautiful heart. Spending time with her is a GIFT!

Enjoy your weekend. Monday will be my last day at work before surgery and I don't know if I will have time to post. Since the computer is fried at home, I won't be able to post for quite a while. I'll miss you blog-world!

Frito Pie

2010-12-15T16:53:00.000-06:00

Here is a bit of random-ness for you. Frito Chili pie for dinner tonight at church. Come join us for yummy meal and a little heartburn on the side. 29th & Yale Church of Christ in Tulsa, OK.

Also, our class subject is: Opening a Can of Worms. I wonder what worm we will examine tonight? We turned in Bible questions and each question will be addressed this quarter in class. Last week's question was a bit deep for me. I submitted 3 questions. I think I already know 2 of the answers, but one of them is a very good question.

Anyway, join us if you can, or if you want to. There is a serious TON of chili.

Late Breaking News!

2010-12-14T14:25:00.001-06:00

I just had to go rescue Jacob. He had truck trouble driving from Tech, in Sand Springs to the house. The rim on Kim's Ford split like a bagel and the tire blew out. The brake pads (that he just put on last week) were gouged by the rotor. {insert deep sigh here).

He had a flat last week, so we were already planning to replace that tomorrow. Pay day. So now we need a new rim, 2 tires and brake pads. We will be buying used tires and rim. Fortunately Jacob gets a discount at NAPA because he is a Tech student. So the pads are just about $20. Goodness. There goes another $100 and any dreams of repairing my computer this year. {One more deep sigh}.

My beloved sister likes to remind me that what does not kill you makes you stronger. I am going to be very, very strong in 2011.

Most importantly, Jacob is safe. God is good. A special thank you to Jacob's guardian angel for being "on the job" during our crisis.

Thanks Honey!

2010-12-14T10:05:00.001-06:00

My husband dusted all the furniture for me yesterday. That was an additional item off my list! Woo hoo! Thanks, Kim! I cleared the clutter off the dining room table. So two things off my list. Jacob does not work tonight, so I can have him move the stove and the fridge away from the wall and clean under those tonight.

Remember back (come back with me) when you were pregnant? Were you one of those "nesters"? Shortly before my due date, I found myself on my hands and knees, scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush. If you did not know me then, I was huge. A whale! Jacob was a very large baby and I am not a tiny girl, by any means! Crawling around the living room behind the furniture was not a pretty picture! Ha!

Anyway, that is sort of how I feel now. Like I need to prepare the nest! My sister says she did the same thing before her recent surgery. Maybe it is just something women do before they go to the hospital????

I need to get some books to read. I am stocking up on yarn for knitting projects, but I desperately need something to read. I hate to go to the library since getting the books back will involve me asking someone else to take them back for me. Me asking for a favor is difficult. Yes, another personality flaw that I could stand to get rid of. I still have a hard time thinking that that sort of attitude is bad. Self reliance, and independence are good qualities, right? I guess that is not always true.

OK, so one week out from the surgery. This week will fly by.

Clean! Outside and In.

2010-12-13T13:01:00.001-06:00

Don't you love it when your house is really clean? You know, the deep stuff! Not when you ran through with the vacuum and the dust cloth, but the really clean stuff!

Saturday I had plans so I did not get to do my usual house cleaning (not even a run through!). So yesterday (Sunday) afternoon after lunch I got into my kitchen and really cleaned good! I cleaned the stove, and the oven, inside and out. I cleaned the fronts of the cabinets and the counters with Clorox cleanup. I also cleaned the outside of the fridge, whew, the top was filthy! I scrubbed the floor, too. I need to clean inside the fridge and under the fridge and stove now. Yuck, I hate doing that. But it needs to be done.

I also have to dust all the furniture, unclutter the dining room table, and scrub my bathroom. Then I can have my surgery knowing that my house is just as clean as it can reasonably be. That will be a good feeling. I hope I can get it done!

I should pay so much attention to my heart. It needs some deep cleaning too. I need to throw out some old resentments and some nasty habits. I could clean off my generosity and my kindness. They get dusty and grimey from sitting around unused. I could stand to get rid of gossip and lying. I am often discontent with my life, I complain and whine a lot, and I that could be swept right into the trash. I could make room for more of the good stuff, like love, family, caring and fun. Maybe even some new stuff like, contentment and satisfaction and even adventure! I wish it was that easy. Don't you?

Haaathchooo! Hatchoo, hatchoo, hatchoo........

2010-12-09T13:05:00.000-06:00

You get the idea. I believe I have my first cold of the season! Oh goody! Of course I sneeze a lot anyway. I am almost legandary for my sneezing, but now it is just ridiculous. Rats. I need to get this wrapped up before my surgery on the 21st because sneezing after abdominal surgery is not fun.

Still trying to finish up some projects, one is mostly done, one is complete and one is ready to start. Then I just need to do about 6 others. I think i can do that... right... who am I kidding? Some people will get their gifts after the holiday this year. That is just how it is.

I have been telling my customers at work "Merry Christmas" for a little over a week now as they leave, but it still does not seem like Christmas yet. I wonder when it will sink in? Perhaps when I decorate? I seem to have sailed right past decorating, and it has left a hole in my holiday.

Next issue, does anyone have any hot tips for dealing with stress and worry? I am trying to remember to pray, but sometimes I get busy worrying and forget. How dumb is that? The one sure fire cure to my problem of worrying, and I am too busy worrying to do it. Ha! That is so who I am! I believe I just answered that question myself. So, next would be, how do you "remind" yourself to pray, instead of worrying?

Lastly, just this. Hatchooo, hatchoo, hatchoo, hatchoo, hatchoo, hatchoo!

Cruddiness, Creativity, and Gratitude...

2010-12-07T13:28:00.000-06:00

What a stinky time to have my computer down. Ugh! Just can't seem to find the spare funds to take it in. There is always something else that needs money thrown at it first.

On the non-cruddy front. Creatvity! I have been knitting... a scarf... a new design for my bags. You cant see it yet, mostly because I cant upload pix from work, but also because one of you just might, maybe, possibly, find it wrapped with your name on it for a special festive event that is coming in a few weeks. :o)

Feeling pretty thoughtful lately, and grateful. I think of this as a time of year to reflect on what makes me feel blessed. I was reminded Sunday, by a friend who led our congregation in the communion service that we are very blessed to have a savior who takes the burden of our sin away from us. I am so very humbled that he chose to die, so that I don't have to be chained up by my stupid mistakes and poor decisions. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that amazing gift! And I apologize sincerely, for dragging my problems along with me and feeling miserable, when you have offered to cover them with your precious blood. What an insult to You! I think there must be a fine line between acting like you are not responsible for your actions, and shedding the burden that they are to your heart and spirit. I want people to know that I am sorry for my poor choices, but I don't want to be chained by them any more. Take them, take them, please. And thanks again!

And please forgive me for posting from work.... :o)

Quick Update

2010-11-30T12:53:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving was awesome! The food was divine. The company was even better. Since it was also my 43rd (gasp!) birthday, my sister (awesome and wonderful) gave me a perfect gift. It was a gift certificate to my favorite store ever. Loops. I spent it on Saturday, and went right home and knitted a scarf. Woot! Thanks, Sis! More projects to come. Hopfully I will get the computer fixed this week. I am posting on the sly at work again (bad!). I feel isolated without being able to post pictures and look at facebook. Ugh!

Bad News

2010-11-22T09:22:00.000-06:00

My home computer crashed. No more posting till it gets fixed. Does anyone have any ideas on where I should take it? Apparently we have a nasty Trojan or 12....

This was posted from work, which is bad of me, but you know I am bad!

Gone

2010-11-20T14:16:00.000-06:00

My last post was "Slipping Away". So this one has to be "Gone"! October is over, now November is half gone as well. The year is almost over. December will be here quickly. You knew all of that, but it really amazed me how fast it all happened.

Last weekend I got cookie fever and made a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies. Kim discovered this one. Amazing! I hope your month is going well, and that a cookie will smile at you, too.

Slipping Away...

2010-10-10T22:40:00.000-05:00

Has anyone noticed how quickly this year is slipping away? It is almost mid October. The holiday season is right around the corner. I love the holidays, but there is a lot of work involved in them, so I approach them with mixed feelings.

I have projects I need to be working on for Christmas, and I have done nothing so far but think about them. Interestingly enough, thinking about things does nothing to accomplishing goals! I need more action. I am still finishing my project for Sammy's birthday, which was just shy of a month ago. That is so pitiful. I would not be surprised if she scratched me off her friends list!

I think my new gym activities 4 nights a week have taken a large slice of my life. I want that time back, but I don't want to quit doing something that is good for me. I have things that I do that are just for me (a few), and then things I do for Jacob and for Kim, and for my extended family. However, very little of what I do is for my physical well being. That is what the gym is about. So for now I will keep going.

Sorry, have not taken any interesting pictures. Maybe later in the week!

Finally, Fall!

2010-09-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

So happy that Fall arrived. Not just on the calendar, but today it arrived outside too! Nice cool weather. Welcome, welcome, welcome!

Tomorrow is Jacob's 17th birthday. I wish we could do something spectacular for him, but that won't happen this year. Let's be honest, probably not next year either! Oh well. I try to make it a point to tell him that I love him and appreciate him. He helps me a lot.

I am very blessed!

Sunday, Day of Rest

2010-09-19T21:03:00.000-05:00

That is just what I did today too. Yesterday, I cleaned like mad. Cleaned just about everything (except my junk room!). It sure felt good to get it done. I sat down to knit in the clean house when I was finished. That was such a good feeling. House clean and quiet. Knitting going well.... then CRASH! No, not really "crash" exactly. I just dropped a stitch. I am working on a scarf for a friend. I have tried this scarf before, without success. I don't know why this pattern is so hard for me. I have trouble focusing on it and keeping track of where I am. Suddenly I have dropped a stitch and usually have to pull out 4 pattern repeats to get my stitch back. It really stinks! It is a slow pattern for me. My friend will love it, I hope. Maybe it will be ready for her by her NEXT birthday. I dont think Samanatha reads my blog anymore, so there is not much danger of her seeing this. If she does, well that is ok, too. Her birthday was a week ago. It may be 3 more months before I finish it. Sigh!

