IN A NUTSHELL...

Life is busy…

Started back to school…Will be giving up all but one of the classes I teach starting next Fall…Too much on my plate…

Hospital work going well…

Oldest DD divorced her husband…Have been sick to my stomach…Divorce is normal in the world…Not for us…It is not okay.

Children going through H-E-Double Hockey Sticks…Makes me want to bring them under my wings and protect their little souls.

DD #2 getting married next Spring…Was going to move back to live with DD #1 but will probably stay in Utah…She turned 25 last month…Hard to believe.

Gramma has lost some of her mind almost instantaneously…Most energetic, organized, hard-worker I’ve ever know…Something happened—we don’t know what…Poor gramma knows it and can’t do anything about it.

DS received black belt last year…Confirmed night before last…Did outstandingly! Broke three concrete slabs this time (two last time) with the heel of his hand…then broke one, while being held by instructor, with his fist…Took two blows—hand not great…But…Concrete slab broken…So proud of him.

To St. Patty’s Day parade last Saturday with DD, grandbabies, mom, and dad…Had a fine time…Little people got much candy.

Off to do homework soon.

TRIALS AND BLESSINGS

A TRIAL…

I may have mentioned before…My dad and his continual losses...

Over all of the years that he has been in business, he has had thousands…No…hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from him…

Embezzled from…Stolen from…Robbed from…Taken by both insiders and customers.

Once, they crashed a stolen van into his store to gain access the goods…

Yet…For the most part, he maintains a happy face and doesn’t complain…

Friday morning was a particularly upsetting start for me and coincidentally…For Mom…And, as we would later find out, for Dad as well…

Mom was depressed about all that seems to continually go on…Money losses, attorney dealings and the like...I was frustrated by more politics at work…And so we commiserated…

Later in the day, in lunching with Dad, he told me of the latest, someone ELSE that is suing him over something ridiculous…Unbeknownst to us, and possibly even as we were dining…he was being assailed yet once again…

A group of at least four people, two or three to cause disruption, and the other two to pull it off, got off with $15,000 worth of jewelry…They were on camera, and some pretty good pictures of the thieves were available and given to the police, but no finger prints were taken…Blows my mind…They were on the jewelry glass counter AND the gun glass counter…The police only committed to posting the picture in the “bull room”, whatever that is.

It just makes me so enraged…So sad for my dad. He is one of the most generous men there are…

With some visual-enhancement computer program, I think that the police could zoom into the car plate and get the number. Since they don’t seem to be overly concerned, one of the employees has taken it upon himself to work on that.



DH and I drove around for quite awhile today, in the area of town that we believe the thieves come from (the wrong side of the tracks, if you will) and hunted for the vehicle.



I don’t even KNOW of all of the times that Dad has been ripped off, because he doesn’t always voice it, but of the ones that I do know, rarely, if ever, has he been reimbursed.

I pointed to a painting that he painted years ago…one of David and Goliath…hung above his desk…"Dad, you’re not as big as the bad guys, but you’ll win in the end. I love you."

GOALS…

My goals for this year (I know, it’s a bit early for the final assessment, but that’s okay) were not 100% achieved…But, I did work hard on my organization skills, keeping up on the house, and trying to feed myself in a more healthy way…

I would have liked to have gotten a bit further along but will continue to work on them.

I think that for the upcoming year, my goal will be to try to be content with where I am at…Or something like that...

My dream is to be a homemaker…It matters not that I do not have children at home anymore (as someone stated the other day…in other words, "You don’t have a NEED to stay home anymore"), I DO still have a home…

AND…I do still thrive on making a warm, cozy, and comfortable abode…

I feel the Spirit so much more when I concentrate on making my home clean and lovely…My husband, although he doesn’t say it, enjoys when I am home, baking up yummy smells and having the candles lit and a nice, warm, scented home to walk into after coming in from work. He DOES comment on those niceties but doesn’t say that he likes it when I stay home, is what I meant. He needs me to work.

So…As that dream will not be, in January, I am returning to school. I am excited, I am stressed, and I am depressed. Ha ha—Can one be all of those things at the same time?



So…I’ll work (an undetermined amount—as yet undecided) and I’ll go to school…And, I will get a job that brings in more money…And, I will work the rest of my healthy years…Sigh.

I shouldn’t be so morose about it all…But the fact of the matter is…Well…I am.

