7 Quick Takes

It is Friday again and time for 7 Quick Takes. I love doing these. So let the fun begin!! To see more quick takes, visit Conversion Diary

1. Why am I posting my pregnancy stories? I vividly remember being pregnant and terrified that something awful would happen. In those times, God put someone in my path who had been in a similar situation and things had turned out ok. It is my hope and prayer that I might do the same for someone else.

2. After bedtime, Junior came into the living room visibly upset. He said he had pulled the whiskers off of Daisy's plaster/plastic/not-alive rabbit. He said he deserved a spanking. Looking at his face, I could tell he was punishing himself enough.

Instead I explained grace.

It is such a privilege to watch this little boy grow up and see him grow into a godly young man.

3. Daisy came in to tell us that Junior was complaining of a stomach ache and wouldn't stop crying and apologizing. She was worried about her brother who had just broken something special of hers.

I just have to say, my kids are awesome.

4. Daisy thinks maybe her tooth fairy died. I think maybe its the flu that is going through the tooth fairy town. (I am not sure if she still believes or is just playing along). So Tamara Tooth Fairy really needs to visit tonight.

If she doesn't forget again.

5. I am the new Scholastic coordinator for our homeschool group. This is something I am really excited about and am really going to enjoy.

I just wonder about those questionable books. There are some books that cause some contraversy (like the Golden Compass books) and I don't want to censor. I just wonder if someone orders a book that I have heard some debate on, if I should let the person ordering know.

There is a book out now called Conversations with God that is being pushed by Oprah and other things. Apparently this book is not Biblically based even though you might think it was. So if you ordered this for your teen, would you want me to call and let you know about the contraversy (not wanting to censor, just to let people know they may want to pre-read)? What do you think?

6. I am still working on the youth fair recipe posts. I will hopefully get them up sometime on friday.

7. I rented The Princess Bride and My Fair Lady for Daisy and me. Junior enjoyed Princess Bride even though he didn't want to. He hates My Fair Lady. Daisy is enjoying both of them although she thinks they sing too much in My Fair Lady. She also thought that about The King and I and any other musical we have watched.

Maybe it is because her mom is prone to breaking out in song for no apparent reason.

Her mom is also prone to making up songs like "I know something you don't know" sung to the tune of Camptown Races.

I did it !

Well I finally was able to walk/jog the entire 20 minutes(plus walking for 5 min as a warm up). So the total distance was about 2 miles.

It is probably pretty funny watching me on my walk/jog. I have my dogs following me, and the neighbor dogs running along too. So I can have 5 or 6 dogs going back and forth with me. Then today my kids went along too on their bicycles. I just need a marching band to go with me.

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We took Daisy to the eye dr about her contacts - with the littles, they like to follow up in 2 weeks to see how they are doing. They were very impressed with how well she has done. The first day on taking them out she needed some help, she wasn't sure if they were out or in and she didn't have a close up mirror yet. Other than that, she has needed no help.

And she has worn them everyday except when she was at camp (she didn't want them falling in the mud.)

Honestly she does better than I do.

I made a 1 year prescription last 5 years. To be fair, I didn't wear contacts most of those five years (they are the disposable ones).

How our family grew to a family of three -- part III

Tonight at church we were discussing when we felt closest to God. What time was it when we clung to Him.

While I would love to say that my walk with Him is wonderful and close every day, I have to confess that it's not. I would love for it to be true, especially if that meant I didn't have to go through trying times.

My pregnancies remain the longest time I clung to God with every fiber of my being. I had no choice. Clinging to Him was what kept me sane and somewhat at peace.

If you missed the previous installments here they are Part I and Part II

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I suppose I should confess, I really wanted to kick those women who would smile and serenely say "I just loved being pregnant." The urge is gone now, and I truly am glad for them. I just really didn't want to hear it when I was pregnant.

After my surgery, I thought I could go back to work. First day on the job though, I started cramping so that was it. I was home for the rest of the pregnancy.

I still had to take it easy, but wasn't on bedrest. We would go out to our favorite restaurant where someone delighted in telling people I was pregnant with twins.

Until I threatened her.

