Happy Friday :)

Well here I sit waiting. I have been sick for about a week and half. This last Wednesday I finally gave in and called my doctor up because the antibiotics she had given me last Friday didn't seem to be working that well. Anyway after a flying trip to the doctor that afternoon she has decided that my scar from my bladder surgery in November is erroding and that is causing me to be so sick. Needless to say she scheduled surgery today. Well because it was so last minute, I am the last one on the table today, probably having surgery around 2 or 3 pm. I have been without anything to eat or drink since midnight and I don't even have to be at the hospital till noon, and that is only if things are going as planned. I have to call in at 10:30 to see if they are on schedule or behind.

It is funny how water isn't that important until you can't have it. I am so craving a cold drink of water right now. Oh man what I wouldn't give to have some water. So this time I am packing an overnight bag to take to the hospital to be prepared. My doctor said she didn't expect me to have to spend the night, but she also said that last time I ended up being there with no supplies, nothing like leaving the hospital without being able to brush your teeth or comb your hair. So this time I am prepared.

Oh other exciting news, I finally got myself a new IPOD touch and am loving it.

Happy New Year!

I know that I am a little bit late, but I was down for the count sick in bed, thinking I was going to die there for a while. So cut me some slack. Things are on the mend and life is in full swing again. So it is 2008! What is scary is that it really seems like last year everyone was freaking out about their computers or technology not working when we went from 1999 to 2000 and here we are 8 years later already. Boy when they say time speeds up the older you get they weren't kidding. I am thinking by the time I hit 80, it will be making me a little dizzy since it goes so fast already at 40!

Hope you all celebrated and took in the new year, made some resolutions, maybe even already broke some. I know mine is to get healthier this year, but that started off with a bang because I ended up in bed out of my mind sick for 4 days. So getting healthier from that didn't take but a call to the doctor to get on some antibiotics for my infection.

This year will bring with it some exciting changes in our lives.

Megan will graduate from high school, and go off to college in the fall.
Hopefully, Amanda, our oldest will move back out of the house and get her life figured out, and back on track. Funny how kids think they can move out and just party and not pay bills or take responsibility for anything, than boom, life catches up with them.
This year Jerad will hopefully stay healthy, no broken bones, and can play baseball and football.
The amazing thing will be that this year, Valentines Day will be when Sam and I moved in together and have been a family ever since. It is going to be a great new year!

Holiday Rush

Humm the holidays are here. It feels like Christmas because we have snow on the ground and the temperature is hoovering in the mid teens most of the time. I love winter when it is snowy and the temps are in the high 30's to mid 40's. Snowman building weather is great out. But we always seem to have the snow and the cold COLD temperatures.

So getting ready for the holidays. Humm I have done most of my shopping already this year or at least have a list of what I am getting people. I just need to make the road trip out of town to buy stuff. The kids are pretty much taken care of. Sam is done and under the tree. The tree is up and decorated. I really struggle to get the holiday spirit. I think it comes from being raised with the belief that Christmas is wrong. Now as an adult, it seems like such a political holiday that I really struggle to just keep it about family and celebrating the birth of Jesus. I don't like getting all wrapped in the buying of gifts and the holiday about money and giving the perfect gift. To me the perfect gift would be an evening at home with my family playing board games and snacking. Just spending time together hanging out. I try to make the holidays about my family time.

Lately we have really been into hanging out. A couple weeks ago I put down a big piece of cardboard on the living room floor and started a jigsaw puzzle. It didn't take long for all 5 of us to gather around and spend time putting it together. Now we have had a different puzzle on the board all the time. We also got out the old backgammon game. Sam and I use to play it a lot when we were dating back 20 years ago. But lately we have all been having fun just sitting on the floor playing games together. Now that is the perfect holiday season.

Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season. Megan has been invited to play in the Junior Masters Cup Tennis tournament. They invite 8 girls in the 18 year old division to come to Kalispell and play in the tournament. It is such a great opportunity that we felt we couldn't pass it up. So we will be leaving for Kalispell on the 26th and returning home very late Sunday night the 30th.

Just catching up and posting some layouts today.