So that was yesterday. Today we went to church. It was our turn for the nursery and there was a sweet little month-old baby girl there named Juliette. She was ready for a nap when I got there. She went right to sleep in the rocking chair. It was so sweet to hold such a tiny baby again. Babis smell so sweet!

After church we had lunch and I sat down and pulled out about 8 rows of the knitting project and got back to a good starting point. Then I took a loooooong nap. That was awesome! I woke up too late for evening services. Jacob went to see a friend and Kim and I watched a movie he rented. It was a nice, quiet, restful Sunday. I hope you had one too!

My life....

2010-09-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

September, one of my favorite months of the year is here and nearly gone! It has been a strange month for me. Kim has been in the hospital for nearly a week. Finally got home yesterday. Jacob's birthday is coming up in a little over a week. He will be 17! My baby is a grown (mostly) man.  Tonight my aunt took Jacob and I to dinner at Olive Garden for his birthday. Meredith, Uncle David and Ruth joined us. It was very good food and even better company.

It scares me sometimes to think of what the next few years will hold. Changes will be coming fast now that Jacob is practically grown. The older I get, the less I feel equiped to handle change. I can only assume it will keep coming at me, so I'd better get ready.  I guess all I can do is trust and pray that things will all work out for all us.

Sorry no pictures lately. It has been a busy few weeks!

Memorial - 9/11/2001

2010-09-11T11:30:00.005-05:00

I have not posted all week, and my last post was just photos. I just don't have much to talk about. I try to post good things, and this has been a tough couple of weeks. Sniff!

More important than all my sniveling, today is 9/11/2010. Nine years ago today, terrorist attacked our country. Many lives were lost. Many hearts were broken. The spirit of America was not broken that day. America came together to help our brothers and sisters. It bonded us like nothing else. The mental image of those planes plunging into the buildings and people falling out will never leave my mind. It won't, it can't, it shouldn't. Not just for anger, but for the sake of those who died. In my mind it is like the cross. I need that image in my head, so I won't forget what happened. Who died and why. Not for anger, but for inspiration. So this is in memorial to both events. Let's never forget.

Have a good weekend.

Random Pictures I Love...

2010-09-05T14:16:00.017-05:00

Jacob on a junk adventure.

My favorite sister, Debbie.

Me and my beloved husband, Kim.

Jacob and I at Talley's in Tulsa

Amy in downtown Tulsa.

Nellie and Gina

Architecture in downtown Tulsa

My 89 year young Grandma. Road trip!

Cool spider web in the early morning light on the Illinois River

Myself and my Bestie, Necia.

Bella and Isabella enjoy ice cream together!

Fall trees in Chandler Park, Tulsa.

August is Over!

2010-08-31T19:30:00.003-05:00

Thank heavens! My least favorite month of the year is finally gone. I fail to understand why this month seems to last for 4 months! I feel like it is just something to tolerate this year. But to end the month on a postive note, here are the highlights of my August, 2010.

My husband's birthday on the 2nd. Love that man!
Jacob got his drivers license. :o) Proud of him!
I started working out this August in a gym, and have been committed to it for 4 days a week for 3 full weeks now! Woo hoo!
My brother Danny and my nephew Dillon both have birthdays in August. They live in far away Northern Pennsylvania, so I don't get to celebrate with them. Danny is 47 (I think!)and Dillon is 14.
My job is going well. I am super busy and the workdays are flying past.

I know there must be more, but that is all that comes to mind this evening. There, I finished the month on a positive note!

One more thought for the day....

2010-08-28T21:03:00.005-05:00

Fudgilicious dark chocolate brownies anyone?

Gotta leave a little in the bowl to enjoy while they bake!

A little extra chocolate will make them perfect!

So happy that I can finally turn my oven on again without making the house too hot to sleep in it! I know it was pretty warm out today, but still, it was so nice to bake something!

Addiction

2010-08-28T19:09:00.004-05:00

Suddenly I am addicted to the Caramel Frappe's from McDonalds. Like most junkies, I can't afford my habit. So I decided to try to make my own. It looked better than it tasted. It did not taste bad, I think I just got too much milk in it. I will have to work on perfecting my technique. I mostly blame my sister who talked me into trying it. They are so good when it is hot outside. I was blending and blending to get it nice and smooth, and I was reaching for a plastic cup to put it into when I found this in the cabinet! The happy leaf mug my dear friend Amy gave me! It looks tasty, doesn't it?

Leaf me alone while I sip my Frappe!

I also had a fun afternoon visiting a Homemade Gourmet sampling set up by my friend Cindy, who sells for them. I had never been to one before and the food was so delicious! Can't wait to try some of the tasty stuff!

A View From My Desk...

2010-08-26T22:14:00.005-05:00

I was having a pretty awesome day today. I sold a good sized life policy in the morning after nearly a two month dry spell, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. Thursday is actually my second favorite day of the week. Friday being my favorite. Anyway, I digress...

I was at my desk, talking on the phone to a customer and I glanced to the side of my computer screen and saw the most amazing sight. OK, not exactly amazing, but awesome! I almost dropped the phone and the customer was saying, "Hello, are you still there....Lisa?" There was the most amazing car outside my window that I have ever seen. It was a Mini Cooper, which is pretty cool all on its own, but this was a wrapped Mini! From LOOPS ! My favorite yarn store!

Yes, you have heard me talk about and drool over the yarn, but is this not just the coolest little car EVER??? Even my boss was impressed and had to go outside to look at it up close. It is a sweater car or should we call it a scarf car?? OK, a knitted car! Love, love, love me a knitted car!

I can just hear both of you, Debbie and Amy, saying, "What you never saw that car before? I see it all the time!" Well, if that is true, why the heck did you never tell me!!

Amy, why did we not think of this and wrap your jeep in yarn???

Another Junky Day With Amy!

2010-08-21T19:10:00.004-05:00

Today Amy and I met again for lunch in Skiatook, then shimmied over to Collinsville to visit one of our favorite junkiest junk shops. We were both a little pushed for time so we had to make a quick run through. That shop was so hot, we were both dripping sweat!

This caught my eye. I love the Maple leaf stamped on it! Leaves!!! Fall is almost here! Rejoice!

Amy found a Sock Horse. She would! I think she considered chasing me with it! Ugh, almost as bad as a Sock Monkey!

I didn't have any cash with me, intentionally, so I would not spend any and I found this little dish that I love. The leaves were just too much to resist. So Amy loaned me a dollar to buy it! Amy found some board games. Then she spilled a jar of marbles! So funny.

Back Together Again...

2010-08-20T22:30:00.003-05:00

As promised, I rescued the duck this week. I finally remembered him on Thursday. I am sure all two of my readers will be relieved!

Have a ducky weekend! Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun!

Waiting...

2010-08-19T07:45:00.005-05:00

Hello world! Don't you hate it when your life is in "limbo"? You are waiting for news that is slow in coming and everything in your life starts to circle around "the news"? That is such a bad feeling. I think it is best to set your eye on the prize, like it says somewhere in the Bible. Focus on that and move forward. However, when you have an obstacle that won't move you just have to function around it.

It is sort of like driving up a hill and knowing something is coming but not knowing exactly what it will be. I have to resist the urge to run ahead and try to look over the hill to see what is coming. There is no way to do that. I have to wait for it to happen.

That is what I seem to be doing these days and it is not so pleasant. I have to learn to trust God more to get me what I need. That is not easy for me either because I learned from a young age to depend on myself. I have to try to un-learn that stubborn independant streak and lean on God.

I Wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. Psalm 130:5

August Rain!

2010-08-17T18:24:00.005-05:00

Today it poured and poured! I love heavy rain storms, especially in August. Some thunder would have been nice, but it was mostly just rain. It kept the temps down. I know it will get hot again, looks like back up to 100 next week, but I can't help but think that fall is sneaking in! That gave me a chill just thinking of it! Fall!!!

Our electricity went out at work twice today! Such a hassle to re-start my computer and try to re-capture my work in progress. Still no rescue of duck number two. I wish he would quack at me or something! Maybe that would help me remember.

Reunited!

2010-08-15T20:38:00.006-05:00

Yesterday for the first time in about 14 years my Dad's side of the family (Hamil's) got together. Not all of us were able to come, but it was long over-due, and we decided to do it again before the end of the year. Maybe more people can join us for the next one. Of my siblings, Debbie was there, and my little brother Joe was there. Danny, Donnie and Christopher were not. It sure was nice to see everyone!

This picture is Bruce, my sister's hubby and Uncle Bud. Male bonding stuff.This is from left to right, My cousins Carrie Sue, and Sharon my baby brother Joe, my sister Debbie and me.

Jacob and Mattie Jane, my niece.

Adventures From My Desk...

2010-08-13T21:11:00.005-05:00

So today I was at my desk, working diligently. Trying to get the pile of paper thinned out between walk in customers and phone calls. It is really hard to ever start and finish a task before you are interrupted. Especially when you are alone. Well, my boss was there, but honestly, he does his own thing. He only helps me with "overflow" phone calls. Anyway I have a tow bill to pay. I have learned to do this type of work quickly and I have a process for it that makes sense to me.

Check to make sure the customer has coverage. Check.

Find my checkbook. Check (literally!).

Make the check out to the customer or the towing company as the situation warrants. Check.

Pull apart the triplicate check. In this case, top copy to towing company, 2nd copy to State Farm, bottom copy for our file. Check.

Make copy of authorization to pay and tow bill for our file. Check.

Make copy of tow bill to enclose with payment for tow company. Check.

Put check with copy of tow bill in envelope, ready for mail. Check.

Put middle copy of check in with authorization and copy of tow bill into special mailing sleeve, then into envelope to mail to "the Farm". Check.

Staple our copies together and file. Check.

Postage two envelopes. Check. Done!

I can actually do this process pretty quickly, if I can do it uninterrupted. Today, I was hurrying so I could get it done before the phone rang. Between step 7 and 8 a problem arose. I was snatching the papers out of the copier at my desk when I dropped the authorization in the small space between my desk and the window! I have not looked into that space in a year or more.

Here is what I saw....

