Random Stuff

Well, there are several things I wanted to blog about, but didn't really want to do a bunch of different posts, so this post is going to consist of a few different topics.

First of all, thanks to all of you for your prayers for my family and friends (Carol, who lost her husband Bob, my Aunt Kathy, who became critically ill while on vacation, and my sister's friend Kathrina (who lost her husband Kenny, and is now a widow and mother of a small baby), as well as Daniel (the boy who was born a micro-preemie and had surgery to help relieve seizures), and Nate, Tricia, and Gwyneth (the family with the CF wife and micro-preemie baby). And of course, thanks for all of your prayers regarding Ande and his job situation!!

Carol is doing as well as can be expected. My husband has stopped to visit her a few times, but she's not ready for our whole "gang" to come over yet. With time, I think that will pass. Continue to pray for healing for her broken heart.

Kathy is still in the hospital under sedation. The last I heard, she has not gotten any better, but she's not gotten worse, either. My Uncle Steve could use prayer, too. My Aunt Kathy is his whole world. Continue to pray for her healing, as well as a conversion of her faith (she is Wiccan).

Kathrina and her baby are staying with her parents. The church she currently attends, as well as the church she and Kenny used to attend (where my sister met her), has pledged to help Kathrina financially through this situation. My sister said her church had a great memorial service for Kenny, and that Kathrina was really blessed by it. Continue to pray for her in dealing with her loss.

Daniel is unfortunately still struggling with seizures, and his family could use prayers in seeking medical treatment that can help him.

Nate, Tricia, and baby Gwyneth are still doing remarkably well. Tricia was placed on the waiting list to receive a set of new lungs. Nate continues to deal with having his wife and child in the hospital with grace and humor. Please pray for Tricia, as well as her donor's family, for Gwyneth (for continued growth - she's really doing great!), and for Nate, that he is able to find time to rest and renew himself through all of this.

Ande is struggling with his new job a little (it's mostly outside work, and it's COLD here in Michigan!). He really likes the people he works for/with, and is looking forward to the warmer weather. Pray for his attitude to remain positive (and for warmer weather!).

Next, my mother in law forwarded an email to me, and I would like to share yet another prayer request. This is for my sister in law's sister, Julie (great name, BTW!). Julie is a very sweet girl, who unfortunately has made a few pretty bad choices in life. A few years ago, she married a guy against the advice of her entire family. This guy is very controlling, and abusive towards her (both physically and mentally). Right now, I believe Julie is with her parents after a very ugly incident with her husband. Please pray for Julie, as well as Chris and Wes (her mom & dad), for protection and healing. Her husband, from what I've heard, is a real piece of work. Please pray that he would get out of Julie's life without there having to be any police intervention.

Now, onto a totally unrelated topic...

My oldest daughter, Bug, took dance lessons from the ages of 5-10. Last year she decided to stop dancing because she was unable to participate in other activities that she wanted to do because of timing conflicts. There are a few other reasons, as well, but I just don't feel like going into all of that right now. These are two of my favorite pictures of her...

Anyway, last week, we were at a local restaurant and we saw her dance teacher. I asked Bug if she had gone over to say "HI" to her, and she said she hadn't. I encouraged her to go after we were finished eating. Now, Bug went to the same dance school, and was in the same class of girls, for 4 years. It's been about 8 months since she's gone there. Her teacher had no idea who she was. Not only that, but she TOLD Bug that she didn't recognize her. I had no idea that happened - Bug told me that she told her "hi", but that was it. Then a few days later, Bug was talking about how she was glad that she didn't go to dance anymore, and when I asked her why, she told me that story, as well as one from when she missed a week, and the teacher never even knew she was gone. Mind you, there were only 12 girls in that class.

You know, that really makes me mad. Thousands of dollars were spent (not by me, thank goodness) to send Bug to this dance school. She wasn't a star or anything, but she tried hard, and she did whatever they asked her to do. It absolutely breaks my heart that this girl's memories from dance include the fact that her teacher doesn't even remember her.

Maybe it's because I have spent much of my life being "invisible". Most of the people I went to school with have no idea who I am. I ran into someone a couple of years ago that I had been "friends" with, and she had no recollection of me. It makes me a little sad, to think that no one remembers my name. I mean, I can see not recognizing me because I do look different than when I was in school. But when my name comes up and they still don't know me? Oh well. Maybe I'm just too sensitive.

The whole point I am going to eventually get to is that when a child approaches you, and calls you by name, the least one could do as an adult is JUST FAKE LIKE YOU KNOW THEM! It wouldn't have taken but a moment for her teacher to say, "Hi Honey, how are you?" Then Bug would have felt good, and the teacher wouldn't have been stuck trying to match a name with a face.