There should be another way, but there isn’t…So, this coming year, I need to work VERY VERY HARD on making the best of it…Trying not to stress as much as I have been (have had health issues because of it in the past few months) and look at it as an exercise in developing a go-with-the-flow attitude…

Or something like that…

I need to come up with a positive before January 1...A real positive…To sell to my self…That continuing to work and not being able to stay at home, until I am too feeble for it to matter…Is actually a GOOD thing…

Well (wink) you can tell that I’m a ways away from that still!

I’ll get there, though-:0)

SIDE NOTE…Just looked at the thermometer…It’s 1…Ha ha…We got a foot of snow between midnight and 6:00 p.m. yesterday as well.



(This is not our home...I just thought it to be beautiful)

BLESSING…

I didn’t do anything to deserve it, but last week, for three days in a row, I received such blessings at work…

They all came from patients…Patients who were so very sick but yet had a smile and such love in their hearts…

One day, I had a particular man, who because of a severe reaction to drugs given in surgery, had great mental disorientation and distress. This poor man had not been allowed out of bed for days, to even sit up. He hurt, he wasn’t allowed any pain meds., and he didn’t know what was going on…

The tubes and lines in him were a constant irritation…For hours on end…Days on end…He tossed and turned, and tried to get up. We had to keep him down. It came to mind, after some time, to do what my grandma would have done…I rubbed his back…

That’s all…

A small thing…But that was the only thing, including medication (the little that he was allowed to have) that worked. It didn’t work for a real long time, but he was at least able to get a few short minutes of rest as I rubbed his back. I felt such a blessing in being able to do that, and it brings tears to my eyes as I speak.



My FAMILY means so much to me…They have each taught me GREAT things. This particular gramma, now passed, taught me to love the Lord and to love others.

I have a great love in my heart…Not of my own…But as a gift from my Father in Heaven…Each day that I go to work, I pray that I will be able to bless someone’s life. The Lord answers my prayers, and often I am the one who ends up getting blessed as much or more than they…







An aunt, my dad’s sister…This painting was commissioned by a beau of hers…Painted in Germany...

Aunt Joann passed years ago from MS… Her husband, who divorced her, (they were closer after that then before) drowned in the river; she passed on; and then the youngest of her four sons was stabbed to death.

You would never know, if you were not looking at Aunt Joann, that she had this wicked disease. Her sense of humor preceded her wherever she went! I think that she taught us all to look on the bright side.





My own dear parents…Their wedding picture…They were 18 years and two days and 18 years and four days old respectively.





My honey and I…My, but we look young!

BLESSING…

I got up the other morning; my husband took me by the hand and lead me to the window…”Look”, he said, pointing out the window into the snow-laden streets…

“Elliott?” “Elliott?!”

He then took me to our son’s bedroom, opened the door, and there lay my BOY!!!

Oh, my goodness! He had come home early to surprise me! I hugged him and hugged him…



Oh, it is so wonderful when he comes home…He brings laughter, his unique and special wonderful laughter…And, he brings my other boy, Derek—a friend from his grade school years, whom I love very much.

I think I’m glad that I didn’t know he was coming after hearing his tale…He drove in the worst of storms, at times going only 30 miles per hour, behind snow-blowers and passed by many semi-trucks…



It was so bad that what is normally a five-hour trip took him nine…In looking back over it, he said, “I don’t know how I made it alive.” “You must have prayed before you left”, I said. “Yes, and when I got here, I said a prayer (of thanks)…[and then was instantly exhausted].

The stress had been great, and he then just wanted to sleep...

I am thankful to my Father in Heaven that he brought my boy home safely.



Dear mothers of grown children yet to be…

Some day…

Some day…You will be thankful for a messy bedroom floor…



And the unmade bed…



For it means that he is home.

Some day…You will be thankful for the church clothes yet unhung…



And the posters on the walls…

For it shows of the signs of the morals that you taught…





And the strong man that you raised.



Oh, dear mothers of grown children yet to be…



Cherish them…



Love them…



TAKE TIME TO BE WITH THEM…



Take it from this mother, whose heart so aches when they are gone, but who is so thankful that she did the very best that she could…

You raise them up to what they will be…So give them the best YOU that you can be!

IN DIVERSE PLACES...

An UNBELIEVABLE event happened here yesterday…In our little town…

A tornado hit! This is normal for some parts of the country but never for us! Over the years, I have seen funnel clouds, one coming quite close a few years back…But, since 1958, we have never had one hit our town…



Until yesterday…

It was surreal…



DD was at a friends, heard the emergency sirens, went to get in the car to rush home to her family…And saw the twister out her car window…



My sister, who lives in a modular, rushed to Mom and Dad’s to take cover in the basement…

Her daughter, my niece, was away with a friend…The friend’s mom saw the funnel, loaded the girls up in the car and fled to the East…

The roof was blown off the arena…Debris covered the road…





A glass shop was blown away with only the walls left standing...



