Better late than never...right?

Before I get into my blog here, let me just say I won't be apologizing.  I won't be making excuses.  I have got to quit getting down on myself for not doing the daily blog I used to do.  I guess it's because after four years of it, it got to be a part of me and I feel like I'm cheating me and all my former followers out of it.  Plus I miss it.  And I miss my readers.  Some are on facebook now and we "keep up with each other" there.  But it's not the same.  The reading and writing blogs was a part of who I am.  I guess it still is.  That's why when I'm not able to blog, I feel a part of me is missing.  So, I'm back today and here we go. 

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We found out we had friends in need.  What to do.  What to do.  You know even when you are having a tough time yourself, if you have it, share it.  Things tend to multiply to fill the empty space left when you give.  Give your time.  Give your cash.  Give your goods.  Whatever it is, just give it.  How can you not?  How could you stand by and watch a friend needing and not help?

And if you feel funny about going to them?  Just do it anyhow.  I was told it's easier to apologize after than get permission before.  Just...do it.

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Our girls are growing up so fast!  Oh my, time passes before you know it.  And then it's gone.  The days of cooing and gooing make way for real words.  Rolling over turns to crawling which quickly becomes walking, then running.  Soon, they won't be that cuddly little blanketed bundle.  Soon they'll be having sleepovers and playing Barbie.  Wow.  Where does time go?

Little Miss Emmi is walking all over now.  And she has her little words for so many things.  It's such a fun, fun age.  Her new favorite game is playing hide and seek behind the chair.  So cute.  And she makes her dietary likes and dislikes very evident.  Oh yes.  I tried hiding meat under her favorite veggies on the spoon.  She was having none of it.  She ate the carrots off the blob of meat then stuck her tongue out with it on it as if saying, "See, Mimi?  I will eat what I WANT to and nothing more."  I fooled her though by giving her a veggie only bite really quick and she accidentally swallowed the meat too.  Then a few days later, I didn't let her know we had veggies on the menu.  Just that meat was in her view.  She looked at me funny on the first bite but she ate it.  After a few bites she decided it wasn't so bad after all.  And then I made it all better with some veggies and fruits.  I'm not totally mean.  :-)

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The only place where success comes before work

is in a dictionary.
~~Vidal Sassoon

~~~~~

Oh our Nelly wears me out lately!  She's been getting a little nervy and curious.  She got out the door when Rusty left one day.  And no, she didn't come when called.  And no, she did not stay in the yard.  And yes, she is now on a leash, attached to mommy all day long until she does learn!

But when she looks like this,

how can I resist forgiving her and loving her to pieces?

~~~~~

Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed

with you hands in your pockets.

~~unknown

~~~~~

You know I'm thinking laundry is a virus.  It just keeps spreading.  You just get it done and somehow that basket has begun to already fill.  I got the laundry done.  But ... it wasn't.  Of course not.  Maybe it's not a virus.  Maybe the laundry basket has a gigantic magnet in the bottom.  One that snaps up every stitch of fabric that comes within a mile of it.  It is something for sure!

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It's beginning to be the season of doing together again finally.  Boy how I miss those months where our family times are farther apart.  We've done several meals together, we've done a movie night, the kids have been getting together to play Murder.  Oh yes, we've been invited to play too, but by the time it's decided on, we're worn out and needing some relaxation and sleep!

And this weekend we can start the clean up / open up process out at camp.  This year should be good.  The babies are big enough to enjoy the fresh air and can easily be occupied with toys and fun.  The bitty babe will be so brand new, he won't fuss about having to spend time "doing nothing" and we will all want to hug and squeeze him so much it'll be fun having him out there.  The grandgirls will be here for summer time.  All's good.  Can't wait.

~~~~~

We all take different paths in life,

but no matter where we go,

we take a little of each other everywhere
~~Tim McGraw

~~~~~

Well, I made it through the weekend of the 4th and 5th of March but not without a little bit of excitement Mama Style.  Yes, I hurt myself.  I don't know how.  Dropped the darn fan on my foot and was just sure I'd broken it.  Hurt like heck!  I was okay but not good Friday night and Saturday.  Babysat Emmi a while Saturday night and by the time the kids picked her up, I could hardly move.  Got so bad through the night I was sure I'd broken the joint on my foot at the top of the toe next to the big toe.  Do we have "pointer" toes?  lol  I had to walk heel only.  Getting upstairs to bed was a real trick.  I managed but not without making the mistake of trying to use the bad foot first.  Ohhhh no.  Good foot...drag bad foot.  I learned. 

I got upstairs and hobbled around to the bathroom and into bed.  Ohh boy.  When it hurts to have the sheet touch, it's bad.  I had to pull up the blanket and have my feet hangin' off the end of the bed.  And still every little breeze that hit it drove me insane. 

When Papa got home from work, I told him I thought after we slept a while I was going to have to go to the emergency room.  We had some other things needing to be done first and he had to get back for his before work nap.  Bound to be a tricky schedule.

I went to the hospital closest to home because it was an orthopedic hospital.  If it had been broken and I'd needed to be cast, they'd have sent me there anyhow.  It was a long, long wait, but they seemed to have got me diagnosed now. 

It isn't broken.  I have cellulitis.  Now when I looked it up, I thought, H O W ??  I had no open sores to be seen.  The ER doc and today my primary care doc both said because I have dry skin it would be easy to get.  The fan dropping on my foot tramatized it and it had a teensy little crack most likely.  That little crack picked up a nasty ol' germ and caused me all this trouble.

They sent me home in an air cast with a walker plus two antibiotics to fight the infection (of the skin and possibly involving the tissue beneath) and pain meds.  Appears we're good now.  Or will be.  I have to check in with primary daily until they determine it isn't spreading.

[I did get it healed up pretty good.  Still a little uneasy about it though.  Was oh so very painful.  Just suffering the nightly HOT feet and numbness.  And yes, I'm seeing the doctor in another week to see what's up.]

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Did chicken one night that came out really good.  I made chicken coated in mayo and seasoned crumbs, noodles made in saved turkey broth, veggies and it's a meal.  The mayo and crumb chicken was copying the way my mother-in-law used to do hers in the convection oven.  Always a favorite of mine.

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Most of you know I write from my notes.  I'd worked on this to post and never got it done.  I'm not sure of the dates on this but....

The other day, my daughter brought me a project.  It seems the great granny of one of her little friends had made a "scarf" and it was not able to be worn.  It was at least a good foot wide and way, way too short to go around the neck of even a little two year old.  I took it apart and made it into two beautiful scarves that can be worn by both of the little ones in that family.  It's much softer now too.  If you use big enough needles and a good stitch pattern, even those nasty old fashioned skeins of yarn can be soft enough not to act like sandpaper. 

I think the basement is now dry enough that I can spend some time down there doing my laundry.  Man it has really built into a small mountain!  Half is probably the towels that Papa kept trying to stop the river with.  We really, really had a mess down there. 

I made broccoli salad tonight for our lunch tomorrow.  I had gotten a bowl of the sauce that contained white raisins and bacon.  It was way cheaper than it would have been to buy all the ingredients to make it.  I did add extra raisins and sliced almonds.  It had the onion in it already too.

