Resolutions

Yes, I make resolutions...every day.

Every day is a new day that God has given me.

God has given me a will. With that will I make choices for good or for bad. Each day I start fresh in making good choices, in pleasing Him. In influencing others for the good.

Each day is a new day to be a good example to my son and teach him more about God.

Each day I determine to show more patience and love to my husband.

Each day I start out determined to eat healthier.

Each day I determine to spend more time talking to God.

I don't make resolutions for the new year. I guess I'm a party pooper, but to me it's just a new number. 2009. Health insurance deductibles start anew, but other than that things are basically the same.

I make resolutions each day. Those are my new starts. Thank God that I don't get just once a year to start fresh!


update 8:07PM- You really should read Jen's entry this evening. I just love her illustration and her sweetness!

Wordless Wednesday - Daddy's Girl

Father-Daughter dance at my step-daughter's wedding (2004)

He had no idea they were even going to dance. Suddenly they started playing "Butterfly Kisses" and I said "Guess what? You're up!" and she came over for her daddy. And he cried.

Sorry about the picture quality. I didn't have a digital back then, so I've taken a picture of a 6x6 page I did.

Stellan and Emerson need your prayers

I think that most of the people who follow my blog know about Stellan, but just in case...MckMama's baby, Stellan, is very sick in the hospital with RSV. He stopped breathing a few times yesterday and is really struggling right now. Please pray for Stellan and his family.


Please also be in prayer for little Emerson. What a cutie! I just found out about her yesterday, through Taking a Deep Breath. Eme, age 2, had several organs transplanted in June ("The surgeon removed her large intestine, spleen, and 2/3 of her stomach. She transplanted her small intestine, liver, and pancreas.") She has been battling infections ever since and is really struggling right now. Please check out Emerson's site and add her to your prayer list.

Please don't share that!

Yep, there are some things that don't need to be shared!

My whole family is now sick.


And I've been inside since last...Monday. Cabin fever. I may be sick, but I'm still climbing the walls.
I think part of it is that I'm in the same chair all of the time. I'm sleeping in the recliner at night and then sitting in it during the day. My butt is going to spread or be numb - or both! (Sorry, no picture of that! lol)

The doggies are healthy, at least. And R. is enjoying playing his Wii games even when he's sick, so that's good. And our new health insurance starts in 2 days - yeah!

Well, this sick puppy wishes you all a good Monday.

Pray for Stellan

Please be in prayer for baby Stellan, as he was taken to the ER yesterday and is quite sick. For details, go to MckMama's site.


Update from MckMama:
"NO RELATIONSHIP," 10:34 am:

Thank you all for praying for us!

It has been a very long night and Stellan is exceedingly sick. Lots of poking, prodding and crying last night. But fantastic news: All interested cardiologists have agreed after examining Stellan's heart and other symptoms thoroughly that there is "no relationship" between his high heartrate (Which has been bouncing up and down through the night, not staying consistently tachycardic.) and his heart failure in the womb. He shows no signs at all of heart failure and his racing heart is due, the doctors tell us, to his illness.

Stellan "just" has a cold! It's a cold that is currently kicking his rear, though. He's in a great deal of discomfort (Sore throat? Achy? Hard to tell exactly why a young baby is hurting...), crying a lot and is having a very hard time sleeping since he can't breathe well at all.

But, we are on our way home!! We're not in the hospital anymore and are going to attempt to drive back home today, too. Stellan is going to see his doctors back home on Monday just to be safe and we're ready to get back into the swing of things anyway.

I'm hoping for smooth traveling, but even if not, I'm just so relieved that all the big stuff has been ruled out and our sick little boy is, in the grand scheme of things, just fine!

Christmas Day Pics

The day started out with a near catastrope (in my opinion!), when I pulled the Christmas breakfast casserole out of the fridge to put into the oven. When I uncovered it I saw that it had turned all GREEN during the night! Looked like something for St. Patty's Day instead of Christmas. I was afraid it was ruined, but baked it anyhow and it lost a lot of it's green color so we decided to take our chances. It was in an aluminum pan (unbaked) all night, which is why we think it turned green.

Breakfast was homemade cinnamon rolls, breakfast casserole & juice.

After my husband read the Christmas Story (my dad was wondering who watched the sheep after the shepherds left?) we opened gifts.



This summer I'd been saving my allowance up for something else when it hit me I could use it to get R. a Wii off of eBay. I stayed up into the wee hours for nights on end, watching and bidding, watching and bidding, until I finally got one at a decent price. It was R's No. 1 wish, but he wasn't expecting it because of all of the financial difficulty since August, so he was VERY excited!