A casino and marina were taken out pretty badly…



Before it hit, I had just met Dad for a Father’s Day coffee…

Out of nowhere, it came…The darkness…

The down-pour…

As soon as the call came in from my sister, we headed out…



Dad headed to his house…Me to mine…



After the storm was over, and keeping in touch with Mom, who was out of state…

I could no longer make contact with Dad or Sis…So headed out to their end of town to check on them...

Water like this was everywhere…



Downtown was flooded…Cars were up on dry patches, where they could be found, drying out engines that were water-logged…



Every policeman in the city, I think, was out on duty…

There were firetrucks, ambulances, you name it, out in droves…



I sat stranded for about an hour…Not being able to go North, South, East, or West…

I surged through the water the best I could, and my poor little car was about to die out…I told my dog that I thought we were in for it…

Across the away, a guy in a car similar to mine stalled out in the flooding, waded out to get help and pushed his car up to a dry lot…

After a long time of letting my engine run on a dry spot, I went for it, and we finally made it out…

It was just the weirdest thing to experience…





Thank goodness we all were fine, but what a surreal day it was...

LIFE'S A WORK-OUT...BLESS SOMEONE

Life is always uphill it seems…Isn’t it a great work-out! :0)

The challenges never seem to end, but then…How would we ever progress?

Onward then…

I may be changing my work schedule; therefore, my housework schedule, dog-walking/exercise schedule, etc. need to be tweaked.

That is all okay, except, I am SO not a morning person! It is much easier to push myself to do house chores in the evening after coming home from work than to do them in the morning before work…Hmmm…So, the dilemma.

This is my first week trying this new schedule, so we’ll see how it goes.



My goals for the year and their current ratings (grades I am giving myself)…

BE MORE ORGANIZED…

Doing quite well here…B+

CONTINUE TO IMPROVE MY HEALTH WITH BODILY NOURISHMENT…

Do potato chips (Salt and Vinegar to be exact), M&M’s, and McDonald’s count as nourishment?

Baaaaaaad…F

CONTINUE TO IMPROVE MY HEALTH WITH EXERCISE…

Not too good here, either…Have you ever noticed that when you get on a role (good OR bad), that ya just keep on rollin’?...D

QUIT WHINING AND JUST DO!

I continuously contemplate on ways to better certain problem areas of my life, and I also hash them over with DH, but I really haven’t been whining much…Yay me!...A

PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE ME...

Do you have people in your life who inspire you? I hope you do.

If you don’t, find some…

If you don’t, be one…



Have you ever had the thought, “I wonder if this person that I am communicating with in person, who isn’t being real nice, would be a nicer person online?”

Or, “I wonder if this online acquaintance of mine, who is always so nice, is really that way in person?

I have pondered these questions quite a bit, as I observe and interact with people. Our society isn’t that nice anymore. There is definitely not a respect for people older than a given person. In other words, the idiom “age = wisdom” does not exist, but titles can certainly play a role in respect.

Often times, it is how we are viewed…How others perceive us…Not the actual who-we-are, that dictates how people choose to treat us…

Pretty sad…

Almost without exception, in my belief, it is the low self-esteem of the one who judges that is really speaking.

These are three people who inspire me…

My mom: Beautiful, soft, hard-worker, wonderful cook…

My Gramma—Mom’s side: Little plump German woman, hard-worker, loving beyond words, instilled a love of the Lord in me that has never left, even though she did…

My Gramma—Dad’s side: Quite possibly the hardest worker I’ve ever known, extremely clean yet doesn’t care if the grandchild spills grape juice on her cream-colored carpet…

Wow! Have I been blessed, or what?!

This quilt was...



Made by my mother-in-law...And given to us after my father-in-law passed…

Each block is from one of the shirts he used to wear…



This quilt was...



Made by my gramma…Mom’s side…

I can pick out squares and have memories of Gramma wearing a garment that then went into the making of this quilt…

We got this as a wedding present from Gramma…Twenty-seven years ago next month…

This quilt was...

Made by my gramma…Dad’s side…

More than diamonds…More than pearls…A hand-made quilt wins my heart every time…

Gramma gave this to us just because…Wow…Can you imagine ALL of that work Just BeCause?



I pray that we may all strive to BE THE PERSON WHO WE KNOW THE LORD WANTS US TO BE…And bless a life or two along the way...

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY!