My Kids

It's funny that no matter how old your children get.... they are still and always will be... your baby. You still feel a need to protect them.... though that's much harder now that they're all grown with families of their own. You still need to check their forehead when you think they have a fever (and I do). You still give them hugs and say I love you often (and I do). And you still miss the little things about each of them. Mostly, you rejoice in their successes and sorrow in their pains.

This past Sunday Jas and Anne came over for dinner again. We love having them. Little Maddi had the two pony-tails going on again and looked SO cute. She is really growing up. It was also fun to show them our walls that now have actual pictures on them and shelves that have actual artifacts on them! Last night I even put up some vinyl lettering. I also checked on Mandy's house since she'll be home tomorrow with little Rello. Yeah!

I was going to go to Jeremy's to help with the kids since Stacy flew to NJ to see her grandma who is very sick (brain tumor) but he said he had it under control.... for the time. I am going there today after school to fix dinner and take care of the kiddies while Jeremy goes to his college class. Stacy called him last night from the hospital in NJ and said her grandma had died in surgery. My prayers go out to her and her mom's family. I am glad that Stacy will be there for her mom during this time.

It brought back, as it does every time someone's grandma dies, memories of my own grandmother. She was/is such a big part in my life. I lived there so much and relied on her so much. She's been gone a long time and I still miss her very much. I am going to do one of the bedrooms up in her "stuff". I have her bed, dresser, and a coffee table that was custom made for her. I also have pictures I'm going to hang up in her bedroom. I want my grandkids to know her and of her. I also hope to be half the grandma she was. To do that, we will eventually need to meet our goal of buying some acreage and having a resemblance of a "farm". Nothing beats the experience of a farm in my opinion. We had an offer on our house in Shelley, but it's contingent on them selling their house and in this economy... who knows. We can pray. :D When we do sell it, we will need help rounding up various chickens, horses, calves, and other farm-like critters as we move out to a farm.

Until then.... I'll keep piecing together my latest project... our little house in Middleton.

Drive-in Movies

I am told that drive-in movies are becoming a novelty and that there aren't that many left across the U.S. It's quite the affair to get all "packed" for the event. When we went to pick up the kids they were ready with sleeping bags and pillows but papa's truck blew a hose (we call it the money pit truck)as he pulled in the driveway from work. So... it was grandma's boring car and lots of arms and legs packed into the front seat on top of mem and papa.

Once again, we looked like rookies compared to the veterans at the drive-in. They had their fold out chairs and smores pits and one group even had their couch. We've got to step it up. We were going for the blow up mattress in the back of the truck, but that didn't pan out. Maybe next time. I'd like to say the movie was great.... it was only good. Nanny McPhee II. Or whatever they called it. It was cute, but Tucker was more interested in telling me about the Transformer he "almost" bought earlier in the day and Bryton was out cold 10 minutes into the movie. Poor guy... happens to him every time. Then there were the fireflies... big ones. They were awesome. We all became distracted watching them. The kids had never seen them before. haven't seen them that big since I lived in Texas (when I was in the second grade). They were very cool.

Munching Cheetos with Tucker then falling asleep cheek to cheek with Daisha was still pretty fun. What? We made it till the last 10 minutes. That's progress for both of us. We listened to the football games on the way home (on the radio). Both our schools lost. Bummer. Boise State plays tomorrow and Grandma Shorty was featured in the newspaper all decked out in her Bronco attire. She is a die hard fan. You know not to call during the game. She may be 88, but she'll still let you have it for interrupting the game. We called her to ask for her autograph and she just laughed. She said she didn't even know she was in there until she opened up the paper just to read it today. Said she almost missed it and the picture caught her eye. One of the grandkids had sent it in. Go Broncos! And Go Gma Shorty! :D

Rellie headed off to the coast with his parents today. He spent the night last night since we won't see him for almost a week. He slept right next to my face 90% of the night, but no complaints. He's just too cute to complain. He wanted his scrambled eggs and chocolate milk for breakfast. He was also excited to ride to school with grandma (me). We both got excited when we saw the moon in the morning sky and the pink sun coming up from the other direction at the same time. He loves the moon. Got him a little confused though because then he wanted to know where the stars were and thought it was night time. It was so pretty though. Daisha said she saw it on her bus this morning too. Then tonight on the way to the drive-in it was another beautiful sunset, plus the full moon showing early.