I liked this moment, when R. was reading and using Raini as a head-rest. She didn't seem to mind one bit! She had a new bone to gnaw on!


Something sweet my husband got for me. He's going to get a little easel or something to hold it up.


The only two sad things to the day were:

#1 My mom was feeling lousy all day. My parents were with us for the day and you just kept wishing she could enjoy the day more but her cold is moving downward and she just didn't feel well. Plus she was actively trying to keep from spreading it to me.

#2. A friend of my sisters was taken to the hospital Tuesday morning and died in the afternoon. She was only 48. Her husband died of cancer 6-7 years ago, so it was sad knowing her two kids (grown, but still needing their parents!) were going through funeral arrangements instead of celebrating Christmas, and were now w/o either parent. If you think of them, please pray for Julie Hadley's children and friends. Julie's funeral is today.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to thank each of you for your kind and encouraging comments over the past few months, and for sharing your own blogs with me. We may never have met, but I feel as if we are friends anyway!


Merry Christmas!

Song of Praise

I saw this on Becoming Me and thought it was so beautiful. The words and the pictures. I hope that you enjoy it, also.

Breath of Heaven

My Christmas Night Terror

Well, I won't have any pictures tonight, but I do have a funny and true story.

Last Christmas was the first time I was put on oxygen at home. It's really something you have to get used to. At night I have to sleep with the canula attached and I've found it very difficult to go to sleep being "tethered."

Christmas night I was exhausted. It had been a long, albeit fun, day and I fell into bed just worn out. My husband was already asleep, but he heard me crawl into bed and said I was asleep immediately.

In my sleep I felt my canula tubing and wondered what it was. I followed it with my hand and found it was dangling down from a hole in the ceiling. Looking up, I saw a large hole in the ceiling with a man about to descend and repel down. Now, in this night-terror, my husband was away and I was home alone with my son.

I was terrorized that this man was in our home, so I jumped up from the bed and started running, screaming "Get out! Get out of the house!" at the top of my lungs. (This, of course, broke my canula, since I was tethered to the machine!) Running into the kitchen to the phone, I could hear heavy footsteps running behind me and a man yelling. This, of course, was my husband. But in my night-terror my husband wasn't home so I thought it was the man about to get me.

This made me more frantic so that when I grabbed the phone to call for help, I dropped it. The man almost had me, so I took off again running to my son's room.

"R! Get out of the house! R! Get out of the house!"

Just outside R's room I wiped out on the hardwood floor and fell. That's where my husband caught up with me and gathered me up in his arms.

And that's when I finally woke up. Only I was very confused and dazed. When you are woke from a night-terror, it makes you feel like you are in the middle of it and it is so very real. I was trembling for the next half hour, I had a HUGE hematoma on my right knee and one on the back of a hand. A year later, my knee is STILL sore. I had several bruises on other parts of my body, too. How I got any of them, I don't know. I guess when I was running through the house at break-neck speed in the dark, I hit every cotton-pickin' thing in the house.

And scared the tar out of my husband! (My son slept through the whole thing!)

Laugh if you want, but for a while after that I would be afraid of the dark if my husband wasn't home.

Meet the new addition!

Isn't she ADORABLE? This is my new and first great-niece. My, but that makes me sound old! (Speaking of old, I think I am actually stuck in a hot flash! They are quite unmerciful.) C. is my sister's first grandchild and I got to meet her this evening for the first time. She is so beautiful and sweet!

I think this was the first time I've held a baby since my son was born 14 years ago. Can you believe that? I had to start distancing myself from little ones because of the germ aspect (you know, putting everything in their mouths, runny noses, etc.) I loved holding my little great-niece/grand-niece - which is it? - She was soooooo cuddly. Mmmmmm! I just wanted to kiss every inch of her.

My sister lives in IL and is 16 hrs. away from her new granddaughter. I just HAD to call her and rub it in that I was holding her sweet little girl. Aren't I mean?


R. loves children and babies and he just adored her. He said it was the best part of the day.

And look at this shot...

What do you think? A "Head-On" commercial or "Oh, I can't believe I just tooted in front of everyone!"

His Strength

I'm needing to depend on God's promise of giving me strength today.

My 14 year old has had a terrible attitude for several days.

I'm not feeling well. (I know, what's new?)

My husband called and is threatening to quit his job again.



I'm going to hold Him to that promise.

