Maternity Swimsuits

While working out at the gym this morning I was watching the Today Show. On one of the segments they had a mini fashion show showcasing maternity swimsuits. Now I’m familiar with the concept and since two of my four were born in August and another in October I’ve actually purchased and worn a maternity swimsuit. But not like these suits.

Three or four of the suits were Takini type suits and in every one the model’s belly protruded from under the top, one was a bikini. Yes a bikini for pregnant women and only one was a one piece style suit that actually covered the belly.
Maybe at heart I’m more of a prude then I thought but I just can’t seem to wrap my brain around this new desire to show off one’s pregnant belly.

Trim Kids

Title: Trim Kids

Author: Melinda S. Sothern, T. Kristian von Almen. and Heidi Schumacher

Year Published: 2001

Why did you get this book? I was looking for nutritional information that was geared for kids.

Do you like the cover? Not bad

Did you enjoy the book? This books was actually a DNF for me. I read the Part One section, which was titled Setting the Stage for Success. It did have some good information for parents, such as diet changes can’t really be made for just one family member and be effective for that family member. And yet at the same time you can’t never let the other family members have the things they like to eat. To make real effective changes in our children’s diet and exercise choices and attitudes we might first have to change our own. Ouch!

The second part of the books lays out in detail the Twelve-Week Program. That is not the information I was looking for hence the DNF status.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? It is a library book and I will be returning it.

Anything else? If you have a child/children with weight problems you might be interested in reading this book. I think it does have merit.

Catching Up in Blog land

I haven't posted here in forever, my excuse .... life has been busy! Yeah, I know that excuse is worn thin but it does apply.

So what have I been doing?

Well in February we had the wedding! Our oldest son married a wonderful young lady whom we all love dearly. We also became the owners of two rather wild mustang horses. They had been adopted by someone who found themselves no longer able to afford the feed bill and so they were free to a good home. We spent endless hours trying to gentle them down ourselves and finally decided to enlist some professional help. One horse will be coming back from the trainer soon and hopefully come next spring we will have a colt.

Then in March we had some wonderful spring weather that resulted in major cases of spring fever.

April .... brought a return to colder weather and desperate attempts to get back on track with school.

May brought an abundance of rain. Last week alone we had 6.5 inches at my house. Hopefully that will help all the flowers I planted grow. I also attended our state's homeschool convention which provided some great speakers and a chance for me to decide on next year's curriculum.

I have been getting to read, averaging about 9 books a month. During our oh so short summer break I hope to increase that number.

The Thaw

Okay, first of all we lived in the deep freeze.

I know that to many a week or ten days of weather with temps under freezing is not a big deal but in Oklahoma it is. Add to that the 4-6 inches of sleet that is still on the ground 12 days after it fell and we truly feel as if someone moved the Arctic Circle several thousand miles south.

Now we are in midst of the Big Thaw! It has been in the 40's for the last two days and may even reach 50 by Friday! As you can see from the picture I posted of our driveway, we are now leaving in a mud hole, although the wheat pasture is still an almost solid sheet of ice. *Sigh* How long till spring???

Snow Days is Oklahoma

Here are a few pictures of the recent snowy fun had here in Oklahoma, of course this week the temps are going to be in the 60s and 70s, go figure.





Snow boarding Oklahoma Style!



Chase cars? Naw, this is way more fun!

Family Photo

This is a photo taken of my family at Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday,

1) because the weather is usually still nice
and
2)the focus seems to be more about visiting and catching up with family than other holidays.

Sean and Ranger

This is a picture I took of Sean and Ranger a couple of weeks ago.
Aren't they a good looking pair. Hey I'm his mother I can be prejudice.

The Results

Well I got my results back late Saturday afternoon and the biopsy came back benign!

*Big Sigh of Relief*

I will still have to go back in six months for a follow up mammogram but at this point that is not to worrisome.

At first I didn't think I was going to bruise very bad were they made the incision and inserted the instrument for the biopsy, but I removed the steri-strips last night and I have a bruise about the size of an orange on the underside of my breast. It isn't really very sore but there is still one small spot that is a little hard.

I wasn't supposed to do any heavy lifting or strenous exercise for two days after the procedure but that is up and I am heading to the gym this morning. We see if that makes me sore.

Tick Tock

Tick tock, tick tock the minutes crawl by so slowly when you are waiting for that all so important phone call.