Life always has it's trials, and bills, and things breaking down, and sickness, etc., but if we stop to think about what we "do" have and what "is" right in our life and we take the time to look out the window as we drive, we realize just how blessed we are. A friend of mine at work said she was listening to some talk show the other day and the guy said that instead of saying "I HAVE to go to work" we shoudl say "I GET to go to work" and instead of saying "I HAVE to go see my parents or friend or kids" we should say "I GET to..." anyway, I think about that every time I start to say "I have to..." and it has changed my attitude a little... for the better. Now I "Have" to go do my crunches.... wait... I GET to. :D

Fall is in the air

I love this time of the year. There's something about it getting a little cooler at night and the colors of greens changing to earthtones and shades of orange and brown. It's like the earth is getting ready for a break. Time to go inside and curly up in my fuzzy bathrobe and cup of hot chocolate. Plus the pumpkins and decorating the big garage for Halloween... and basketball is around the corner. And school is in full motion.

Okay the last full motion part has been kick my behind. I always say I'm going to cut back and .... I add to. This week was a lesson in that. Too many zombie days as a result, so I will sleep and eat better next week. Promise to self. If I don't, I will get sick and I will gain weight and I will be grouchy. That's the long and short of it.

So I'm thinking about taking the grandkids to the Drive-In tomorrow night. We haven't done that in a while and the first movie actually starts at 8pm now instead of 10pm so I might actually stay awake for the whole thing. And of course there are only a couple good weekends of yard-saling left. I am really looking forward to this weekend. And yes.... we'll be working on the house too. So if anyone wants in on the movie... just let me know.

Spud Days and D.I. Run

We left for Shelley on Friday and Jeremy and STacy and the two younger kids made the trip with us. The husband had to be the administrator for the Eagle v. Highland football game in the mini-dome at I.S.U. so we left about noon. This gave us time to hit some D.I.s along the way. The boys hunted for second-hand book treasures and the girls hunted more for house treasures. We helped with books too. Stacy found a brand new shower curtain for a couple of bucks and I found two more light fixtures, a beautiful, large lamp, and other little bathroom items that we have been looking for. Saved a ton and spend very little. Took Jer's family to some of their friends' house in Blackfoot then went back to watch the game with the husband. Took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up on the reservation.... for real. Luckily I recognized the pink gym (had reffed there before with the husband), so was able to get back on the main road and back to Poci.

The game was.... NO DEFENSE. Drove me nuts. I literally fell asleep mid-way through the fourth quarter because it was simply.... one team scores, then the other team scores. They went into overtime since they tied and luckily Eagle decided to go for the two point conversion instead of kicking it. They made it and won by one point 51-52. We stayed at some friends' house in Shelley. They have a beautiful home and we are definitely stealing some decorating and design ideas from them. Thank you Lyle and Evelyn. He's a nuclear engineer and she's a science teacher so we have great conversations with them as well. They also told us about the star shows they have about three times throughout the year at the Craters of the Moon Planetarium. Lyle said they have a telescope that's about 26' across and you can see everything on the moon and other things. From their description, we definitely want to go there. Maybe next June.

We got up early the next morning to pick up the kids and take in all the Spud Days festivities. People were lining the streets two hours early for the parade. No wonder since it lasts almost an hour and they give out more candy than you get at Halloween! I forgot my camera, but I'm posting some pics from last year's parade. We also did some yard-saling and ran to I.F. to the D.I. and Sam's Club since they don't have a Sam's Club here and that's where Jeremy gets his mailers for his business. Stacy and I scored big time at the last yard sale of the day. Sometimes you get the best deals if you wait till noon. People are ready to be done, so they give discounts. For example, I love smell good candles and the lady had a box of them. I asked how much they were and she said... how about $2.00 for the whole box! These were the good ones too and they had been $2.00 each. Then she had a brand new laptop bag that was stylin' and she let me haVe that for $2.00. One of those Huggyblankets that's heated (still in the packaGe) $2.00. Some stuff was like 10 cents. Anyway, we made a haul.

