The Pestilence Continues!

October 12, 2010

Ok, so when Dad comes home again he has to go to Lowes and buy me some better pestilence fighting tools!  I had to use the vacumn to catch a lizard, who then promptly figured out how to get out of the vacumn. I had to brush him out from behind the toilet tank with a wooden spoon, and he ran across the wall.  So then I had to hit him off the bathroom wall with the plunger!  He got flushed this time.  AND, when we came home from dance, there was this hugh grasshopper on the glass part of the back door.

The only tool I had to attack him was the mop!  So I hit him, and OF COURSE, he flew.  The girls were screaming that he was on me, but they didn't tell me where.  SO, then I was jumping around like some deranged person!

I think sanity reigns supreme at the moment, but who knows what lurks just outside the back door tonight!

It's time for Dad to come home....I'm just saying!!!!!

PS  I hear you all laughing!!

Goopy Scissors! CAPTURED Lizard!!!

October 10, 2010

So now I had to wash the scissors with goo gone because we used them to cut the sticky back velcro pieces to put on the file folder games for the grandbabies.  That stuff makes your hands stink!  And there isn't much I have found that takes away that smell on your hands, but the stuff works great at getting sticky stuff off scissors. 

We have now finished several sets of the file folders games....Cymbre will be displaying them next weekend for YW in Excellence program.  We still have some more to do for the value project, but she has a good start.  And the best part, is the Grandbabies will have them for Christmas.

I caught a lizard in the vacumn tonight....of course, Dad is NOT here when I need to catch the dumb thing!  So we got the vacumn out, and sucked him up...then I left the vacumn running for a few minutes to make sure he was good and in the canister....and now I will wait a day or so until he is dead, and then empty him into the OUTSIDE trash can.  I sure hope that canister opens from the bottom instead of having to shake the stuff out from the top....that could be bad!

I have our home teachers on call this next two weeks while Dad is gone....who knows what's going to go wrong, but something ALWAYS does!

We have to take Cymbre down to the medical center in the morning early.  Her eye still goes out, so the doctor wants to make sure that everything is still stable.  I think he just wants some more information to share at his next medical convention where he goes to teach.  Seems to me, they should pay me for her to be a case study.  Who knows, maybe they will take some more of those really cool pictures of the inside of her eye.

I FINALLY have the two tap costumes done and rhinestoned.  MAJOR accomplishment...now on to the jazz one.  I am still waiting for some of the parts to get here, so I have been crocheting on the baby blessing blankets for the coming grandbabies.  My hands are certainly letting me know how they feel about all this crocheting....I pack them in ice some nights.  I really should cave in and go back to the doctor.  They have hurt me for over a year since the locker incident the beginning of last school year.  The physical therapist gave me the name of the best hand guy in Houston, but I think they will just tell me a steroid shot, and I am not sure that I want to peel myself off the ceiling!  And those shots will really mess up the blood sugar stuff that is finally getting to be where it needs to be most of the time.

Dad is in Norway and Liverpool this week, and then home just for a day or two and off to the SEG convention for another week.  I am bracing myself for no sleep, and trauma!  You would think after almost 32 years, the trauma would have stopped by now, and I would have learned how to sleep when Dad is out of town.  I guess it's just knowing his body is in the house that makes it so I can sleep.  I even set the alarm, but still spend most of the night watching TV or sewing, or on the computer.

So, what do you think that lizard thinks about being inside the vacumn canister?  Do you supposed his Mom is out there somewhere in the dark of night looking for him?  Is there some sort of lizard police that she would call to help her.  Do you suppose she even knows he has met his final demise?  And that I don't feel bad about it either?  Is she camping outside my front door waiting to run inside the very next time the door is opened?  Maybe he has a little family of baby lizards waiting for their Daddy to come home, maybe bring some dinner.  Maybe he has a baby girl waiting for a princess tea party, but her Dad will never show up....TOO BAD little lizard! (I know, somewhat harsh, but I don't put up with the little things in my house!)  Do you suppose that he is allergic to the dust in the vacumn with him?  Does he like to live in see through houses?  Did he eat dinner before he was captured?  (I don't care if he is starving!)  I know, harsh!  Maybe he was sucked through those dyson wind tunnels and lost conscienceness, and doesn't really know where he is...I don't think I have a lizard hospital in my vacumn, but this isn't the first one I have sucked up either....who knows what they may have going in the the hoses!  And why do lizards like to come in my house anyway...they live OUTSIDE!!! Not in a house with carpet, air conditioning, and furniture.  I mean have you every really seen a little house outside with all the comforts of home and lizards coming in an out?  Come to think of it, why would you even look for a house like that outside?  I have never seen them carrying brief cases, and looking like they were actually doing anything worth while either....they just like to hang around the doors and invite themselves in at the MOST INCONVENIENT times!  And if you don't see them come in and catch them right away, they like to hide in the moss in my ficus tree right by the front door, and then when I am dusting the thing, they suddenly decide that it's time to come out of hiding and SCARE the CRAP out of ME!!!  Do you know how hard is it to keep your wits about you and catch a fast lizard when you are scared to death because the thing just tried to walk up your arm or your leg?  Speaking from experience....it's NOT EASY!!!  I usually am jumping around making sure the thing is not on my person anywhere.  And DAD is never here when it happens to be my protector.  What is with that anyway??  Maybe we should build a little one way lizard door so that they can only get out!  I have tried sweeping them out the door once or twice, but the vacumn is a more reliable form of capture.  And when was the last time you saw lizard spray at Lowes?  I have not seen a lizard trap by the mouse ones at the store either!  So I use the only form on LONG HANDLED capture that I have at my disposal...gotta love that vacumn!

