Slow down!!

I cannot believe that I haven't written for so long! Where has the time gone? It all a blur. Sometimes it seems I spend way too much time just trying to 'get through the day' and not really being 'in' the day. Focusing way too much on all of life's problems that I have (which, I have to say, is quite a lot) - and not focusing enough on all of the beauty God created around me. I forget, all too often, to keep my eyes on Jesus. This morning I was talking to God and said . . . "God, please help me to fix everything". But then God told me . . . . "You don't need to fix everything - give it to me to handle and I'll take care of it". Wow, that helped a ton. Not but 1/2 hour later my husband came to me and said that he is going to help me more and that he realizes I've been doing everything on my own. He hasn't been too involved for quite a while. He said he was in the bathroom shaving and watching football when something (God) told him that he needed to be more involved and help me. Thank you God. He knows what we need.
I'm homeschooling Trent this year and it is going quite well. He is finished golfing with the Junior PGA for this year. Matt earned his Eagle Scout and received his award recently. It was great. Only 1 to 4% of all scouts are able to get to eagle. Angela is working on making some wonderful items to sell on the internet. She is so gifted. She didn't get it from me! I wish I had more creativity! Well, I'd better run. We got a new dog (now 2 dogs and 3 cats - oh, and a goldfish) and he is a little hyperactive. (Yes, I am nuts) If we take him for a couple of runs a day he seems to behave better. Love ya all.

Scrabble Pieces Beautified

My daughter, Angela, gave me some of these pendants for my birthday and I fell in love! They are so cute and are actually made from recycled scrabble pieces. So creative! They are from HomeStudio, a store on Etsy. I am so glad that I found out about them and will be going back to their store for myself and gifts for others in the future. The next pendant I want is the Halloween jack-o-lantern one. So, what I am saying is if you haven't been there already, you should. :)

HI

Hi everyone. I couldn't think of a title so . . . HI was what I came up with. haha If you read my last blog you'll be glad to know that all of our animals are finally healed. YEAH! Thank the Lord. Garrett and Angela moved back to Boise. Again, thank the Lord! I was very proud of myself because I did NOT try to talk them into coming back. I just told them that I'd support them no matter what they chose to do . . . but I was really hoping they'd decide to come home! They got a new little kitty. He is so cute. His name is Jack. I'll try to get a picture of him on here . . . and of my animals too. I'm also pet sitting 2 dogs at my house again. Jenny, a golden retriever, and Maxwell, a Sheltie. So when Garrett and Angela brought Jack over we had 3 dogs and 3 cats in a very little space. It was quite . . . interesting. haha I haven't been feeling well for a long, long time. I went to the doctor the other day and found out I am anemic. No wonder I'm so exhausted all of the time. I am taking iron right now. It may take a while though to start making me feel better. Some sort of kidney count was also low but she told me not to lose sleep over it and we'll recheck in 6 months. But, of course, it is kind of bothering me. I've been taking caffeine pills to try to get through the day. Otherwise I'd probably stay in bed all day. UGH. I really hate this. Trent is 28th in the state (out of 41) for Junior PGA Golf. This is his first year. That is really great. His feet are still really bothering him. He goes into the specialist again on Friday. Matt starts college soon. I can't believe it. He's taking some really hard classes! He has to take atleast 30 credits a year for pre-pharmacy. After that he'll go on to get his degree in pharmacy. George and I have been trying to deal with the problem of constantly working and not enjoying life at all. We are always so busy that we never get to do anything we really like to do. We have got to figure something out. I'm thinking maybe going out alone every other Monday (maybe even every Monday). All work and no play makes mommy a very grumpy mommy. :) Well, guess that's it for now. Hope all is well with all of you!