Now normally this is good news, but picture two small children in the back (in car seats of course), their parents in the next row up, and us in the front... I was the only one who wasn't boxed in... Like boxes and "stuff" packed around them. No one could move. We picked up so many books (for Jeremy's business) and the mailers, and our suitcases, and all our yard sale and D.I. finds, that it's actually a miracle we got it all to fit. Then, finding a parking spot at Spud Days was another challenge.

Only in Shelley will you see kids doing spud picking contest, grown men and women doing tug-a-wars over massive pits of mashed potatoes, and an entire school district shutting down for two weeks for Spud harvest. I also got to see a lot of wonderful people including two of my former players who I haven't seen in quite a while. Aileen, or "A" as we called her is going to I.S.U. and is in the nursing program. Wow! So proud of her. And it was so good to see her. She said her little sister (who is not in jr. high, is the star of her team. :D Of course. Saw Makayla too. I still have the FRuit Loop bracelet she made. She played soccer and basketball at a college in New York and now she's transferring to Utah State. Plus... she's going to be a teacher and coach. Oh... :D So proud of her. And..... the best news of the weekend. One of my former players who just recently celebrated her first wedding anniversary, just found out she's expecting! Yeah! How Exciting! She had played volleyball and basketball at a college in Wyoming and transferred to I.S.U. last year. She won't be playing any longer... obviously, but will be doing something much harder...but also very rewarding. :D

We got back late last night and we felt like we had jet lag. We still managed to do a little painting though. Very little. Today, we had Greg's sister and brother over for dinner and JaSOn and Anne came over with baby Maddi. She was sporting two little poky pony tails. I'm waiting for the picture so I can post it. Greg hasn't seen his sister in five years because she's been in Florida so it was really nice to visit with her. Having a restful rest of the day and enjoying quiet time with my sweetie now. It was a busy weekend, but it was filled with good news and good people.

Pants on the ground

So I just read this article-- which I'm going to share with my students-- about pants sizing. Apparently the size on the pants--especially men's pants-- isn't correct. For example, at Ross if the pants say they're a 36-- they could be a 41" waist. Wow! So before you go thinking you're all skinny because of the size of your jeans, you better measure. Go by the weight on your scales and not the size on your pants!

I haven't had much time to measure or weigh lately. School all day then straight home to the project house. The husband and I do take about 30 minutes of "timeout" time each day after work and I LOVE that time. We get our puzzles (suduko and crossword) and we each pick a couch in the front room and we kick up our feet, lay back, and quietly enjoy the quiet and the simple presence of being together this year. For those of you thinking that's boring.... wait till you get to that point in your life. It's great!

It also gives us the extra boost we need to regenerate our energy and tackle another one of the million projects on our house. Last night was all about painting and visiting with my brother. He deploys Monday so it was good to get to spend some more time with him. He and Greg put up the small ceiling fan in our kitchen. It's one of the used ones I bought and my brother (an electrician) said that you have to make sure the blades are secure and balanced and that you know the weight limit of the brace you're attaching it to. Otherwise you might be getting a helicopter in your plate at dinner if the fan's above the dining room table and it's not properly installed and double-checked--especially if it's a used fan.... good to know. Good to have a brother for an electrician. He also set us straight on the smoke detector in our living room. It's an old one so we were going to change it out and we didn't know that you have one main one that sends and receives to the other ones. We had the main one and we almost replaced it with one that would not have done that. Saved again. I love my brother and will miss him... but I will not be a baby. Okay.. I need to go get a tissue.

After they left we started up the painting again. I finished the main bathroom and almost knocked off the whole kitchen. The fridge was a little to heavy for me to move myself at 2am so I gave up just inches from victory and went to bed. It's looking good though. Tonight I will definitely finish it and tackle some trim. The other rooms in need of painting will have to wait until next week because we leave for Spud Days in Eastern Idaho tomorrow. :)

Oh, and thank you Mandy for bringing Rello to have lunch with grandma. I love that you do that. :)

A Day of Firsts

Sunday, Sept. 12th was a day of firsts. Maddi crawled for the first time.... at church. They brought her over later so we could see her do it live. The enticement we used.... the cell phone of course. Then we went over to the other son's house and their youngest walked for the first time for a few steps. It was also the first time the husband has made his Sunday chocolate chip cookies with peppermints. I mean literally peppermints .... the red and white striped little orbs. Stacy had some in her flour to keep it fresh and Mr. Kiester just scooped away apparently not noticing until they were baked in. Of course he did have a lot of little extra helping hands, so I guess that might have caused him not to notice. They were "different" and very flat. In fact when we stopped by today... there were still some on the counter... and that's just not natural.