Is the biopsy clear? Does is show questionable cells? Or horror of horrors does is show cancerous cells?

Time seems suspended in slow motion waiting for a call that will either cause sighs of relief or forever change your life.

Tick, tock, tick, tock waiting for time to crawl by.

The Procedure

Well, I had my ultrasound guided biopsy yesterday and it was surprisingly painless.

When I went in they explained the procedure, gave me the pep talk about how less than 1% of cyst like mine turned out to be cancerous and then we got started. First of all the ultrasound tech located the area where the cyst were located, then the doctor came in gave me an injection to deaden the area, an injection, which I didn’t even really feel. Then she made a small incision in my breast, again I didn’t feel anything and then inserted an ultra thin metal rod into the area. Using CO2 it froze a small section of breast tissue to the end, which the doctor then extracted. After taking two samples to biopsy, she placed a small maker is the area so that when I go back in six months they will be able to locate the area where the cyst were. They placed two small steri-strips over the incision site and gave me an ice pack to place over the area to help reduce bruising, took two mammogram pictures to be sure they could see the marker and sent me on my way. I was there less than an hour.

The most painful thing about the whole procedure was the ultrasound tech smashing my poor boob with the ultrasound wand, paddle or whatever they call it. Now to just wait patiently until they call me with the results later today.

Bumps in the Road

Everyone knows that the road of life is not always the same. It changes sometimes daily sometimes hourly and sometimes not for months at a time. It can be like a meandering country road, traveled slowly and with wonderful surprises around the curves. It can also be like a six lane express way, zooming past so fast you barely have time to register the events and people around you rushing from one place to the next and sometimes it is a pot hole, bump filled hazard that you maneuver with care.

Lately is seems as if I am destined to travel the pot hole, bump filled hazard more often than I would care to.

One bump was that my Dad was recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. This really wasn’t too surprising as he has been flirting with this for at least the last 5 to 7 years. So far he is doing really well with diet modification, increasing his exercise and taking oral meds.

A little over a week ago my Dh, 16yos, and future DIL were rear ended on the interstate. Not a bump that you are ever really prepared for, but fortunately for my family this has been a minor bump. Everyone is seeing the chiropractor for whiplash and they are progressing well. Of course the hassle of dealing with the insurance company will take awhile yet but we will prevail.

One of the saddest and longest lasting bumps has been the upheaval in my Dh’s family. It started a little over a year ago when his middle brother tried to cause problems for my Dh and made some wild accusations concerning him. We think because of jealousy but will probably never know for sure. After this my Dh quit playing peacekeeper between this brother and his oldest brother and things deteriorated rapidly after that. For some reason done of us can fathom my MIL has taken up for this trouble causing brother, thus virtually ruining not only her relationship with my oldest BIL and my Dh but also causing a major rift in her relationship with my children, who feel she hasn’t treated my Dh fairly. Some things go on the same, if my MIL and step-FIL need help it is still my Dh, who either takes care of it or on whom they call for help but so much more has changed. The final rift for my Dh was when she not only didn’t get him a card for his birthday but didn’t even bother to call and wish him a Happy Birthday. This may seem like a minor thing but in the 24 years we have been married it had never happened before, not even the year his Dad died just days before his birthday. I have cried buckets of tears over this and have tried to keep from being grossly negative about either my BIL or my MIL but it sometimes leaks through.

The latest bump is the one all women dread to hear. My mammogram came back with changes from previous years. Okay, not a problem. I scheduled a follow up and went in today to be squished, flattened and prodded. I am BTW rather sore this evening. The radiologist still didn’t like the pictures and so they did an ultrasound. I am still expecting them to come back and say it was nothing; however that is not what I heard. It seems I have what appears to be either several small irregular cysts, or one cyst with several compartments on chambers inside it. So next week I go back and have a needle aspiration done. I am hoping and praying this will turn out to be one of those minor inconvenient bumps and not a big life changing bump. I have also opted not the tell the rest of my family with the exception of my Dh. We have my niece’s first birthday party on Saturday, and our youngest son’s thirteenth birthday on Monday and I don’t want to bother anyone with this right now.

Funeral

We went to the funeral of my Uncle Ralph today, well he actually was my great-uncle but I’ve always called him Uncle. Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hazel weren’t people we saw often usually once or twice a year and always at the annual Warren picnic. Uncle Ralph was a McDaniel but Aunt Hazel was born a Warren, its one of those things that can make a difference in close-knit communities and small town America.

