QUICK UPDATE

It seems I've been neglecting the blog. Here goes a quick update.

We are busy "finishing" up school. We're preparing for graduation. We're STILL waiting for the announcements to arrive. At this rate folks will get invited AFTER the ceremony. I can't quite figure out what the problem is; I ordered from a company that has been very quick in the past. LOL

I did have my first doctor's appointment. I love the doctor. She's very cool. She agreed that there was NO reason for a ton of tests due to my age, because I wouldn't choose to terminate a pregnancy. Looking over my records, she was surprised that I'd been offered an abortion "today" with Stacia by the specialist...she said that actually the test results he was looking at made Downs look less likely than simply looking at my age had. I knew that man had an agenda the minute he walked into the room. ::snort::

I sold some curriculum online....not sure what else I've done. Mostly, I've been sick. I've eaten 7-up and cheddar bunnies for the past few days. We've had several great evening family walks. Bible Study on Tuesday night went well - hard to believe that we have only one week left before summer break. That's about it.

BIG EXCITEMENT - CAN YOU SAY, "TORNADO?"

I was getting blood drawn at the doctors when the speakers began blipping about a tornado warning....then I got a cell phone call saying "get home" but I had to finish the lab work....and since I WAS out and we had no milk....I ran to Sam's.

Meanwhile the tornado touched down in a nearby town and is heading someway near us....and we now have hurricane force winds and severe thunder warnings coming right for us. Due to hit a town on one side of us at 1:30 and the other side of us at 1:40. I got home at 1:30 and we're settling in for some storm watching...... The radar screen is totally amazing. It's really strange looking out there. We'll be staying home the rest of the day - except for Cy who has to go to work and Mike who has to come home. LOL

Book Discussion - "The Monistry of Motherhood"

Ladies, I've decided to begin our book discussions with *The Ministry of Motherhood* by Sally Clarkson. You can purchase this book at Whole Heart Ministries , Amazon.com or many other spots. The book has study guides and questions every few chapters and I think that will assist in making this an easy book to discuss.

I'm open to discuss pace. I don't want to move TOO quickly...but I've noted that book discussions bog down if you move TOO slowly. ::snort::

I'd like to begin in May. Yikes - that's soon. ::snort:: Hmmm....do you think we should allow one or two weeks for everyone to get the book? I've got an idea - let's begin the Monday after Mother's Day, some of you may want to request the book for Mother's Day. ::snort::

You can simply read the reviews and comments....or jump in and participate...buy the book, read it, share your informed thoughts.... Or skip the whole thing if that pleases you most. ::snort::

Picture of the book won't load - I'll try tomorrow.

FRIDAY and SATURDAY

I continue to be dizzy, which makes every day life interesting. I have not fainted again. I am eating "something" every couple of hours.

Speech, produce co-op, something else. We all went and watched Arielle and Nolan in a performance that their drama class put on. They did good. They were nervous. Miss A was PUT out that "the military" made Dad miss Christmas and NOW her play....but several dads missed. I'm really, really glad that the kids participated in this. I tend to avoid many outside activities...but this was 8 weeks...and was beneficial.

Women's Project Night. This was my first time going somewhere to crop. I took the albums mom had made with me. I spent about an hour organizing things. I only took two bags and wasn't quite sure what was in them. I've not used this stuff since our move. I put together the power sorter thing that I found in one bag. I thought about taking all the photos out of all the albums mom had made and storing them...then I decided to simply transfer one album. I finished one. I simply copied mom's writing. The pieces of magnetic pages would be too thick....when Mike gets home we'll see if he can scan the rest in a way that I can use them. We had fun and midnight came before we knew it. Everyone wants to do this monthly. I'm still committed to simplifying - in other words "they're photos - put them in the album already!!!" I have DECADES of photos to get into albums.....and I knew some of the photos were falling out and some of the pages were yellow...but it became apparent that the magnetic "stuff" was eating away the photos. It's time to make transferring these albums a priority....and then all the big albums Mike and I took for the first 20 years of our marriage. LOL THEN, maybe, I'll think about being crafty again....

Used Book Fair this a.m. at 8:30. I didn't sell a lot; but I've already listed the books I have left online. I DID sell a few things - enough to pay for the Math U See Geometry that I picked up. ::snort::

Now - I need a nap. I need to clean. I need to do laundry. Tomorrow is a big pot luck at chapel and so I should cook.....and Mike comes home in a few hours. Hey, maybe I can post photos again once he gets home and speaks to the computers! ::snort::

THURSDAY - What day off?

This was supposed to be my "vacation" week with Mike gone - but it's turned into a rather tiring week.

Curves this a.m.

School this a.m.

Went to base to pick up a student's luggage.

Lunch and then ran the boys across town for their volunteer activity.

Ran the younger ones to park day. Yikes! We got there and there were about 4 busses parked outside the gate. I was very pleased when they began to load up. Then it was bare - I wondered if I had the wrong date for our homeschool park day....but there was one lone Mom with 14/12 yo boys still at the park. She's new to town. Still in TLF on base...and a homeschool Mom. They'd been waiting for someone from the group to show up. I was 30 minutes late as I have to go across town with the older boys first. I was sad that there was no one there to welcome this new mom - but I did my best. Tricia and her daughters showed up too and we basically had the park to ourselves. LOL She asked what my boys liked to do and I suggested the one really fun thing to do in this area - paint ball. Her son was THRILLED and I have their phone number to try and make that happen.

