19 Years and We Still Can’t Get it Right

Sir D and I left Friday afternoon for Canton Texas to camp at Purtis Creek State park and pop over to the giant garage sale that is First Monday Trade Days in Canton.

All started out well, we pulled into the campsite at about 4pm. This was our view.

Nice! It was a wee bit cold, the mercury registering at about 30 degrees, but we had a nice warm camper. I made a nice dinner of stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes and salad, and a nice glass of merlot. Pretty fancy for camping, no?


We even had candles.


We went to bed Friday night and that’s when things started to go awry. See, I’ve been trying to fight off a cold since last Saturday. I’d planned to pop in to the dr’s office on Friday before we left just to see if it was turning into an infection, but it seemed to be getting better so I let it go. Well, it hit turbo on Friday night. I coughed all night. Serious, cough up a lung, turn blue, can’t catch your breath, coughing. It was crazy. Saturday morning my fever was back, my throat was killing me and I sounded like I had a three pack a day habit. Happy anniversary, babe! Come kiss me! Cough cough, hack hack! Romantic, yes?

So we started out our day by going to the CVS for cough drops and Tylenol for me and high doses of zinc and vitamin C for Sir D. We then asked around for some sort of Care Now type clinic. Apparently Canton is not as big of a place as I thought because, no, there is no such place. They suggested a hospital ER down the way. Great. I’m going to the ER for a cough. This will cost me a $100 co pay. If I’d just done it on Friday at my regular dr (who I’m sure could have gotten me in) it would have cost me $20.

So off we go in search of the ER. We get there, sign in and wait, and wait and wait in a room full of people who either have exactly what I have or do indeed have a three pack a day smoking habit. I finally find out that I do not have strep, even though my throat is on fire, but instead bronchitis, sinusitis and an irritated throat (really?) Prescriptions in hand we head out. It was a nice surprise to find out that what we thought was an ER was actually a walk in clinic and they only charged us $20. YIPPEE!

So back we go to the CVS to get the meds. This was our third time in the CVS since we stopped there on our way into town for directions. They now know us by name there. The lady behind the counter told me she was glad it was not strep and only bronchitis. The man in line behind me agreed. Strep is much worse he says. Ahh, small town life.

Now that I’m appropriately drugged up we grab some yummy lunch at a little Mexican place and head out to Canton. We get out of the car to roam around the open air market and…it’s snowing. Yes folks, snowing. But we’ve worked too hard to get here to give up now. I want to find the perfect butter dish. It’s all that I want. A butter dish. I’m not leaving Canton till I find the perfect, unique, butter dish. Snow or freezing temps and a breeze that cuts right through you, be darned! We donned our coats and hats and headed out.

HOLY COW it was cold. After about 2 hours I thought I was going to die. Turns out, antibiotics to do not cure you in 20 minutes and being out in the freezing temps may not have been the smartest decision.

We finally came upon a pretty milk glass butter dish; not exactly what I had in mind, but it’d do. We headed back to the car having only seen probably .087 percent of First Monday Trade Days. Once we got back to the RV and I stopped coughing enough to catch my breath, we decided we needed a little nap. 30 minutes maybe. An hour and a half later we woke up. Woops.

Next on the agenda was a movie. I had looked around before we left on our trip, to find the nearest theater that was playing Sherlock Homes. It was about 30 minutes away. We drove out to Athens Texas in search of Sherlock. The theater where the movie was playing was hidden behind a department store with the smallest sign ever. It took some doing to locate the place.

Once we got there we were loathe to discover that Sherlock homes was no longer playing and our only choices were some movie about the tooth fairy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, (hello! Adult time here! I think NOT) and two movies that were scary, about death and dismemberment and murdered children. Not quite anniversary celebration fare. So we headed back into Athens proper and had a nice dinner at Mazzio’s Pizza.

We then stopped at a store for a bottle of wine. Upon perusing the store we came upon a bottle of Mead. How cool? And historic! The Homeschooler in me could not pass this up. How many stories have I read where they warmed up around the camp fire in the Middle Ages while drinking mead? And it was Irish Mead! The drink of my people! So we bought it.

We came back to the camp site, put on our warm fuzzy pj’s, stuck a DVD in the player and opened the bottle of Mead.

Turns out? Mead is disgusting! There is a reason we’ve moved from honey to the lovely grape as our choice for a fermented drink.

So far, our anniversary trip is turning into a typical trip for my family, nothing ever goes as expected and I have much blogging fodder when I get home.