Today’s funeral wasn’t a particularly sad one, Uncle Ralph would have been 92 in just about 8 weeks and today was more of a chance to celebrate his life. He and Aunt Hazel had been married for almost 71 years; their anniversary is in just three weeks. As a young man he was a farmer, then sold John Deere tractors and went on to become an Assemblies of God preacher. I never knew him when he wasn’t a preacher and I don’t think my Mom has any memories of him before then either. I never heard him preach as my side of the family is Baptist, but he did perform my wedding ceremony. He had a spirit of calm acceptance around him that to me translated as someone who was doing just what he was supposed to be doing and I never doubted that he was a Godly man. Aunt Hazel is quite confident that he is in heaven and that she will be there with him one day.

Today I saw several of my great-aunts and uncles and a whole bunch of my Mom’s cousins that I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Family members caught up with each others lives, showed pictures of kids and grandkids, shared memories they had of Uncle Ralph and each other from times long past. That is one of the enjoyable things about funerals, listening to all the remember whens.

The one thing, okay make that one of the things that really bothers me about funerals is setting up the body for viewing. I mean I hadn’t seen Uncle Ralph is several years but I still remember what he looked like. Why is it so important for people to view an empty shell? Maybe that is why is bothers me, because I do believe it is an empty shell. The spirit is gone, having left at the time the mortal body ceased to function and occasionaly before. The part that made the person, the important part, the part that you either loved, hated, or were totally indifferent to is gone. In my opinion either to be with God in heaven if they are Christians or into a kind of limbo until Jesus returns. This brings me to the other thing that bothers me about funerals; Why do families feel as if they have to spend a small fortune for a special box with all the bells and whistles that the funeral home can sell them just to put an empty shell into? They go on at great length about the air tightness, and weather proofness, and so on and so on. Uh, hello people, it is going into the ground, the person you are burying could care less and I don’t really think your plan on digging them up to make sure the box really conformed to the specifications you were sold. I know, I know it is a way of honoring them and yada, yada, yada. I personally think the money is better spent on a really nice headstone. Something that can be seen, flowers laid at, and that in a hundred years might still be there.

Getting off my soap box now.

What does 24 years feel like?

Monday was Toby and mine’s 24th Anniversary. While we were lying in bed snuggled together he wished me a Happy Anniversary and I responded with the question “Does it feel the 24 years?” He proceeded to ask me “What does 24 years feel like?”

Hhhmmmm? That is a good question. What does 24 years feel like?

My brother said it feels old. I didn’t like that response.

It could feel comfortable.
It could feel stagnate.
It could feel boring.
It could feel ho-hum.
It could feel exciting.
It could feel like forever or like *snap* that long.

For me it feels comfortable and secure in some ways, yet every changing as we continue to grow and experience new things. We still have two boys in school so we’re not yet through with the childrearing stage of our lives and yet with our oldest son getting married next February and we will soon be entering the new stage of being In-Laws. Hopefully one day in the future we will be blessed with grandchildred and will enter the stage of being grandparents.

So what does 24 years feel like? It feels good. I like being married, most of the time I like my husband and I love him dearly. Hopefully we’ll have at least 24 more years and even longer the Lord willing.

Stardoc

In keeping with the monthly theme of non-romance.... although this book did include a romantic interest for the heroine it was by no means the focus of the book.


Title: Stardoc

Author: S. L. Viehl

Year Published: January 2000

Why did you get this book? I had read the first three book of the Darkyn series which this author writes under the name of Lynn Viehl and really liked them. I looked her up on the internet and found out that she had other books in different genres and decided to try one.

Do you like the cover? It’s interesting, gives what I think is fair portrayal of what the heroine might look like, and has some interesting depictions of some of the secondary characters.

Did you enjoy the book? Absolutely! While I have always loved futuristic romance and time travel; reading Sci-fi outside the arena of romance is new for me. When all is said and done what really makes or breaks a book for me is the story. If the story draws me in, makes me what to know what happens next, and if I can connect with the characters and care about what happens to them then for me it is a good book. Sometimes a great book and this one fits that description. I actually cried for a good portion of the last several chapters of this book.


Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? No this author wasn’t new and yes I will continue to read her books. I’ve already read the second book in the series and can’t wait until I can buy the rest.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeping it.

