The end of another month...

February is coming to an end.

Sorry to break it to you that way...all sudden and everything.

I mean...you were going to find out anyway. Right?

The good news in all of this is that we'll soon be seeing some of these:

How many of us are still writing "2008" on stuff?

{holding hand up} I am.

My dog. She's so ladylike.

She crosses BOTH pair of legs when she's relaxing.
Pardon the messy floor.

This picture was taken six years ago.

Since then we've constantly maintained a

neat and tidy house with no clutter.

.

{hysterical laughing}

Yeah. Right.

It was a dark and cloudy Thursday.

The temperature is a little warmer today, but the clouds are hanging thickly overhead. No sunshine for us today.

I was reading Mark, Chapter 1 the other day and something really struck me. Epiphany style. I've been wanting to get here for two days so I could share this with you.
Towards the end of the verse, Mark 1:45 says, "Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in the desert places: and they came to Him from every quarter." (KJV)
I have a wonderful study Bible that has four versions side-by-side. I love comparing the translations and allowing each one to soak in. Here's how the Amplified and NIV translate that same verse (I added the emphasis.) : "Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in the lonely places. Yet the people still came to Him from everywhere."

Wow.

Jesus is in the lonely places. So many people are suffering from depression or disappointments or loneliness and they are in a lonely place. This gives us all hope! Jesus is there...in the lonely places. If you find yourself hurt or lonely or depressed...take heart!...Jesus will meet you there in that lonely place that your mind takes you. He's there. He's always been there for me!

Tax time.

I finished figuring our taxes this weekend. Normally I have it done as soon as we get the W-2s, but it's been pretty busy around here, so it took me a month to get around to it. Actually, I probably still wouldn't have them done if my husband hadn't asked this week if they were done. Oops...kinda didn't make time for them, Huny.
I don't mind figuring them up since:
A) Numbers are my "thing"
and...
B) With three kids we get a refund.
It smacked me in the face this weekend that point "B" will one day soon be over with. My kids are growing up....which is good. But I won't be able to claim them...which is bad. Oh well, we all knew it would come one day, right?
When I was in college and was stuck being in charge of the computer lab on weekends (back in the day when the computer was in a room by itself because it was so big) I made up my own little tax form and printed it off. It was a tiny little thing compared to the books we get in the mail nowadays. It only had two points and it went something like this:

1) How much money did you make last year?
2) Send it in.

Now mind you, I was in college and didn't have to file a tax return...so I thought it was all very funny.
Not so much now that I'm all grown up with a family of my own.

Have you finished filing your tax return?

Check "yes" or "no".
__yes __no

Sunday's ramblings

I'm waiting for the canned cinnamon rolls to get out of the oven. I hate those things...but my family likes them. Why do I buy them? Because I enjoy sleeping instead of getting up early and waiting for dough to rise. Because they were on sale. For real cheap. I'm thrifty that way. Any minute now the smell of canned cinnamon rolls will waft through the house and get everyone out of bed. Everyone but my oldest son.
He was up before I was and has already consumed a bowl of cereal. He thinks he's starving every second of every day. Problem is, in the winter time there are no yards to mow and no fields to clear...so it's starting to show on him. This summer he'll trim right down. We'll have to beat the girls off with a stick, I tell ya. Especially since he's going for his Lifeguard merit badge at summer camp.
It snowed last night. Everything has a fresh coat of white over it. It all looks so CLEAN. Much better than all that depressing brown. My friend, Deb Mc, has been writing about beating the winter blahs. Check it out: http://creativesoulbydebmc.blogspot.com/
I love reading her blog. She is an awesome photographer and she inspires me to take better pictures. She also has invited me to tour the Dr Pepper plant with her. I love that woman. One day I'll get over there and we'll drink every sample they throw at us and we'll have a good ole time.
Oh, remember those painful self-shot profile pictures? Both of my teenagers offered to take pictures of me. I just couldn't put them through that.
*snap* {look} ARGH!
*snap* {look} ARGH!
*snap* {look} ARGH!
You get the idea. They're sweet kids. Remind me of that tomorrow, ok?
Gotta run...the family is starting to stare at me and ask...when do the rolls come out of the oven? Thanks for reading.

