Feeling a bit better again

Today is Monday.  I'm feeling just a bit better than I have all week.  Now if I can just get rid of this sinus headache!  It's a drag.

As long as I don't do much except sit or lay around, I don't seem to wheeze or cough- I find this annoying, as I can see all the things that need to be done that aren't getting done.

So I'm back into family history to help make the time more accountable.  I'm learning a LOT.  I've taken the Blair family back into Ireland 2 generations, but have really hit a brick wall with Wendell's grandfather Grove- I have NO idea where he came from or what his real name was.  I say that because he and his twin sister were on one census using an alias- the surname Neel.  Go figure!  Everyone leaves some kind of paper trail, but Grandpa Grove was very tidy about his.

I need a copy of his birth certificate, but he was born in 1865 in Jefferson County PA and those records are on microfilm in the "mines".  I don't even know what name to request~ Grove or Neel?  Acckkkk

He certainly is an enigma if anyone ever was.

Huh?

I thought I was 'over the hump' with my cold.. I was feeling so much better when suddenly, I seem to have had a horrific relapse- enough so that I got out my home nebulizer and gave myself a treatment with Xopenex.  I'm still wheezing and coughing.  I'm wondering if I need an antibiotic ... I have slept all day nearly for long long stretches and still feel wiped out. 
I know my medical insurance has been reinstated, but I haven't been billed yet.  I need to see the doctor to have my lungs assessed.  UGH.

Geocaching

I think I may have found another fun thing for hubby and me to do- geocaching.  There are many caches near our house.. gotta go hunting..  as soon as he's up to it.

Foto Friday

Our next Foto Friday challenge is RAINBOW- gotta go catch me a rainbow..hmmmm

FOTO FRIDAY- STRIPES

It's Friday, and that means we upload all our photos we took this past week that reflect the topic which was STRIPES ! I became keenly aware that I live in a world of stripes.. everywhere I look..

 I'd been wondering what made these striped footprints in the snow, so I took a walk outside to find out.  Deer.. little ones with little hooves.  I think they drag their feet.

 The back porch is nothing but lines or stripes, and when the sun shines, even more shadows appear in stripes.

 Our porch flooring is stripes of every kind.

 I've saved the best for last.. I am a patriot.  Our guest room is in the process of being a reflection of our American heritage.

In my office, there are bookshelves with stripes of books on the shelves.
Please join us on Rebecca's blog for Foto Friday- the more the merrier!

more grammar...

If you'd prefer not to hear my latest rant, feel free to skip today.  I again am struggling with another mis-use of terms.

THEIR

THERE

I was really confused trying to read "Will you take your kids their today?"  Huh?  Take their what?  and on the heels of that faux pas, I found myself scratching my head at the notion that "their is no way I'd take there book."

It's even hard to type incorrectly.. you can imagine how this grates.

PLEASE.. try to get it together.

There is an adverb-

: in or at that place —often used interjectionally

2: to or into that place : thither

3: at that point or stage

4: in that matter, respect, or relation

5—used interjectionally to express satisfaction, approval, encouragement or sympathy, or defiance

See there defined for English-language learners »

THEIR is an adjective- and possessive
1: of or relating to them or themselves especially as possessors, agents, or objects of an action


2: his or her : his, her, its —used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent  
Gotta get some coffee...

Viruses R Us... yuck

Wendell is feeling a bit green.  He's got my cold and sounds worse than usual.  Tonight he has gone to bed early so he can hook up his oxygen and rest.
Tomorrow he is to get his 2nd round of Synvisc in his knees and then see his endocrinologist about his diabetes. 
We shall see how he does tomorrow.
I'm doing just a bit better, thankfully.  It's bad when one of us is ill, but the thought of both of us down at the same time is frightening.
Hopefully I'll have the energy to clean up around here tomorrow.  I can't believe I haven't done a thing since last Wednesday.  One thing at a time..
I had to run out yesterday because we were totally out of cat food, and Thomas was getting a bit frantic... can't blame him much.
Tomorrow I hope I can put in some dinners so we can get back on our portion control diet.  We were doing so well with that and somehow got sidetracked.

Gentle snow is falling..

Grammar..a forgotten art

I love Facebook.  It's a way to communicate with my family quickly and efficiently.  It also has opened the door to new friendships and finding folks who need prayer and who want to pray for me also. 

