Random Thoughts

I've not posted since Thanksgiving. Nothing, day to day, seems big enough to post about. My life is pretty boring these days, it seems to me. But, I'm still addicted to seeing my kids' posts.

Speaking of which, I just read Erin's post about the receptionist at the doctors office who wouldn't even let her make an appointment for poor, sick Austin. I say, why not? If she didn't pay the bill when she got there like she said she would, then don't let her see the dr. But, if she does, then all would be well. It's not nice to say this, but I hope Erin told the dr. and she got in SOME trouble at least. That just seems so extreme. I know it's a business and there are rules, but it is a DOCTOR's office, after all. You know, a place one needs for HEALING! It's not like Erin was shopping for an extra pair of shoes and they wouldn't let her buy more until she paid for the ones she already had. And, insuance is sad. Maybe a new president can do something about the sad state of American healthcare.

I'm sad. My BFF Marsha has breast cancer. She had surgery yesterday and will find out the results of some pathology next week. I want to hug her, kiss her and make it all GO AWAY. But, I can't. But, I believe in prayer and since "the fervent, effectual prayer of a rightous man (or woman) availeth much", I want to be pretty much perfect until she's out of the woods and better. However, I know that's not happening (my being perfect, that is) anytime soon. It's amazing how much your heart can hurt for those you love.

Michael didn't write today and I sure wish he had. Yesterday was his P-day and he didn't write, so I hoped he would today. I'm hoping he's just busy, busy, teaching himself silly. I hope he's not holed up in his apartment with his companion, sick with the flu or something. I hope he knows if he has a fever of 105.2 that it's dangerous. Does he even have a thermometer? I think that was something I got for his first aide kit I sent with him. But does he know a FEVER from a fever? I hope so. Or, I hope his companion does, if he doesn't.

This has been one of those weeks I hate. You know, the ones where EVERY night after work you have somewhere to go and something to do, when all you want to do is go home and put on your pajamas and curl up on the couch, or in bed and just BE? I don't know how General Authorities and Bishops and Relief Society and Stake Presidents do it. I don't know how mothers of young children do it, even though I was one once for quite a while.

Christmas is 26 days away. I don't think I've ever been so NOT ready. I have done pitifully little shopping. I wish I were like Erin, who by now, probably has bought all of her kids Christmas gifts and already knows what she'll bake/make/take to friends/family/foes. I hate shopping more and more and really hate the mall. But, I love to give gifts. Hmm...that does present a challenge.

Nate and Stacy had a 3D ultrasound of Gus this week. Nate stopped by my office to bring me something yesterday and had the DVD they made of it andI got to watch 15 minutes of my next grandbaby. He looks so big and mature already and it's hard to believe he still has 2 months to grow. I feel like I know him already. It is so cool to see those pictures.

There's a lot of sadness around me right now. People I know with problems. Real problems. But, as I read the scriptures and associate with really great people, I'm reminded of how good life really is and how blessed I am and have been my entire life. We've been asked to fast this weekend for moisture for our valley and snow to fall in Eastern Utah/Western Colorado. I feel privileged to do this. It's funny, right before Stake Conference, when Pres. Davie asked the people of our stake to fast for moisture, I was thinking that I was surprised it hadn't come to that already. Like, that very week. I thought, "I wonder how much rain/snow we'd get if all the good people in this valley 1) prayed for water and 2) repented in their personal lives to be worthy of the blessing we desire.

We haven't heard anything about Garrett for the past couple of days and I'm going through update withdrawal. I hope he's ok, and I believe he probably is, just working his little butt off in therapy. I hope Jodie and Jessica and Colby and Devin are all ok,too.

It's 11:05 and I need to go to bed so I can get up at 5:30 in the morning and go to work.
This isn't much of a post, not really entertaining. Just random thoughts.

Today I'm Thankful For... (in no particular order)

1) Garrett's doing as well as he is.
2) Living in America.
3) Being born in 1955, not 1755, and the technology and advancements that make life good.
4) Being blessed to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and all the blessings that go along with that. Knowing the truths that make life easier to deal with.
5) Having a home that has heat, cooling, clean, running & flushing water and electricity.
6) Being able to go to a grocery store and get whatever I want. I've never had to be hungry because there was no food. Ever.
7) Having a good job.
8) Having 5 fantastic kids.
9) Having 9, soon to be 11, fantastic grandkids.
10) Having friends & family that love me.
11) Health insurance.
12) Being married.
13) Having cars to drive.
14) Being ABLE to drive.
15) My heritage.
16) Having a missionary son.

This is by no means an all inclusive list. I could list many more, but will spare you my blubbering. But a lot of things have happened in the past week (and continue to come to my attention) that just makes me SO grateful and thankful for my blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I don't have much to say today, but I do want to keep a fairly regular posting going. Just so those of you who sit on the edge of your seat waiting to see which words of wisdom I'll spew forth won't be disappointed! NOT!!!

I saw Oprah yesterday (between making soup for dinner). Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks are in a new movie coming out in a little while. I love them both and hope the movie isn't rated R. They are both just so stinkin' cute and funny and NICE, I get the feeling.