~~~~~

I can't believe Emmi is already a year old.  This year has gone by SO fast!  The kids had her party on Saturday the 19th, the day before her actual birthday.  Miss Em was born on the first day of spring.  It was fun watching her dive into her smash cake.  Oh she was so cute!

 

The kids chose a menu that was Emerson approved.  All her favorites.  She had home made chicken fingers, home made macaroni and cheese, tortilla chips (and a dip she can't have...hot stuff her momma makes), we got a pizza and of course her cake.  Such a pretty one.  They had chosen her cups and plates and napkins and went to a special baker, West Side Bakery.  They did an awesome job of decorating her cake and her smash cake to match the paper goods. 

 

She had a good time opening gifts.  I love this picture of her in her birthday dress.

The next day she had a good time too.  Mommy took this one of her with all her balloons.  I got the caption wrong.  It was the day after her party which was the day OF her birthday.

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I'm thinking this spring break is gonna be a good one!  I have a grandgirl wanting to earn big bucks to bank for her trip to France with her French teacher and French club members so she's doing some big time cleaning for me.  It's awesome having a teenager around who isn't afraid of work and who genuinely appreciates it when we decide it's a day to pay her.  She doesn't expect the pay.  That's nice.  There are a few kids I know who do.  I'm much more inclined to pay people who don't ask for it than those who want to know what they can do to earn a bunch of bucks.  And a school trip to another country trumps the fun, games and nonsense some want money for. 

~~~~~

Ding dang darn dog!

She took off again.  I'm aching so much I couldn't even bend down and grab or step out a step on her leash!  So she took off walking, just a-happily down the road.  Then over the hill.  The up into everyone's yards.  Then back over the hill.  Then around the corner.  I'm huffin' and puffin' and hurtin' so bad chasing after her.  One of the kids took off in their car to try to catch up with her.  Thankfully a nice guy walking his own dog grabbed her leash and held on to her for us. 

It scares me so bad that she'll just get off onto the main road.  Our road isn't bad, but we're only a block back from busy.  I was especially concerned when the snow was on the ground.  She's kind of a color mix that looks a lot like the piles of dirty snow along the roads.

As I finally write to post, the snow is gone.  But she still sort of seems to blend in.  I don't want anything to happen to my li'l pal!

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We finally have our new internet and phone set up.  And truthfully, I don't see a big difference in the internet.  We had Time Warner so RoadRunner.  We now have AT&T dsl.  No biggie at all.  Biggest thing was the stupid router.  They gave me no option but to get one when I did the order online.  Well the stupid thing wouldn't work.  Papa spent forever on the phone trying to iron out the problems.  In the end, it's going back and we're using our own. 

If you're family, please contact me if your want our new phone number.  I'm not giving out the house number to anyone else.  Should save a jillion calls a day once they quit trying to reach the previous owner and one the do not call registration kicks in.

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Just some random shots ...

Kennedy and Emmi chillin'

Modeling one of the scarves Made by Mama

Trying to watch Daddy and Grampa fix Mommy's car 

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We signed Kennedy up for a day her spring break week at the zoo to sort of shadow.  It's a career day for high school kids.  She's also signing up to volunteer this summer.  She has to do quite a bit to get qualified and she will have to commit to two days a week as a volunteer.  I think it's great and so does she.  I really hope she gets selected.  She's steering toward something to do with animals for a career.  This should really be a good couple of experiences. 

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I just read a friend's book, Death -- living to talk about it.  By Brian M. Hayden.  It's his story of many, many, MANY years of fighting through heart disease and dying time and time again yet being miraculously brought back to live once more.  Look it up and give it a read.

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I totally missed telling you about another birthday outting.  We went out to dinner to celebrate Missy and Rusty's birthdays.  They share a day though they're four years apart.  Didn't get good pics I can post of the birthday kids.  Can't post Missy's baby and she's in the picture.  But I did get a couple others to share. 

First, have you ever tried fried pickles?  I love the things.  I could eat a basket full all by myself!  Most times they seem to be spears but this place does pickle chips.

And I wanted to also share a picture of some of the grandgirls I took that day.

 Natalie, Kennedy and Morgan

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Night all.  I'll be back one day.  Yes, when you least expect it.

~~Mama Sage