But that's not what this post is about today.  It's about how people write to be understood.  For me, I feel like a fingernail is being scratched across a blackboard when I read and try to comprehend what others are writing.. so I gotta complain.  Brace yourself, I'm approaching my soapbox.
Let's talk about the words YOUR and the contraction YOU'RE.  I can bearly stand the way these 2 words are interchanged..
"YOUR" is possessive~ it's YOUR book, YOUR post, YOUR dinner.  Got it?
Now , YOU'RE is the contraction of 2 words, YOU and ARE.  It means just that "you are".
~You're beautiful, You're on the wrong side, You're the leader. 
It makes no sense whatsoever to confuse these two terms~ You are book, you are dinner, you are post.  Eh?  Or Your beautiful (what?)  , Your on the wrong side (?) (your what is on the wrong side?) , Your the leader (who?)  So let's get this straight.. Your is always possessive.. You're is always a subject and verb (you, are).. think before you write.

Okay, I know I posted on this before, but it looks like it's getting under my skin again, so I'm gonna put this out one more time.
Two is a number- it tells me how many numerically.
(Two cents, two boys, two cars, etc)
Too is an adjective and also can mean 'also'.
(I want to go 'too')  If you wrote this with the connecting 'to', you would have to tell me where you want to go.  (I want to go to....where?)  It's a preposition.
I assume most folks get the 'two' right, but if one could just get the 'too' right, the other 'to' would be the correct option.
(too many, too much, too full, too red)
Okay?
I feel better.
I spotted another word today that grated my ears- boarded.  The person was trying to say that a property bordered another one, but instead, told me it boarded the property.  Can you see how confusing this could be?  It took me about 4 full reads through the article to grasp what they were trying to communicate.  UGH.

trying out a new template

That red was a bit much.. I think I like this one better..

I just heard on the news we are to get another inch of snow.. Ugh.  I'm not fond of snow- it's a miserable 4 letter word.

A new color here...

I really want to make this  be seen- I wonder if this size font is too much?

End of Jan 2011

January 2011 seemed to come fast and now, we are in the final week.. and what do I have to show for it? Have I redeemed my time well?
This seems to have been a fairly good month, though quite cold. We tried to get gas for house heating and cooking, but the company says we have to be at 20% before they will come to move the huge tank and refill them. So I watch the tank gauge daily- it's between 35-30% yet. The one tank is leaning heavily on our deck. It had been leaning on the vinyl siding of our house, but we had them come and pull it away only for it to move another direction. Ugh. I don't know what these tanks weigh, but they put them in with a crane, so I imagine this is not going to be a simple task.
January brought us our Christmas gift from the Vulhops- a visit to the theatre and Mary Poppins. That was SOOOOOOOOO fun!
Annabelle became 4, Daniel became 10, Amy had a birthday :)
and Charlie's birthday is the end of the month- 28th.
I caught my first cold in many years, and true to form, the biggest wimp around. What a whiner! I need to get over this and get on with life.
Yesterday we ran totally out of cat food for Thomas. It took me till mid afternoon to get myself moving enough to go for a bag of Meow Mix.. his favorite. After that, I just couldn't seem to get anything else in order. It's the cold I tell ya.. I've lost 4#.
Not a big deal, but for the week, I guess it is. Drinking tea, gingerale, coffee, water.. juices.. not really hungry.
Looking forward to getting back to the pool at the YMCA.. tired of paying for my membership and not using it.
Unfortunately, it looks like Wendell is coming down with my cold. :( Not happy about that, as he NORMALLY coughs hard with his COPD. He does have home oxygen and I suspect when this thing gets full blown, he'll be sleeping more and that means with the CPAP on and the O2 bled in the line as well.
Today he's chilling and wanting the furnace turned up.
I think it's time for breakfast.. not a heavy one today.. toast and eggs and fruit.
.

FOTO FRIDAY, Spots

So glad to have Rebecca back at Renaissance, and with her comes the weekly FOTO FRIDAY. I wanted to join in, and I'd welcome you to do the same. This past week's topic was SPOTS.

Oops! Annabelle left her new shoes at my house. Lots of spots here.. :)

I was washing dishes when I noticed how the suds make spots too..

Peas.. cold buttered peas.. they were good, but I prefer the GREEN frozen or fresh ones rather than canned.

I have to admit, I have been the queen of spots all my life as a redhead, I have all the freckles anyone could ever desire. Trouble was, I tried to take a picture of them, and they seem to be melted together or something. Hmmm Oh, well...

Will be watching for STRIPES this week..