Matt's Graduation and Animal Problems

My son, Matt, graduated from high school a few weeks ago. I'm very proud of him. It was very hard at times for him due to health problems. But he really hung in there and got through - with pretty good grades too! It was great seeing him walk the graduation line. We had a wonderful get together for him afterwards at my mom's house. Now he's got a part time job and will be going to college soon. Man, where does the time go??? I can't believe I have one married and going to college and another one who just finished high school and will be going to college. My beautiful daughter and her handsome husband came down for the graduation. It was so wonderful having them home! Trent won't be graduating for 8 years . . . so I'll still have one in the nest for awhile. I'm very happy about that. My babies . . . definitely the sunshine in my life!
Now for the storm! We pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. We know that pretty much every month we are going to have something come up . . . but usually it's not anything to big. Not this last month. We have 3 cats, 1 dog, and a golfish. Our bunny died recently. She was around 8 years old. We really haven't had any major health issues with our animals. In a 3 week span our dog had a seizure and had to go to the vet, one of our cats was throwing up blood and had to go to the vet for that (they think he got into something toxic somewhere, and then one of our other cats disappeared for 3 days. When he came home he was a mess and acting very strange. We took him in to the vet where they found he had a fever and some sort of bite which had absessed and burst. Thank the Lord they are all okay now. On top of that Trent had to have special inserts made for his shoes (and get different shoes) and I got sick. We had around $1000 in extra costs. We are still trying to get caught up. I know that money, technically, isn't important. However, I will say, that life sure is more enjoyable if you have some! It's very hard to enjoy every day living when you are trying to 'survive'. I know it could be so much worse - and that we really are so blessed. I'm always telling the boys that we are rich in many ways . . . just not when it comes to money. I sure wouldn't mind not having to worry about it for a while though!!

Young and Old

I've been thinking a lot about something that happened at Albertsons last month. I don't know why it's been on my mind. It was a few weeks after Easter and while grocery shopping I noticed that the Easter baskets were 90% off. I decided to get one for Matt and Trent. The only problem was that they were up on the very top shelf and I could barely reach them. As I was wrestling with them trying to get the 'boy' ones down (don't think they'd like the Barbie baskets) this teenager came walking up the isle. He was probably about 16 or 17 and was on his cell phone. My first impression was that he looked to be a little . . . questionable. I heard him tell the person on the phone that he had to go and he'd call them back. He then walked over to me and asked me which ones I wanted and got them down for me. He was so nice and helpful. I thanked him, he said no problem, and he walked off. It made my whole day. Obviously my first impression was wrong (as they often are) - and I was so touched by what he did. We hear so much negativity about teenagers . . . it's too bad there isn't more focus on the good things.
On a side note, something that bothered me today . . . I was picking up some dry cleaning for one of my customer's on my way to clean her house. The woman working there, McRae's Dry Cleaning (not sure if I spelled that right), had KTSY on. I told her that she had a great taste in music and that I loved KTSY. She said that she does too, but, when her boss is there she can't have it on. Her boss told her that she finds it offensive. Geez. Yes, let's not play good, clean, music . . . . how about some rap or something? I don't see how it could possibly offend anyone. But, whatever. I guess I need to pray for her boss. She said she thinks her boss doesn't like it because it's convicting. That just could be it.
Lastly what I want to write about is my mom. She has been talking a lot lately about her getting older (she's 70) and what she wants when she can't take care of herself. For example, it really bothers her that at a lot of these care centers they try to force people to eat. She absolutely does not want that to happen to her. She does not want to come live with any of her kids and would prefer a care center. She said that she, of course, wants to be buried by my step-dad, and that she probably won't be here when Trent graduates from high school etc. It is really bothering me. I know that it's good to talk about it so that we know what she wants. I just can't think about not having my mom. It was hard enough when my dad died and when my step-dad died. I'm much closer to my mom so I know it will be even harder. I hate that people have to get old. I've always thought that God could have come up with something better . . . but I'm sure He knows what He's doing. :) It's very hard when you have kids you are taking care of and parents you are taking care of. But it is a blessing. When I was helping to care for my step dad, for over a year, there were days when I thought that I just couldn't get through another day of watching him suffer. But I'm so glad I could take care of him. It was a great blessing.