Next post, I’ll tell you of Sunday, the last day of our trip, where we got stuck in the mud, badly, and there was a front end loader involved…and goats.

What's in a name?

I've had more and more poeple from my real life reading my blog lately. It's sorta like worlds coliding. When I first started this blog, no one in real life read it. Only my cyber freinds. Then my real life freinds started reading it too.

When I first started it Sir D was uncomfortable putting our real names on the interent. I respeced that and only used my first name and used alieses for the kids. You can read the post where I explain our internet aliases here.

I'm not really sure if they're necessary anymore or not. I shall have to think on it some more.

On another note, Sir D and I are supposed to be going away for a weekend getaway with our RV this weekend for our anniversary. The place where we are going was struck by a tornado (yes, in January), and now they are calling for snow and ice and freezing temps this weekend. It was almost 70 earlier in the week. sigh.

I must say that we have more trouble celebrating our anniversary. Feb 1st is a terrible time to get married in TX. It is so hard to plan your anniversary. It could be 70 and beautiful or it could be sleeting/snowing. You could have tornado's or snow. Texas weather!

Also, I'm getting over the flu. That is why the blog was so quiet. Coughing, sneezing, crackly lungs, sore throat, headache, fever, the whole works. yuck. I've not left the house since Friday of last week. TOday though I must go out to the store no matter how I feel. We're almost out of toilet paper. YIKES!

Today I must muster up the strength to go on a run. (funny, that meant something totally different back when I was younger)

(Please forgive the disjointedness of this post and any grammatical or spelling errors, I am still on cold medicine. I have no excuse for the other posts with spelling and grammatical errors, however.)

The Girl Who Went To Haiti

This is my freind Jessie and her husband John. Jessie is a sweet girl that I have known for many, many years. Her youngest brother and my oldest son are friends that have known each other since they were crawling around in the church nursery.

Jessie is an amazing woman. She is a RN, who has volunteered for disaster relief with Heart to Heart International for several disasters, the earthquake in China and the Tsunami to name a two. She's now in Haiti as is her husband, John.

I can not even imagine what she's seeing and experiencing. What I see on my TV overwhelms me, I can't imaging the feeling of actually being there, seeing all that NEED with my own two eyes.

Jessie has set up a blog to document her experience in Haiti. I am finding it very powerful and moving. It somehow seems more real to look at Haiti through Jessie's eyes than my own because I have no experience with which to filter the images I'm seeing.

Jessie does. She's done this before. She's an AMAZING young woman.

BTW, Heart to Heart needs all the help it can get to send Dr.'s and RN's to Haiti. One more good charity in need of funding if you find yourself so able.

Of Fireman and Froot Loops

It's a Saturday morning and I am home alone. I know that is probably not something that I should post on the internet, but I am banking on the fact that those of you that know where I live wish me no harm, and those that might wish me harm do not know where I live. I like to live dangerously.

It is a strange thing being home alone on a Saturday morning. I spent much of my adult life awake way earlier than I wished, laying on the couch at oh dark thirty, with my head under a throw pillow while some horrid cartoon kept my wee little children somewhat still and entertained until those of us who are not nocturnal woke up.

But no longer. Now I find myself awake and in a quiet house able to drink my coffee in peace and quiet and have a complete thought. It's quite shocking to the system.



The boys are off being Fireman today. (Good Job, Fireman!), Eve is working at her grandma's house helping her out with some spring cleaning, and Sir D had to go into the office for a few hours and took Ann and Violet the Test Dog with him. (and really, if he's taking Violet to work with him, is it not just semantics to continue to call her the 'Test Dog'?)

So now I find myself in a place I thought I'd never see again. Alone, quiet. peaceful. ahhhhhh.

I know one day they will all move out, I know one day I'll be sad and wish those days of little ones back, but not yet. It's still to fresh in my mind. I'm not so far away from it, that I don't still really appreciate the gift of solitude.

Also, I know what a busy day I have ahead of me. My dearest friend in the whole world's daughter is having her graduation party today. This dear girl and my Will have grown up together. This girl is graduating today, a full semester early and...with her associates degree. Yes, I KNOW! Amazing.

Then we go to my BIL's birthday party. Let's just say those numbers are getting a little bigger than I am comfortable with my peers turning.

Time marching on. It happens in the blink of an eye. One minute they're sitting in front of the TV eating dry froot loops out of a cup and watching 101 Dalmatians for the millionth time, and the next they're out dragging around 100 pound water hoses and putting out fires.

I meant to end with something deeply meaningful and profound but I just realized that I just admitted on the internet that my toddlers ate dry froot loops for breakfast...