The authorization is on the left side of the first picture. The size of a half sheet of paper. The other picture has one of the rubber duckies Amy got me. The other ducky is still safely sitting on my desk. There is also a State Farm plastic cup, a tube of Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion, and various other missing paperwork, that got filed in my mystery "file cabinet-crevice" and about a gazillion dead bugs! I tried to reach the authorization form. No luck. I feel like I pulled my shoulder muscle trying to stretch too far! Crud! Can you say "workmans comp"????

I went on a mission to find something that would reach it. What I really need is one of those scissory extension reacher grabby thingys for old people to reach things on the top shelf. I found a long ruler. 18 inches. Maybe that will work. Turns out that 5 minutes later and about 100 failed attempts that it didn't. I am sweating and getting cranky. I could get it half way up the side of the desk and it fell, over and over. Crud, crud, crud!

Aha! put scotch tape on the end of it! Eureka!

Tune in next week for the rescue mission for the other rubber ducky. It is just so wrong that I forgot and left him down there so long! Apparently, he does not eat dead bugs. Maybe he killed them?

Just another day in the life of a State Farm Agency! Who said insurance is boring?

Pet Peeve...

2010-08-12T17:54:00.002-05:00

Do you have one? I think most of us have more than one. The first thing that popped into my head when I thought of this is totally gross. Ick! But here it is.

You are talking to a friend or standing or sitting next to someone, child or adult and they turn their head so that you have an eye to ear straight line shot into their ear. Yuck! It's all waxy and nasty! Clean your ears! Clean your kids ears! Make your spouse clean their ears! But do it at home!!! Not with your car keys in public! Ewwww!

OK, so what is your pet peeve? Share please. No picture to post this time. Thank God I did not get a picture of anyone's waxy ear!

August Heat Wave

2010-08-08T19:02:00.004-05:00

Here we are in the middle of August and it is just stinkin hot! The forcast for the next week has all triple didgets. This is just miserable! Not my favorite time of the year. A friend on Facebook pointed out that today is the opening of the football season, which indicates that fall is just around the corner. That made me feel better. Just a few more weeks of this misery and my favorite season will be here. God is good!

Tonight I am giving my yard a good soaking. Should have been doing this last week, too. Hopefully it will recover. Jacob was against it. For some reason he does not want the grass to grow. Whats up with that?

VBS the Finale!

2010-08-07T20:53:00.004-05:00

Finished this morning. I guess I do need to undecorate, but I will probably do that in a few weeks. Or maybe someone at church will do it for me if I wait long enough. :o)

Finally got the house mostly cleaned up and it is so much more relaxing to relax in a clean house! My floors are swept and mopped, the house smells lemony fresh. I still need to dust, but I decided to wait till tomorrow. My back is hurting.

Walking starts again on Sunday. No ifs ands or "butts".... cuz mine is getting too big!

I took some more cloud pix this week. Here is one I enjoyed...

And my sister took this one, love it! It makes me so happy to look at it. I can't explain it. I would love to frame it and hang it. Maybe I would never have to look for a silver lining in my black cloud again!

Photo credit: Debbie Turrentine

VBS, Part 2

2010-08-02T22:23:00.006-05:00

Finally finished decorating! I had some good help in the elementary hallway from my partner in crime, Mattie, her husband James, and my Auntie Mary. Thanks guys! VBS starts Weds. Hopefully we will have a lot of neighborhood kids! Lots of people put in many hours of work. I counted my hours, I was there about 16 hours in all and I know many others were there much longer, and probably still are! I guess they just do this once a year so you will have time to forget how much work it is! We made a volcano and some dinosaurs. Wish we had more time to work on that area. Couls have used some clouds and maybe some more lava!

Finally the finished Fish hall that was my favorite part, and we spent more time on it than the other part.

Love this funny fish!

Confession time... I have not walked in a solid week! I am so tired from VBS prep, I can't get it together. Next week, for sure!

VBS-Preparation Phase

2010-07-30T21:57:00.003-05:00

This coming week is VBS at our church. This is very late in the year for VBS, but for some reason this is the week that was chosen. Naturally it will be extremely hot this year. I had originally volunteered to help with crafts this year. And I am still doing that. But then I was asked to help with decorating and area of the church building. For some odd reason, I said yes. What was I thinking? I don't really enjoy this sort of thing! I think I might have lost my mind!

I did a smart thing and asked my sweet, young, energetic niece, Mattie, to help me with the project. She came to my rescue and we worked at church last Saturday for about 5 hours hanging paper. Her husband James even came by for about an hour to help us finish up the paper. Thanks guys!

Tonight I went back and added some fish to the walls with the help of my Aunt Mary. We were just there for a few hours. But hopefully it will give Mattie and I time to finish up the rest tomorrow. It would be nice to be completely done by tomorrow evening. The most frustrating part about decorating for VBS is that the decorations come down so much faster than they went up. Hours and hours of work will come down in an hour or so.

Clouds

2010-07-28T21:26:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I was obsessed with clouds, and I took more cloud pictures today, but do you ever feel like you have a dark cloud lurking over your life? There it is, blocking the sun. No, not the pretty fluffy white one in the picture. A big dark depressing one with lots of problems to drop on you.

I try so hard to focus on the beauty around me, but then something comes crashing in and I get so bogged down in the gunk of life. Today is gunky. Maybe tomorrow I will find a silver lining in my dark cloud. I will try to go to sleep tonight counting my blessings.

Vote! Be a Great American!

2010-07-27T18:36:00.003-05:00

Today are the Primary elections in Oklahoma. I stopped by this evening after work to cast my ballot. To be honest sometimes it seems like a waste of time, but I try to remember what a privelage it is to have the honor of voting. Many women cannot! Many people in many countries can't. God Bless America! This sign was hanging on the door of my polling place! Wow! I have to be honest, I am not completely sure I know what that means, but I think it means that you can't stand outside a polling place and harass those entering and exiting.

The sky.... oh man! Love the clouds on days like today. I am trying to focus on the beauty around me, this time of year is harder for me, because it is so hot that when I am outside, I just hurry to get back inside! But today the sky caught my eye, and I finally figured out how to change the setting on my camera.

Happy election day!

Monday or Full Moon day??

2010-07-26T19:21:00.003-05:00

Today was crazy. I am anxious for the sun to set so I can see if the moon is full! It seemed like everyone that called or came in was an odd situation! Have you ever had a day like that?

I tried to take a photo today of the sky, but I think my settings are wonky, it was just a big blur. I don't understand my new camera. This is from my archives. I feel about this perky tonight! We skipped our walk last night due to the weather, tonight is looking "ify".

Gone So Long...

2010-07-25T12:33:00.004-05:00

I have been away from my blog for a long time. Lots has been going on. But mostly I have just been neglecting this. What HAVE I been doing? Hmmm.

Last month I started walking. I am trying to get myself in better shape physically. I have surgery coming late this year, or early next and I need to seriously lose some weight. I don't think I have lost any, which depresses me, but it must be better for me physically, so I will keep doing it as long as I can talk someone into going with me. Jacob usually goes, and Sandy K. and her son Matt. Sometimes Cindy, from church, and her girls, Courtney and Tori. We have a regular gang! It is really not too bad, aside from the heat, we have a great time talking about our day and what is going on. It is extremely hot, however, and that makes it rough.

I have done some knitting and have a few items to add to my projects. Mostly just more coin purses. I don't seem to knit very much when it gets hot outside. I don't have an explanation for that. I have not been taking many pictures either.

Kim is healed and back at work. I am praying he stays out of trouble. Jacob is mowing, and mowing and mowing. He is talking about getting a real job. His first one. That will be nice. I think it will be a good experience for him.

Some big things have happened that make me sad and happy at the same time. Isn't that just the way life is? I think it is referred to as bitter sweet. Amy has moved to Bartlesville into her own home. That means no more local buddy to go junking with. :o( We did make one trip since I last posted and I can add some of those pix.

Jacob is growing up.... that makes me happy and sad. There are other things too, but not much I can post about.

I think one of the great mysteries of life is how it changes and how we feel and react to those changes. It is so hard, but I am trying!

Spring has Sprung!

2010-04-15T22:38:00.003-05:00

Has it really been 6 weeks since I last posted? Wow. It has been a busy time. Some things are too ridiculous to share, but let me try to back up a little. The first week of March...Kim got sick with Bronchitis, we spent most of a night at the ER. Then he got hurt at work and almost crushed his legs. Nice work Kim. I had minor outpatient surgery the same day he got hurt. My mom got sick (again) and went into the hospital. She was there 23 days, most of them ( I think all but 5) were in ICU. I cannot imagine how huge her hospital bill will be. I hope they don't send it here! Yikes! She finally had the surgery she needed (a colostomy) and went back to the nursing home this week. At last!

Like I said, lot's more stuff, but that is good enough. I have been so busy, but in the middle of it spring errupted all around me. It was so beautiful, and I took some pictures of the sights that caught my eye. Of course I can't seen to load any pictures today, so I will have to add them tomorrow.

I am thinking about a third chapter in my story about me, but don't have it quite formulated in the pea sized cavity that contains my brain. So you will have to wait. I hope your Spring is going well. Jacob has starte mowing and I have started sneezing. At our house, that makes it official. I even already had my first batch of poison ivy, just in time to gross the nurses out at the hospital just before my surgery. Thank heavens that is over! Hopefully I can put it behind me for the year.

I hope your year is progressing well. Things have been diffucult here for me, but I try to keep my focus on the ultimate prize. My reward is not here, right? Someday I will look back on these times and say, "those were the best years of my life", right? If I ever say that, you will know for sure that I am a liar!

Good night!

A New Week

2010-02-28T16:05:00.002-06:00

This has been a busy week. Kind of crazy at work. I got in trouble from my boss, and that was hard to take. Since I was a little girl in school, I have been the good kid, the teacher's pet (with the exception of one teacher) and I loved it that way. Same thing at work. It used to be that I was the good employee, the one they could count on. I guess I feel like I have lost that for some reason. But I sucked it up and got over it. It sure felt like a long week.

On a happier note, I am making a scarf for my friend Sheila. It is a soft suede yarn. It is wonderful to work with. Sheila is trying to decide if she wants fringe or not. What do you think? The scarf should be done in a few days. Thank goodness I have knitting to keep me sane! I sure wish I could knit full time. Maybe in heaven!

