Things to be Thankful For!

That my soon to be 21yo son walked away from this rollover accident!

He hit a patch of black ice on his way to work Friday morning, lost control and rolled his truck. The truck is quite a bit the worse for wear, but expect for some sore ribs my son is fine. Thank You Lord!

New Addtions to the Family

For Christmas my DH and oldest DS got puppies. They are blue heeelers or Australian Cattle Dogs if you want to be technical. DS is on the left with his dog Dixie and DH is on the right with Kassie.

They are really cute puppies but this brings our dog total to 5 between the two households. We also have a Sheltie and two Labs.


Another picture of Kassie.
Isn't she cute?

Aftermath of an Ice Storm

Below are pictures of our house and property after the recent ice storms. If you scroll down and look at the flood pictures [uh yeah, it seems to be our year for natural disasters], anyway you can see the differences. Luckily for use we were only without electric for about seven hours. Many have already been without for days and the electric companies are saying some may be with electricity for as many as seven days.

Count Down to Christmas

Do you like the cool count down timer I added to my blog?

You can find it at customizable countdown timer generator . Thanks to PaperBack Writer for passing along this cool feature.

We have the Christmas Tree up and decorated and my youngest is finally back to normal. Well he's not eating quite as much but that's okay.

Our first real taste of winter arrived yesterday with a mix of sleet, rain and freezing rain. According to the weatherman more is on the way Monday and Tuesday, along with temps that aren't supposed to be above freezing for the next few days. Could be an interesting few days.

We Have Twins

ACK! I can't believe I haven't posted since August and it is November!


Well it has been exceptionally busy around here. Both our heifers calved and one of them had twins. A rather rare occurance according to the DH. Here is a picture.





Aren't they cute? The one on the right is a girl and the one on the left is a boy.

What a way to wake up

Woke up this morning to Water World. About 8 inches of water in the garage and water lapping about 3 inches from the front door.

I have lived here for 25yrs and Toby has lived here for about 35 yrs and it has never looked like this.

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.