Came home for dinner. Josiah was supposed to pick the boys up and I expected them by 5:30. It was 6:15 when they got home. Dinner was ready. Yeah, I KNOW I've not posted a menu this week. We ARE eating at home. It's not pretty...but it's food. ::snort::

Jamin, Jared, and I, picked up Tricia and her oldest daughter and headed out to a Come and See party for World View Academy. This looks excellent. It's expensive, but if God wants the boys to go, He will provide. They earned $ for airplane tickets and a mission trip to AK last summer (which was a good $300 more than this). The camp we are looking at is in the fall - it's 90% homeschoolers. Josiah would like to go but may be in college by that time. I did get a bit lost driving out in the country - but we found it - eventually.

Josiah had the littles all settled down when I got home. Stacia is asleep on my bed. He ran through their lines for the play their drama class is putting on tomorrow.

Home to set up tables and call it a day. I still need to price books and gather things for project night tomorrow. I seriously may take a pillow and blanket, sit under a table with a magazine and tell them to wake me at mid-night to lock up! ::snort::

Labor of Love

I can remember my mother with boxes of negatives. I remember her painstakingly running to Bi-mart to make 2 copies of this photo, 1 copy of this one, 3 copies of this one....and then one day.....the boxes became stacks and stacks all over our dining room table.

There were stacks of photo albums. Not just ANY photo albums; the very newest and best albums on the market for this labor of love. There were THREE very distinct patterns of albums, each of us children were to have our OWN set of family photo albums, in our OWN pattern. There were stacks of photos sorted by person, year, month. In the end, I was given 12 albums of photos that chronicled my life from birth through graduation. Amazing.

I began with the idea of doing the same for my children. By the time I had 5 young un's under the age of 8, I realized I didn't have the TIME or the DOLLARS to keep x amount of copies for each photo...at this point I would need 10 children albums and 1 family album... it isn't happening.

I decided to keep a family album. It was ALWAYS up to date. Photos came home and immediately went into the current album, complete with quite a bit of writing (which is now called journaling). I was current. A favorite family past time was to sit around and look through all our albums....until, as I've previously shared SCRAPBOOKING took over our albums. Please know that this is not true across the board - but for ME - scrapbooking became an evil. It took away from a great family pleasure. No longer do we have albums that are fun to look through on family night. I'm now over 5 years behind. I can't possibly put photos in an album without coordinating paper, stickers, cropping etc. Oh, I've played around with various styles. I've tried various systems. It comes back to the fact that I don't have time for keeping our family history as a craft outlet for me. I need to get the photos and stories in an album. Others have told me to go for it - that later in life I can "do it right". ::snort:: I've not been able to bring myself to open those beautiful 12 x 12 Creative Memory albums and simply put photos on the page and write.....but I plan to do just that. It will be a terrible shock to those looking at my album. From plain - to works of art - back to plain! But so be it. I want to have fun with our photos again and not feel like it is a constant undone huge project hanging over my head. DON'T TAKE ANY MORE PHOTOS - DON'T YOU KNOW I'M FIVE YEARS BEHIND - OH 5 1/2 NOW!!!!

I planned to simply make myself stick photos from 2002 on a page and write - regardless of stickers, mats, shapes etc. That was the plan for TOMORROW night.....somehow all the photos from 2002 - 2003 have gone missing.

I needed to come up with another plan....back to my Mother's Early Labor of Love. Since learning about acid free albums and such, I've been meaning to do something with those lovely albums. Some have suggested I could do them in classic albums, vellum and eyelets (since evidently I'm an ANTIQUE)....and I thought of it. I couldn't bring myself to take those albums apart. I remember the hours it took mom to create this keepsake. My older girls loved looking over these albums...BUT the pages are yellowing, the magnetic stuff is coming loose...some photos fall out and some are stuck. I don't want the younger ones looking at them because they may ruin a photo. I need to do something. I don't want to change what Mom did. I decided I'd scan her words into the computer, use much the same layout as she did and matt her words on the page..... I'll begin that tomorrow. This should help me save my mom's Labor of Love, and get over my fear of going simple!!!

I scanned - the words don't show up. I now need to decide if I will simply copy the words in my handwriting....or cut out the part of the page with words and somehow matt those onto the pages. What would you all do?

And yes...this is all an exercise in ginning up the courage for me to follow through with my plan - get the photos in the album so that my family can begin enjoying them again. Oh - and on top of the 13 albums Mom gave me....I added 21 HUGE 3 ring magnetic albums of our early family years. I need to get THOSE into safe albums too.....and then I'll hit those 3 years of masterpieces...a craft I began when I wasn't teaching Bible Studies, when I had young women at home who worked on them with me.....and then I'll be back to simple.....and my family will not care. My children and Mike will be thrilled to be able to thumb through the albums again and remember family fun!

Mom and Dad

Me at 16 weeks (cone head @ 4 hours yikes!)

Me at 18 months - if Stacia had hair I think we'd look alike! ::snort::

...and one day - I CAN do them "right" - though I'm not sure who should define right. ::snort:: Now I only need to figure out what to do with oodles and oodles of supplies...more supplies than a person should ever have as I sold for one of the makers of such things. LOL

Fibromyalgia

Mom, this one's for you. Ladies, my mom was diagnosed with FM about 8 years ago {?}. If any of you have info, websites etc to share - would you leave them in the comment section for Mom.