Has it been a month since I posted?! There’s been a lot of things happening and nothing much going on at the same time, if that makes any sense. Lots of little things but nothing too major for my family. My google reader is out of control and I seriously need to cut back on facebook! We’ve had some time with the kids and babies lately so that’s been fun; maybe I’ll post some random pictures. I think I’ve finally found a dr./eye dr. that might know what’s wrong with my eye but will know more next month when I go back. We don’t have anything big planned right now for the long weekend, hubby will probably have to work some of the time.
In the meantime while I try to catch up, take a look at this plant for me. It was given to me and I have no idea what it is.

It looks pretty right now but I’m not very good with plants, and really no good if I don’t get some instructions! There was no tag to tell how to care for it or identify it. So if you know what kind of plant it is or what it needs to survive please let me know! Otherwise it might not last long around here.
What’s new with you?
Hope you have a great memorial day weekend!

Back in the fall sis Stacy updated our wordpress to a newer version, easier to manage but my old theme didn’t work with it anymore. We found fall looks and then something for Christmas that did really well. But since then I’ve not been able to find a theme that worked right for me. I also didn’t like the fact that it added links to strange places no matter how many times I deleted them. I’ve changed things around more than a person should be allowed! I’m sorry that it looks different every time you pop by but hopefully in another few days all the kinks will be worked out and I’ll find something to stick with longer. So for now, I’m trying something else to see how things go.

I’m still missing my laptop as well. After it was overnighted to CA last week they finally decided they received it and will start work on it! One day to get there and one week to show up in their system, I’m not pessimistic or anything! I think it’ll take about another week to get it back.

“how do you like me now….do you still think I’m crazy standin here today“

The turkey is thawing and lots of other food is in my freezer ready to go. All my kids are coming in today and extended family will be here for Thanksgiving day. I’ve still got some spots that need baby proofing and a few groceries to buy. I do believe I’m going to take a break so I can have fun with this crew at my house! We’re looking forward to a busy week here.
I wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving as well! May God bless the time you have with your friends and family.

This quest to get rid of extra stuff out of my house has left me a bit frazzled lately. I can’t seem to keep up with that and regular work, activities, walking, church, blogging, etc. The latest thing Liz and I have done is to go through quite a few boxes of vhs tapes we found….who knew you could have so many of those things! The easiest to deal with were the ones that were just recorded tv shows because we tossed a big box of those in the trash. Apparently I have watched too much tv over the years, there were at least 50 of those! Another stack we kept were old home movies of the kids; birthday parties, piano recitals, ball games and such. After the first of the year I hope to find someone that can transfer those to dvd, they’ll be easier to store. The hardest for me to deal with are the myriads of tapes that have been bought over the years; one year when the kids were little hubby probably ordered between 50-100 tapes so they’d have “good” things to watch on tv. They didn’t like all of them obviously because I bet we found at least a dozen that are unopened. Liz just thinks we should get rid of all of them or give them away….I think vcr’s have just about become a thing of the past. Lots of them were ordered through christian companies and feature films for families so we might see if the church wants any for the library. We have stacks and stacks of tapes everywhere! But today hubby has company coming over, people he knew from college that have been misssionaries overseas for many years.
AND we’ll have family home for thanksgiving, which is coming up way too quick for me! So I think a new plan is in order!
1. Need to temporarily stop going through some of this clutter
2. Get some meals/dishes cooked and in the freezer for later
3. Do some of the regular housework! Oh that seems to never go away
4. Clean off my stinking camera card that I never take time to do!
5. Try to get my sewing picked up, put away so we can sleep people in that room for the holidays.
More? I think there might be more but this will be enough to work on for the next few days or week! Which might leave me feeling as overwhelmed as I already feel!

“just slip out the back, jack; make a new plan, stan….just get yourself free“

We started bible school on Monday….the decorating went better than we first thought. Now I’m just trying to study some each day and get materials and activities together!
Found lots of bamboo looking mats and some grass skirt type things in boxes at the church so those got hung in lots of places. Someone made a couple of foamboard surf boards for us, we added a few random things and decided it was all enough!

(I think the younger mamas are better suited for this stuff but they keep asking all of us with no kids at home to keep teaching and it makes me really tired. :))

I’m WORN OUT and gonna turn in!

