Sweet...

Today I'm keeping Kate. She will be 3 in about a month. She is little and petite.
Also, I have Noah. He just came over to spend some time while his mama and sisters went someplace.
Noah turned 3 on the 11th of this month. He is a nice size boy - at the top of the chart for height in his age.
He is much larger than Kate, but is gentle with her.
When he came in Kate got up and walked over to him and said, "I love you, Noah. Give me a hug!" And then she gave him a kiss.
It was one of those sweet moments.... now, in a little while they may be fussing, but for now... yeah, it's sweet!

Welcome to My World Today

Today I was reading over at "The Green Grass Grows All Around" and was inspired to post about my world today...

It is dreary and cloudy. It is 56 degrees but is supposed to be in the 60's tomorrow. The weather is strange and goes from one extreme to another from very cold to nice and warm. I'm not complaining about the warm days.

We have lots of birds around and they are singing and driving Andy crazy because they keep coming in "his" yard. He takes it very seriously when an invader enters. He feels compelled to run around jumping and barking telling them this is "HIS" yard and they are not welcome. Of course, I love seeing them.

Here is part of what my day is like. Kate is entertaining me... She loves to tell me that her new baby is healthy and developing and growing and it's a boy.


Here is something green popping through. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm anxiously awaiting some color and flowers... the boxwoods around our patio stay green all the time.



Here we have a "beautiful" weed showing color. Who knew that a yellow dandelion would be so nice to see in the middle of our yard. It made me smile to see it poking through with a promise of more green to come! (and probably more yellow flowers too, much to hugsum's dismay)

This is a view of all the trees in our back yard. They are bare. We do have a huge holly tree that stays green all year and the tree in our front yard still has it's leaves on it, but they are dead and not very pretty.

These are more weeds blooming in our yard... who knew weeds would bring so much color and pleasure in the middle of winter! In the summer they bring much frustration.

This is a small picture of my world... It is the beginning of new things. I am thankful for color and promise in the middle of winter.

What is your world like today? I hope it's nice.

13 Things I Do Instead of Blog on Thursday

It isn't that I don't love to blog - it just seems that other things have taken over... These are things that I love and enjoy and want to do... so they are not burdens or problems... just take away blog time.

1. I keep Kate 3 days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

2. I keep Noah, Kendall and Posey on Monday

3. I keep Noah, Kendall and Posey and Kate on Wednesday at Rebekah's house

4. I have a weekend parsonage where I go and there is no internet connection most of the time

5. I get side tracked with Facebook since it is quick and fast and not so time consuming thinking of things to say... only time consuming because it is easy to get caught up in reading short little blurbs from all my friends lives.

6. I have a dog

7. I need to take a nap when the kids are napping so that I can be fresh and energetic and nice

8. Hugsum likes a clean house. I do too

9. I'm spending lots of time trying to come up with a plan on how to fix my house so it has nice curb appeal and we can still eat

10. My creative juices seem to go sour when I start to post anything

11. I'm working hard to finish my Doctor of Naturopathy

12. I'm crocheting lots lately so that I can put some baby blankets on etsy to sell (more on that later and also a give away for one is in the works)

13. I have a new iron and it does lots of fun things like steam clean furniture and mattresses and suits as well as iron incredibly well. I've been ironing more lately than normal.

The "Irony" of Weekend Fun that Keeps going...

We all know what this weekend was... It started off with Friday 13! I'm not superstitions so this was a wonderful day for me! Plus, it was SaySay's birthday and Valentines Day all rolled into one eventful weekend.

Earlier in the week I had heard on tv about a show they were having at the convention center. It was just what we were needing... remodeling and landscape! Woooo Hooooo! The great thing was that it was Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I guess that's the normal schedule, but we just can't ever go to things in town on Saturday and Sunday - just because ...

After making a trip to Whole Foods with my beautiful daughter who just celebrated her birthday... and then to Jerusalem Market and then to lunch at a wonderful new find of a restaurant, D'Novo, we headed to the Convention Center and the home show.