I have a profile picture!

Did anyone notice?
I spent the afternoon trying to get a picture of myself.
I hate that!
But even though *I* know what I look like, I have never met some of you and *you* don't know what I look like. So to prove that I'm a real person, I spent the afternoon taking a hundred pictures, deleting most of them and settling on a couple to keep.

And you know what I like about the few pics that I kept? It's that you can't see the white hair! I'm not going grey....I'm going white. My hair is very dark brown, so it has a salt-and-pepper look to it.

But these are the best ones. I made my oldest boy help me pick. Ignore the stuffed turtle growing out of my head in this one:

Here are the only other pics of me on my computer. I'm not one to stand in *front* of the camera. I'm usually the one *behind* the camera. The camera is NOT good to me....as you can see. Here's me dressed up like a Hillbilly at our church's theme night:

See...I'm holding a camera! No, not in that hand...I'm holding dh's gun for him...the OTHER hand.
I cropped this one to use as an avatar on a message board.

And this one I cropped to use as an avatar on the same message board. It was taken by a gal at church. I was taking pics of our church picnic and she appeared in the viewfinder with her camera pointed at me. I laughed, pointed at her and said something clever, like...YOU! The next day she emailed me the photo and told me I HAD to put it on the church's website along with the other picnic pictures. I hate that.

But THIS is the reason why it took me a hundred tries to get a picture of myself. Because when I see a camera pointed at me, I do goofy stuff...like smile weird...and raise one eyebrow.

I need help.

I'm not perfect.

I ended yesterday's post with the comment "It's true, I'm not perfect."
Let me explain.
I'm a perfectionist. It drives me...and those around me....insane the way that I pay attention to details. I can't help it. I've tried. I think it's woven into my being.
So Sunday morning one of my nearest and dearest friends pointed out a typo I had made--printed in the Sunday bulletin for all to see. And IMMEDIATELY she said, "You're not perfect and I was the one to tell you so!"....cracking up the entire time. She was hysterical. She wasn't being mean...she was being honest. I thoroughly enjoyed her laughter. She's a dear, sweet friend indeed.
So here I am...sharing with all of bogger-dom that I'm not perfect. And you know what? I'm okay with that. Because if I can't laugh at myself...with friends...I need to get my head on straight.
I can't wait until another of my friends is home from Kentucky. She's gonna love this story!

Volcano fun

I love looking back through my old photos. (Remember? They were lost for a while.) I enjoy seeing the vacations we took and the normal every-day stuff we did that I thought was interesting enough to snap a few pictures. A couple of days ago I shared pictures of a project that my youngest enjoyed doing. I'm gonna show you some more that I found.
A couple of years ago (when Timothy was going through his spiked hair phase) I found a unit study on volcanoes. It had several suggestions...but the ones that caught my eye used play clay. {wink} You know what I'm talking about without me having to mention a name brand. We had tubs and tubs of it. Since I had two teenagers and a pre-teen in the house, it was just going to waste. So we dug it out and he started making volcanoes.
First he made a couple of models of what he thought volcanoes look like.

Then we moved to the kitchen...cuz things were about to get messy. I took the tray out of the microwave (because it had a raised edge to catch any spills) and cut a plastic bathroom cup down to about an inch tall. I put some baking soda in the bottom of the cup and put vinegar into four other cups. Timothy selected four colors of play clay and we tinted the vinegar to match. The idea is to make the volcano errupt, then put clay everywhere that the "lava" went...building it up as you go. Here we've done white and green. It's not a fast project because you have to sop up all the vinegar before you can put the clay down.

Pour in the blue vinegar...

...mentally map where it spread,

sop it up and...

...put down the lava.

Repeat with red.