My jury duty for the whole month of February started today, ugh. This is for federal court for the northern district of our state. We had to be there at 8:30 this morning, being sure to bring no cell phones, palm pilots, newspapers, magazines, food, drinks, etc.! I did put a book in my purse that went through security. They didn’t say anything about it but I was sitting on the front row of my section and I wasn’t sure I should bring it out right away; maybe I’d get thrown in jail or kicked out! We sat there for one solid hour before they even called the roll so I finally read some holding the book low in my lap. Apparently there were supposed to be 65 jurors there but only 56 of us showed up. Then they talked to us just a bit about how they’d throw all our cards in a jury wheel, spin it around and then seat us in order of how our names were drawn. After sitting around for 2 hours, the judge finally came in at 10:30 to tell us how important jury duty is and how good it was we were there. And that the 2 defendants were Hispanic, couldn’t speak a word of English and they had 2 translators there that needed to talk with them and their lawyers. So he dismissed us for lunch and said to be back before 1 so we could start promptly. I ran some errands during the lunch break, this court happens to be in a neighboring town and I didn’t want to drive 30 something miles home and back again. When we get back after lunch the judge again gives us a talk about how important it was that we were there and how it wasn’t a waste of time! (silly me, I had been thinking that it was a waste of time! :lol:) He said they’d been trying to have resolution to the case for a while but that because we’d showed up today they got their resolution…they plead guilty during that break. He then did something though that I’ve never encountered the other times I’ve had to do this; he had one of the lawyers give us a recap of the case. One of the prosecutors told us that last fall an officer had been driving on the interstate close to Memphis when he noticed a suburban with a paper tag. He pulled it over to question them…. there were twenty people in the car, 20! He called the immigration people to help question them and they all confessed to being in this country illegally. The 2 men arrested were charged with knowingly transporting illegal aliens. They were driving from Arizona to Alabama to work. So today they decided to confess that they were guilty; they are being deported and are on their way back to Mexico! This seems to be a big problem in our area now, although I’m sure it goes on in lots of places.
I’m through for today but the judge told us they still have several more cases pending this month and we have to keep calling to see about when to report next. It may not be a waste of time but it’s somewhat inconvenient at times! We’ll see how the rest of the month progresses.

This is the first menu I’ve done since before Christmas I think, and it feels good to actually have a plan this week! Maybe this will help me get back into a routine, something I’ve been having a hard time with this month.
Thanks to Laura for hosting this each week. Check out her place for the other participants.

Monday…….Vegetarian Lasagna, corn on the cob and maybe salad
Tuesday…..Chicken, sweet potatoes, black eye peas
Wednesday….church supper
Thursday……Baked fish, wild rice, veggie
Friday……committee meeting, probably at my house for dinner! I hope my contribution will be rolls
If I need to, I might make cheeseburger soup over the weekend.

Hope y’all have a great Monday!

Our blogs have been down for a week and I just didn’t quite know what to do with myself! It’s one thing to have it available and just be busy or choose not to do it but when it’s not there, somehow the thought of it was making me loony. Thanks to my sis and brother in law, it seems to be working again…..there are still a few things not just right and I can’t do pictures yet. I thought of tons of things to blog about when I couldn’t, should have written them down because now they’ve probably gone out of my head! I do have some things I sewed I want to share later, but I’ll have to wait until Stacy has time to work on getting them done on her end and sent back to me. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

We’ve been studying parables at church recently and last weekend while watching a movie we heard this quote by Malcolm Muggeridge:

“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.�

I’m not familiar with Muggeridge but both of us really liked the quote and D used it in his sunday school lesson too.

God speaks, and I need to listen.

If you haven’t seen the contest going on over at Nan’s place, be sure to pop by there and check it out. She’s having a Summer Soap celebration and the prizes are some divine looking homemade soaps. There are some really neat sites to check out and pick out your favorites; then you can leave a comment and be entered! How fun is that! I believe you have until midnight Friday night to enter these so don’t wait too long to visit. You’ll love seeing these, I promise. I would love to win but if you do be sure to let me know so I can celebrate with you!