Then she stopped.

I was overweight before I got pregnant. Then on bedrest, there was little to do besides eat and read. So I gained more than I wanted to know. Plus, I am one of those that carries big so I did look like I could be carrying twins, or more. sigh

I never had any braxton-hicks contractions. I wanted to, I was curious. But I got the real thing. I don't remember exactly when they started but sometime around the beginning of the 3rd trimester I was having problems with preterm labor.

Contractions would start, not painful but noticeable. I would go to the hospital, be hooked up to the monitors. Then I would get an injection to stop labor, and when things calmed down, would go home. As a side note, Daisy had hiccups alot and it was cute to hear those on the monitor.

I would be given terbutaline to stop the contractions. That stuff makes coffee look like a sedative! We went for breakfast after one of the hospital trips and I was too jittery to finish my breakfast. That's bad when a pregnant woman is too jittery to eat.

After about 3 trips to the hospital, I was put on terbutaline pills to stop the contractions. I had to take it every 3 hours. Even at night. But it was worth it, I got used to it, and it seemed to get better again.

Things mostly calmed down for a bit.

Oh, except we moved.

Isn't that exactly what you want to do when you are 7 months pregnant?

Luckily, my family drove up to help and got us moved in one weekend. I would unpack a box then go and rest. Then unpack another.

And so it went until things were unpacked. Things were uneventful until the few days before I was to give birth.

to be continued Part IV

pheww!!!

Do you remember this post where I stated that I was going to post on whether or not I worked out, because embarrassment would make me work out?

Or how about this one where I promised I would get back to working out on Monday, January 26?

Oops.

With all that has been going on, and me being a stress eater, I have added a few pounds. Only about 4 and I caught myself which is progress for me.

So I started working out again, not using the Wii yet (because it's gonna fuss at me, both programs). But I've started the Couch to 5K program.

Sort of.

Since I am sooooooooooo out of shape, I am modifying the first week or so. Day 1 I walked for 25 minutes, day 2 I walked for 5 and then did the walk/jog like they recommend but only for 10 minutes, and did that again today.

It is only supposed to be 3 days a week, but since I haven't done a full day yet . . . .

I just finished a workout. So right now, I am contemplating death.

I watch the Biggest Loser, and there is the one girl Tara who will slow down her workouts to throw up and then go back to it.

I can't push myself that hard. I get queasy and slow down.

But we have a family trip to the beach this summer.

Which means a swimsuit.

sigh

So I have got to push myself harder.

bigger sigh

In case you are wondering, I am a bookworm

This is something I saw floating around Facebook so I thought I would look at it. Its official. I am a bookworm.

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. That's disturbing.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read, italicize those you want to read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -- I've read parts but not all
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding I tried so hard to read this one, it is one of the few I hated
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tart
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Well, I have read 34 of them. According to the BBC figures, I have read almost as much as 6 people.

I may just add some of these to my 9/9/9 challenge. Any that you really loved that I haven't read yet?

how differences can work for us

After the first day of competition we went to a late breakfast at Ihop and Daisy wanted to try something new, so she got the cheese omelet. She really liked it, but was interested in trying one of the fancier omelets (specifically the spinach and mushroom with hollandaise sauce, yep my kids eat weird).

I told her that her dad makes awesome omelets. So while he was telling her how (cuz she asked), I started thinking about our drastically different cooking styles.

Hubby excels at stuff like omelets, chicken fried steak, one pot "throw togethers," hamburgers and stuff like that.

My omelets look like scrambled egg, I am doing better at the throw togethers but its not my comfort zone.

But I made my first loaf of yeast white bread at 13 (Mom was out of town and Dad had no idea what a mess it would make). Baking is still one of my favorite ways to cook.

Until recently a good portion of the meals I cooked used pasta in some way (hubby didn't really like pasta that much in the beginning).

I do stuff with the odd tools in the kitchen, I do canning, pressure cooking, and alot of stuff in the crock-pot.

I love experimenting with new recipes. Hubby will look up a few versions of a recipe and then go in the kitchen and make something up.