Now that I'm thinking about dance....it brings me to another thing - the other dance parents. Never in my life have I seen such a "clique-y" group of people. Two summers ago, Bug's dance team was invited to Myrtle Beach for a National competition. Pretty big deal, right? So for months prior to the competition, I worked different fundraisers to ensure that Bug could go. We couldn't afford to stay in the same hotel with the other girls, but our hotel was only about a 3 minute walk from theirs. I gave the other moms my cell phone number so that Bug could be included if all the other girls were getting together for something. I even called a few of the other moms while we were there to try to arrange something. NOT ONE PARENT CALLED ME BACK. Not because the other girls didn't do stuff together, they just didn't call. Now, frankly, I was annoyed by it, but whatever. Bug, on the other hand, got a serious first taste of being left out. I think that was the beginning of the end of Bug's enjoyment of dance. (We did have a good time, anyway, spending some mommy-daughter time together) Here's a great picture of Bug next to a statue of the world's tallest man (Robert Wadlow).

Again, maybe I'm just too sensitive. But it really ticks me off when someone does something that hurts my kids.

Wow, I didn't expect to write all that!! Sorry for being so long-winded in this post!

One last thing - Ande just called and asked how I felt about him giving his "two-weeks notice" at the homeless shelter he works at on the weekend. I'm thrilled, because I miss having him here on the weekend (it's been almost a year), and we'll be able to go to church together again. I don't think we'll feel a huge difference financially, either, because even if he only works 8 hours of overtime in a week (just over an hour a day for 5 days), he'll make up for the lost income from the shelter. Doing this will also give him more time to work on his amps for the New York Amp Show in May. He wants to get 5 or so amps built to take with him. Pretty hard to do when you work 60+ hours a week!

He's still debating it a little, but I am pretty sure he'll give his notice today.

Do you have a holder?

Well, I was on Devin's blog this morning, and she has a cute post about funny stuff her boys say. It got me thinking about when Bubber was little. He used to say some really interesting things. When Bubber was about a year old, my ex and I bought a Rottweiler. She was a good dog, and Bubber LOVED her. When he got a little bit bigger, Bubber used to tell people about his dog, and how she was "black and nohogany" (her coloring was black and mahogany). After Bug was born, if I needed to let the dog out, Bubber would "pay attention on" Bug. One of Bubber's favorite phrases when he was 2 was "well, actually..." He used that a lot when telling stories. And he told a LOT of stories. Come to think of it, he still does...LOL

One of my favorite things, though, was once when I was taking a shower. Up until he was 2, I would let Bubber take showers with me sometimes. So we were in the shower, and he's jabbering away. Pretty soon, he looked up at me and asked, "Mama, do you have a holder?" I said, "I don't know, do YOU have a holder?" He said, "Yes." So I asked him what it was. He reached down and touched his penis. "Um, NOOOO, Mommy doesn't have a holder. Only boys have holders, honey." Needless to say, Bubber didn't shower with Mama any more after that!!

Of course, now that I'm thinking about funny stuff Bubber used to say, I've got all kinds of funny stuff going through my brain - like the time Puckey pulled my coat open in the grocery story and said, "Nipples Mama!" Not once, not twice, but three times! Good thing there weren't tons of people in the store at the time. LOL Or the time Bubber was next to me at the cash register and he felt the compulsion to inform me that the cashier had a "HUGE NOSE, MAMA!" (Yes, after that we had a little talk about how saying things like that can hurt someone's feelings) When I was (over)due with Puckey, my then three year old nephew told me I "just need to push that baby right out!" Yeah, kids are hilarious, aren't they?

Yeah, God pretty much ROCKS.

The subtitle to this post should be "Heat, Glorious Heat." I'm sure the grammer in this post is terrible, but I pretty much typed this like I would have told it...

Well, I've been FREEZING my backside off all day (well, now that I think about it, is that REALLY a bad thing? I mean, I certainly COULD use a little less backside....). I got up this morning and the house was a little chilly. I think maybe one of the kids bumped the thermostat last night. Anyway, I turned up the thermostat and didn't think much more about it.

After I took Bug to school this morning, I remembered that I had bought a new furnace filter the other day, and figured I'd go ahead and change the filter while it was on my mind. (I usually have to do things this way, otherwise I wind up forgetting about them)

I changed the filter on the furnace and put the cover back on. A little while later, I noticed that it seemed to be getting colder in the house. And come to think of it, I hadn't heard the furnace kick on. Okay, no biggie, I'll just turn up the thermostat. Yeah, so I do that and NOTHING HAPPENS. Hmm...not good. I take the cover off of the furnace and look at it, as if I know what I'm doing. I wiggle a wire here, wiggle one there. Then I notice that one of the wires looks like it came unhooked. So I get a screwdriver and some wire strippers and fix that wire. I reassemble the furnace and turn it on. YIPPEE, it started right up!