My dad's birthday

It is January 23rd, what would have been my dad's 96th birthday. WHEW! That would have been a lot of years had his life not been cut short at the age of 62. Along with 2 of my 3 siblings, I have passed that age and think that despite crazy chronic problems we all have, we may just follow in our mother's footsteps. She lived to be 89.
Dad had a history of 'rheumatism' , or at least that's what he said, and was likely so, as he had a mitral commisurotomy when he was in his 50s. He got through that without remembering the bad times, and when he got to that point where he felt better, he told others it was a 'piece of cake'.. I don't think so.

My dad was an inventor. His last thing he worked on was a car battery run chain saw sharpener. I really must get the info again on the item he worked on for the automobile ignition that he missed the boat for his patent by a matter of days. It revolutionized the ignition of cars.
My dad was brilliant. Sorry I didn't inherit that part of his brain, though I do see certain things in his life that I reflect- like being a chocoholic.. oh yeah. Addicted for life.
(note to self: need to buy a LOT of Hershey bars before price goes to $30/bar)
Both of my parents loved to play games. They both did crossword puzzles and had a book to help them with difficult words. yeah... they did the really hard ones in the newspaper and could actually finish them.
I like word games a lot- I have several books to prevent alzheimers from setting in any time soon. I make myself do these puzzles, or I go to the computer and do 'search and find' puzzles because it makes me use my brain.
I remember that we were the only kids in the neighborhood who actually owned a horse and rode all over the place. ( to self: I'm also the only kid in the neighborhood to get thrown off a horse into a locust tree.. ouch!)
Fun summers.. my dad knew how to have fun! Stilts.. now, let's see a show of hands here: how many of you have ever had your father make you a pair of stilts, and actually walk with them?
I never mastered those stilts, but my dad could walk with them..
One day he made us a ring toss game with a piece of plywood and nails. He put scores under each nail and gave us a handfull of canning jar rubber ring seals to toss. We all got in on that game and it lasted forever.!
And while I'm thinking about this, I also remember a golf game he made for us.. He took old tuna cans, dug a hole to situate them level with the ground.. then whittled a "ball" from a branch from a tree. Now, this wasn't a round ball, it had points on either side.. Then he made us clubs out of tree branches and we were off. Lots of exercise running after our 'ball' all over the field.
I could probably go on and on and on.. Maybe Jane or Bill or someone else might want to post what they remember about dad?
He was the only person I knew that was actually struck by lightning and survived, though burned.
If he were living today, I'd say.. "Happy birthday, Dad.. we had some great years"

I'm punying around...

I'm stayin' in bed. I've played on Facebook for a while, but just can't get 'into' it. I'm aching, sore, stuffed up, drippy nose, coughing and wheezing.. and.. and.... and......... I have a cold.
Thomas had the last of his food today, and I can't go out shopping the way I am right now. He'll manage on table scraps and milk.
Bills finally got written up and out to the box, but I'm not sure whether I beat the mailman or not. It just hasn't been a wonderful day all around today.. and I'm feeling 'thick headed' so that it would be just as well if I went and took a little (or big) nap.

Hope everyone else is having a better time..

I thought I'd feel better by now..

I took a long 'nap' this morning and into the afternoon. I've been up for an hour for the 2nd time today. I feel lousy.

It looks like we got about 5" snow, not much more than that. But it's really cold out there. 12*F right now, and the wind is blowing .. causing a wind chill of -1*F . I'm staying inside where it's warm, but had to check on Thomas who, I believe, hasn't been out of his box all day either. He was hungry. Getting low on Meow Mix.. will have to go out tomorrow for supplies for him at least. Wendell and I can manage over the weekend without groceries.

I need to get the bills paid tonite. We got paid on Wednesday, but I've been so sick I just can't get to it. UGH.
No word yet from the insurance company or the hospital rep.

On to other things...
Where is spring? !

uh oh

I woke up at about 3am coughing and all stuffed up. I decided to make a pot of coffee to apply something warm to my throat which is still sore. Feeling chilled, though it's warm in the house. My diagnosis would be sinusitis with post nasal drip causing the sore throat and cough. So far so good, but we shall see what the day brings forth.

Hopefully I'll hear from my insurance today and the verdict will be in my favor. It's hard to be patient, but I must do so.

Bill paying day today.. and I need some groceries.. but wonder if I'll go out. The snow storm came from the east yesterday for hours, but then moved from the west. There was about an inch on the back porch, but it appears more on the car. Maybe close to 2" , but certainly not more. I see the temperature is to be 2* Friday night... brrrrrrrrrrrr

Content

No whining tonight. I thought my throat was better, but it's started getting sore again. Blahhhhhh.