Speaking of soup, I made the soup my brother made for me. So, the story of this soup is 1) it's really good and 2) it is made with beer. Yes, beer. I had to go to the store and buy a beer. I haven't done that in 32 years and I felt WEIRD. Not guilt, but WEIRD. It's delicious, I think. The soup, not the beer! Creamy, cheesy, chicken-y, bacon-y and BEER-y. Not that you can taste the beer, and really, having made it once, I could probably leave it out and no one will notice. But, I had to make it according to the recipe the first time. My co-workers were giving me a seriously bad time at work when I told them I had to go buy a can of beer for this soup. I only needed 8 oz. and I only could find a 32 oz can, so I poured out 24 oz. That might be sacrilige to some people, but I felt totally good about that! And, I hope it wasn't wrong in any way, but the reason I was making the big pot of soup was because I had company for dinner...the missionaries! I didn't tell them they were eating soup made with beer. You know the alcohol was all cooked out, but I didn't want to traumatize them. And, I have to say, the dinner rolls I made for dinner turned out as well as any rolls I've ever made. Toot, toot!

Tonight, I'm headed to the store to buy stuff for last minute food baskets for our ward and a R.S. Pres. meeting where we'll be putting on the fnishing touches or our Progressive Dinner were having on Dec. 5.

I would be totally amiss if I didn't say a HUGE THANK YOU to Heavenly Father for blessing Garrett as much as He has so far. I LOVE getting Jessica's myspace updates every day (thanks so much, Jerolyn!) and it's just amazing to me how well he's doing. I hope I could be that positive if anything on that scale ever happened to me.

And, since I'm watching Oprah, I'm going to have to totally buy the Josh Groban Christmas CD. I guess he has one, he's singing Silent Night and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and is TOTALLY putting me in the Christmas spirit. I LOVE CHRISTMAS music. I'll be seriously bummed if there's not a CD this music would be on. Wait, YES THERE IS. It's called NOEL. Cool! I just hope all the lyrics are sung in English!

Erin is gone. I miss her. I miss her posts and just knowing I CAN'T talk to her if I want to. And, because she's gone, I do. And, Sarah is going to be gone this weekend, too. Bummer for me, Thanksgiving wise, but I know my girls and their familes are going to be having FABULOUS Thanksgivings this year and that's a good thing.

Gotta run. Good Luck to me (nod to Kenzie, there).

Friday night

It's Friday night. Normally by now I would have been home from work for 3 hours and vegging in front of the TV. But...today after work, Howard and I met some old friends from our old ward, the Ledfords for dinner and some coworkers joined us. A co-worker, Jackie, and I were talking one day and turns out that she knows Jan Ledford. So, one thing led to another and we all got together for cheap ribs @ the Ellis Island cafe on Koval. The price was right and the company was good.

Stacy called and is taking Sarah and Tyler to a craft show. Howard has $20 in his pocket. I said, "buy something cute. You can never have enough cute". He said, "uhm, we'll see." I said, "we should have rule...any time we buy a new cute, we have to get rid of an old cute". He said, "I think we've had this conversation before. It didn't work then, either". Kind of funny. I really think I could get rid of some of the older "cute" stuff, but maybe not. We do love some of our old cute stuff, especially Christmas cute stuff. Especially the CUTE snowman stuff. Our kids have called "dibs" on some of our stuff, but I keep telling them by the time we die, our stuff won't be cute to them anymore, they'll just think it's old crap that Mom and Dad had forever.

Tomorrow we're (our Bermuda ward R.S. Presidency) is doing a birthday celebration for sisters in our ward that have birthdays this quarter. I'm making a chocolate bundt cake for it. I think 10-15 sisters will be there and hopefully it will be a fun time.

I am really glad that we got the positive, hopeful email from Jessika today, about Garrett. What a scary thing to have happened to him. I got some other bad news from a good friend last night that pretty much rang my bell and shook my world. I guess we need wake up calls once in a while to help us remember how grateful we are for our GOOD lives. BLESSED lives. Too bad we do. Wouldn't it be nice if we would always be so grateful as we are when something shakes us up. I try to work on that, I really do, but I fail sometimes.

We got a couple of really not-so-cute pieces of furniture for our house. Baby gates. Not for babies. For dogs. To keep them off the living room carpet. So they don't stain it. Because they can't seem to learn that's not what it's for. Got the carpets cleaned and put up the gates. We'll see how that works. It's a bother, but until we get stain resistant flooring, I guess this is our next best option.

I really don't have any fun stories or exciting news. My girls and Jerolyn can post like mad-women and I really don't have that gift. But, this is what I've got tonight.

Love you, FAB.

Garrett

Sarah has already posted about Garrett, and all of you know about it anyway, but I just feel I need to write SOMETHING to reflect a bit of what I'm feeling. It's hard to know where to begin. It's hard to know of something so serious happening to someone you love. I absolutely know that Heavenly Father will comfort Garrett, Jodie, Jessika, Colby, Devin and Mitch. I'm very happy to get to participate in a family fast for Garrett this Sunday. I'm praying for Jodie and her entire family to feel peace and get sme needed rest. I believe in the power of prayer and in miracles.