Oh, Baby!

2010-02-20T18:25:00.004-06:00

Fun new project! this is a baby hat, not a toilet paper roll cover! It is for baby Ivy. I hope it fits, and I hope she likes it.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Tulsa Style!

2010-02-16T22:44:00.005-06:00

Rewind a few weeks. I thought I was going to get to work on the Extreme Home Makeover house they were building here in Tulsa. The build went Extremely well, despite our Extreme weather and I was Extremely disappointed that I did not get to participate. However, I was Extremely happy for the Starkweather family who were gifted with a beautiful new home. Simmons did a fabulous job and I know it was a lot of hard work. I also tried to attend the reveal that was scheduled to begin at 2. We arrived at 1:20. I had to leave to get Jacob from school at 3:45 and the reveal did not happen until after5PM. Again, Extremely disappointed.

What can I say? I guess Hollywood and I would never get along. It was just not meant to be. I was very happy for the family and am looking forward to the show airing in March. Hopefully Sammy SMOR will make the show. We had a great day together. We got a breakfast at Tally's and stood in the crowd together for many hours holding her awesome sign!

Lazy me.

2010-02-08T22:59:00.003-06:00

Sorry fans... I just cant think of anything to say, but I couldn't leave you hanging, wondering where I am and what I am doing (like you dont know I was knitting!).

I ordered a large amount of snow to fall today, it did fall, just not here! Or what fell melted. BOOOOOOO! I know, I can hear you, you are sick of it, but you are not in charge this winter, I am. I did let my control slip today and what I ordered did not arrive. So you dodged a bullet. Can you tell I am tired tonight? A little silly? Yep.

Going shopping in the recent photo file for a pic as I am way to lazy to walk across the room and get my camera and upload the pictures. Sad but true!

Winter Wonderland!

2010-02-01T21:38:00.003-06:00

Winter visited us again! I know all my adoring public lives right here where I live and this is old news. Here is something that you might not have known. I LOVE THE SNOW!! You knew that too? Oh well, you didn't see my pictures yet! Here are my favorite January storm pictures. I love the one of Jacob. Caught him smiling, just a little. Hope you like them too.

January Blah!

2010-01-25T20:04:00.007-06:00

I sometimes find the end of January to be a very boring. Early in the month is time for a fresh start. By this time, my fresh start has run out of gas.

I am fighting off the January Blah's with a new project. :o) Happiness! I have added a twist to my coin purse. I added a liner. I went to Hancock's on Saturday and found the most adorable fabrics, along with a new source for happy wool yarn. I found a beautiful yellow wool. I don't currently have any yellow, it all looks too gold in the store, so this was exciting for me! Here are three of the most adorable fabrics I found Saturday.

I only let myself get three this time (along with two remnants) because I was not sure if I would like putting linings in them. It was a lot more work. Still not really sure how I feel about it. The other"issue" is that I decided ahead of time, that for once, I wanted to make one for myself. That is right. I don't have one yet! I wanted this to be my camera case. And there was the rub. Adding the liner, tightens up the opening. There is no "stretch" or "give", and my camera won't fit! So I will be using this as a coin purse, My credit cards and drivers license fit perfectly. And will make another, slightly larger one for my camera! I was thinking about making it black with dots so that it coordinates, but is still different than this version.

Have a happy week! Blast away your "Blah's" with a fun project.

Junking with the Master Junker!

2010-01-16T19:00:00.006-06:00

Today was a fun adventure. Amy, who lives in Bartlesville, met me between Skiatook and Collinsville, just off the Hwy 75 exit. We took her car first to Skiatook for an antiquing/junking adventure. It was fun! We saw lots of funs stuff. After lunch at Ron's (ugh! I feel fat) we moved to Collinsville. Jackpot!

I will keep the words short today, and say it with pictures. Got my favorite sister a present, just because I saw something that made me think of her. Hope she does not have one already. :o)

Chapter Two

2010-01-15T20:32:00.004-06:00

Grams says that when we got off the airplane, Danny and Debbie remembered her from when she came to visit, they went right to her for a hug. I was too shy. I was only 18 months old and very much a momma's girl. That does not seem like a big surprise. The second part of the story is that Grams quickly found her way into my heart. Or rather, my stomach. She literally bribed me with food. Thanks Grams! My battle with weight had already begun! I have a few memories from when we lived with Grams, but I am not sure which time I am remembering. We stayed for a while when we first arrived. The memory that I think belongs there is that I would sit in the long hallway between the kitchen and the den and play with a deck of cards. I also remember playing under the dining room table while Grams and her friends played cards. Going to sewing club meetings with Grams. They used their dues to send an underprivelaged child to summer camp. Somewhere along the way we moved to some apartments. They are on 21st street in West Tulsa. Very close to the river. I remember that our apartment had stairs and I have a vivid memory of crawling up the stairs, then sliding down on my belly. I remember watching my brother and sister play on the playground from the upstairs window.

Oh yes, this is important. I learned a new word while we lived there. "molested". That is pretty much all I really remember. I guess some old pervert who lived there got hold of my sister and I. I dont know what he did. I just remember learning the word, "molested". In the true way of the old days, this was not discussed for years and years. Seems like someone would have asked us if we needed to talk about it. Nope. Many years later, as an adult, I was not sure if it was a real memory or something that happened to someone else. So I asked my Aunt Mary. She confirmed it, but did not know what had happened either. To be honest I am not sure anything happened to me or not. Maybe it was just my sister? I don't really feel scarred or affected by it, but it just seems like it should have been a monumental event. Hello? If someone did that to your kid now there would be a media circus. Oh well. I guess it is just one more short blip on the radar of my life. But at least I was acquiring an impressive vocabulary!

After that, we lived back at my Grams for a while. You will begin to notice a theme. In my life, all roads lead back to that house...always. Then we moved across the street from her. What do I remember about that? The house was tiny. I think just two bedrooms. The most amazing thing was that it had this super awesome chimney on the outside. I will try to get a picture of it to post. It was very stylish and original. Like a work of art on a tiny little piece of nothing house. I don't know how long we lived there, but I remember that our land lord was Mr. Bradshaw, and I thought he was handsome.

Thats all for today.... Have a wonderful weekend! Will add pictures later....

Decorations....down!

2010-01-14T22:32:00.003-06:00

Tonight I accomplished what I have been trying to do for 14 days! The Christmas decorations are down. Life can move forward now. The house does not look very festive, but at least it is season appropriate. My next big task is to clean out the middle bedroom and transform it into the crafting room of my dreams, well, maybe my thoughts. I dare not try for the room of my dreams. I would like to have a good sized table. Something that looks a bit like this.
I dont need any chairs, just the table. It is ok if it is scarred up, I can paint it. Free is best, so if you know anyone who is purging a rectangular sturdy dining room table, please alert the media. I want it. I could set my sewing machine up on one end and my burning tools up on the other. Then I want some book shelves that I can store stuff on. I have a chest of drawers that I will clean out for yarn storage. I want to paint the walls. But not sure what color. Nothing too bold, because I want the colors I work with to look true, and some wall colors affect how you see other colors.

Thats all for tonight. The boy wants the computer.

The story of me.

2010-01-06T21:03:00.006-06:00

I have always wanted to write the story of my life. This is not the best venue for that, but I am going to try to write a chapter now and then as I remember it.

A long, long time ago, in a tiny little town in Washington state, I was born. The year was 1967. It was a Saturday in November, just two days after Thanksgiving. My Momma was Barbara, and I had a big brother, Danny, who was 4 and a sister, Debbie, who was 3. Life is strange. Most people have a mom and a dad, and so did I. But my dad did not live with us. My parents were divorced before I was born and my dad had a new family. The lady he chose, Pauline had a son and a new baby girl of her own. So my dad had replaced me before I was even born. I am sure I did not know the difference....yet.

The town we lived in was Hood River, Oregon. But I was born across the river in White Salmon, Washington. You can see Mount Hood from there. I think seeing a mountain from your home town is very cool. Later when I was a teenager, my grandparents took my cousin and I through there when we were on the way to visit my uncle in Salem, Oregon. We did not stop, but it was fascinating for me to see where it all began. Strange that it seemed so foreign. I guess I thought I would feel a connection or at home or something. I'd like to go back someday and get to know it better.

I don't have much to say about Hood River, or White Salmon, since I was a baby when we were there. When I was about 18 months old, we came home to Tulsa. My mom's parents lived in Tulsa, so she was coming home after her marriage failed. There was a lot more to that story, of course. Isn't there always? My mom was a very different person. She was the oldest of 4 children born to David E. Clark and Helen Crow Clark. Both of my grandparents were born in Tulsa or right around Tulsa. Grams was born in Red Fork, which is basically between Sand Springs and Tulsa. To tell you about me I have to tell you about my mom, and to tell you about my mom, I have to tell you about my Grams. Aren't we all very much tied up with our mothers?

Grams parents divorced when she was young. She lived mostly with her mom, Zeila Keeling Crow who was a party girl. She brought a lot of men in and out of my Grams life. Some of them abused my Grams. It makes me so sad to think of how helpless she was. It was the depression. They did not have a real home and often lived in rooming houses. Grandma Zeila would pay for a month, and leave with a man. If she came back in the next month, Grams and her mean older sister, Jeri, would have another place to live, if not they had to stay with friends. Sometimes she stayed with her dad. Grams dad, Milton Crow ran a little neighborhood grocery store, somewhere in west Tulsa, I think. Here is a neat tidbit. The Wills brothers worked for him. Bob and Johnny Lee Wills were Western Swing singers from Texas who worked part time for Grandpa Crow and part time for KVOO radio, according to Grams stories. They are famous for their western swing music and put Tulsa on the map, musicly speaking. Grandpa Crow trusted the Wills brothers enough to let Grams go dancing with them. Oh, how she loved to dance! Once, when I was grown and married, I had a party at my house and Grams got ups and danced! I could tell she was having fun! Sad that that urge stayed hidden all those years. Anyway, Grams settled down and married Gramps. They moved all over the country and had babies. Gramps was a draftsman and worked for oil companies in Pennsylvania, Texas and Oklahoma. Grams was just a little country girl with red hair. She tells the story of when she thought she was pregnant, a neighbor told her she needed to see a doctor. So she went. In the Doctors office, they handed her a cup and told her they needed a urine sample. She said they showed her the bathroom. I can picture my pretty, petite Grams, so young, only a teenager standing next to the bathroom with a cup in her hand and a puzzled look on her face, wondering what the heck urine is. She put the cup in the bathroom and left the doctor's office and never went back. Her friend told her later what urine was, and she said, "I wish they'd just said to pee in the cup!" So finally, the young couple with three kids, landed back in Tulsa. They rented a house from Grandpa's mom and dad across the street from where he grew up. My Grams still lives in that house now. But it looks a lot different. It was moved to it's current location from where TU is now. It was tiny, just two bedrooms. Shortly after they came back to Tulsa, Gramps had to go to war. It was WWII. He reparied guns. When he came back they added one more baby, my Aunt Mary. While Grams was in the hospital having aunt Mary, the tiny house caught fire! It was August and my Momma was getting ready to start kindergarten. Somewher in the family archives is a newspaper clipping asking for donations of baby clothes and little dresses for a kindergartener.