Choices, Decisions, and Trusting Ourselves

I've always had problems with making choices . . . deciding on which path to take in my life. I guess this stems from several things. The first one being the fact that my mom always made all of my decisions for me. She told me, basically, what to do and when to do it. She wasn't rude or mean or anything like that. She just liked to control things and she felt (and still feels) that her way is the right and only way. I guess the second reason is that I feel like I have made some pretty bad choices in my life (atleast that's what I've been told). I applied for a part time job in the evenings that I really need. After the interview I started regretting that I applied. I prayed that I wouldn't get the job unless God wanted me there. And, well, I got it. I'm hoping that I didn't make the wrong choice with this. It's 5 nights a week and I'm really stressing about being gone in the evenings. Sometimes I feel like if I have a 50/50 chance of picking the wrong thing (or wrong way) I always pick the wrong thing. (I know I'm kind of rambling here . . . I've been sick and Trent has been sick and up for 3 nights. I'm exhausted as is Trent . . . Oh, I'm also PMSing) haha I also am getting tired of how I judge myself. I guess we all do - especially women. Tonight I went to Fred Meyer for groceries. As I said before - I am totally exhausted. I've shopped at this store a million times. I didn't mean to but, for some reason, went into the express lane. I definitely had more than 12 items. The cashier rang me up and was really nice and just 'mentioned' for future reference that it was an express lane. I felt SO HORRIBLE. I was almost crying on my way out to the van. I knew it was ridiculous to be so upset about it - but I just felt so stupid. I felt like I had 'broken the law' or something. I guess I always have struggled with trusting myself and giving myself a break. I can do 50 right decisions, 1 bad decision, and all I focus on is the bad decision. Anyhoo, I have so much more to write about as I usually write only once a month or something (I've got to change that). But I won't get into everything now. It's going on midnight. The time posted always says an hour earlier than it actually is. I guess because Angela set this up for me in Portland. That's it for now.

Our trip to Portland

I can't believe we have already been back from our Portland trip for almost 5 days. I don't know where the time goes!! We had a wonderful trip visiting my daughter and son in law. It still feels weird to say 'son in law'. I don't know when/if I'll get use to that! The drive to Portland was beautiful. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. In fact, I think that was the only nice weather we had the whole trip! Lot's of rain - of course. When we drove to Seaside we had rain, snow, hail, sunshine . . . it was nuts! But we had fun anyway. The ocean water was so brown and icky looking. Garrett explained why - which I don't really remember - but it had something to do with plankton and reproducing or something . . . I don't think I really wanted to know since we were walking in it. UGH! haha We gathered some great seashells which we later threw back onto the beach as Garrett saw some sort of creatures on them. We had a wonderful time at the Saturday Market and we rode the Max. It was a lot of fun. Can't wait to go there again! Lot's of fun stuff and interesting people! We did a lot of shopping, eating, and even hit some golf balls. Garrett tried to kill me with one of his golf balls I think . . . maybe some hidden anger towards his mother in law. haha Matt lost my car keys and I had to pay $75 for a locksmith to come and unlock my van. After a few days (and LOTS of prayer), however, I found the keys!! Praise God. It would have cost me around $250 to get a key made as I apparently have some 'coded key' as protection against theft. Whatever. Have you ever noticed how all of these technical things (like the computerized everything) seem to cost us a lot of headaches and money???? UGH! Anyway, it was so great seeing the kids. It is so hard to leave them and come back home to Boise. It really, really feels like part of my heart is left in Portland. It so hard, every time, to drive away. I have to say that I was very happy though. Garrett and Angela seem to be so happy together. They laugh a lot together and I could tell that they are very close. It made me feel really good. Angela is a very good cook. Hmmm, I'm sure she got that from me!! ha ha Their house is so warm and cozy. It was also great listening to Garrett's guitar playing too. He's quite talented. Anyway, it was great to see them. We had snow most of our drive home! Oh, and the IKEA store!! I love it. I have to go there again. Angela and I dropped all of the boys off at home and we went shopping alone. We took our time and had a lot of fun. It was great. I hope we get one in Boise. Well, guess that's it for now.