And here we have a finished volcano model.
We had a lot of fun. We ended up cutting it in half and looking at all the layers. Somehow, I failed to get a picture of that. My oldest was watching me select the photos yesterday and asked to see that picture--Huny, it doesn't exist. She couldn't believe it. {sigh} It's true, I'm not perfect.
Oh well...let me know how it goes if you decide to make one.

Wordless Wednesday.

Dayton Air Force Museum

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

Learning can be fun!

Over the years I've used a lot of free resources from the library and the internet. One of our favorite printable learning pages are from the LearningPage website: http://www.learningpage.com/free_pages/home.html
Sign up as a member and you're on your way to some exciting adventures.
Here is Timothy working on a mural. For bugs. I printed 15 pages for the mural. He colored them, cut the borders off and we tacked them on the wall. Then he colored all the bugs, cut them out, tacked them on the mural...

...then pretended to be afraid.



They have fact sheets and K-2 themed math, science and language sheets.

He's still talking about the dinosaur one. And the ocean one. And he loved learning to read with the Tommy Tales. Check them out.

A romantic dinner.

Last night we got together with friends and enjoyed a candlelight dinner. Albeit, the candlelight part was MY idea, but it was the middle of the day when I suggested it. It never occurred to me that it would be dark out by the time we sat down to eat.
The truth is...I hate eating in the dark. And candlelight is just a tiny step up from "dark".
I don't like eating at restaurants with "ambiance". Bleck. All that means is...they're saving money on the electric bill and you have no idea what they're actually serving. Is it beef, pork or dog? Who knows? I can't see it.
I have a thing about that.
It's one of my "things".
I have a thing about a lot of stuff.
I have issues.
Do you still love me?

We divided up the cooking. My part of the meal included the salad, the pork chops and some cut up fruit for dessert. Here's how I fixed six chops:
I quickly browned the chops in a hot skillet, sprinkling seasoned salt and course-ground pepper on top. Once browned and not cooked through, I transferred them to a roasting pan. Over top of them I put a thinly sliced small onion and some thick sliced fresh mushrooms. (a small can will do in a pinch) Then I mixed a can of cream/mushroom soup with a half a can of water and poured it over everything else. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over top, cover the pan with foil and pop it in the oven with the baked potatoes for half an hour. (My friend was in charge of the potatoes...the oven was set at 350.) Since one of our chops was a lot thicker than the others, we had to bake it for another 15 minutes before it was done.
Oh, and for cutsie-ness, I took the red pepper that I was cutting up for the salad and thinly sliced it vertically twelve times, saving the curvey part of the top of the pepper (a hook shape)---and I used two to make a heart on top of each chop. C'mon---it was CUTE!

Saturday

Boy Howdy, did yesterday's post about a hat get LONG!

Don't worry. I won't do that to you two days in a row. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

A hat named CLYDE.

A few years ago we went to the Ohio State Fair. The State Fair is filled with all sorts of wonderful things...most of which we didn't partake. Not that we have anything against Fried Oreos and foam fingers, but we were there for 4H judging. Oh sure, we perused through the freebies building. You know the one. It's full of businesses hoping to catch your eye so you will buy their product or services. They give away yard sticks, magnets, notepads, key chains and pens to show you how serious they are about their business.

Anyway, by the time judging was over and we had a sack of freebies we were beat...so we headed out. On the way out was the Dickies booth. The fellas all REALLY, REALLY wanted to stop there because they were giving away the chance to drive a race car. No, not an actual race car. They strapped themselves into a chair and grabbed a steering wheel and watched the huge TV screen and pretended to drive a race car. When they were done they got a Dickies ball cap to remember that moment forever and ever. Great fun for those full of testosterone. Or so I hear. I don't have a picture of that. But I *do* have a picture of what my daughter and I did to kill time while the fellas were standing in line. We pretended to fight a bull. That's right. I can just hear you now: "Golly, I wish I was there to pretend to fight a bull." You might think it's great fun to stand in front of a green screen in a hot, closed-in trailer on a hot August day. Or not. But we also got a Dickies ball cap to help us remember this moment until our photos became available to download from the internet two weeks later.

