Dear bloggy friends using Blogger....

Are you about ready to break up with Blogger too? It is On. My. Nerves. I've been one of the die-hards holding out and still using the old editor. The last couple of days when I've been working on a new post (gasp!), it keeps deleting all my line breaks! My whole post, pictures and all, is squished up into one big blob (case in point - this post). If I create the entire post in "compose", it's fine, but if I move into "edit html" to move around a picture or add some code or whatever - ZAP! There go all my line breaks. I read in Blogger help that moving to the new editor would fix this problem. I've tried moving to the new editor in the past, and I hate it. I can't resize my pictures, and drag and drop will never put them where I want them. But out of desperation I switched again today. It seemed to fix the disappearing line breaks problem, but there was the same old issue with not being able to get pictures to go where I want them. Text on the SIDE of pictures, instead of above or below, and when I tried to drag and drop, my picture DISAPPEARED! I switched back to the old editor and ZAP! There went all the line breaks again. Hate. Hate. Any of you Blogger users have any advice? I'm about ready to pay someone all the money I have saved for my mission trip a hefty hunka change to move my blog to another platform.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Last night we were at Wal*Mart buying a few things. We were on the aisle with the air fresheners and Jacob said, "Oh, look, there's one of those automatic sprayer things. We have to get one of those! It just smells the stink, and then it sprays - it's so cool!" :)

For more Tiny Talk Tuesday, visit Mary at Not Before 7.

From my bookshelf

It's been a really long time since I posted about anything I've been reading. When we were on the cruise I felt like a freak, having never read a single Karen Kingsbury book. I'm telling you, it was like a Karen Kinsgbury groupie fest on that ship! In fact, I kind of think I had intentionally never read any of her books, just because of all the hoopla about her. I'm a little stubborn that way. Well, after I actually met Karen on the cruise, she was so warm and friendly and down-to-earth and wonderful that just being around her made me want to read her books.

So when we got home, I buckled down and forced myself to finish up this book, even though it was eating my lunch:



and after I made it through that, I was in serious need of some lighter fiction fare. Perfect time to try out Karen's books. On the cruise, she gave everyone a copy of Book 4 in her Above the Line series (great marketing strategy, huh?), so of course - just like she planned - I had to go out and buy books 1 through 3, right? Luckily I found all of them on the bargain table at Mardel. :)



Well, let me just say, after book one in that series I was almost ready to join the groupie club myself. Almost. I slurped up all four books in the series, and then my mom gave me the 4-book series that came before Above the Line. I read the first one of those, but then decided I wanted to start at the very beginning of the Baxter tales, which includes something like 22 books. So, to pass the time while I'm trying to locate the very first book in the very first 5-book group of the series, I'm reading this as a little easy-reading passtime:



HA! Just kidding. :) I'm actually reading this....



while I'm scouring PaperBackSwap for Karen's early books.

What are you reading these days?

Hello friends.

Not feeling very bloggy lately. Not sure why. There's so much going on, but none of it really blog-worthy. Thought I would pop in here anyway and give you a little update of what's been going on in our neck of the woods.

* We had our first Uganda fundraiser garage sale a couple of weekends ago. We made over $500!! I was so surprised! We still have tons of stuff left, and three more people have told me they have things to donate, so we'll be having another one in the next few weeks. I am so not looking forward to that. Garage sales are so. much. work. But I am SO very thankful for everyone who has made donations - what a huge blessing!

* Speaking of Uganda, can you believe it's only 2 1/2 months until I leave? Exactly 80 days. Oh my goodness. Kari, my team leader, told me it would get easier as we got closer to the trip. I'm thinking I don't agree. I'm getting more and more nervous the closer it gets. Like, knots in my stomach nervous. A friend asked me just yesterday if I'm excited. And after so many years of longing to go, of praying and wishing and dreaming....I was shocked when I heard myself say "no".

Oh, I do want to go. It has been my dream for almost 8 years. But really, I'm a home-body. Actually, not so much a home-body as a family-body. I like to travel, but I like to do it with my family. Twelve days away is a long time. And I'm not even sure how much contact we'll be able to have while I'm gone. It's not like going to another state where you can call every day. I don't know what cell or internet service will be like there. It's certainly going to be an interesting two weeks!

* Last Wednesday I took our sweet Annie in to have her eye surgery. About an hour after I dropped her off, the vet called to tell me that Annie's liver enzymes were off the chart, and we would have to postpone the surgery because she wouldn't live through it. The vet wanted to do an ultrasound and a biopsy - which would cost over $500 - to rule out a tumor. I just broke down in tears right there in my office. This is SO hard! I don't feel like it's fair to Annie for us to just do nothing, but on the other hand she is 14 1/2 years old. How do you know what is right? *sigh * I asked the vet if there were any other options, and she said we could try medication for 30 days to see if that would heal Annie's liver and make her well enough to endure surgery. So that's what we're doing. If the medication doesn't work, that will most likely mean she has a tumor and, well, I don't know what we'll do then.

* The kids are out of school for spring break this week. I'm so sad that we won't be going anywhere this year, since I'm trying to save both money and vacation days for Uganda. We're thinking about just taking a little one-day trip to somewhere close by, just so the kids can get out of town and don't have to spend their entire break stuck at home. I hate that they're out of school for a whole week and will have to spend every day with the babysitter since The Mister and I will both be working the whole time. Hate it.

* Kloe was nominated to participate in the Lone Star Leadership Academy this summer! It's a week-long camp-type thing in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. We're so excited for her to have this opportunity! She doesn't really want to go (seems we're all kind of family-bodies around here - I think it comes from The Mister being gone so much for work) but we're making her. ;) I think it's going to be such a great time.

* I signed up for another year of torture fun with PTA. :) Looks like I will be the secretary next year. I really do enjoy being on the board. I love being involved at my kids' school - I love being able to get to know all the teachers and staff so much more than I would otherwise - but man, is it ever a lot of work. Whoever said PTA is a social club obviously hasn't been part of OUR school's PTA. ;)

Wow, I just realized what a downer of a post this is. Sorry about that. Guess I have been leaning a bit toward the melancholy lately. Just the ups and downs of life, I suppose. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all we've got going on - feeling like a single mom with the Mister out of town so much, Uganda on the horizon, mounds of fundraising yet to do, Kloe gearing up for middle school, Annie's health issues.... I'm a "shut down" kind of person, rather than the "charge forward" type when life gets overwhelming. Not good when there's so much to do!

Sweet Annie

Our sweet Annie is 14 1/2 years old.



The Mister and I got her free from an ad in the paper when she was 12 weeks old. We had been married about 4 months. Her full name is Miss Annie Marie, although she is by NO means pure bred or registered. She's half Border Collie and half Blue Heeler. A true cow dog. And sweeter than any other dog you will ever meet.



Miss Annie is smart as a whip! When we first got her and were training her, we would show her something once or twice, and she had it down! Easy peasy to house train. So eager to please. The one thing we worked and worked and worked on - and thought she would never learn - was how to fetch. I could not for the life of me figure out why she was having such a hard time with it when she had learned everything else so quickly! We would throw the ball, and she would run to it, then run in circles around the ball, nipping at it. We had the hardest time getting to her pick the ball up and bring it back! What in the world?

It took us forever to figure it out....she was herding that ball (you know, like herding cattle). Cute girl. It truly is just in her genes. :) Once we realized what she was doing, we bought her one of those big plastic balls like you can buy at the grocery store - like a kick ball, only not as hard? - and we called it her "cow". She would chase and circle and nip and herd that thing endlessly. It was adorable. (She did eventually learn to fetch, and it became one of her all time favorite things. She still loves to play ball so much.)



The day we went to get Annie (from the newspaper ad), I didn't really think much about the fact that she ran to hide under the car and had to be coaxed out with a hot dog. I didn't really think it was strange that she seemed scared when we took her home. I thought it curious, but not overly unusual, that she seemed to cling to me while shying away from The Mister. But as time went on and she didn't really seem to warm up to him, we began to notice that she was also deathly afraid of strangers - especially men.

We began to put two and two together and wonder if she had been abused by her former owners. The vet confirmed that that probably was the case. He said that a puppy's personality is generally cemented by the time they are 8-12 weeks old, and that if we had gotten her earlier she would have grown out of her fear. But since she was 12 weeks old when we got her, she would likely never overcome it. He was right, she never did. To this day she will cower from strangers or even from us if we slightly raise our voice at her. She is petrified of getting in the car, going to the vet, or anywhere she hasn't been at least a dozen times.

And we love her so.

When The Mister and I were first married, we lived in an apartment. It did have a small backyard so I'm not sure why, but rather than leaving Annie out there when we went to work, we made the mistake of leaving her locked up in the bathroom. One time when we had only had her for a few days - or it may have even been the very first day, I don't remember for sure - we came home to find our bathroom destroyed! We had a glass vase sitting on the counter filled with glass marbles. The vase was shattered and marbles were all over the bathroom. Things that had been on a shelf were strewn around the bathroom, and the shelf had been used as a chew toy. She had even chewed or dug a hole in the wall!! What a mess.

Not long after the bathroom episode, Annie came down with parvo and had to be in the hospital over the weekend. We went to visit her on Saturday, and it was so sad. We sat in the little waiting room with other families visiting their hospitalized pets, and then they wheeled Annie out on a little cart. She had an IV connected to her leg, and her foot was all swollen from it. She was So.Scared. and practically threw herself into my arms. When it was time for us to go she fought as hard as she could to get away from the hospital person (I don't know what you call them at a pet hospital?) and just cried and cried. And when The Mister and I walked outside, I cried and cried. It broke my heart. But Annie made a full recovery from parvo and has been the picture of health ever since.

Another time, when Kloe was about to turn 2, we had been sticking birthday candles in a biscuit to let her practice blowing them out. Our back door is just a few steps from kitchen sink, so after "candle practice" I left the back door open and let Kloe play out on the back porch. Suddenly she was screaming and crying hysterically. I went running out to the porch asking, "What happened? What's wrong?"

She sobbed, "Annie ate my birthday biscuit!" :)



And then this little mister came along. He loves Annie more than almost anything else in the world. In fact, she often outscores me on the list of the top 3 loves in his life. :) [#1 being his lovie, Nonnie]



And let me tell you, the feeling is definitely mutual. They are inseparable. Jacob is the one exception to Annie's fear of the male gender. She sticks by his side like glue anytime he is outside. During our Arctic Tundra episode a few weeks ago, we kept Annie in our laundry room most of the time. Jacob would go out there and just lay by her. Just lay there. She was the first thing he asked for every morning and the last hug he gave every night before bed. Oh how he loves that dog.



Last week our Sweet Annie developed an infection in her right eye. When we took her to the vet, she (the vet) discovered that Annie has a prolapsed iris. The iris in her eye has literally slid over to the side of her eyeball. Have you ever heard of such a thing? We weren't able to see it ourselves because her eyes are so dark to begin with, plus she has really bad cataracts which obstruct the view of it. But worse than that, the vet also found a mass growing in Annie's eye. At first she wasn't sure if the mass was a tumor or a mass of infection, but after antibiotic eye drops didn't affect the size of the growth, she decided that we need to have Annie's eye removed.

*sigh*

Poor sweet girl.

The vet says that Annie is already blind in that eye (which we never knew) and so living with only one eye won't really be that big of an adjustment for her. My biggest concern, though, is that she's 14 1/2 years old. I'm worried about how she will handle anesthesia and surgery and recovery. I'm worried about trying to take care of her when she comes home, since she would be home by herself all day. And, I'm worried about Jacob. I think all of this has really shaken him up, realizing just how old she really is and that she won't be with us forever.

*bigger sigh*

Ohhh, this is so hard. I hate it. I keep avoiding calling the vet back to schedule the surgery. Logically I know that putting it off won't make it go away, but making that call is just so hard, you know?

I hate it.

We love you, Miss Annie Marie. Please stay with us a while longer, k?

A little behind...

...but even so, I just had to post these pictures of the kids' Valentines because I think they're the cutest things EVER! I can say that because I didn't invent them myself. I wish I could take credit for them, but really, all my good ideas come from someone else. :) I got this idea from Holly, who got it from Stie, who got it from Alissa. Don'tcha just love bloggy land?

These are so easy, and SO cute!

First, you take a picture of your child holding their fist out, like this:





Then, if you want, you can add some cool effects (we used the one called Boost) and a Valentine greeting with PhotoShop, or for free (the way I like) on Picnik. (Have you tried Picnik yet? You should, it's awesome.) Cut a slit at the top and bottom of their hand (in the photo, not in real life) and insert a lollipop. Easy peasy! (I seem to be in love with parentheses today.)



(They looked much better in real life - these photos aren't great.) I obviously didn't plan too well for where the lollipops would go - since they ended up covering the words - but oh well, you know those lollies didn't stay in there long anyway.

I totally plan on making these again next year. LOVE them. For Jacob anyway. I'm a little bit scared that we may have just had our last year of friend-Valentines for Kloe, since she's off to middle school next year. *big. sad. sigh*

Oh Happy Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, bloggy friends!

I love that when we woke up this morning, Kloe asked me, "Are we going to have a treasure hunt today?" :-) And I love that when I got to work, I said, "Happy Valentine's Day" to one of my co-workers, and she said, "Happy Valentine's Day - - it's your favorite day!" :-)

My family is actually celebrating tomorrow, since my life has been out of control the past couple of weeks. I figure we celebrate Christmas on all different days, and birthdays on all different days, so why not Valentine's?

"And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:5) {I love the King James version, that says "God's love has been shed abroad in our hearts..." I picture Him casting out His love like seeds into a field.}

Hoping you have a wonderful, happy, Valentine-y day with those you love!

Six for Sunday

1. Have I mentioned that I love Valentine's Day? Oh, I have? I do. I love it. It's my absolute fay-vuh-rit.
   
   
   
   I was browsing the aisles at Hobby Lobby this week oohing and ahhing and drooling and coveting all their adorable Valentine's stuff. I would buy way too much of it if I let myself get started. But alas, I cannot. And I would love to make something cute. Maybe something to go on my front door? But alas again, we all know I cannot. Guess I'll stick with my Walmart paper-hearts-on-a-string that hang from the ceiling. They're cheap, but they make me smile. :)


2. I'm breaking up with E-mealz. I'm sorry E-mealz, it's over. It's not you, it's me. You're a great website, and we can still be friends, but we just don't see eye to eye about some things. You have expectations of me that I just can't live up to. Namely, that I will remember to log on to your website every week and download your menu. It's just not happening. I've been a member for almost two years, and I can probably count on less than two hands the number of times I've actually done that. And don't try to talk me into staying. I've found someone new. Michelle at Make 5 Dinners in One Hour knows me oh-so-well. Not only does she show me how to make 5 meals in one one-hour prep session, but she emails her menus and grocery lists to me. Along with a few extra menus every month. Be still my heart.


3. I'm starting to have a hankerin' for San Antonio again. Hankerin': [hang-ker-in] noun. a longing, craving, desire, need, yearning, hunger. May also be used as a verb: to have a restless or incessant longing (often followed by after, or for.) Getting to go twice last year spoiled me. And we never did get to eat at Casa Rio, you know. Oh how I wish we could go this year, but with Uganda coming up in June I'm afraid San Antonio is mostly likely going to have to wait until next year. sigh.
   
   


4. Have you guys been keeping up with Joanne over at The Simple Wife? She's doing so great. Thank you so much for your prayers for her. God is definitely answering! She is fully awake now and is communicating through an app on an iPad that was provided to them through donations. She is participating in occupational, speech, and physical therapy. I have been so blessed and amazed seeing what God has done in her life.


5. A few days ago Kloe asked me, "Mom, can we get out our tea cups and dress fancy and send Daddy and Jacob out, and you and I have tea and cakes?" Sweet girl. I had to make a very conscious effort to specifically say yes and mean it. Because with all that's been going on the past couple of weeks, I could feel myself sort of saying yes out of habit and not really paying attention to what I was actually telling her. I was so glad when, tonight after dinner, she just started getting out the tea cups. (We don't have a real tea set or anything. Kloe just has a cup and saucer that we used for party favors when she had a tea party for her fourth birthday, and I have a cup and saucer that were my grandmother's.)
   