Brrrrr.... Winter is on it's way!!

Boy fall is long gone and the cold days of winter are upon us here in Montana. I am not sure I am ready for the days when it is dark when I leave work and the COLD. Brrrrrr.

In other news. I have been really busy working on crafts for the craft show. Just getting different things ready is taking forever. I am sure this will be our last year of doing the craft show. This year has been a lot of work.

Megan did really good at the State A cross country meet last weekend. She placed 38th out of 142 girls. I was really proud of her, but she was a little disappointed in her time as it wasn't her seasons best.

If you are a baseball fan like I am, it is GO ROCKIES!!!!! I was really rooting for the Red Soxs to beat the Cleaveland Indians, but I would love to see the ROCKIES win the world series this year.

Amanda moved back home today. It will take some getting use to since she was so eager to move out at 18 and not have to follow our rules. Now she is 20 and willing to follow the rules to save some money! Well off to watch the end of the game and than head to bed.

So what do you think of the new blog banner? I have been playing around and working on it.

Thursday wanderings!

Well it is Thursday, October 18th. My youngest daughter turned 18 yesterday!! I am still finding it hard to believe that she is 18 years old. It seems like just not that long ago I was the one that was 18 years old. I was foot loose and fancy free back than enjoying life. Boy would it slap in the face really fast and wake me up that foot loose and fancy free isn't something that lasts very long. But a good life it has been never the less!! We had cake and had fun last night. She is so much fun to be around because she is so out going. Her big excitment was that she went and bought lottery tickets. In the scratch tickets she was excited because she spent $4 and won $2 back. There is that right of passage in turning 18. I have to say she has been such a great kid! I would have thought she would have been the one that would have given me so much trouble as a teenager. She didn't at all. She followed the rules and never has really been one to want to go out and do the whole party hang out with her friends. She would rather have her friends over to the house and that is fine with me!!

So today Megan is off to the State Cross Country meet in Helena!! They are leaving this afternoon for the 8 hour bus ride up there! She made cupcakes for everyone on the bus to celebrate her birthday!!
Good luck MEGAN!!!

Family and Religion

Wow my family is nuts or at least half of them are. Well my mom finally did it, she tore our family apart totally. My mother became a Jehovah's Witness shortly after I was born. I had known the JW religion my whole life. As I was growing up in a home that was very dysfunctional. My father had two children prior to meeting my mother than he began having an affair with my mother who also had a son from a previous relationship. When they were married I was the oldest, than had two younger sisters. We never got to see my dad's oldest children until I was in high school. Anyway the family was very dysfunctional with my dad drinking all the time, my mother was always spending and fighting with my dad. I grew up thinking we were a very poor family (didn't qualify for free lunch at school because my parents made too much, but we didn't get lunch at all.) I actually had friends whose parents would pack me a lunch when I was in middle school and send it with their daughter.

So my dysfunctional family was being raised as Jehovah's Witnesses. My mom's son was always in trouble. He was into drugs and drinking and would steal all the time. We were always in trouble for things he did. To make the family dynamics worse because he was not my dad's son he was very hard on him. Which made it worse because my mother gave him everything he wanted to make up for it. I never got a long with my mother, truly couldn't stand her from almost as long as I could remember. She was so mean to me (I think because my dad and I spent so much time together). Anyway I remember my mom telling me and my younger sister that if we were baptised than she would buy us each a car. So we both got baptised, only to my surprise I never got a car from my mom. But low and behold my sister did. That was when I was 15. When I was 16, I got in a major fight with my mom and she slapped me and I slapped her. That was the end for me. I left home and moved in with a friend and her family. (they were not JW's.) Needless to say I was disfellowshipped when I was 17 years old. I never really had a relationship with my mother again for a couple years. She was mad that I was living on my own, working evenings and going to high school during the day. I was determined to graduate high school. My mother was not really involved in my life at the time.