When we emerged from the trailer we noticed the daily parade was in session. By then the fellas had joined us, so we positioned ourselves to watch the parade. It was a nice little parade with THE band (what other band would there be at the Ohio State Fair?), some kids and a team of Clydesdales pulling a wagon. (Don't get ahead of me, k?)

Right next to the Dickies trailer was a booth where they were giving away samples of a new cheesy snack cracker, so we all grabbed a snack before leaving. It was there, with cheesy-yellow-powdered fingers, my teenage daughter decided that her hat needed a name. What could she name a hat that came from the Ohio State Fair after she fought a bull for it? Clyde, of course. What do you expect from a horse lover?

My quirky dog.

The first picture in yesterday's post is of my dog, Mimi. She's a retired Greyhound. Several years ago we were involved in a "rescue" group that helped find homes for retired Greyhound. We fostered several dogs. I forget the count now. Anyway, Mimi was our second foster dog. From the second she got into my station wagon, I could tell this dog had a Princess attitude...and that's what I called her all week. Princess Mimi. She stayed with us a week and was adopted out right away. She left on a Saturday. She came back the next day--Sunday. I'll tell you the rest of her story another day.
She's getting old now and no longer sleeps upstairs with the rest of the family. Occasionally she'll venture upstairs to make sure we're still there or alright or something. Who knows what a dog is thinking. But she rarely sleeps in our bedroom.
Yesterday was stormy. Last night was worse--with high winds, beating rain, and the *BOOM-BOOM* of transformers blowing out.
Last night, about 1 AM, she came into our room and laid down.
Whenever she's scared at night, she will sleep on the floor at my husband's side of the bed.
Whenever she's sick at night, she will sleep on the floor at my side of the bed.
And whenever she just wants to be near us, she will sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed.
She was on my side of the bed.
Great.
But it must've just been a case of the jitters giving her a queasy feeling...because she got up in 15 or 20 minutes and trotted off downstairs for the rest of the night.
Whew! Dodged the bullet that time.
Hope you guys all have electric today. I forgot to turn my puter off last night...so it was a bit messed up this morning and I couldn't get online. All is well in my world now. :)

Wordless Wednesday (almost)

What? Did you want to sit here?

Nice haircut, Tim.

BTW....I've lost 12 pounds now. YAY!

Colleen to the rescue!

Sunday I wrote about losing things. Among them...my lost brain cells.
Let me back up.

Several years ago (what's it been Colleen, five years?) I met an online friend and her family. We enjoyed an afternoon taking in the beauty of God's green country. I've never been the same since. And here's why:

She stole my brain cells.

Oh, she's a sneaky one.

She CLAIMS that it was an accident...that they got all mixed up.
I can't dispute that.

So...I'll just say...Thanks for returning them, Colleen.
Hey! Are you sure these are mine? I thought the blue ones were yours! Oh well...they don't look like you used them. hehehe


On to more important things:

Remember all that snow I showed you last week?

Forget about it.

It's gone.

*POOF* Just like that.

Well, actually...not "just like that". It took several days of above-freezing temperatures for it to melt. Now all that's left of it is the huge piles at the end of driveways and parking lots.

But don't worry...it will be back. Winter has not had the final word. Yet.

And then guess what?

Spring. With all it's beautiful flowers.

Irises are my absolute favorites.

Confession time...

I have a "thing" about dishes.

There. I said it.

It's true. I love dishes. And what's worse is I don't know when to stop collecting them.

But aren't these salt cellars the most ADORABLE dishes you've ever seen? I love, love, love them.

I was at a flea market last summer and came across them. The fella running the stand told me I could HAVE them. For FREE! I love a bargain. He said they were the last two left out of a set of eight--the others broke in transit. {sob!}

Since bringing them home and washing them up they haven't seen the inside of the cabinet more than seven or eight days total. Since summer. Yeah--we use them a lot. They usually sit on the countertop so they're handy for us to grab. Nearly every day I wish I had the other six...there just aren't enough of them to go around. Sometimes I use them to put spices in so they're handy while I'm cooking. Sometimes my daughter uses them to pre-measure out ingredient when she's baking. Any one of us use them to hold dipping sauce.