It was also the first Sunday in our new house where we actually came home after church and sat on our couch and relaxed. We just chilled and did our puzzles. It was the first time I felt like we were going to make it and things were going to be okay even if we still have some unpainted walls and projects that are keeping us from unpacking the remaining boxes and hanging pictures. We did hang one picture... just to feel "normal" again. It did help. Tonight we spread mulch around the newly planted shrubs from this weekend and retrieved the last of things from Jeremy's garage. Jason's garage still has a few things in it, but we were watching our daughter's two little boys, so we cut the trip short and just did the one pickup load tonight.

I'm reading a book that's a true story about a basketball player on a reservation in Montana. She's good. The book is good, but of course the author feels the need to have a potty mouth here and there. He gets a little long winded and self indulgent with his descriptions sometimes too, but I have gone through and axed the boring passages and potty words and I'm reading the edited version (me being the editor) to my class. I am looking up background and current relevant info to go with it as well. It's called Counting Coup. It's a little controversial because some people feel he betrayed the trust of the people he wrote about while he lived there and wrote the story. I would agree that he didn't need to divulge some of the things about the girls. Real life or not. Still... you can tell that this girl has a real love and heart for the game. As a coach you only come across that type of player-- the one who's not just good-- but eats, sleeps, and breaths the games-- also understands it from the X & 0 standpoint. I've been reading about another Indian girl who was ranked 8th in the U.S. last year. Her mom's her coach.

Something tells me I'm not ready to give up this game. But then.... will I ever?

Homecoming Week is Over

What a week! They finally got everything put back together from our waterbreak last week and Friday night we were able to sleep back in our bedroom for the first time in almost two weeks. In the midst of all the reconstruction going on at home... it was homecoming week. Yesterday was the float making, pep rally and the homecoming football game. Thursday night I went to the volleyball game.... they won. Last night they barely won... but they did. The homecoming princesses were beautiful as usual and the small town feel of homemade floats, a packed stadium, and a marching band made the night a community affair. It also made for getting home late. The husband had to supervise a football game at his school, so we both got home late. That made for a Saturday mornign of sleeping in till 7:30am. Around here... that's sleeping in.

We did our normal Saturday morning ritual for the past month: 1) make a list of things to pick up in town 2) load the pickup with returns for Home Depot-- this time it was the wrong insulation for the attic 3) check out the yard sales along the way. Our yard sale targets today were light fixtures (as usual), one of those shelving units that goes over the toilet, and a dryer (the daughter's dryer won't heat anymore. Lucky day.... found all three. The shelving unit was a nice heavy one with the fancy moulding. Home Depot has them for 99.99. I got it for $10.00. Picked up another ceiling light for $2.00 and got the dryer for $45.

At Home Depot they were clearing out their trees and we picked up a couple of those for the yards. The husband planted flowers and trees when we got home and his brother came over and helped put the insulation in the attic. We got the shelf put up in the laundry room so I could store my canning jars and I finally got the rest of the kitchen put away and cleaned. They didn't have a dishwasher seal at Home Depot so we're going to have to find one at an appliance store this coming week. One more thing to add to the list.

Mandy brought Rello over to spend the night and go to church with us tomorrow. He is getting so big and talking a lot better. Jason and Anne came to visit and brought little Maddi to see us. She is getting big too. It was good to see them. It will be nice when we get everything put away and painting finished and we can have them over for a real visit and have all our family over. Well Rello wants grandma to come watch a movie with him (he's sleepy), so I better go. I get to see my brother tomorrow and it's Sunday. Looking forward to both!

We're not in Kansas Dorothy

Well we are still sleeping on foldouts and couches as we try to get the water damage repairs finished. Everyone (including the carpet guy) took the three day weekend and they did get the linoleum and new toilet set yesterday, but the guy who's supposed to clean the carpet couldn't come today..... again. Ugh. In the meantime, our house is full of boxes, etc. that need put away and walls that are half painted. After tomorrow, everyone else should be done and out of here so we can start or rather finish everything. Tonight Greg's brother is finishing all the trim and I'm going to finish painting.