I got something from Lynne last week in this post and then in the last day or so, Debi awarded me with it also in her post! Wow, y’all are being very sweet to me and I appreciate it! I’ve been gone some and am way behind on reading blogs and taking care of things around here so I’m trying to catch up a bit. Here’s what they gave me:

A schmooze award…….Schmoozing as defined by Dictionary.com is the ability to converse casually…. And I think with blogging it’s about making friends, being a friend, commenting and answering comments and having a welcoming blog. Thanks girls, y’all have all made me feel welcome.

I believe several people have been tagged that I thought of, Carrie for one.
So let’s see, for today I think I’ll tag Jenny first because she’s the birthday girl today! Happy birthday, I just met her in real life and she’s every bit as sweet in person as on her blog.
And her real life friend Jenna, who I haven’t gotten to meet yet! I think I ran across her doing Menu Plan Monday and realized she lived in my state….she might have been the one to suggest that if I ever drove through their hometown that we could all meet and alas, she was out of town last week when I met Jenny!
And sweet Annie….a fairly new bloggy friend who is so kind to us all. I love her faith, her love for family and her busy active life.
Becky is someone else whose blog I’ve been reading recently, she’s so sweet to comment and email me. I love reading about her full life and family and travels. She gives me good tips about books too!
All of you out there have been very kind and I appreciate that and love it so much.
Hope you’re having the bestest day!

Ooooh, look at what’s being given away at Five Minutes for Mom! We actually saw these about a week ago while shopping in Best Buy. They look great and had a good picture too. I love that it’s flat and would fit in so many places better than one I currently have. Some lucky person is going to win it and be ever so happy! Hop on over if you want to try for it too.

“Don’t cha, don’t cha…..”

I got something from sweet Annie, a thoughtful blogger award…..she’s way too sweet! Also Sandra gave me something similar at her site.
Y’all are very thoughtful to take me along up to where you are!
Other details for these can be found on this site.

“For those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping others bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.”

These are hard for me to do because I’m not sure who all has gotten them in the past and I’d like to list every single person I read but the post would be too long! Here’s a few I’ll pick today……

Stacy, my sister! And really she needs to be the main one because I wouldn’t even have a blog without her! Our blogs are on the family website that they maintain, she got me started, has taught me a lot but still has to do some of the work on my site from time to time. She’s a genius and computer wizard and has to take phone calls/emails from me almost weekly with questions about what to do or how to do something! I’ve been blogging for almost 2 years now and she was about the only reader I had until this past fall/winter but she has always encouraged me to keep going.

My daughter Elizabeth and daughter in law Shanna……..they both have blogged in the past but are not presently doing that. I miss their blogs and keeping up that way! They are both very sweet, very busy girls and when I first started they were some of the most faithful ones to make a comment. I love to have family visit my place.

Stacy, the other one as she calls herself! She’s very sweet to visit me and make me feel welcome when I’m just a wee bit older than her! She answers comments and we email some, about places she’s lived, trips, etc. and she’s helpful to give me tips about places she’s been.

Lauren is another girl that I’m just a wee bit older than and yet she also has made me feel welcome. I love to read about tidbits with her kids and the things they’re up to…….I love her faith and her commitment to raising godly christian children.

And I know she’s already gotten this but I have to mention Barb, one of the most thoughtful people out here in the bloggy world!

I could go on and on, I love all of you that I visit (some that I just lurk on too!) and that are so sweet to take time to visit me; you make sweet comments about my kids and family and you know I just love that!
The blogging world is full of thoughtful, creative people and it’s fun to be a part of!

I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July today! Fly the flag, eat something fun and give thanks for our country. That’s what we’re doing this afternoon with a small group of friends. I’m glad my hubby has the day off today, although he told me he needed to do some office work later on. Maybe I’ll get to see some patriotic concerts/fireworks on tv tonight! Have a fun day!
God Bless America!

I’ve seen people posting about this contest and decided to jump in and put my name in the hat! Five Minutes for Mom is having another one of their great give aways and any new mom would be excited to have this one I think! They’re giving away 2 baskets of fun goodies from the new line of Playskool/CVS baby products. Check it out and maybe you’d like to enter too. I’m entering for my daughter Kathryn, she’s having a baby in the early fall! This one will be a boy and his name is Sam!