We ventured out to this wonderful Remodeling and Landscape show... Hugsum really wanted to check out the replacement windows and siding and I wanted to look at landscaped stuff and just get some "wonderful" ideas. As it turned out, it was a huge disappointment. There were not many booths or displays, just not much inspiration there.

While he was deep in conversation with a salesman about windows I sort of wandered off. I was captured by this lady who was ironing. I have this thing for ironing. I seem to let it pile up into huge tormenting stacks. When I do iron, I iron lots. Hugsum seems to think it is new or that he hasn't seen it in "years"!

I have a precious friend, Sherry, who knows my weakness and actually tried to intervene for me. She took baskets of my ironing to her house and ironed them for me!!!! Talk about a great friend! WOW... even now I'm blessed by it and it has been close to 20 years since she did that. Unfortunately, we wore those clothes and they needed ironing again!

So, as you can see from this pile (which is actually only half the size it was before I starated), you can see that I need to iron. It isn't that I mind ironing. I really do like to iron. It is sort of therapeutic as I watch tv. My grandmother was a master ironer. She taught me to iron so that clothes would look nice and crisp and also how to save steps. My brother was so particular about ironing that no one could iron his shirts to please him. He would take his shoe off and hold one end of the shirt pleat with his foot while his hand held the other side and then he would balance as he very carefully and meticulously ironed the pleat. Yeah, he was that perfect (he actually is very nice and easy going now)

So, I've regressed... back to this ironing lady. She was talking and as she was ironing silk and rayon and wool and cotton and sequins ... yeah, sequins - a really detailed beaded dress with lots of sequins... AND she just left the iron sitting there on top of it! My heart began to pound and it took all my self control not to reach over and grab the iron and move it and tell her she needed to be careful! (I refrained and everything was fine ... nothing melted or was destroyed.) Then, she sprayed steam on a suit coat and it looked like it had come from the cleaners... and under the arm... saying that the iron deodorized, sanitized, killed dust mites and on and on with all these incredible claims. Well, I was truly fascinated.



Hugsum came up and we walked around more and then left. I was trying to tell him about the amazing iron and he offered to buy it for me for Valentines... (the standing rule is NEVER give a gift with a cord attached) I said no thanks. But, I really really did want that iron! I had asked how much it cost and was in shock. Yeah, it can do great and wonderful things - but... no way! It was 4 times more than any iron I had ever purchased! (of course, if I bought on line it would be an extra $100 and I wouldn't get the special little travel iron... it is so cute!)



I told my daughter about it and she thought I was crazy... Then my other daughter asked me about it and as I was telling her about it, Hugsum said that it was a GREAT DEAL! If he didn't have to take his suits to be cleaned every week, just have them steamed and deodorized... it would save him money. He was sold on it then. But, we had left the show and well, you know how it goes...

We went on up to our weekend parsonage and didn't get the iron.... OR a Valentine's gift! (highly unusual for my very generous gift giving man!) But, he did say we could go back to the show and get it on Sunday afternoon.

It happened to be third Sunday. That means fellowship meal at one of the churches. Also, Administrative Board meeting and Pastor Parish Relations Meeting... so it was late when we left to come home - with Andy in the car. That meant that we had to come home first and drop him off - because you KNOW you just can't leave a precious little doggie in the car alone.

It was almost 4 by that time.... I thought the show closed at 4. They normally do. So, we rushed downtown and found a free parking place and ran up the stairs into the Civic Center and ran up to the guy guarding the door to find out what time they closed.... whew... we had a few minutes. He was going to make us buy more tickets to go in, but had mercy on us and let us in free.

We quickly found the iron lady and I said..."SELL HIM!"... and she did. Yep, we walked out smiling with an outrageously expensive iron. But, I'll "never have to buy another iron" because they will repair or replace it for a lifetime!

So, I've been steaming and ironing for days now. It will never burn, scorch, leave a sheen, or ruin any clothes. It can be left sitting on the clothes while on and not hurt them.... it is amazing. Yeah, I'm sold AGAIN.
So, it turned out to be quite a weekend... did I mention that it sanitizes, deodorizes, steams, kills germs, dust mites..... makes things fresh and smell good? I did? oh, sorry... I just love my new iron and that my friend is a real irony!

Happy Birthday SaySay!!!