   For one second I started to say, "Oh, let's rest for just a few minutes, and we'll do it later, ok?" But instead - for once - I actually listened to that still, small whisper. "No, don't put her off. Do it now." We didn't dress fancy - just our jeans and sweaters - and we didn't send the boys out - they were 10 feet away watching TV in the living room - but for 10 minutes we drank milk (we're fresh out of tea) from tea cups, and talked with silly accents, and stuck our pinkies out, and ate pink, heart-shaped Little Debbie snack cakes. And 10 minutes made my sweet baby feel loved, and feel special, and feel noticed. Ten minutes made her smile and hug me and say, "Thank you, Mama." Thank You, Jesus, that for once I listened to You.
   
   
   


6. Ok, I don't really have six for today. I wanted to have Six for Sunday to keep the whole alliteration thing going, because Five for Sunday just doesn't have the same ring to it, but I got nothin'. Hope you guys have a very restful Sunday and a great week!

And then everything went crazy.

Man, what a week. What a couple of weeks. Life around here has been crazy with a capital C. It all started almost two weeks ago when the arctic tundra moved into town. Oh my goodness. I realize many places have had it much worse than we have - and even endure frigid temps on a regular basis - but we Texans just aren't built for such nonsense. Over on Beth Moore's blog, Texans were getting a pretty good razzing for our cold-weather aversion (from commenters, not from Beth). But, hello, there's a reason we live here.

Anyhow, school was canceled on Tuesday (week before last), then delayed on Wednesday and Thursday. Fun for the kids, but it totally wreaked havoc on my work schedule. On Thursday night I had a 5th grade graduation committee meeting. On Friday, I worked to make up some of the hours I'd lost during the week, then hurried up to school to attend the PTA fundraiser kickoff assemblies (since, you know, fundraising is my job and all).

On Saturday, I skipped Jacob's basketball game to take Kloe to her UIL spelling meet, then waited TWO HOURS to get the results. Seriously, how long can it take to grade spelling tests for seven kids? (Kloe got 6th place, yay!) As soon as the results were announced, we zoomed to the house so Kloe could throw on her basketball uniform, and then we zoomed to her game. Then we spent our evening making the rounds to pick up more donations for our upcoming Uganda garage sale.

On Sunday we woke up to this beautiful sight. Huge, beautiful, fluffy snowflakes. The kids threw their coats on right over their pj's and ran out to play.





Look what I spied as Kloe was posing for this picture. Crackin' me up. :)



Yep, he got her. And then the fight was on.



Reloading...



Wow, look at that whopper Kloe made!



Can you see that gigantic snowball whizzing right by Jacob's head? She just barely missed!



The snow didn't last long, but they made sure to enjoy every minute of if they could.

After a brief intermission for the snow and the Super Bowl, the insanity resumed in force. Monday night (of this past week) both kids had basketball practice. Then Tuesday morning I was awakened at 5-something a.m. by a sound. That sound. You know the one. Jacob in the bathroom. How he made it out of the top bunk and to the bathroom in time I have no idea. I'm just thankful he did. I confess I wasn't the good mommy who went to help him in his misery. Shamefully, since I heard him flush about the time I woke up, I was the bad mommy who turned over and closed my eyes....only to feel him crawling under the covers next to me about 30 seconds later. Our thermometer is broken but he felt hot, so I waited until a respectable hour and then called my mom. She came over and stayed with him so I didn't have to miss another day of work. So thankful mom lives close now!

Tuesday night was Family Reading Night at school - and also the arrival of Arctic Tundra Round 2. I had to go to Sam's to buy food for concessions, and when I came out the wind was blowing so hard it literally ripped the lid right off my cookie tray! I had forgotten my gloves, and I was trying to push the giant flat-bed cart with one hand while holding the cookies on the tray with the other hand, all in four hundred forty mile per hour winds. PRAISE GOD for the angel of an older man who literally drove his pickup over to where I was parked and got out to help me load everything in my car. I showed up at the school 10 minutes before the event was supposed to start and had to have the school janitors come help me unload my car because it was SO STINKIN' FRIGID outside and the wind was insane and the trunk of my car won't stay open by itself. Sheesh.

About half way through the night my mom (who was still at my house with Jacob) called. I didn't answer in time, so I called her right back and she didn't answer. I called her again and again and again, and when I couldn't get ahold of her I started to panic just a little bit. I went in search of Kloe and was right in the middle of telling her that I was leaving to run home and check on Grammy and Jacob, when my phone rang. It was Jacob. He was literally sobbing so hard that I couldn't understand what he was saying. Turns out he was devastated at missing Family Reading Night, and Would.I.At.Least.Buy.Him.A.Book?