Uh-oh, instead of heat, now the air conditioner is on. The thermostat is set on "heat" and the A/C is on? As Puckey would say, "What the heck? What the heck is going on around here?" I turned off the thermostat and just about started to cry. I'm not a big fan of the cold, and I'm starting to get pretty chilly. Ande is at work, and I can't just call him, so that's not an option. My father-in-law, who would gladly give someone the shirt off his back, knows absolutely NOTHING about home maintenance/repair stuff, so he would not be of any help. Hmm...what to do? Can't call a heating/cooling guy, we don't have the money. Guess I'll just freeze until Ande gets home. Well, I might as well bake some cupcakes, so at least the kitchen will warm up a little....(yeah, this is why my backside NEEDS to be a little less...LOL)

Ande ended up calling me, so I tell him what's going on. He doesn't know what to do, and says he'll have to look at it when he gets home. Man, that's like 4 or more hours away!!

Okay, I decide to go downstairs for one last try. I turn the furnace off and take the cover off of it. It's then that I notice another wire is loose. I get the screwdriver and the wire strippers back out, get the wire back in place, reassemble the furnace (again), and go upstairs to turn the thermostat back up. I listen for it, and hear the furnace come on. That's a good sign. I run downstairs and watch as the pilot light gets the burners going....l

WHOO-HOO!!! WE HAVE HEAT!!!!

So, I'm thrilled that God gave me "problem solving" skills. That way we didn't have to call a furnace repair guy and pay him a small fortune to reattach these two wires that I must have knocked loose when I was replacing the filter....I'm feeling pretty happy right now!

Now I'm going to take a nice hot shower to warm up. Yes, it's nearly 2:00PM and I'm just getting in the shower. I know some of you can relate. To those of you who can't...well, I don't know what to tell you.

Prayer request

My sister just emailed me about a friend of hers who needs prayer. The husband died while he was sleeping last night/this morning. He and his wife have not been married all that long, and she recently gave birth to a baby boy. The husband was raised Muslim, but converted to Christianity several years ago. His Muslim father had cut off contact with him, until the birth of the baby boy this past fall. The husband's family apparently is from a long line of royal lineage and has taken an extreme interest in this baby boy.



Please pray for Kathrina (the wife) as she is obviously going to have a lot on her plate right now with the loss of her husband. I imagine the husband's family may want to try to take custody of the son so that he can be raised Muslim. Prayers for her strength and perserverance, as well as protection for herself and the baby would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much.

OH. MY. WORD.

Are we in for it.

Yesterday, I took the kids to our local Hallmark store, because Bug and Nans had some Christmas/birthday money burning holes in their pockets. Both of them LOVE Webkinz, and the store near our house usually has a pretty good selection of them.

So, we go into the store, and the girls gravitate over to the Webkinz display. Puckey, of course, follows her sisters and starts picking up the assorted Webkinz and showing them to me. "Look, Mama, a hippo! Hi hippo!" "Look, Mama, a HORSE! Hi horsey!" "Look, Mama, a kitty! Kitty says, 'MEOW!'" With each one, Puckey would pick it up, hug it, tell me what it was (and sometimes what it says), and when I would tell her to put it down, she would. No biggie, right?

WRONG.

By this point, the older girls have their new pets in hand, and are headed towards the register. Puckey is holding a black lab Webkinz (you can see what it looks like by clicking here). I tell her that she needs to put the puppy down, because we have to go. Puckey looks at me, lip almost trembling, and says in a quiet voice, "I can't." I ask her again to put the puppy down, and again she almost whispers, "I can't" I ask her why. And she looks at me, cradling this little puppy, her dark chocolate eyes starting to get a little moist....
"I can't, I LOVE him."

OH. MY. WORD.

The women working in the store just about died. It's a good thing we weren't at Starbucks, where Puckey once scored a free Walrus just because she was so cute holding it. What a spoiled girl! So Puckey continues to cradle the puppy, petting him and rubbing her little cheeks on his....I swear, I nearly CRIED because she was SO STINKIN' CUTE! We finally got her to put the puppy back, and left the store without so much as one tear on her precious little cheek.

Yes, that's right, I was able to resist the power of the Puckey. Ande was pretty impressed, since he pretty much folds like a cheap lawn chair when Puckey says she wants something. At one point last summer, she almost had him talked into a REAL puppy, because she got so excited over our neighbor's dog. For those of you who don't know Ande - that's HUGE, because Ande doesn't really like animals all that much. I put the kibosh on that one, though, because I knew who would end up cleaning up after the puppy. I have enough people to clean up after, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Okay, in all honesty, I didn't QUITE resist the power of the Puckey. I just ordered the black lab Webkinz online. I DID get it for 1/2 of the cost they charge at the Hallmark Store, though. I thought it would be cute for Puckey's Easter basket. I love to buy the kids stuff, but I like to make it for an "occasion", not just because they want it.