Anything else? Stardoc is about a young woman, Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil, who has followed her father’s wishes and desires for her life only to find out that all is not as it seems. It turns out that her brilliant physician father has done some experimenting; experimenting that would be consider questionable by most and illegal by the government.

Upon this discovery this Cherijo decides to leave her home world and journey to the farthest reaches of the galaxy to practice medicine and escape from her father’s control. It is an interesting experience for Cherijo, who has never treated a species other than her own. We get to know and appreciate Cherijo through a series of mishaps and emergencies as she painstakingly feels her way along this new path. There are also a number of secondary characters who the author introduces and who add a great deal of interest and detail to the story.

All in all this was a wonderful engaging story. It is entertaining and the world building in exceptional. I was so thankful I had already bought the second of this series as I started it immediately.

When you take your children out to eat with you

please be considerate of the other customers and MAKE THEM BEHAVE!!! [and yes, I meant to yell that]

We were at a small local Mexican restaurant today for lunch and at another table there were two ladies, probably Mom and Grandma from the looks of them, and three boys. The youngest boy looked to be about four years of age and he was the main problem. He yelled, for no reason that we could ever discern; he yelled at his brother, he yelled at the waiter, he yelled at his mother, and never once did either of the ladies tell him to quit or correct him in anyway. As they reached the end of their meal he was allowed to get up and roam the room. He must have opened and closed the door a dozen times; it was one of those with a chime that goes off every time it is opened. He also destroyed a display of flyers sitting on a counter, again neither of the ladies ever told him to quit or corrected him in anyway nor did they clean up the display he dumped.

We have always taken our kids out to eat from the time they were little and I know that they did not always behave. I can in fact remember a few times Toby had to take one or another to the bathroom for a chat, but they were never allowed to get up and roam and we always tried to be conscious of whether or not their behavior was disrupting to others.

All children have to learn what is acceptable in public and what isn't and it is their parents job to teach them that. I just don’t understand why people think it is okay to inflict their child/children on the general populace when they don’t/won’t/can’t make them behave and obvisouly have no intention of teaching them how to behave correctly.

Okay, end of rant!

Isn't it amazing

Isn’t it amazing the things we can take for granted and how we miss them when they aren’t there? Turn on a switch and we have lights, television, and computer. Pick up the phone and we can talk to almost anyone we want or in today’s world we can at least talk to their machine. Thirsty, dirty, need clean clothes or dishes turn on a faucet, shower or washing machine.

Uuummm that is unless your day started like mine this morning and that faucet is dry. We aren’t on city water and sewage but have a well and this morning the well pump it isn’t working. To make things even better the well service people say it will be next week ... late next week before they can get out here to check it out. Going without water for a few hours seems a trial; days of no water seem an impossibility..... a week *groan*

Well at least there is the laundromat for clothes. We can shower at relatives or even the health club where we are members if necessary, although my guys have this real aversion to using public showers.

Yep, there are many, many things we take for granted.

In other areas of life I have completed two books so far for the August Reading Challenge and hope to get reviews written and posted soon. Well as long as the phone and electric still work *bg*

Oklahoma in July

My brother sent this to me and I just had to share!

YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN OKLAHOMA IN JULY WHEN. . .

-The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

-The trees are whistling for the dogs.

-The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

-Hot water now comes out of both taps.

-You can make sun tea instantly.

-You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

-The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.

-You discover that in July it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.

-You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

-You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

-You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.

-Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?

-You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

-The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.

-Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.

-The cows are giving evaporated milk.

Ah, what a place to call home.

Two strikes and your hamburger

At least that’s going to be the rule for the bovine denizens or our place.

The story behind this:

We have a heifer that calved early yesterday morning. This is her second calf and so we wrongly assumed that since the calf was up and moving and so was mom that nature would take its course and all would be fine.

Ooooohhhhh how wrong we were. This heifer has got to be the worst mother I have ever seen. She dropped or stepped on her first calf and it had a bum leg and couldn’t stand after it was born. We were able to get it up and moving and then she refused to feed it. The Dh had to back her against the stall and make her stand still so the poor thing could eat, and he had to do this three or four times a day until the calf was about 4 days old and able to get up and down on its own.

So about 6:30 last night the Dh’s oldest brother called and mentioned that momma cow was in the top pasture but the baby was nowhere to be seen. The Dh and I took the truck out and drove around the bottom pasture where we found ...... nothing! So we drove the top pasture, still no baby. Supper is ready so we go eat, then round up the kids and head back out around 7:45 to search the pastures on foot.