I got nothin' - but Caramel Corn

Nothing new and exciting...hey, I hardly ever leave the house, so that limites the new and exciting right there.

It's warm here. It's been running 68degrees for a few days. That's hard to believe when there is so much harsh weather going on north of us.

Nearly all my packages are wrapped, cookies are baked and half have been eaten! I really need to cut back on my son's sweets! I usually bake about 8 different types of cookies, but this year did 3 cookies & 2 biscotti's, plus caramel corn and party mix. Do you want my grammy's Caramel Corn recipe?



Grammy's Baked Caramel Corn

1 c. butter or oleo (2 sticks)
2 c. firmly-packed brown sugar
1/2 c. corn syrup (light or dark-I used dark)
6 qt. popped corn (do NOT use microwave popcorn in bags or it won't turn out! I pop my corn in the popper. It's cheaper anyway.)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Pop 6 qt. popping corn (I use my beverage pitcher for measuring!). Melt butter, stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to boil, stirring constantly; boil without stirring 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in baking soda and vanilla. Gradually pour over popped corn, mixing well. Turn into 2 shallow baking or roasting pans. Bake in 250degree oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool completely. Break apart and store in lightly-covered container. Makes 5 qts. of Caramel Corn.

Where did he go?

I'm finally posting pictures of my little one!

Harry Belafonte sang a song in the 60's called Turn Around. Anyone remember it, or are you all too young?? It's singing about a little girl, but I hear it in my mind about a little boy when I look at my pictures...

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you're two
Turn around and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl
Going out of the door

Turn around
Turn around
Turn around and you're a young girl
Going out of the door

As I mentioned recently, I have only had a digital camera for a few years, therefore many of my pictures are hard to share online.

I decided to take some pictures of my pictures, so I could share some. I love looking back over my scrapbooks at pictures of my son when he was smaller. What a happy boy he was, with his beautiful curls! He was always playing dress-up, smelling flowers, playing with the dog, using his great imagination. He's now 14 years old and taller than I am, so I look at these pictures and wonder where this little boy went. The time has passed so quickly and he's no longer small. No more cuddles, he won't even let me hug him these days. "Mom, keep away! Yuck!"

I hope you enjoy these pictures. I'm sorry that they are a little blurry, but I don't have the steadiest hand when taking close-ups.

Wordless Wednesday- Wedding Day

April 25, 1987
(Okay, I have to do a FEW words with this!!! LOOK HOW SKINNY I WAS!! We were married on a friend's registered Southern Plantation, so my entrance was coming down the stairs, not an aisle. Originally we were to be married in the gardens, but rain was kind of iffy so we moved inside. Sorry the picture is blurry, but I had to take a picture of a picture. I tried to scan it, but couldn't figure how to get it from the scanner to here!)

The Grand Finale is finally here!

YAHOO!!! Michelle won!!!! I couldn't believe the numbers people were pulling off last night. The transformation on many of them was just amazing! (Incidentally, this is the only Reality TV Show I watch. I don't like them, either.)


Tonight's the big night! My favorite show is the Biggest Loser and tonight is the Finale of the Family Edition! Anyone else watching it?

The only one that I care for of the finalists is Michelle. She seems very sweet and I'm hoping that she's the ultimate winner. Of the people that had already been sent home, I'd like Amy to win (the dark haired one). I liked Coleen alot, too. I always root for the sweet and kind people on there!

So, are you watching it? Who are you cheering for?

Don't ever

take two large dogs on leashes to the vet at the same time, especially when you're wearing portable oxygen. Not only were they getting tangled with each other, but they were getting tangled in my oxygen tubing. What a circus!

I get tired enough just walking about30 ft. these days. I mean, seriously tired. Can't take another step, think-I'm-going-to-collapse-tired.

I've been feeling so worn out lately. It's hard to care about things like keeping the house clean, doing my hair or makeup. I've actually left the house a few times recently without doing my hair or putting on makeup. And I'm the person who would never cross the street to get the mail if my hair and makeup wasn't done! I keep wondering what this new "phase" says about me?

About the iced tea bottles...they are empty Lipton Tea bottles. I refill them with our own decaf tea and one-quarter lemonade and it saves us money in the long run.

I've been trying to figure out the scanner and scan some pictures that were from before digital times. Like one of my wedding photo's and my son's baby/toddler pictures. I was going to show you how skinny I was when I got married, but the picture's not loading, so I guess I'll try that another day.

I used to fill baby bottles...

now I fill these bottles...

Tea, for my husband. His preferred, on-the-job beverage!

God says...