And on a more serious note:  I have heard this song twice now this week, and both times I cannot sing along because I feel the Spirit so strongly.....so I want to share the words with you once again.

It's called:  Lord, I Would Follow Thee

Savior, may I learn to love thee,
Walk the path that thou hast shown.
Pause to help and lift another,
 Finding strength beyond my own.
Savior, may I lean to love thee--Lord, I would follow thee.

Who am I to judge another
When I walk imperfectly?
In the quiet heart is hidden
Sorrow that the eye can't see.
Who am I to judge another?  Lord, I would follow thee.

I would be my brothers keeper,
I would learn the healer's art.
To the wounded and the weary,
I would show a gently heart.
I would be my brother's keeper--Lord, I would follow thee.

Savior, may I love my brother
As I know thou lovest me,
Find in thee my strength, my beacon,
For thy servant I would be.
Savior, may I love my  brother--Lord, I would follow thee.

I love this song, and I think about it often as I am helping someone who needs my help.  Most of the time it is a stranger I help.  I cannot sing this song, at least not the whole thing because the Spirit touches my heart so deeply and I am overcome with that wonderful warm feeling I get when I am close to my Heavenly Father.  I sat in the lobby the other night and heard 17 stakes of YW and some General Authorities singing this song...needless to say, the tears were filling my eyes as they are now just thinking about this experience.

Feeling the Spirit, just like at this moment, is something that comes very easily for me when I am out doing something for someone else....it has always been that way for me, and my hope is that my children might have a little glimpse of that feeling each day as they are out in the world hopefully helping someone that they see needs some help.  Just this past week I was in the grocery store and saw an older lady struggling to reach a thing off the top shelf....I stopped and asked her if I could help her.  With tears in her eyes, she said that no one ever asks her that.  I felt the Spirit so strongly at that moment, and then I just had a thought about that scripture that goes like...."if you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" and my mind could picture the Savior standing there in the grocery store.  Had I not stopped to help, I would never have had that experience that day.  A simple act of getting something off the top shelf brought my Savior's Spirit so close to my heart.  These kinds of experiences happen to me often....sharing a happy meal with a street person, giving a water bottle to some hot road construction workers, helping an older woman put her groceries in her car.  I guess I learned how to do these things when I served as the RS president while we lived in England all those years ago.

So, get out there are serve someone...step out of your comfort zone.  You don't have to put yourself in any danger to find someone who could use your help.  In all the years I have been doing things like this, no one has every yelled at me or threatened to call the cops.  Just do something today.

Love you all, especially my GRANDBABIES!!!

Mom

A Busy Week!

October 1, 2010

My goodness, it's been a busy week around here.....Cymbre has been down with bronchitis, Cooper has been at dance until her knee began hurting to much....she hurt it at solo rehearsal on Saturday, and now she can't dance for a week. She did something to the tendon right by her kneecap! I still think dance will kill her one of these days! When she dances, it's all or nothing, and that is sometimes what hurts her I think.

Dad finally didn't have to put Cymbre in the car and drive her around for an hour freezing her out with the air conditioner last night. She just managaed to sit in the steam in the shower, do her medicine, and slept in the recliner. We also put vicks on her feet and socks, and never heard a cough out of the kid. THANK YOU ANITA!! We all got some rest last night!

We have gotten to skype our Baby Eden a couple of times this week, and Baby Jack was with her once....It's always VERY EXCITING to this Grandma to see those cute little babies. I am so looking forward to going to play with them when Shyla has her baby! However, I just don't think it's fair that she stays at the computer and talks to Grandpa, but crawls away to play when it's Grandma. What is the deal? We so enjoyed hearing Baby Jack sing us songs and tell us the alphabet!

They have adjusted my insulin yet again....and this time it is working, but some days now my blood sugar gets way to low! It's a fine line to balance everything, but I am feeling better most of the time.

Dance costumes are coming along, and Cymbre's tap one is finally down to just finishing up the jewelry. It's even rhinestoned. TOOK FOREVER! I am thinking about entering it in the costume contest to see if I can win again. We'll see. I am working on Cooper's now, but hers is mainly taking in a top, and hemming pants, and rhinestoning. Parts of the jazz solo are beginning to arrive, so that will be the next one. Then the duet. We have the dresses for those, and the feathers for the hair, so hopefully, that one won't take to long either. After all, I do have to take time out to go play with the GRANDBABIES!!!

Cooper is doing much better at driving, but we haven't really gone out to practice this week....Dad needs to take her this weekend.

We are glad that it is jammie church this week. We love General Conference weekends!

I must get the jacket made for Cooper for her homecoming dress....and hem the dress.

This sounds like all I do is sew! That's not true most days, but lately it is the truth!

The girls want to do their solos in the ward talent show....that should be interesting. No one at church has ever really seen them dance, so they will be a hot topic of discussion I am sure. Oh to be a fly on some peoples wall! Particularly those who love to gossip!

Cymbre's eye hasn't gone out in the last couple of weeks....guess we are doing a good job not bumping her around. THANK GOODNESS! She sees the neuro opthamologist this month. He will probably want to take some more pictures of her eye insides to show at his meetings. They talk about her all the time from what he says. Too bad they don't pay us to see her.

Well, must get busy...have to get my Halloween goodies in the mail to those lovable GRANDBABIES! Maybe this time I might put something in for their parents too....we'll see.

Everyone needs to get out there and do some service today....pick up some trash, give a worker a water bottle, buy a happy meal and share it with a homeless person, take a cookie to a teacher, but do something.

Love you all bunches and bunches.

Mom

PS.. The fire truck just pulled up in front of the house....am I on fire? Better go!