My mom grew up. Quiet. Odd. Different. Schitzophrenic. Of course they did not know that. They thought she was quiet, odd and different. She went off to college at OSU. I think that lasted one semester and she came home. Grams knew something was wrong and took her to the doctor who said there was nothing wrong with her. Momma met my dad, Don, a bad boy. My grandparents detested him. He wrote hot checks and drank too much. Not exactly a parent's dream! But they got married and moved to Oregon, away from her family. Momma had Danny, and things got dicey. My dad said she would use all the grocery money to buy a leather bound bible, or she would give the money and the bible away. He kept writing bad checks and spent a little time in jail. I have to confess, all this is hearsay. Most of the people I know are too young to remember any of this, or they were not present when this happened. Finally, dad left, met Pauline, helped make me, and married Pauline. Mom came back to Tulsa, so we are back to me.

Next time.....less ancient history, more me

New Year, Back to Work.

2010-01-04T21:29:00.007-06:00

Back to work today. We finished the year at work with only very slightly better numbers for 2009 than we had for 2008, so at least my boss had to give us props for finishing strong. Oh how I wish, I wish, I wish I could make a good living at home. I so want to be a homemaker. However, we have bills to pay, and we do like to eat, so to work I go. Today was not too bad as far as my job goes, I had a life application that I had saved from last month that I submitted today, so that starts the month and the year off on a good note.

Here are some pictures that I took during December and never posted.

Abbey's birthday gift, commissioned by Jacob (above)

A gift for a friend.

These are from inside the house on Christmas day. I have to tell you I was thrilled to have a white Christmas. A serious, real, white Christmas. Not a whimpy dusting of snow thingy. The real deal. Loved it. I had no where I had to be, so I stayed home and knitted, read and cooked my favorite things.

This was an awesome sight! Beautiful!

Bonnie and Clyde loved playing in the snow, as long as they got to sleep in the garage.

Hope you had a good day if you had to work, if not, well, I still love you. Now I have a serious problem. My decorations are still up and I dread taking them down. How trashy would it be to leave them for next Christmas? Trashy, or forward thinking?

Begin Again in 2010!

2010-01-01T22:45:00.005-06:00

I have been gone too long! But as an excuse, I was very busy, knitting, felting, embellishing, burning, staining and cooking. I also have this little thing called a day job that keeps interfering in my fun. I think I would be a fabulous rich person. I would get to have so much fun knitting, with never a worry about paying those pesky bills. Alas, God has something else in mind for me. He knows best, so the pesky day job is back for the new year. Joy.

Here are some of my projects, can't show you all, because some people have still not received their gifts!

I also forgot to take pictures of the gifts I gave Gina and Amy, so I will have to ask them to send me pictures so I can post them since those gifts are something totally new for me. Gina has still not gotten hers, but Amy got hers tonight. So excited to give Gina hers so I can talk about it. :o) I am not so good with secrets.

I hope you had a very peaceful fun and exciting New Years Eve. I helped out at the teen lock in at church for a few hours. Then came home for the last 15 minutes before the ball dropped. Then I went straight to my nice warm bed. I am not such a great night owl.

Tonight was Bunko, and Amy came along to fill in for one of the ladies who could not be there. Of course she won... sort of.... she lost the most games so she got $10. Woo hoo Amy Loo! She also helped wash dishes and clean up afterwards. What a great friend. I was the hostess tonight, and I had to provide a gift for the last Bunko of the night. Here is what she got, along with a vanilla scented candle.

I am sleepy again, so I am signing off and praying that all 2 of my blog readers have a wonderful, blessed and successful 2010! Just in case there are more than 2 of you, I wish it for all of you! Crud, I just remembered I have to wash the dishes before I go to bed. Ugh!

Merry Happy Jolly Christmas!

2009-12-10T23:21:00.002-06:00

Today my new camera came in! I did not have time to mess with the software on the computer tonight, but I will try to do that this weekend, so I can start sharing my new pictures. I really like it so far. I was trying to save all my points earned in promotions at State Farm to get a really, really awesome camera, but alas... I dropped and broke the Kodak, so I had to settle for the points that I had accumulated this year. It would have taken two more years to get the one I was looking at. However I am so happy to tell you that I ended up with a much better camera than we had!!! Woo hoo! I am so excited!!! Will add pix to this post later. Must go to bed now. Hugs to all one or two of you!

Blue Christmas

2009-12-09T21:16:00.003-06:00

I apologize in advance, this is not an upbeat post today, but this is where I am.

So have you ever heard the new song by Toby Keith that he wrote for his good friend and Tulsan Waymon Tisdale? I don't know the name of it, but it is a tear jerker, and a nice celebration of friendship. Today I was listening to the words on the way home from work and thinking yet again about how much I miss my foster mom, Bobby. I got started sniffleing and before I knew it the tears were rolling. She has been gone now for about 15 months and I have a terrible awful confession to make. I have not been back to their house since the funeral. I can barely talk to my dad on the phone. A few times I talked to him, I made him cry. Every time I think about her, I just get so sad... FOR ME! What a selfish thing! I was wondering why that is. I did not spend much time with her for the last 20 years. Called her rarely, usually just when I needed something. That finally hit home. I think I feel guilty for failing her, for not being successful (the words EPIC FAIL come to my mind). She was good at everything, and I just feel so bad that I am not what I should be in so many ways.

So this next year, I will try harder to be better. A better Christian, a better wife, mother, sister, aunt, niece, friend. You get it. Better. In honor of a great example...

The Season!

2009-12-07T21:24:00.002-06:00

Well it has arrived. The special time of year when everyone is racing around, distracted, buying and making that perfect gift. We get pretty distracted by that and seem to forget that the perfect gift was delivered to us in a tiny sweet package over 2000 years ago, in Bethlehem. He came here, a pretty cruddy place from a perfect place. Here, with rude, selfish, ungrateful people like me, instead of his father and angels and beauty beyond measure. He came here willingly and faced a painful life and a horrible death for us.

Give it up, you can't find, buy or make the perfect gift. It already happened, it has been done. Don't forget to share that message and take a few moments to be thankful for the best gift you have ever been given. Thank God for that gift!

Burn Baby, Burn!

2009-11-26T18:23:00.001-06:00

Here are pictures of my burning project. Kinda fun!

So Thankful!

2009-11-26T08:18:00.004-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Welcome to the best holiday of the year!

I was up at 7. I don't want to waste my time sleeping. There is cooking to do! The turkey is out of its brine bath. I splashed him up with some vegetable oil. He is in the bag, and waiting in the fridge for his turn in the oven. The pumpkin pie is waiting on the counter. Cooked it last night. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. I am not one to make pie crust, so this one is curtesy of Pillsbury. To be honest, I don't even eat the crust for the most part. But there is Cool Whip in the fridge to top this bad boy off. Yummy!

Next, a little later, I need to peel and boil potatoes for mashing and make stuffing. Last will be assembling the famous green bean casserole. It will go in the oven with the stuffing as soon as the bird emerges. Then potatoes will be mashed and corn will be cooked. Oh, don't forget the bread, Lisa! I didn't make homemade this year. Acutally, I haven't for years. I bought some of the delicious Kings Hawaiian rolls. So tasty!

Jacob is so cool!

I will try to post more pictures later today of our feast. But it will be a busy day with all the cooking. Then after we eat, Jacob and I will deliver dinner to my mom at the nursing home. She did not want to get out today. She does not like the steps at my house. And finally, if we can convince Kim, a movie this afternoon. I want to see The Blind Side, with Sandra Bullock.

I am so thankful for my family, home, job and friends! I hope you are all blessed with a beautiful day!

...Update! It is 6PM. The food is put away, some in our stomachs and the rest in the fridge. I have made my pilgrimage to the nursing home to visit mom. I made an unsuccessful bid to convince Kim to go to a movie today. He shot me down. Said he was too tired. He did work all night last night, so I guess I can understand. So, perhaps tomorrow or Saturday. Sorry, Sandra Bullock, I did try!

Jacob and Travis went with me to visit Momma.

Momma was happy after eating her turkey dinner.

Please don't tell me how much we look alike...I know!

I just finished trying out my new wood burning tool on my cork coasters. I also have a set of trivets that I can burn. They are square tiles, instead of round ones, but I think it will look neat! It was fun, and I only burned myself one time. That puppy gets really hot!! If anyone wants to borrow it to try it out, let me know. I can share!

I also said I would post some pictures of the feast. Um... I forgot to take any! Please understand that when the food was ready, there were 2 hungry, no starving, teenagers standing in the kitchen with plates begging to be set loose on it! I did get an "after" picture of the pie. Happy, happy, happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope it was fabulous.

After!

Finito!

2009-11-21T16:29:00.003-06:00

Project finished! This is another change purse. It is long over-due. This is a gift for Aunt Mary's birthday, which was back in August! Gasp! How tardy am I? Oh well, at least it will arrive in the same calendar year.