It is a lovely day.. lots happening here. Wendell saw the doctor and he again suggested that he have the gastric banding surgery. He's willing, but it can't be done locally.. so we wait.

In the mean time, I discovered that my insurance company had billed me erroneously, and I may get my insurance back retroactively. YAY! That would be such a blessing. No matter what happens, God is still in charge and reigns supreme in my life. He's cared for me this far, I have no doubt for my future.
So I am waiting to hear from either the hospital or the insurance company for word on the verdict.

We are having another snow storm today. We went from "in excess of 6" , to 3-6", and now 2-5". We already have an inch on the car.. so we shall see in the morning.

On to the rest of my evening..

Just a short whine....

Tonight I have a sore throat. I've been gargling with hypertonic salt water, but it's still hard to swallow. So now I have a cup of hot lemon tea in front of me..
any other home remedies ?

Mary Poppins

Our seats were the very back of the theater.. We could see perfectly and hear well too. This was so much fun~ can't wait to do it again!
Before the theater, we went to dinner~ another nice touch. Traffic was horrific from dinner to the theater. We actually missed the first scene of Act 1. But it was just fine. We loved the whole thing.

It was after I took the picture of the curtains that said "Mary Poppins" that one of the ushers tapped me on the shoulder and said 'No, pictures, please'.. so I tucked my camera in my purse at that point. Hope I don't get sued for putting my pictures here on my blog.

Last night was our annual Christmas gift from Keith and JJ. We have been doing this for several years now, but I think this one was about the best yet! We have gone to Soldiers and Sailors to see the Raleigh Ringers twice, and once to see the Messiah. Wendell was so impressed, he made the comment that he wouldn't mind going to see this one again.. hehehe. I'm so glad he liked it!

Annabelle and Hornacorn

He huffed and he puffed and he blew out all 10 candles with ease..

And then the chorus of singers serenaded Daniel with "Happy Birthday to YOU"

Papa Wendell lit the candles..

P3.. getting handsomer every time I see him!

Well, THIS looks like it needs a good caption attached. Paul looks bored, David is amused, Annabelle has that QE2 wave down pretty good, and Jeffrey is telling Daniel not to fear, he knows the Heimlich.

Cousin Jeffrey, Annabelle, and birthday boy Daniel. We were just getting ready to sing to Daniel

Birthday boy and his cake~ Annabelle and cousin Jeffrey were very interested in what Daniel was doing~ he was putting 10 black candles on his cake.

It was Daniel's 10th birthday. We decided to have his party at our house because we have space and are centrally located for the guests. Daniel wanted a sleepover, so that is exactly what we did. He also requested roast beef and mashed potatoes for his birthday meal. We managed to grant that request too, thanks to Aunt Amanda and Uncle John.

What's your thorn?

God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your "thorn" uncomplainingly- that is, sweet , patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak- is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace. The healing of your sinful person thus goes forward, even though the healing of your mortal body does not.
-J.I. Packer

Prayer

I believe in prayer. God hears his saints as they cry out to him and He answers. Have you ever felt someone pray for you? I have. The first time was when I had my first major surgery. I was struggling with moving and suddenly became aware of a renewed strength. It wasn't till later I was talking to someone from our church who said they felt the need to pray for me, and at that time, I was in the midst of that difficulty. I knew it was the result of their prayer that upheld me.
Today I'm aware of someone , maybe more than one, praying that I will have no barriers to attend worship today. It's a most wonderful feeling of knowing that someone loves me that much. I had posted my frustrations about last Sabbath to this blog. I wonder if someone read it and has taken action to prevent it from happening once again.
Here I am... 6:30am.. not sure which church we will attend today, but planning to be there no matter.
Just as a reassurance note~ I pray for my children and grandchildren by name every day. I remember my mother doing that for me, and I miss it.

Cat Cave

We were expecting a lot of snow, and Thomas' box kept getting hit with a pile inside , making life miserable for him~ at least *I* wouldn't like a wet bed to sleep on. So before the next snow hit, I decided to use what I had and secure his box against wind and snow. He has a small hole where he can crawl in~ and he does. Wendell calls this his "Cat Cave". Thomas seems to like it. He spends a lot of hours inside with his toy mouse from Cricket and Carlow Zombeck. Bottom line~ he's warm and cozy and loves it!