Through this all, I have been reminded of last last year when I moved into my rental at Parma and how friendly the people were from our neighborhood and the church I attended. I could hardly get much done because I was answering the door so often to accept baked goods and offers of help. I have yet to see that kind of hospitality here. In fact, I was about ready to pack up and move between the water break and lack of hospitality until I went to the local grocery store here in town.

We stopped at the store on our way home tonight to pick up a few things and the pleasantly plump (mean she was pleasant in character and plump in body) checker who checked us out was quite a live wire. We had originally started out in the line next to her, but when we saw that the checker was 80+ and it was taking her quite some time just to lift an item off the conveyer belt, we did the American thing and changed lines in impatience. (I will repent tonight). So back to pleasantly plump. Our new checker was very cheerful and stopped checking the groceries for the guy in front of us so she could call a guy over (who was limping) and tell him how great his fresh veggies were that she bought from him the week before. You could tell this made the man's day. And you could tell the guy in front of us knew her and was not going to interrupt. Well about the time we get up to the register, "Play That Funky Music" comes on the store speaker. Our checker starts busting the dance moves. I mean she was shaking the trash can and raising her hands in the air. Not even kidding. My husband and I had to turn away to cover our smiles and as we did this the cashier behind us bust out singing at the top of her lungs AND dancing too. I turned back around and a customer goes walking by with the head strut going on and he's singing too. It was all we could do not to burst out. My husband's eyes were watering and he let loose as soon as we got outside the door. I told him that I was just waiting for the 80+ checker to bust a move and that if she had.... I would have lost all composure. You won't see that at Albertsons or Wal-mart!!! Only small town Idaho. Okay.... so I'll give the friendly town thing some more time.

Tomorrow after school.... speaking of small town.... I'm headed out with a small group of drama kids to go pick some corn. We're selling it at the homecoming game on Friday. Tonight is the Powerderpuff football game, but I was too much of a wimmp to brave the possible rains showers. Friday we're building floats and praying it doesn't rain. Wet tissue paper stuffed in chicken wire just isn't attractive. As for eating healthier, it's a little easier to get in the routine again now that I'm back to school because I only eat what I take to school. I like the Healthy Choice or Smart Ones dinners. They're just the right amount for me and stay at 300 calories, plus they have good fiber. When I get home it's a little harder to eat right just because everything is torn up and hard to get to so it's easier just to go eat somewhere or pick up something to eat for us on my way home. One more day...... then I can't use that for an excuse. The grandkids are ready for us to have everything put back together and put away and finished too. That's when it will really be home, when we can have the grandkids spend the night and we can have all of our family sit down at the table together.

Okay... I need to go paint. Don't forget to do your crunches...even in the midst of crisis. I've slacked on my core exercises and my neck is starting to hurt again and I'm not sleeping as well. Don't slack.... like me.

Laboring on Labor Day

I'm writing this in the morning because I know I will be too tired to write it tonight. The husband is already over at Home Depot with his brother picking up more "stuff" to continue the renovation of our new old house. Saturday we managed to find one more light fixture at a yard sale, but we still need one more for the entry way.... maybe a second hand store. Still, so far we've only had to be one light fixture brand new and that was the big new ceiling fan in our living room. We got it on sale for $69.99. However, the other seven light fixtures we've replaced (including another fan) have only totaled $34 thanks to auctions, yard sales, and second hand stores. I was hoping to only spend $150 on replacing all the light fixtures, but if I end up having to buy a new one for the hall way entrance (it's a hanging light on a slanted ceilng, so I'm having a little harder time finding one), I will still have saved quite a bit by shopping second hand.