I had my daughter Amanda and ended my relationship with her father only to meet Sam that fall when Amanda was 3 months old. Amanda and I moved to live with Sam and we were married and had a daughter. My mother and father didn't come to my wedding even though I had it outside in a park so they couldn't use the excuse it was in a church. My mother didn't know her two granddaughters. She had seen Amanda a little bit before we moved, but hadn't seen Megan at all. It wasn't until I was pregnant with Jerad that I began speaking to my mother again. I had always talked to my dad off and on, but it was difficult to talk to me without having to deal with my mom afterward. So my sisters and mom came to visit shortly after Jerad was born. My mom and I never had a close relationship, but she made it clear during my children's young lives that my sisters children were her favorites. She would always try to push her religion on them. She because very upset when myself and my children were baptised in the catholic church and I was confirmed.

We talk periodically during the years. It wasn't until the separation of my parents that the trouble really began. My mom had called my husband up and asked him to write her statements falsifying information for her divorce saying my dad had given him things that were worth month and she was entitled to half that money. My husband told her where to go and she let loose on him about choosing sides. Needless to say my husband didn't care if she ever came to our house again. We still had contact off and on during the years since.

Now it has been 25 years since I have been disfellowshiped, I have had contact with my mom and my sisters. They have come to visit and my two girls both had flown up to spend the summers with them. Than boom all heck breaks loose the other day. My sister has been in Montana for about 3 weeks now with her kids. They haven't called or anything to come visit or have us drive up to see them. Well on Sunday my mom calls to say they won't be coming to see me at all because I am disfellowshipped and they can't speak to me anymore. So I let her have it. I am so sick of her games. But than she hangs up the phone and calls my oldest daughter and asks her if she wants to get together with them. She doens't call my other children at all. She tells my oldest not to tell me or her siblings about seeing them. What a crock of crap to try to cause trouble in my family like that. I explained to my oldest daughter what my mom had said to me. Needless to say my daughter was pissed because she has been hurt by my mom over the last 20 years. So she calls them back to tell them they won't be seeing her. Than my mom has the nerve to call me up and tell me I am making her grandchildren hate her and that she has a right to see them if she wants.

I just unloaded on her and told her that she will probably never see them again because it was her choice. I told her and my children that their relationship was up to them and I wouldn't stand in the way if they wanted to see their grandma. Needless to say my mother also called my brother and told him that he can't contact me anymore or my mother wounldn't speak to him. Gee he left the church way before me and did way worse things, but because he wasn't baptised it was okay!! That religion is such a cult.

Going digital baby

Okay I am really interested in the hybrid scrapbooking but figured I would try to make an all digital layout. So tonight I was playing around with some free kits on line and just getting in some practice. So here it is my first ever fully digital layout.

THey are off and running

Well the kids started school this past week on Wednesday. It was kind of a weird day for me. Megan started her senior year. It really didn't bother me when Amanda was in her senior year, but with Meg's maybe it is that she is my youngest daughter, but it really bothered me to think I would only have one child left at home next year at this time. Jerad is a sophmore this year.

We went in and got his schedule all arranged and changed around because he can't participate in PE for the first quarter due to his broken humerous (upper arm) and he couldn't do his weights class till at least January, so he just dropped that. He is a little bummed watchiing all his classmates go off to football practice and games this year, but he is resolved to just keep working and safe up money so he can have fun next year!!

Well Megan has her first cross country meet of the season tomorrow morning here at home. I get to help be a timer!! I am looking forward to watching her, amazing how much she loves her sports!

Beartooth Highway

Oh I love it every year when we get in the car and take our weekend drive up over the Beartooth Highway between Red Lodge and Cooke City, Montana. It is always my favorite way into Yellowstone Park because it is the most BEAUTIFUL place in the world. There is nothing better than the drive up the switchbacks of the mountain and crossing over the top and than winding down the other side. I love stopping to look at all the beautiful scenery along the way and the low valleys filled with ice cold water from the moutain snow. We were all disappointed because there was no snow low enough to get to this year for a snowball fight. Last year it was perfect to have a snowball fight. It is amazing how hot (about 90 degrees) it is at the bottom of the hill and by the time you get to the top we are all grabing sweatshirts and blankets to cover up our legs because it is probably in the low 40's up on top.

What a great weekend to just be with nature.