I love our family and how we all gather round and are supportive of each other at times like this. My co-worker heard me call Sarah and Erin and tell them what Howard had called to tell me and he made some comment and asked me if I was calling the "enforcements" or something like that. I said, "Shut up (with a smile). This is our family. This is what we do". He said, "Oh, I'm not critical. I think it's nice". And, I thought, this IS our family. We might go weeks or even months without speaking to any one person, but when serious things happen, we are supportive and caring. WE LOVE EACH OTHER. That brings me a lot of comfort.

There's no place like home

Not that I'm not having a great time in Louisville. I am. I have enjoyed the days of just being. Not having to be anywhere or doing anything. It's a relaxing thing. But, home is home for a reason and I'll be glad when I'm back tomorrow night.

I've been here since late Wed. night. My brother Gary worked on Thursday but didn't work Friday and doesn't have to go to work tomorrow, because he's going to Chicago for business. So, it's been great to spend time with him. The man is a cooking fool. It's a great joy (!) in his life, so he's always trying new recipes and has a pretty good collection of them. He'll spend 3 hours in the kitchen working on a dish. All day working on a meal. Seriously! I'm on warp speed in the kitchen and am all over the dishes I can make in 20 minutes or less. BIG difference in us. But, I'm bringing home a recipe for a soup that is amazing in how good it was. I'll be making it soon. It's thick and creamy and chicken-y. Most of you will get a chance to try it out.

And my sister-in-law Pam is MUCH better than the last time I saw her. She has many hours of lucidity and we've had some nice conversations. It's so good. She still spends lots of time sleeping, though, thanks to meds.

My nephew came to Louisville night before last. Life in Atlanta finally got to the point that he's not able to continue living there, so he's relocating here. He has to make a quick trip back on Tuesday, but is supposed to be back on Thursday.

I went to the temple on Saturday. It's BEATUIFUL. So strange. It's right next to the church. It's the small style and that was interesting, but it has all the "amenities" of any temple, so it's all good. Church today was a nice change of clean-air pace. Living with a chain smoker has not been without it challenge for me this week. It will be good to get into my clean air environment.

I've enjoyed myself. I'll be home tomorrow night and will be back to my normal life then. Later....

Fun Names

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet's name, car name)Patti Concorde.
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream/cookie)Chocolate Oreo
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME (first initial, first 3 letters of your last name) B-GAR
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color/animal) Purple Dog
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city you were born in)Ann Shreveport.
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) GAR-EL
7. SUPERHERO NAME:(”The” + your 2nd favorite color, your favorite drink)The Red Lime-Aide
8. NASCAR NAME:(the first names of your grandfathers) T (no name, just T)-Simeon
9. STRIPPER NAME:(the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent,favorite candy) Miracle Milky Way.
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother’s & father’s middle names ) Joyce Ramie.
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Seattle Smith.
12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Christmas Daffodil.
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)Pineapple Shirt-y.
14. HIPPIE NAME: Smoothie Mimosa.
15. YOUR ROCK STAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”) The Quilting Snow Tour.

Two weeks since

I blogged. I know. Can't say why, except I just didn't feel like I had much to say that was worth writing about or that anyone would care to read about. Not like "ideal pooping condiditons" or stuff like that.

I'm on my way this AM to SLC for my BFF Marsha's daughter, Megan's wedding. I'm happy to be going. I KNOW by tonight I'm going to be missing going on up to Idaho for he reception tomorrow night. But, I'll be home tonight, in my own bed. Kinda weird. I've never flown anywhere and back in one day before. But, next Wed. I fly to Louisville, KY to see my brother.

And, not that I'd do it, but I checked and Louisville, KY is only about 425 miles from Roanoke, VA. A good day's drive of about 7 hours. Freeway pretty much the entire way. Too bad. I wouldn't ever do that to Mike, though.

And, those of you who know how I love to take "notes". Yeah, took a big one last night in Sarah's driveway. I took a suitcase over to her. Can't explain how it happened. Had the suitcase in my hand and was walking up her driveway and all of a sudden I was stumbling....stumbling...catch yourself...nooooo.....I'm going down...AGAIN!...THUD...And I'm down. Hit both palms and the left knee pretty good and chipped the freshly done nail job, jolted neck pretty good, but drew no blood and I hopped up and just couldn't believe what had just happened. Really, when I die and I get to see my life, I think I'll have to re-wind a few of these just to see HOW IN THE WORLD that happens. I mean, really, I have been walking for 51 years. Whatever. It sucks. But, I was SO grateful to not have hurt myself so I had to miss the trip today.

Well, I've got to get to the airport. Today is going to be a long day. I get in SLC @ 11:00 or so, the wedding isn't until 2:20. Dinner at the Lion House @ 5:00 and then, I don't fly out until 9:00. Lots of sitting around, I think.