Christmas Gathering - The Church at Battle Creek

2009-11-21T15:24:00.006-06:00

Wow! Is it ok to start a blog post with 'Wow!"? Well, that is all I could think of to start with. Last night I had a great time! Let's rewind about a month. Amy, my teacher friend who lives in Bartlesville emailed me and several other friends to see if we wanted to go to an event called Christmas Gathering that she attended last year. She said they give out a bunch of freebies at the church. It is a program by the church's ladies ministry. I remembered her talking about it last year, so I said sure, we all said sure... Free stuff? Fun night out?? Of course!

Amy went online to get the tickets. Panic! She could not purchse on line because the web site was down, nor by phone, because that is not allowed. Someone local (not in Bartlesville) had to dash to Broken Arrow to buy the tickets at $20 each. Panic! I was at work, so was Nellie. Gina was tied up. Samantha was our last hope. I emailed her and she was able to go get them! Thanks Sammy! You were our hero! About 2 weeks later we had a slight setback when it seemed that Nellie could not come along. But it turned out that she could. :o)

Samantha and Gigi.........................................Nellie, Amy and Lisa (me!)

We all met at our favorite restaurant, Qdoba for dinner first. Yum-o! Then we piled into Sammy's van and drove down the street a few miles to The Church at Battle Creek. Most of us were not sure exactly what to expect. Would it be mainly a religious experience? Was it more about the stuff? What was going to happen, and would we get there in time for dessert?!? We were directed in our parking without any trouble, and had a short walk to the doors. The church is in an amazing building. Apparantly it used to be an outlet mall? How did I miss that? I never knew we EVER had an outlet mall here!!

Samantha, Amy and Lisa

We had plenty of time so before we got some dessert, we shopped in the store they have on-site. Gigi bought an adorable owl door mat and we all bought silver tote bags for only $5!! The prices were very reasonable. I think a few other items were purchsed as well. Next we visited the dessert tables. There were lots of different yummies to try. So delicious. Most everyone liked the cream cheese on a oreo thingy with the cherries on top. Amy, daring to be different, declared she preferred the Puppy Chow. I liked it all. And that Red Velvet Cake dealie was divine!

After goofing around and posing for pictures, including our required picture of all of our feet, we we lined up to enter the sanctuary. There were a lot of ladies there. I heard there were 1500 each night. Thursday and Friday night, and they had several hundred ladies at a live feed in Pryor. I am not 100% sure of those numbers, but think lots and lots of ladies. Everyone we met and encountered was very pleasant and happy.

Amy, Samanth and Gigi waiting in line

The line moved quickly and we quicly found seats. We were on the last row, but that was no problem because there were 3 giant screens to watch if you could not see the stage area. This is obviously a first class operation! There was an excellent singer....I think her name was Alissa. She had a beautiful voice and was singing Christmas music. Of course we all enjoyed that!

Next they started several presentations, with music between each segment. We had a segment on Home Decor, Crafting, Cooking, and Shopping. During each segment our Elves would roll out with free gifts for everyone! First we received a great little tape measure in metalic colors. So cute and handy! During the cooking segment they sent out elves with these handy little kitchen gadgets called "Extra Hands". You use them to mix things instead of using your hands. Very nifty! During the crafting segment we recieved these handy little boxes of matches and recipie (did I spell that right?) book that has gift ideas in it. The final gift, right before we left was featured in the shopping and organizing segment. It was this awesome tote/hamper. It is so beautiful and functional. The exit was orderly and organized.

We all had a fabulous time, and if there was one sentiment that we all wanted to share, it was that we really wish there was a way to thank the ladies at this church who have worked so hard at setting this up! What a fun night we had. The segments were hilarious, the music was inspiring and the desserts were delicious. Thank you so much!!!

Inspiration Proclamation!!!

2009-11-13T20:55:00.006-06:00

Wow! A trip to Michael's is worth an hour or four on the internet!! I found a great price on my favorite reasonably priced wool! Paton's $2.50! Can I get a woo hoo??? I spent nearly an hour pouring over the pattern books looking for something that lit my fire. I had a few sparks, but nothing that I got excited about. My Auntie Mary met me there, because she had a coupon, and there is no stopping that woman when she has a coupon! Her interests lay in another department, so she was off elsewhere while I browsed the books, then endlessly debated over which two colors of yarn to buy. Would it be the pretty new pink, the burgundy, the teal, or another skein of purple (my first skein is almost gone!)? I finally settled on the pink and the burgundy and set off to find Aunt M.

That is when it hit!! Innn-speer-a-sheee-onnnn! {insert Doug Heffernon voice}.

I so wish I could tell you, but I can't! I can't tell you what I found, or where I was, but I found IT. The idea I needed! Don't you love it when the idea hits your head, sometimes it creeps in, or sometimes it wacks you in the forehead, but it arrives and then starts snowballing till it is full grown and just dying to fly off your fingers???? Don't you? I totally love that. So here I am, back home with my idea. Love IT.

Here my new wools join the fun on my creativity table!

In need of inspiration....

2009-11-12T21:54:00.004-06:00

So my big project is done. Now I am stuck. I just dont know what to do for Christmas gifts this year. I have been surfing the internet and thinking and thinking and all I get is the stuff I have already been making. I can do a few of those too, but I need a new, quick, easy, fun, felting idea. I think maybe tomorrow night I need to go to a few craft stores and breeze throught the books for some good ideas.

I did finish the changing pad tonight. I started quilting it Tuesday, and had to pull it all out Wednesday, because it was terribly crooked. I had intended to make a diamond pattern. But was having trouble figuring out how to make the stitches straight. Gigi suggested masking tape, so tonight I tried that, and it worked great! Here is a picture of it with most of the masking tape on. I just sewed in the narrow space between the pieces of tape. Gigi is brilliant!

This is how it looks after the diagonal quilting was done. As I went along the fabric must have stretched some because it ended up a little bit "wracked". Not too bad though. I hope Zoe wont mind!

So here it is all rolled up so it will fit neatly into the diaper bag. I even found my courage and crocheted this sweet little chain out of my tiny ball of left over yarn so that it can be tied up and kept in place. It took courage because I don't crochet!

Ahhhh! Happiness is a finished project! Now, what's next?

Project Complete!

2009-11-10T21:59:00.004-06:00

Last night I finished The Diaper bag. I think it turned out rather well! I made the lining out of chocolate brown pinwale cordoroy. I added two pockets, one for a bottle, and one for the wipes. I am also making a changing pad out of the lining fabric. It is mostly done, but not quite finished. I took the project to Gina, who will deliver it to Trish tomorrow. I hope Trish and baby Zoe get a lot of use from it! Here are some pictures. The first picture is before I felted it. So you will get an idea of how big it is before it is felted.

This picture is the finished project! Ta da!

Here it is turned inside out, so you can see the pockets. I put hairspray in the bottle pocket! No baby bottles at my house! And one final picture of the results! It makes me smile. Next project?? Gifts! You know what is almost here!!! Christmas!!!

Sweet, Sweet November

2009-11-01T20:06:00.004-06:00

It has finally arrived! My favorite month of the year! I love, love, love this month. I think it is the trees and the weather and Thanksgiving combined. Whatever it is, it works for me. I even welcome and embrace Halloween because it means that November is just one sunrise away! I hope you like it too. I have been at it again, driving and taking pictures. Don't tell my insurance agent/boss! :o) Are you sick of looking at my trees yet? I hope not.

Take the time to enjoy the beauty around you, and be thankful for the blessings you have. We are privelaged to live in the greatest nation in the world. You may not have as much as many do, but you and I are richly blessed. Remember, as my favorite preacher says, "God is good all the time, all the time, God is good."

What a day!

2009-10-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

I feel like I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. It felt like every little and big thing that could go wrong did. It is just silly, looking back, at the things I let make me feel so irritated, but it got to the point where I was just looking for things to be irritated about. So, the day ended on a very nice note. I spent some time at a friend's house studying the Bible with a bunch of friends. It was refreshing and thought provoking. Can't wait till next month. I guess I should have taken a picture, I meant to, but didn't, so I will take a page from Amy's book and look for the 10th folder and the 27th picture for 10/27. Let's see what we get...

Grayson eating his first birthday cake!

Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be! There were not 27 pix in the 10th folder, so I tried the opposite, the 27th folder and the 10th picture. Guess what? There were not 10 pictures in that folder!! So I counted up 10 folders from the bottom, and counted up 27 pictues from there. It worked. :o) That was fun, Amy, thanks for the idea.

I hope you had a good ending to your day as well!

Perfect Fall Day

2009-10-24T22:17:00.010-05:00

It was a perfect fall day today. The sky was blue most of the day and the breeze was gentle. I took the opportunity to take some more pictures. This time Jacob was driving so my life was not in any danger. :o)

This afternoon I took Kim's boots to the shoe repair shop to get re-soled, picked up a few groceries then went home and did a minute amount of housework then sat down to knit and watch the OU game! Boomer Sooner! They won!!!! I added about an inch to the bag, so it is coming along. I managed to get a lot more done last week.

Tonight was the annual fall party at Jack and Earline's house. It was the perfect end to the perfect day. There was a bonfire to cook our hot dogs over, chili and fritoes for fritoe pie. Marshmellows, graham crackers and Hershey bars for guess what? Yes, smors (you are so smart!)! Yum-o! The sky was beautiful as the sun started to go down. Jack hauled all the kids around the pond on a hay ride. They loved it. We just got home and I can still smell the wood smoke in my hair. I love that bon fire feeling!

I hope that whatever you did today involved some time outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Fire!

2009-10-23T22:30:00.006-05:00

Well here it is. My favorite time of the year. The trees are catching fire. It is breathtaking! I was driving down Harvard the other evening and saw a georgous little yellow bush, the wind blew and it looked like golden coins were scattering in the wind. Here is some of what I have been able to capture. I wish I had a driver so I could have the camera ready all the time, but for some reason Kim does not want to take me to work. This season is just a feast for the eyes. It is difficult and unsafe to take pictures while driving (says the insurance agent in me) but who can resist. If I die taking pictures, just know that I was doing what I love!

Then there is my other love...