These drastically different cooking styles are great when looking at our kids. Hubby can teach them how to flip stuff in the pan (he says he can teach me too) and I can teach them how to bake, not just following the recipe but if it looks right.

I can teach them how to make an amazing homemade gravy (hubby uses a mix) but he can teach them how to do the chicken fried steak.

By the time we have taught our kids what we each know, they will be amazing in the kitchen and will hopefully be fearless.

And that is one way differences can work for us and not against us. What about you?

I messed up the feed

Ok, I am feeling a little uncomfortable about having to post this. I am just picturing people saying "but why on earth would anyone want to subscribe to her feed." But I know there are some others who have subscribed and they aren't getting the updates because I am a dork. (that dates me doesn't it).

I thought I would try using feed burner because I found it may have some features that I thought was cool.

Now I can't remember what they were, but I seem to be stuck with feedburner for now. Despite my computer geek tendencies, this is something that I don't understand.

What I didn't realize was that everyone who had subscribed to my blog would no longer get updates.

Ok, I don't know what I was thinking.

Clearly it was stupid.

And very aggravating.

So I am going to send this through the old feed (I hope) and then if you don't see an update in a couple of days, try going to my blog.

So if you have subscribed to my feed and it has been saying that I haven't updated in like 5 weeks (until today), that's why. Apparently that also applies to the blog roll things and such through blogger.

The only way I can figure out to fix the problem is if you re-subscribe to my feed. sigh I am sorry, if I could fix this on my own, I would.

I will put the settings back on feedburner tonight or tomorrow or Feedburner may fix itself again.

SIGH

How our family grew to a family of three - part II

My baby girl is gone to church camp for the first time and we are missing her dreadfully. In honor of that, I thought I would do the next installment (don't worry there aren't that many on how we grew to a family of 3. I don't think there will be anyway.

In case you missed it and want to read it here is part I.

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So I went back to work, thrilled and sure it would be an easy pregnancy. We told the granparents-to-be who were all delighted, although my father kept saying he was too young to be a grandfather.

Then one morning there was spotting.

I immediately panicked and called the Dr. and insisted that I thought I was miscarrying and I needed to be seen.

That was another terrifying drive to his office. Another ultrasound and the baby is fine. It must just be some of the first-trimester spotting that sometimes happen. But then I got an exam.

The doctor found an incompetent cervix which means when the baby got big enough, there would be a miscarriage. The baby essentially starts to fall out. Normally it is only found after one or two miscarriages and I am not sure why I was blessed enough to have it found before I lost a baby.

There is a procedure called a cerclage, where the cervix is sewn shut but it can't be done until 12 weeks and I was around 8. So I was put on strict bedrest. I was allowed to go to the dr weekly, I cheated and went by the church library afterwards and would check out a stack of books and I was allowed to go to the bathroom.

Bedrest sounds lovely . . . until you have it.

And being alone with your thoughts when you know that there is a good chance that the baby that you love won't make it . . . was hard.

I am so grateful to God though. I had . . . wandered away from Him after high school and in the year or two before this He had been wooing me back to Him. In this time I clung to Him and my faith grew so much deeper. When fear would rise, which happened often, I would quote Jeremiah 29:11 and the assurance that somehow HE would make it alright in the end even if my baby died.

New Years Eve 1998 I had my surgery that, I thought, would make the pregnancy go perfectly. The surgery went well, no complications, not a whole lot of discomfort.

I really thought that I would have a smooth pregnancy after it.

Silly me.

To be continued Part III

7 Quick Takes Friday

I Enjoy 7 Quick Takes especially when I am tired and my brain isn't functioning as well. Which means I am even flakier than usual.

1. We did County Youth Fair this week, it was something I had never done or seen before so it was a learning experience for all of us. I am glad that it went as well as it did, but glad its over. I am not going to procrastinate until the last minute again this year.

Stop laughing!

2. Daisy placed 3rd in Desserts category with Pineapple Bread Pudding. This stuff is good and has no raisins. We also found out that she could have entered more than one category. Since she had to make a loaf of french bread anyway, she could have entered that into the yeast bread category. Oh well. I will post a recipe with directions and pictures later.