It is hard to believe that my baby is grown up. ... into a beautiful young lady inside and out! (well, the beautiful part isn't so hard to believe, but the grown up is!) The family joke is "Saysay, you are JUST in the 2nd grade!" That one sentence used to throw her into fits of tears and dismay. Well, Saysay, I'd say you have passed on to the next grade!

My baby, was born on Valentine's day. Yep, I always said that she was God's gift of love to me. She has been a sweetheart all her life (well, most of it except for that one time that we won't mention... hehe)

This picture was taken on her wedding day about 21 months ago. Isn't she beautiful? Well, you should see her now and know her. Life is good and she is blessed.

Happy Happy Birthday, Sarah... love you so much and so proud of the mighty woman that you have become!

Happy Birthday Noah!

This is my first grandchild's third birthday. What a blessing he has been to our family. Right now, he is our only grandson.
I'll post pictures later...
Just wanted to say... Happy Happy Birthday to Noah!

Windows, Siding, or Paint?

We are trying to work on our curb appeal... We love the inside of our house and the back yard.

However, the outside looks very bland and uninviting... well, we actually call it UGLY!
As you can see from this picture taken in the snow, it has NO color - well, it does have the ugly Tudor green stripes and trim. We do not like it at ALL!

Here is a picture taken last March with some green grass. It looks a little better, but still not much beauty there.

Also, in the back of the house we have five very large floor to ceiling windows and a sliding glass door. It is beautiful to look out into the yard and really opens up the house so it feels nice and big. The problem there is the heat loss during the winter and a/c loss in the summer.

Now, here is our dilemma. We are looking at replacing the old leaky black windows with some nice insulated white ones. (yeah, I know... more white). That will make it look better and make us feel better. but..... a huge expense and is this what we want to do first? I mean, how much of a difference will it make to the way the outside looks?

Tonight hugsum and I were talking about all this. We know that the windows will make a huge difference as far as comfort and utility bills are concerned.

BUT... we also want to feel good about the outside of the house. We looked at siding and have had some quotes... yeah... $12,000! YIKES... that is for just the top part - and not even all of that! And yes, the siding will add some insulation... but again, there is as much or more brick as stucco, so will it make that much of a difference?

So, our next option is to paint. We have talked about painting the stucco (after we take down the hideous green wood trim) the same color as the bricks and then paint the trim white... but, yuck. We don't like the color of the brick... so, we are now talking about painting the entire house, brick and all, a darker color and then the trim a lighter color....

At this point we cannot do but one thing. Well, we could probably paint and do the windows, IF we paint it ourselves and don't "hire it out". But, then there is the problem of really wanting it to look good and not like we did it ourselves. Certain people in our family who would be doing most of the painting don't really like to paint and they are not known for their attention to detail and neatness - more of "get the job done"... which is not a bad trait in some instances.

Well, as you can see, we are in the middle of some large decisions. Thankfully, they are not life threatening nor eternal... although the windows do come with a lifetime guarantee!

Any suggestions or advice? I'd love to get HGTV to come in and do a curb appeal show and fix it for us! Wouldn't that be great?

Oh Dear!

I have been guilty... I have gotten addicted to facebook! I did not mean to. It is the lazy man's blog... it is quick and instant. I don't have to struggle over some profound and entertaining thing to say. I can just post a quick little status line and be done. Then I can find out what friends all over the world are doing and feeling and comment on them.

I think that my brain has been overloaded with stuff and I am not able to concentrate and focus for any length of time - especially the time it takes to write a post.

And, I've gotten very frustrated with blogger and trying to post pictures. It won't let me move them and arrange them and forget trying to determine what order they fall in. I have literally hours trying to post pictures and tell a story with it and ended up just deleting it because I couldn't get it to work right.

Therefore... with all my frustrations and lack of concentration I have just not been posting Sorry.... I can no longer deny my love for face book and it's all consuming addiction. The good thing is that it doesn't cost anything (monetarily) at least.

I'll be back... I'll have more to say... yes, I will... I will overcome this latest fad. I will conquer this vicious enemy to my time! Yes, with the help and support of my family and friends and the grace of God!