I have been knitting like mad this week. The diaper bag has grown steadily all week. I have used two skeins of yarn and I am really loving this yarn. This picture does not do it justice. You just have to see it in person, or maybe I am just a wierdo-yarn-freak. Ok, yes, I admit, I am a wierdo-yarn-freak, but it is so georgous! I just hope I can do this project some justice. I am having to tweak the pattern a little and it makes me a little nervous since the yarn is pricey. I can hardly force myself to go to work every day. I just want to stay home and knit. The cold weather just enhances that feeling. I don't know why, but when it is cold I just want to knit more.

That all for now...Oops! Happy Birthday to my sister! Love you Debbie-Do!

What have I been doing?

2009-10-17T21:08:00.004-05:00

Yes, it has been quite a while since I posted, but here I am. I have been busy finishing up a knitting project, and starting a new one! I finally finshed the knitted silk purse that i was working on for months for Samantha. I am so glad it is done and i hope Samantha really likes it. Maybe you are like me and you are your own worst critic. Anyway, when it was finished I kept thinking of things I meant to do, or should have done that would have made it better. I was even tempted to take it apart and fix part of it. It was fun and different from anything else I have ever knitted. I am still basically a beginning knitter and the pattern was not hard, but I have mostly been knitting items that are straight with no shape to them. The pattern is called "Unbiased Bag" and was designed by Stephanie Shiman.

My new project is a felted diaper bag for my friend Trish, who just had her second child, an adorable baby girl named Zoe. I am knitting as fast as I can so it can be finished before she is out of diapers! The yarn is beautiful! Trish bought it at a yarn shop in Kansas City ( I think). The color is one of my favorites, Cranberry! It is such a pleasure to work with that yarn. It is much nicer yarn that what I usually knit with. :o)

Since the last time I posted, Jacob had his sixteenth birthday. His Grandma came to visit for that. It was nice to have her here from Texas. Fall has arrived and I am so happy that it is here! Kim is back at work. I am so thankful for that! He was home for 2 months on disability. Now Christmas is right around the corner. As soon as I finish the diaper bag project I have to move fast to get some Christmas gifts made! Wow! It will be here before I know it. I dont even know what I am going to make. I guess I better get busy finding some fun ideas!

Have a great weekend!

First Dance

2009-09-26T20:35:00.004-05:00

Tonight Jacob and Abbey went on their first real date. He is taking Abbey to the Jenks Homecoming dance. They left earlier after a short picture taking indulgence at the park. They went to dinner at Napoli's and then will be going to the dance. I don't know yet how it went becuase they are not home yet! As I post this they are probably just arriving at the dance. I hope they have a great time. They both looked very nice.

Tomorrow is Jacob's 16th birthday. I wonder if he knows how much I wish I could give him everything he deserves for his birthday? I hope so. This year I don't have much to offer in the way of gifts, but I love him very much. Happy birthday kid!

Picture this...

2009-09-14T23:31:00.003-05:00

Just random pictures that make me smile...

You have seen them all before, but I was just walking down memory lane tonight!

Happy Birthday Sammy SMOR!!

2009-09-13T21:32:00.005-05:00

Today is a great day in history! A few years ago.... probably about 30 or so, Samantha was born! (Yes, I know, I said the same thing about Gina, but all my friends are about 30, so am I!)

This is a lady who is very "together". She is a wife, a mother, cook, and a friend. She always takes time to take care of those in need. She listens to her friends and helps when she can. She has a wonderful heart of gold. She makes me lunch to order at her house. All I have to do is show up and eat. Love that! She is also an awesome coupon shopper! She is my hero! She can buy $85 worth of goodies for $33. Then turn around and give away the majority of what she bought. I know that her family appreciates her, but I want to make sure she knows how much I appreciate her too!

Sammy, I brought your gift to church tonight, but you were not there!! I missed you! I hope you had a great day and were doing something fun tonight. You deserve it! Love you, lady!

Road Trip....and Shopping Trip!

2009-09-06T21:52:00.006-05:00

What a great day! After lunch, Kim, Jacob, Abbey and I hit the road. We followed RT 66 out of town through Sapulpa, then headed towards Drumwright. I had never been there before! It has an awesome water tower and some interesting antique stores that were all closed. What a neat town. Can't wait to go back on a Saturday!!

We thought we might drive by lake Keystone. But the exit was closed off highway 51! What?? Next we thought about stopping at Chandler Park, but forgot about the horrible plane crash there yesterday. The entrance was blocked by two sherriff cars. So sad about that awful crash! So many lives will be hurt by that.

Jacob and Abbey had fun mugging for the camera. Too bad they are both so shy...isn't it?

We headed home and relaxed for a few hours, then loaded up and went to the local Lowe's to see the last fireworks display at Driller's Stadium. It was great, but I thought it was shorter than I expected. It was a nice evening to sit and watch them though. There is just something about fireworks that makes me feel so "American". I guess my mind always ties them to the 4th of July.

Rewind for a minute to Saturday. Samantha and I made plans to shop for some fabric to use in the Youth house. Before we left we took her daughter, Anna, to the park for some fishing with her teacher. Sammy and I dropped her by there then headed out. We found lots of good options, but I think it is going to be more expensive than expected! Isn't that just the way it goes. Fortunately there is a sale starting this week. :o) When we went back to pick Anna up I took this picture of the two of them. Anna said she had fun fishing and caught a couple of little fish.

I hope you are enjoying your Labor day weekend. I am!

Girls Night!

2009-09-05T19:56:00.006-05:00

Last night I had a fun night with my walking friends. It was Lee's Birthday earlier in the week, so we got together for some laughter and fun. We met at Sandy K's house. There were 5 girls and one boy. Well, the boy was Charlie the dog. :o) Lisa S. and Sandy G. were also there. We have a standing joke about names because we have 2 Sandy's and 2 Lisa's. Then there is Lee, but we think that is pretty close to Lisa, and we also have an occasional Mandy, which rhymes with Sandy!

Here is a picture of Lee....

Sandy G.
We walk together 5 nights a week, you wouldn't think there were any more problems we could solve, or conversations to be had on the 6th night. But somehow we managed to talk from 8:30 till 2AM. I had a great time! Thank you Sandy K. for hosting our fun night and it sure was a beautiful night in your beautiful back yard!

This is me! (duh!)

Lisa S is on the left and Sandy K was our hostess. :o) on the right

Miscellaneous meanderings....

2009-08-28T22:33:00.008-05:00

OK, I have been gone a long time again! Jacob is kind of monopolizing the computer now that school has started. Also I have started walking 5 nights a week and it is kicking my butt! When I get home at close to 10:00 I am dead tired and can barely move. I learned the hard way to clean the kitchen before we walk or it will just not get done, and I hate to wake up to a dirty kitchen. Ugh!

Don't you just love Friday? Boy, I sure do. The whole day just feels exciting. From the minute I get up, until I finally fall into bed it feels like the best day of the week. Yay, Friday!!

Today is my Aunt Mary's Birthday. I think she is about, ummm 47 or something. Yes, 47. Anyway, she is a good aunt and does lots of nice things for my and my family. There is not too much I can do for her right now, so I am going to make her a fun coin purse. I took all my wool over to her tonight, but she was not home, so hopefully tomorrow she will have time to choose what color she wants. It is not much, but I hope she will like it. Happy "47th" Aunt Mary!

Wednesday was my last night to teach at church for a while. I promised Kim and myself that I would take a break for a while, after teaching for over a year. I know lots of peole teach and never quit, but I feel the need to be taught for a little while. Kim and I are carefully evaluating our church life and trying to decide where we belong and what God wants us to do. I am sure I will be back teaching soon though. This last quarter was a lot of fun. I taught the elementary girls. We had fun, sewing, crocheting, and cooking. Not to mention we made clothes pin dolls and all the while studied women of faith in the bible. Love these girls so much! I have some pix of Tabitha, Anna and Judith. We usually have Kaleigh too, but she was gone the week we made these brownies! I told the story while the girls cleaned up and then they served the brownies to the members as they came out of class! The girls are all so sweet! Aren't they adorable?

Last Saturday I snuck in some fun time in downtown with some friends. I was really planning on cleaning house and grocery shopping. But Amy called me and lured me out into the beautiful day. We visited the center of the universe. If you have never been, you have to check it out. Very mysterious-cool-awesome! Our down-town tour guide, Nellie, showed us her office near the top of a tall building. Then we just wandered around taking pictures and even encountered a nearly naked lady/person in a fountain. Yes, a real person! She had her hands over her uncovered private parts, but it was still a little more than I wanted to see. I did not take any pictures of her. Mainly because my camera had already run out of juice, but also because I don't really roll that way. :o) You never know what you will see down town!

Kim, my beloved husband, is off work again due to his holy foot. I guess it should be holey foot. I went into work late Tuesday so I could take him to the doctor for his wound care appointment. I tried to get the doc to tell us how much longer he would be off work. No luck. He would not commit. He cleaned Kim's foot up really good and gave us some honey to take home to use on it. It is called MediHoney. Wow. Honey. It smells just like regular honey to me. It seems to be helping too. :o) I sure hope he will be back to work soon. He is very bored sitting at home all week long. Poor Kim!

August is almost over...wow! Talk to you in September! Have a great weekend!

The Sock Monkey Chronicles, Part II (Deux)

2009-08-16T20:26:00.005-05:00

I guess you can tell by the title of this post that the unimaginable has happened. Yes, hold on to your shoes, Evil Sock Monkey (ESM)has struck again. This time the story is reported to us by another faithful dog friend, Rocky. Rocky is what I like to call a York-a-wow-wow. Part Yorkie and part Chihuahua. Some people call that a Chorkie. I like my way better. He is a good dog who just happens to own a very nice family known as the Hayes. Here is how Rocky reported the story to me. Bow wow, woof, arf arf, grrrrr. Oh! I guess you want it in English. Ok.

School started this week for Rocky's family. Amy, Rocky's mom is a teacher and his two boys Spencer and Colby have to go to school too. Rocky does not like it, and this is a stressful time for him. He likes his family at home where he can take care of them. He has noticed that Sock Monkey is a little stressed out, too. He overheard ESM talking to a rabbit in the back yard while the whole family was gone on Friday. He only heard a small tid-bit of the conversation. I went something like this... "moving away... selling the house... running out of time... back yard."