Violet the Test Dog

When we got home from our trip to the SPCA on Sunday, where we met and had to leave Glitter, I remembered how some friends of ours were trying to find a home for their Black Lab/Border Collie mix, Violet. They were leaving the country and needed to find her a home. I remembered that they had not had any success and the dog ended up living with their college age son who stayed behind here in the states. I was pretty sure the college age son was still trying to find her a home. He is gone so much...



So we gave him a call. He was more than happy to bring Violet over for us to try. We have begun a one month trial period with Violet. If, after a month it's too much, or she's hard to deal with, we can give her back to the college age son.



So far we've learned Violet can sit, stay, heal, potty outside, and best of all she does not rub her butt on the carpet. It's a match made in heaven!




Bob was great friends with the boy of the family Violet belonged too. Violet loves Bob. Violet will do whatever Bob says. Violet sleeps in Bob's room and follows Bob around like, well, like a puppy.



I know we have a month yet to go, but really? after one day with Violet the Test Dog, I'm pretty sure she's a keeper.



Isin't she sweet?

Who doesn't need a little Glitter?

We are not dog people here on the hilltop. We had a dog. He was a pug. It ended badly. He snorted, he snotted, he was untrainable, and he rubbed his butt on the carpet in an obsessive compulsive manor. It was bad.

When he started getting out of the fence, despite our best efforts to thwart his wanderlust, and marking the neighbors front door, we decided it was time to find him another home.

That was 5 years ago. Trygve the Pug left us shellshocked. Last week all the stars aligned, the gods smiled on us, and my husband had a momentarily brain spasm and somehow, Sir D and I ended up at the Dallas SPCA.

While we were there we met Glitter. Glitter was so sweet. I completely fell in love. She was shy and would very slowly come up to you and sniff your hand. If she decided you were worthy she'd let you scratch around her ears. She wasn't too sure about Sir D. She didn't make a peep, even though she was surrounded by yapping puppies. She'd just look at you with those big brown eyes, silently asking you to take her home.



Unfortunately, Sir D said no. He thought she was a little to big. We were looking for a smaller dog. Our house is the size of a postage stamp and she was just a bit too big. I could have probably talked Sir D into taking Glitter home, but, well, Trygve was my idea. Need I say more?

So there Glitter sits. If you live anywhere near Dallas, please go get Glitter and take her home, K? Then tell me you did, so I can stop thinking about that sweet little dog with those big brown eyes sitting in that cage.

My Word, 2010 Edition

Last year I choose a word for the year instead of a resolution. I love how that worked out last year. The Lord taught me many things through the study and focus on the word ‘Courage’. I think I will write up a recap of my courageous year perhaps later in the week.

I have been pondering and praying over what my word for 2010 should be.



I choose ‘encourage’ because it occurred to me how encouraging words are like a balm to my soul, like food to the starving or water to the thirsty.

When I’ve had, for instance, another mother tell me something positive about my children it makes up for an entire day of hard parenting. When I have someone complement me on my writing or parenting or cooking (rare!) or whatever it may be, when it is specific and sincere it fills me up. It occurred to me that I’m probably not the only one who feels this way.

I think encouraging things all the time. I think the complements and the kind thoughts all the time but I don’t often verbalize them. I’m not sure why but I’ve given it some thought.

I think part of the reason I often don’t express encouragement is because I don’t want to seem arrogant. Like I’m the expert on parenting and I am deigning to offer you a token of praise for a job well done from the master. I don’t want to seem patronizing or like I have it all together myself. I don’t want to appear that I think myself the expert in whatever field I am encouraging someone else in. But as I was praying over this word I realized that I have never once been encouraged myself and taken it this way.

So this year I choose to be actively, verbally, encouraging; to my children, to my husband, to my extended family, to friends and acquaintances, and even to strangers on the street. I’m asking God to show me circumstances where I can use the courage he taught me about last year and do His work by speaking life into others with encouraging words.

After

I think I shall call this photo 'Anticipation'.



We hadn't even come downstairs yet. It was about 6ish in the morning. To say she was excited would be an understatement.

This next photo we shall call 'The Aftermath'



And this next photo shall be called 'Since Then' because that pretty much sums up my attire since then.



Also, I think someone needs to make it law that Christmas is from now on and forever, to be followed by a weekend.

That is all.

Marry Christmas from the Hilltop

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.







May you all have a blessed Christmas and be surrounded by those you love, and maybe even a little snow.

In case you're wondering...

...where I have disappeared too.



I'm under here. I may be out sometime after Christmas.