In addition to getting the light fixtures changed out, we also got the sink hole in the front yard filled, the rest of the kitchen stuff unpacked and put away, the trim and closet doors in the girls bedroom painted, and we found the wireless modem so I can finally get on my computer and not arm wrestle the husband for his. (It's not pretty when a grown woman makes a grown man cry). J/K Sweetie. :D

Yesterday after church we went to a family reunion and I enjoyed visiting with aunts and cousins I rarely get to see. One of my cousins, Kathy, lives right here where we just moved. In fact Uncle Virgil and Aunt Dorothy have lived here their whole life and their kids were some of my favorite playmates growing up so once we get settled in, I'm anxious to reconnect with them and make some visits. Kathy and her husband, Bob just recently purchased their first "flip" property and we had a ton to talk about. Now I need to go see her property she just renovated and when we finish this, she's going to come see mine. We also discussed our "next" potential house picks here in our area. The food was great as usual... especially Aunt Dorothy's coconut oatmeal cake (I'll post the recipe later) and they yummy ham and beans w/white beans. I confined myself to one dessert and stuck mostly to fresh fruit and fruit salads. The highlight of the reunion probably had to be when all of our grandkids went to feed the ducks. Rello got a little overzealous throwing the bread toward the ones in the pond and went swimming with them. Mommy fished him out and papa helped clean the pond muck off of him. They got him stripped down to his pull-up and only had younger brother's blanket to try to wrap him in. He's a big two-year-old so theat pretty much resembled a small cape at best. He started running and flapping his "cape" yelling, "I'm a little bird!" When I told him he wasn't very little compared to the ducks he looked at me a minute then started running and flapping his cape again saying, "I'm a big bird!" Nevertheless, he livened up the reunion.

Later we went over to Jeremy and Stacy's to check on the sick parents and see how Jeremy's college classes are going. While I was checking classwork in the computer room with Jeremy, Tucker (5 yr. old grandson), was in the living room telling his mommy that he had to use his "puke bucket" again on the way to the reunion. Thanks to papa he let her know it was because of "grandma's crazy driving". Thanks papa! Once he saw the swings at the park, he recovered quickly and we've since cleaned the bucket and returned it to the car as we're sure Tucker will continue to use it just like he did when we went to the movies earlier in the year, and now to the park. In fact, he told us to remember to put it back. Every car needs a puke bucket. I use the ice cream buckets. The lid comes in handy.

On a food note, the husband and I have been making sure we get a green veggie in every day as well as our fruit. It's so much easier when both of us have that focus. You can add green spinach leaves to a lot of things so it's pretty easy. The big thing is keeping healthy snacks on hand and healthy food in the fridge. Yes, we have our sweet treats that are homemade, but don't keep the easy open and serve ones around much anymore. Helps a lot. Well, I need to get back to work. A lot to do our last day off before we're back to work at school. It seems we're always laboring a lot on Labor Day. :D

Rats in our world

It seems like my days... sometimes weeks.... run in themes. Today's theme was "rats". I know... weird. I finished unpacking and organizing the boxes/food for my pantry and yesterday when I was scrubbing everything down and putting contact paper on the shelves I noticed a black box on the floor beneath the bottom shelf. Nothing about this house surprises me anymore (there's a reason it was cheap), but ... I was surprised. It was kind of heavy and I pulled it out and immediately ran to wash my hands. It was an electronic RAT trap. Not a mouse trap.... a rat trap! Are you kidding me?!

This resulted in several more scrubbings of the floor and further inspection of the trap to make sure it was empty.... it was. Thank goodness. Still, I did not sleep so well last night wondering if there could be rat meandering around my house. I am seriously considering getting an outside cat. So... that was my first rat experience. Then today when my husband and I were headed into D&B to get a pickup load of topsoil for our yard he's telling me about the John Tesh radio show and how they did this research with rats and junk food. True story. Here's what they did.

They took these two groups of rats and fed them a healthy diet of fruits, veggies, etc. and the rats were healthy and fit and then they took one group and started feeding them junk food... like real Twinkies and cookies, etc. Before doing this, they hooked up the whole shock treatment thing (Pavlov's theory) where the rats knew if they went near a certain thing... it'd shock them. So, they wouldn't go near it. But.... after a while they put the junk food by the thing that shocked them and they still ate it, even though it meant getting shocked (and they gave them back the healthy food options. Furthermore... they wouldn't eat the healthy food anymore. When the took the junk food away and just offered healthy food, the rats refused to eat it. They would rather starve.