Forty-five minutes later one of the boys finds the poor thing. It was about five feet beyond the fence down by the creek and had obviously been there for quite sometime. We loaded it on the four-wheeler and took it back to the barn, were the momma cow doesn’t seem to want to let it eat. Dh backs her against the stall and tries to help the calf get started suckling. It appears however that mom hasn’t let her milk down. He works for almost thirty minutes before he can get milk out of her and then the baby doesn’t seem to know how or what to do. *big groan* Did I mention the temps are still in the 90’s, it is hotter than hell in the barn and momma cow continually swings her tail and hits Dh in the head. And her tail ...... eeeeeewwwww I won’t even mention how totally nasty her tail was. Another thirty minutes and Dh has milked about a pints worth out the momma, which we poured in a bottle and baby sucked right down when he figured out what it was. Then miracles of miracles he headed straight for mom and started to chow down.

We locked them in the small enclosure by the barn last night and they seem to be okay this morning. We didn’t actually see him eat this morning but when I offered him a bottle of starter milk he wasn’t interested so we hope that means he had already eaten. There is a smaller pasture on one side of the barn and we let them out into it, instead of with the other cows and have been checking on the pair off and on all day. This evening I’ll offer the little guy another bottle of starter milk and see what happens. Ideally someone will see him nursing and we will know that all is well in that area.

Dh says when the baby is weaned, momma heifer goes either to the butcher or the stockyards, she's had two chances and blown them both so he's getting rid of her one way on another.

Our First Day of School

Well, today was our first official day of school for this year. The boys were at Starbase camp last week and I always count those as school days but today was the day we got out the notebooks and started the school year in earnest.

It didn’t have an auspicious start. I woke up at 5:30 with a major headache, my neck hurting and sick to my stomach; the alarm was set to go off at 6:00 so that we could get to the gym early and be home and ready to start school by 9:00.

Well, the alarm went off at 6:00 as planned, and I hit the snooze, 9 minutes later it went off again and I hit the snooze once more, the third time I thought screw this and turned the alarm off. I woke at 7:00 and thought about getting up but decided to give myself 30 more minutes and finally I managed to crawl out of bed at 7:30. I know this seems late for those of you who might have to be at work at 8:00 but I am so not a morning person.

Got the kids up, and we got ready for the gym; today was weight training so it was after 9:30 by the time we finished. I had two quick errands to run and decided since we were already running late to do them while we were in town instead of having to come back later.

After arriving home, eating breakfast and getting morning chores out of the way we finally started school at 11:00. *sigh* Of course the kids wanted to break for lunch at noon and being the horrible mean mother/teacher that I am I made them wait till 1:00. *rolling eyes* It didn’t seem to do any permanent damage seeing as how they didn’t eat breakfast until 10:00.

Since my boys are older I don’t usually sit at the table with them while they do their work. I try to clean and do laundry in between helping them when needed, working on the subjects we do together, and trying to grade work as they finish. Today they were of course particularly needy, and seemed to pick on each other constantly so by 4:30 my headache was back with a vengeance. I told them to finish up their work and I headed to the tub for a nice long bubble bath.

We ended up having carryout pizza for dinner [who wants to cook in a 104 degree heat], I have three loads of jeans waiting to be folded and I never did get to the store for dog food but there’s always tomorrow. And surprisingly we managed to get everything done on their assignment sheets except for their history and we’ll double up on that tomorrow.

Men and assembly instructions

Men and assembly instructions. An oxymoron if ever there was one.

The men at my house assemble things in true Tim Taylor fashion. Lay out the parts and go to work, instructions are unnecessary and used only as a last resort.

Extra parts? Aaahh who needs them?

We got a new trampoline yesterday the old one was 7 or 8 years old and if Toby hadn’t welded it several times would long since have gone to the trash. My 19yos laid it out and was going to assemble it, but it went together differently than the old one and there were a bunch of screws he didn’t know where they went. Solution, let’s consult the directions ...... but wait, I hear “This sucks, it doesn’t have any pictures. ” hmmm appears that even when we consult directions we don’t want to actually read them, we simply want to look at the pictures. LOL, it was time for me to leave for work and apparently they figured it out because the trampoline was assembled and in use when I called the use later in the evening.

Is it the Y chromosome that inhibits the ability to admit that one needs directions to assemble something or heaven forbid that they need to ask directions of someone because they are lost?