My husband bought some more salt cellars, but they just aren't the same. These ones are very simplistic and look like miniature bowls. The ones he found were fancier. They just weren't my style. Two of them are cut glass. Pretty! But certainly not for every day use. So he tried again. He found a set of four. They are square with a round hole in the middle. Hmmm. Close, but no cigar. Since they are solid glass, they're heavy. Not only that, but they're only about as tall as that AA battery. Nice try, Honey...but I really like the sloped out sides of my favorites. It makes it easier to grab the spices out.

While I truly appreciate his efforts, I've never used any of them.

As you can tell, not only do I love dishes, I could go on and on about them. Tomorrow I'll tell you all about one of my plates.

Just kidding.

Ever lose anything?

A few days ago when I posted about Timothy when he was 6 years old, I knew JUST the perfect photo that I wanted to use. But...
I. could. not. find. it.
It was lost. I was a picture of him, wearing a wine-o cap, standing in front of the gecko tank at the zoo.
You know the one, right?
It's adorable.
It was lost.
Well, today I went through my backup discs from way back...and I FOUND it!

And you know what? He's wearing a ball cap. And he's standing in front of the Mudpuppy tank. At least I was right about him being at the zoo. He's still adorable, though.

I do have a picture of a gecko at the zoo. It's one of my all-time faves. Maybe that's where I got confused. It doesn't explain the hat mix up, though.
And you know what? I'm not even sure this is a gecko. Does anybody know what this critter is? Obviously I have lost my mind.

Then I got to looking through the rest of the lost pictures that I hadn't yet missed.

A summer vacation at Lake Erie:

Where we went fishing, of course.An April vacation in Florida. Oh how beautiful the white sand beach and the blue, blue water. This was the year that dolphins came around while we were there.Christmas 5 years ago.

My oldest playing soccer.

And as I strolled down memory lane the rest of the family crowded around the computer. As we relived some of our adventures it occurred to me that I need to make a bigger effort of taking pictures. I'm not one to carry my camera with me everywhere I go. I *LOVE* my digital for the fact that I can see right away if I need to adjust exposure, lighting or focus. I wish my 35mm did that! Do you know how much film that would have saved me?

Anyway, we agreed that we need to go back to Lake Erie...maybe this summer. And we'll all miss our Florida vacations now that Mom and Dad have moved back to Ohio. Maybe one day we'll venture out with our camper and visit a beach closer to home. Until that time, I still have my pictures. I know where they are.

Now, if only I could find my lost brain cells.

The hopper is empty!

One of the features that I like about this blog setup is that I can write a few posts and either tell it to post it on a certain day or I can save it as a draft and work on it again later. I like this because sometimes life gets in the way and I can't find time to play. This week has been one of those weeks for me. I've had to run here or dash there. And yesterday I worked most of the afternoon and part of the evening making props for our puppets to use Sunday.
I had told the Puppet Team that we were going to do it together...but the only one who has a crafty bone in her body had to make an emergency trip to Kentucky this week. Instead of torturing the rest of the team, I tackled the project myself. So, with my family offering words of encouragement, I painted and crafted until we have three nice props that hopefully will last a few years.
And guys...I KNOW you don't mind that I went ahead without you this time. You can thank me tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow...I'd better get to writing it's post!

Reflections

One night, when he was six years old, Timothy appeared at my bedside. When he saw I was “awake” (more like startled into consciousness by the feeling that someone was at the bedside, WATCHING me) he climbed into bed and snuggled in close. Very close…like a second skin. He said he “just wanted to sleep with me.” Uh-huh. Since he is my third child I knew there was another reason.
After a while of snuggling I told him that he had to go to his bed. This is where the truth came out. He wailed, “My bed is broke!”
Now, once upon a time it alarmed me when he said his bed was broke, but the child’s mind was still learning the language…and such a hard language it is! You see…when you get up in the mornings, you must make your bed…therefore, when it is unmade, it must be broken!