Their "addiction" to junk food was also studied through their brain. While the rats were on junk food, their brain looked just like someone who was on cocaine or heroin. It also created dopamin in excess as occurs with addiction. And they had to keep eating "more" junk food to stimulate the dopamin effect and make them have the same high. You can also find a similar article about this experiement on sciencenews.com or http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48605/title/Junk_food_turns_rats_into_addicts

It really makes you think about the chemicals, preservatives, and the naturally addictive substances (sugar) that can be found in American food. It's no wonder people have such a hard time giving up junk food and staying or even starting a diet. Still, if we can learn to fill our cravings with healthy alternatives and to eat all things in moderation... we won't become part of this rat race madness!

It's a small world after all.....

Be nice to everyone.... you never know when you'll meet up later in life. First our new "mechanic" in town turns out to be a kid who lived next to us when our kids were little and we were good friends with his parent. He saved us a ton of money on our vehicle breakdown. Then, after the lovely bathroom flooding the guy came back again yesterday to see how the carpets were drying out and had a couple other guys with him. The one kid "seemed familiar" too me but I couldn't place him and when you've coached so long and been a teacher.... who knows. So we were all standing around in one of the bedrooms watching the main guy go down into the crawl space and we were chitchatting with the other two when he spotted all of the husband's ties. This lead to where we used to live and once again.... Jimmy (James now) turned out to be another kid of some very good friends of ours-- this time from Glenns Ferry.

We caught up on family-- seems to be a theme lately. His dad just got cleared of colon cancer. Doctor told him all his red meat consumption (he's a rancher) was a big factor. So... another reminder not to eat red meat more than twice a week. Also balance it with lots of fruits and veggies. Anyway, we visited, caught up on all his family and found out he also does plumbing,etc. We are set with resources now! Good thing.... it's been raining so much. They finally turned the industrial fans off tonight and they're supposed to clean up and replace everything on Tuesday (after the three day holiday. I think we'll go get the other beds out of the son's garage tomorrow because it could be a long three days if I have to keep sleeping on the foldout. :D

So today little Rello came to see me at school when his dad came to pick up something out of my car. He likes to sit in my chair at my desk (which he did while his dad ran out to the car to get his stuff). My students thought he was cute of course, but I warned them he would not be cute when his dad tried to get him to leave.... I called it. I said, "Rellie, you can take Mr. Potato Man with you (since he was playing with it by my desk anyway)" and he said, "No, I want to take Grandma with me!" as dad picked him up and took him out with his little arms reaching back to me. How cute was that! I told him to be good and I would come see him. He behaved after that and they left. Tomorrow after school we'll go get him for a little while.

Got home tonight and the sprinklers are working outside and the mosquitos are out in full force. Stacy (Greg's brother) came over to help and he's going to put some new trim in for me tomorrow. I can't wait till this weekend so I can get more unpacked and feel like we're really moved in. Will take time out Sunday to rest, go to church, and go to a family reunion. God and family-- keeps me grounded. Crunches, keep me skinny. Better go do them-- been a slacker, but no more excuses. Get 'er done.

Ready for the rain to stop

If you've read my other "raining" posts you know it's been a crazy couple of weeks with multiple vehicles breaking down and children having surgery, etc. Well.... it just keeps raining. We spent our first night in our house and when we woke up yesterday morning the carpet in our bedroom was wet. My husband had turned the shower on the night before to clean it and apparently it had a broken pipe. All the new carpet we just put in was soaked.... is soaked. The house has sat for a year and a half and I guess pipes can freeze and break. So yesterday we had a plumber out then the guys who do all the cleanup. I now have a big hole in our bedroom wall that we just painted where they had to cut to get to the pipe too. Today the insurance adjuster comes.

But even out of this there are blessings. We caught the break early. The clean up guys said they just cleaned a guys' house who didn't catch it for two months and that mold had set in and his whole family had been sick. Plus, when we closed on the house they threw in a one year limited warranty which happened to include plumbing (not carpet though) so the break in the pipe was covered. Our home insurance is covering the rest and it got a little into the bathroom floor that I wanted to change out so that is covered as well. All in all, things we were going to fix along the way on our budget, are now going to be covered. But.... sleeping on the foldout last night and knowing we have more messes and fans going for a few days is pushing back a lot we need to get done. I haven't felt overwhelmed in a long time and I am feeling tired and a bit overwhelmed with little time and so much to do.

Still.... I have my kids and grandkids to cheer me up and lift me up and help me up and they do. :D