Rocky tried to hear more, but ESM saw him and the rabbit darted under the fence and ESM went back in the house. Rocky thought about it and wondered what ESM could be talking about. He had noticed that there was a new sign in the front yard. Rocky had taken a sniffing tour of it and sprinkled it himself, just like any good dog would do. But since Rocky can't read he was not sure what was going on. Rocky started pondering on the past few weeks. Amy had been packing boxes and making his boys clean their rooms. Daryl and his boys had been painting and stuff too! Suddenly he put it all together. The family was moving again! He remembered when this had happened before. It is not fun. Last time he was worried they might not take him with them. This time he was not worried about that. He knew the Hayes' could never get along without him! He was just worried about where they were going. He did not want to go back to the last place. But maybe they could move to Grandma's house! He liked Grandma, and he was pretty sure Grandma liked him too!! Rocky waited patiently till the boys got home and they played and had fun. That night he went to sleep and dreamed about living at Grandma's house with his family.

The next part of the story comes from events that have been pieced together from several eye witnesses. Apparently ESM is worried about the move, too. He is afraid that the Hayes' new house in Bartlesville may not be enchanted like the Broken Arrow house is. That means that he won't be able to carry out his evil plans any more. Like the time he broke the handle on the dishwasher. He still laughs about that! Time could be running out. The enchantment at the Broken Arrow house is what has given ESM his animation, at least he thinks so. As long as he is at the house, or with someone who normally lives in the house he can move and talk. Well, at least he can as long as humans are not looking! He has to do something to stop this move from happening! In desperation, he tricked a neighborhood bunny, named Bunny, into luring the boys into the back yard of the house across the street, which is under construction. He promised Bunny a bundle of carrots from the kitchen. Bunny loves carrots, and he does have a large family to feed. People in this neighborhood don't have big gardens, so carrots are a rare feast, indeed! Bunny's job was to get the attention of the boys. He was to run from them, but not too fast. ESM wanted him to get the boys in the back yard for a big surprise. Bunny thought it was a going away party for the boys, so he went along with it.

The boys had gone outside to play on Saturday afternoon. They were plaing in the yard across the street where a new house is being built. Bunny showed himself to the boys. Spencer yelled, "Look, a rabbit!" Colby started chasing it and Spencer followed. When Bunny got to the back he ran right down one of the holes that are a part of the huge network of tunnels that he uses to travel through the neighborhood. Colby went over to the hole and said, "Aww man! He got away! He went right down this tunnel!!" He stomped his foot on top of it and his foot went right down the hole! ESM was in the hole. He grabbed at Colby's foot and gave it a tug. Colby tugged the other way and yelled, "Hey! Something has my flip flop!" Spencer ran over and pulled Colby's foot out of the hole. The flip flop came right off his foot and ESM fell about 10 feet to the bottom of the hole. THUD! He landed hard on his tail! Ouch! Then the flip flog landed on his head, CRACK! OUCH! ESM was stunned! He had missed what might be his last opportunity to capture one of the boys. He figured if he could catch one of them the family would have to stay in Broken Arrow.

About that time Amy came out to see where the boys were. They were digging around looking for the flame covered flip flop. Rocky came out too, and quickly figured out what had happened by listening to the boys explain what had happened to Amy. He knew what he had to do. When the family finally went back in the house he snuck over and crawled into the hole. He pulled ESM by his tail back to the Hayes' house. He shoved him on a shelf and threatened him that he better leave his boys alone or he would make sure ESM got left in Broken Arrow in the bottom of the pool when the family left for Bartlesville.

I hope this ends The Sock Monkey Chronicles. Somehow I doubt it. Where ever flip flops disappear, wherever pets run amok, there will be an ESM lurking in the background! Watch your back, and your flip flops!

Happy, Happy Birthday Gigi!

2009-08-14T22:05:00.004-05:00

Today is a beautiful day! About 30 years ago (I am sure that is right...as far as anyone knows...LOL!) a beautiful soul was born. Her name is Gina, aka Gigi. Isn't she cute? She has a smile that will light up a room, and a wonderful heart. I am very fortunate to call her my friend. Love you Geeg! Happy Birthday!!

This is the happy little purse I knitted and felted for her. She loves owls and this is the best I could do free-hand embroidering it for her. It did not turn out like I imagined it would, but I think she likes it anyway. She uses it for her digital camera.

Have a good weekend!

Long time gone....

2009-08-10T22:53:00.003-05:00

I have been lazy. I have just not felt like blogging. Interesting choice of words... "felt" because that is why I am sitting here now. Amy wanted to see my most recent completed project. I don't know if she really wanted to see it, or if she was just tired of me not blogging. So here I am uploading a picture of the most recent purse. It was supposed to have a name or an initial on it, I tried to sew a "M" on it at least 4 times. I had to pull it out every time because it looked terrible and tacky. So I am leaving it "as is". I hope Jody will not be disappointed.

Friends are Friends Forever!

2009-07-19T23:24:00.006-05:00

Tonight I had the chance to spend some time with two very good friends, Gigi and Amy. We had a yummy dinner and then went off to find adventure! We ended up at Swan Lake on a photo fest! There was so much to see, and so much to make you smile. We walked around the lake one time. Several interesting things happened. Amy ran through a sprinkler, I threw my shoes in the trash and I guess that would make Gigi the adult supervisior of the night. We saw the ducks, a snobby swan, flowers, exercising nuns and even an elusive bumble bee. I think mostly though, we enjoyed the company. I wish Nellie and Sammy could have joined us for a SMOR reunion, but they were both busy. Here are some of the sights we saw.

Chandler Park

2009-07-17T21:19:00.005-05:00

In an effort to find a picture to submit for my friend Nellie's Weekly Photo Challenge (http://www.nellierae.com/) Jacob and I took a little field trip yesterday. We drove out to a park from my past. Chandler Park in West Tulsa. When I was a little girl, my mom would take us there to play and picnic. It has always been beautiful, but I love it more than ever now! I have not had a picnic there in 35 years. I hope that I will do something about that soon! One of these photos was my submission. Check out Nellie's blog to see which one! Jacob entered a picture too. He totally stole my original idea, but I love him anyway, and I am glad he participated!

The picture of the right is our shadows on the rocks. I was not sure if you could identify us or not!

Kim has a fond {insert odd} memory of that park too. His mom worked not too far from there when he was a munchkin, so I guess they spent some time there. He has a very odd memory, that Jacob and I are convinced was a dream, but he insists it was real. There used to be a big old rock Armory there. Kim insists that there were monkeys that lived on the roof of the armory! I giggle every time I think about it. We have asked every one we know if they remember monkeys there, no one does. Big surprise, honey... No monkeys... It was a dream!

I strongly encourage you to visit when you have a few hours to kill. Drive straight west on 21st street. Keep going past the river and proceed past all the oil drums. Classic Tulsa stuff! You can't miss it. The words "Chandler Park" are written in white stone on the side of the hill!

Thanks Nellie for giving us an excuse to go back to nature. From the photos submitted, I think everyone else had a good time finding their picture as well. I will say it again. Check out the photo challenge and join the fun. I am sure Nellie would love to see what you see!

Enough!

2009-07-13T19:03:00.003-05:00

This heat has really got me zapped. I almost napped at my desk today. It was close to 90 degrees in our office at 5:00 today. This is just nasty. Tomorrow promises to be worse. Sigh. In spite of the heat, I had a great weekend.

Saturday we had just finished getting Jacob's hair cut when Amy called to see if we would go to the flea market with her. We jumped at the chance and met her there around 10AM. There was lots to see! I saw this beautiful quit. Love, love, love quilts. Especially old ones. I have a really old one that my great aunt and grandmother pieced when they were young. It is so special to me. I will post a picture of it for you sometime. I especailly love the fabrics used in old quilts. It is so special to think that it probably used to be a dress or a shirt that got worn out. I love that they used every scrap they could find! I wish I knew the story behind all the fabrics. If my Grandma was still alive I would ask her! I wonder whose Grandma made this one?

Yesterday, Sunday, I helped Amy set up for VBS at church. We had to make the stage look like a camp site. We added a campfire and some other touches after this picture was taken. Jacob even left one of his precious fishing poles there as a prop. I asked him if he had one that was not important. He said, "no, they are all important!" He acted like I should have known that! Amy and I decided VBS campsites are more work than real ones. I think it was Daryl who pointed out that you dont have to move trees at real campgrounds. So true! Trust the preacher to come up with the obvious, but overlooked truth!

blue...

2009-07-09T22:57:00.005-05:00

Dawgs

2009-07-07T21:56:00.003-05:00

It was such a nice day...as far as the weather goes! I spent part of my evening outside on the deck with the pets. They even let me take a few pictures. I was trying to get a picture of a bird I saw from the window, but of course he disappeard when I came outside. The dogs were very interested in posing for me, so here is your friendly backyard crew! The biggest and sweetest is Clyde, we call him Bubba most of the time. He is such a big lazy goof! The only time he gets in a hurry is when he thinks there is food on the line. He hardly ever barks, but when he does it is a deep rusty sound. Like his voice is cracking. And you know when you hear him that there is something going on, and you should get up and see what it is!

Then there is his bratty energetic sister, Bonnie. She barks all night and runs around like a crazy dog! She never seems to run out of energy. It makes me tired to watch her move! We filled up a kiddie pool for them in the back yard and Bubba won't do anything but drink from it. Bonnie will get in, but not if you are watching her. It is almost like she is being modest! Ha! Bonnie will chew up anything you leave in the back yard. Very destructive. I think Bubba is too lazy to chew on anything that does not taste good.

I am very thankful for my pets. They really keep things interesting. I don't know why, but I really enjoy them, even when they cause trouble. Like this weekend when they escaped the yard at least 10 times! It was very frustrating. We spent nearly $50 buying supplies to repair the fence and keep them inside. But every time we thought we had it fixed, they would be out again, laughing at us! They never ran away, just broke out and visited the neighbor dogs till we called them back in. Then they would run up to me and look at me like, "Oh, Hi Mom! We got out and visited Lucky, Zippy and Barney! Woof!" All the time, Lucky, Zippy and Barney (the neighbors dogs) are barking to raise the dead. Like they are cheering Bonnie and Clyde on to victory! I sure wish I knew what they were thinking about!