…aren’t we this way with our Heavenly Father. When something is wrong, we go into His presence, but hem-haw around—as if He didn’t know something was wrong. Sometimes He must prod us to get us to tell Him what is bothering us. He cannot help us unless we ask.

Yes, I went into Timothy’s room and he turned on the light to reveal that the sheet had come undone at the foot of his bed. As I tucked it back into place, he heaped praises on me and thanked me for fixing his bed.
Thank you, Lord, for helping put the “undone” things back in place in my life.

You only WISH it were Wordless Wednesday.

Tip o'the Day:
When you're on a diet and your pants are getting loose...don't wear the silky underpants.

Note to self: Buy a belt.

Stop me if you've heard this one..

Years and years ago...when we first got married...I couldn't cook. I just "never" had time to tag behind Mom in the kitchen to learn the ins and outs. Truth was, I had no interest in being domesticated. I was a country girl. Dirt under the fingernails. Hair cut short so it would be out of the way.
I am not the same girl.
I truly enjoy cooking for my family. I love cooking from scratch and using fresh produce. I like to experiment with new flavors and textures and create new dishes. I just never write any of it down...so it's all lost. Remember, menopausal hormones are eating my brain cells.
A few years ago we made friends with Fred and Jane. As it turns out, Fred has a thing about dull knives. He hates them. With a passion. So one day Fred took my knives home with him and sharpened him. My life has never been the same since. WOW, what a difference a sharp knife makes! So every few weeks Fred would drop in and collect my knives. Then Fred got smart and loaned my husband a knife sharpener. Very soon afterwards we bought a good knife sharpener of our own. Since then both of my teenagers have bought a knife sharpener for themselves. We've all been converted to the Sharp Knife Club. (Remember, we're a Boy Scout family--there are lots of pocket knives floating around here.)
Fred is also the one who invited us to learn to butcher deer. We'd help, bring home some meat, and eat venison for a while. Now, as a family, we have butchered two deer on our own and helped another friend butcher a cow. (Remind me later to tell you the "I'm cutting up a cow" story.)
So...I'm not doing too bad for a girl who couldn't cook and didn't eat red meat all those years ago.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

I can remember my Mother telling me how HOT it was in the room. I didn't think it was hot, but she insisted. I never really understood that...until a few years ago.
But now it is all too clear. Sadly.
But I try not to insist that it is hot. I just look around the room and gather the clues before I open my mouth. I know--it's shocking to think I've learned to do that, isn't it? Usually I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. But the thing about menopausal hormones is that they eat up brain cells faster than you can replace them--so now I've forgotten what I was going to say before I get a chance to say it. So, you see, it's not that I've learned to hold my tongue. It's that I'm forgetful. Severely forgetful.
But I digress.
As I was saying, I look around the room to see if anyone else is sweating buckets before I comment on how immensely hot it has gotten. Usually the answer is...no. But if I'm in a room with my closest friends, who are also going through this journey, then I can feel free to say what's on my mind and they will sympathize with me. Friends are that way. At least mine are. God has blessed me with some of the most wonderful girlfriends who encourage and uplift one another. I hope that He will do the same for you. And to my friends I say...THANKS for being there for me.
Excuse me now while I melt into a puddle. Are you sure it's not hot in here to you?

I am a C-H...

I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N

And I have C-H-R-I-S-T
in my H-E-A-R-T

And I will L-I-V-E
E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y




This song has been running through my head since I typed it up for our Kid's Choir songbook. (I'm the secretary at our church.)

It occured to me that I haven't properly introduced myself. In my profile it says that we're active in church...but I didn't make it clear *what* church. We are followers of the Christ. We are Christians. And we are offended by all the political-correctness going on that completely excludes us.

Prepare yourself. I will share more on this later.