3. Junior is absolutely thrilled with his blue ribbon for his applesauce bread. I was able to observe his interview and could see him describe using the microplane to grate nutmeg. He didn't know what the spice was or the tool, but he did the movements like he was grating it and I heard him say "and it smells really strong!" They don't give placement to the peewees, but there was only 2 peewees with bread anyway.

Yep, this is the same recipe that Daisy won 1st place at her first 4-H Food and Nutrition contest. It's one of my great-grandmother's recipes and she was an amazing cook. She would be thrilled to see her great-great-grandkids cooking from her recipes. I will post the recipe with pictures later. I just don't feel like getting my camera.

4. Daisy is on her first ever camp without a parent. (We went girl scout camping but I went along for that). She is so extremely excited. She left today and comes back Sunday after church. It is going to be a long weekend for Junior and I (Hubby will be working most of the weekend.) As we drove way from the church where we dropped her off Junior sighed and said "I am going to miss Sissy."

5. With her being gone for the weekend, I thought Junior and I could do some fun stuff, BUT he woke up this morning with his eyes glued shut so he should probably stay home. So I may spend the weekend playing the Wii.

6. We did rabbit show this morning. Ugh. We had to be there at 6:45. We don't do mornings like that. But we made it, we were the 2nd ones there. Nearly froze, but we were there. I want a nap though.

7. There were 21 kids competing with the rabbits, the top 12 went to sale. Daisy's pen was ranked 14. The shape and all were good, they were just seriously undersized. They needed about 1 more pound on them - they need to be as close to 5 pounds as possible, so one pound off is a huge deal. Daisy is fine with her results, she didn't want them to go to auction because of her church trip which starts before the auction. All in all we are pleased with how the rabbits did, apparently we have good genetics.

Mistaken identity

I just found Missy blog "It's Almost Naptime." She has the funniest post RIGHT HERE.

It got me to thinking about a case of mistaken identity that happened several years ago here. Daisy was about 3 and she wanted some lotion on her feet. So she carried a tube in to her daddy. He assumed that she knew what it was, and so just applied it to her feet.

A few minutes later she came to me, horrified, because the skin was peeling off her feet.

It didn't hurt, but she was sure that it wasn't supposed to happen that way.

Daisy, being 3, couldn't read and thought it was lotion. Her daddy didn't bother to read it but probably wouldn't have known what a "peel off mask" was anyway.

I don't think they teach that in auto mechanics.

Because I need some funny

I need to giggle and I don't want my blog to have people running for their antidepressants.

So I thought I know, I will post one of my most embarrassing moments.

Sometimes God has a sense of humor and puts opposites together, for example I have never seen hubby embarrassed. I still blush easily.

Before we had kids, we had gone to the store to get some things. I had been on antibiotics for a sinus infections and had gotten one of those lovely followup infections.

I have to get a few things in the basket before I get that little box (which is way bigger than it needs to be) and put it, face down, under some of the other items.

So we then finish our shopping and go to check out.

Hubby is one of those math people that likes to keep a running total in their head and then giving what the total is before the checkout person. He used to be able to add the tax in his head too but now he just gives and estimate that is usually fairly accurate.

This time his estimate was off, by about $13. He puzzled over it and then he remembered the box.

"OH, it was your yeast infection medication! How much is yeast infection medication?"

Loudly.

Very loudly.

All I could do is hiss "Will you shut up!"

I lived.

He never did that again.

I knew February would be a crazy month

I just didn't realize what a difficult month it would be.

And it's only half over.

I have had the usual minor problems. Stupid and inconvenient things like burning my hand (nearly better by the way, except for the peeling). Hassles like illnesses and immunizations.

Then there has been the stuff that has me on my knees, a friends dad's fight with cancer, a friend's husband's diagnosis of cancer, a mentor's cancer returning.

Today I found out that someone that I have been friends with for a long time, our parents are friends, suddenly passed away. She left behind 2 small children (about the ages of mine) and her parents are in failing health. She was 36.

She had sent me an email - one of those forwards - and I was going to send her an email back, after . . . the wedding or youth fair or when I had a chance to think.

I always think there is more time later.