By the time I got home, Jacob was fine, and he woke up Wednesday morning fine. No fever. No sickness. No nothing. So of course I sent him to school. By the time I picked him up from school he was miserable,burning up with fever, writhing in pain, and moaning, "My heeeaaad huuuurts." Fever and headache - nothing else. I took him home and put him to bed. Only by God's hand, The Mister came home early Wednesday night (meaning 6:00), so Kloe and I went to church while the boys stayed home. Thursday morning I took Jacob to the doctor, and guess what? Flu. Yay.

"Hello, Mom?"

She came again and stayed with Jacob Thursday while I went to work, then stayed with him while I went to school to assemble Valentine grams for 350 students (actually, it turned out I was the resident babysitter while the rest of the PTA ladies put the grams together), and then stayed with him while I went to the party store to buy more stuffed animals and suckers for Valentine grams because we ran out. And then she came and stayed with him on Friday so I could go to work AGAIN to make up for missed hours, and stayed with him while I went to school for Kloe's Valentines party and to pick up Jacob's Valentines from the party he was missing. sigh.

AND THEN...by the time Kloe and I got home from school yesterday afternoon, SHE was coughing and running fever. She ended up having to miss her good friend's birthday party last night, and she was so very sad. I had The Mister stop on his way home from work and pick her up some Tamiflu so we could avoid a repeat of last week, but then she woke up this morning feeling FINE. Good grief. I feel like I might need some medication of my own, if you know what I mean. I texted the basketball coach just in case, and told him we wouldn't be at either game today, and we all stayed in our pajamas, laying around on the couch ALL DAY.

That is until Mr. He Went to Jared called and left the CUTEST little message on my phone asking if he and his mom could take Kloe and her mom (that would be me) to the movies. How cute is that? I wish I could figure out a way to put his message on my blog. It was adorable. And so the four of us went on a double date to see Gnomeo and Juli*t. Precious. I highly recommend it (the movie, not double dating with your kids. Although that was pretty cute, too.)

Kloe let me take this picture on the condition that I wouldn't put it on my blog. I told her I couldn't make any promises.



And the craziness continues the next few weeks with Jacob's birthday party, planning a baby shower for a friend, processing the PTA fundraiser (which is ridiculous - have you ever done this?), basketball practices and games, gymnastics, a doctor's appointment (well check for Jacob), dentist appointments, the garage sale, and my first Uganda team conference call. If I make it to spring break with my sanity I'll be doing a happy dance. While lying on the couch.

And just as a side note, I had a really good hair day today and now I'm sad to go to bed and mess it up, because good hair days almost never happen around here.

Super.

.
Traitor.


The vest he's wearing belonged to The Mister when he was about Jacob's age. Earlier today he told Jacob, "I've been a Pittsburg Steelers fan since I was in elementary school." Jacob said, "Me too!" Too bad for him his team lost. He has been a fan since elementary school, you know. I told him he shoulda gone for Green Bay.

On a different note, ohhh, how we love Texas Caviar around our house. Have you tried it? A yummy, easy, and healthy snack for your Super Bowling pleasure:

Texas Caviar
2 medium tomatoes, diced
4 green onions, diced
1 can black-eyed peas (with juice)
1 cup frozen corn
1-4 oz can diced green chili
1/2 C. diced purple onion
1/4 - 1/3 C. diced cilantro
1-16 oz. jar Pace picante
2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Allow to sit overnight in fridge. Drain liquid, serve with crispy crackers or tortilla chips (obviously, only the caviar is the healthy part - ha). So good!

And for your not-so-healthy-but-equally-delicious Super Bowling dessert:

Rolo Cookies
1 boxed devil's food cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
approx. 3 rolls Rolo candy

Mix first 3 ingredients until stiff dough forms. Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. Press one Rolo into the middle of each ball and roll to close dough around the candy. Place 2" apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350* for 9-10 minutes. Eat 'em while they're warm! Mmmm. Yummy, gooey goodness.



What was your favorite treat of the day?