Vicki’s Blog

A New Year

It’s kind of hard to believe that we are starting a new year already. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that we were starting 2008, and here we are on January 2, 2009, just by a little though *LOL* It’s only 12:50am.

Last year I put of resolutions on the lefthand side of this blog, that listed several things like “not eating out so much” *LOL* I think that was truly an unattainable thing for my then lifestyle, and I still find when money provides, that I love to eat out a lot more than I love to cook. So I don’t think that will be a resolution or goal that I will be putting back on this year’s list. *LOL*

I also put on there that I wanted to “read my Bible and help the girls read theirs everyday”…Helping them read theirs was improbable with their reading skills, although Des is much closer now than a year ago. Yet, we have found a solution. I read the Bible to them, most nights anyway. I’ve been having trouble with sore throats and a bit of laryngitis so it hasn’t been as consistant these last few weeks as before, but we still struggle on.

I DID quit smoking!!!! I am really happy about that!!! Most of the time I don’t even miss it..*LOL*…and when I do, I take a puff off of my Dad’s cigars, and I very distinctly remember why I quit smoking!! *LOL*

I didn’t complete the afghan or crib quilt. The afghan would have been finished in time for Christmas, for my nephew, but I have been unable to crochet since early October, so that kind of put a wrench in the works, much to my dismay, as well as the dismay of my nephew. *smile* The quilt is the same, I haven’t been able to work on it for 3 months, so it is not complete either…but 2009 is a new year, and I am confident that I will get them done, and move on to other projects.

Well, that’s about all that I can remember being on my list for last year, and while I know that I didn’t complete many of them…I did complete some, and will continue to work on others. I have NOT made any resolutions for 2009, and I’m not sure I will either.

Christmas

Well Christmas has passed. It was a nice Christmas all in all. There may not have been a lot of money for presents, but we were together as a family, and that’s what really counts!!

Christmas Eve the girls opened their presents that they got from me, what few their were. Usually that’s a special time, something that the girls and I do alone, but this year, we had a friend come over and join us. It was a very nice evening, that we all enjoyed immensely. My friend, MH, was even sweet enough to bring me a gift, which was completely unexpected, and very much treasured.

Christmas Day was spent with my sister, nephew, and Dad. It was a very nice day, and one that will hold a place in my memories. I really didn’t want to go, just because I’ve been wanting to stay at home a lot lately, but I am sooooo happy that we did go!! We exchanged a few gifts, had dinner, and spent time together as a family.

Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some people don’t celebrate Christmas, for a variety of reasons. Others celebrate it as the birth of Jesus, others tell tales of Santa and a magical time of year, and still others use it to help other people…But really, to me, it’s about family, about appreciating each other, and spending time with loved ones that we may not get to spend on a regular basis. I have no interest in debating whether Jesus really was born on December 25th or not. No interest in debating whether it’s right or wrong to believe in Santa, or whether putting up a Christmas tree is wrong in the eyes of God, according to the Bible…I just want to spend the days with my family, loving them, appreciating them, giving special things to them, and being together. That’s what Christmas is to me….Family.

Ortho Appointment

Well, I’ve got an appointment set up with the orthopedic doctor for January 13th. It would be really nice if they could tell me what is wrong with my wrist!

My wrist is not as painful on a consistant basis, which is a good thing, but I still have limited range of motion, can’t pick up anything of any weight, and I still do have some pain especially shooting up my arm, and odd sensations in my fingers.

It is still very painful and difficult for me to do things like write/hold a pen, fold clothes, or anything else that requires a lot of wrist movement…That coupled with not being able to pick up or hold anything heavier than a cup of tea pretty much lets me out of doing many activities that I’m used to doing.

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated on how things go.

Dr’s Update

Okay, so I went to the Dr this past Wednesday, to get the cast off, after having it on for 4 weeks. They x-rayed my wrist again, and saw where I was getting new bone growth where I fractured it. That sounded like good news, right? It was, up until the point the Dr said that if I continued to have problems with it, that I would need to see a specialist.

On top of that, me never having a cast before, didn’t know what the normal was. I had experienced swelling off and on while my wrist was in the cast, and since the cast has been taken off. I found out a few days ago that that is not normal, and cause for concern. On top of that, I have no more range of motion in my wrist than I did BEFORE I got the cast, or from the day I got the cast off until today. I can see NO improvement at all, which of course is not normal either. And the icing on that cake is that I still have constant pain, before the cast, while having the cast on, and after having the cast taken off.

My Dr and I need to have a discussion about not sugar coating things, and just telling me straight out, as he was hinting at the possibility of surgery, but didn’t out and out say it. Since then, I have talked to a pediatrician friend of mine, and my Aunt Lynn who has been and RN for years and years in just about every department imaginable, and they both agree that something is still wrong.

In any case, that is the update on my wrist, basically. I am going to call the Dr on Monday and get the appointment set up with the orthopedist, and we will go from there. Please keep me in your prayers. Healing for my wrist, and financial concerns.

*HUGS* to you all!!

Awesome Giveaway at The Daily Planet!

My friend Amanda is having an awesome giveaway over at her blog, The Daily Planet.

Her giveaway is for something from the Homeschool Boutique. I just love this site, even though I haven’t been able to order from there yet, they are just full of great things for homeschoolers. T-shirts and tote bags, baby to adult, you can find something for you! It was and is very hard to say what is my favorite thing from them! I especially like their Scripture Tote Bags though, and would like to get one for myself, and one for each of the girls!

I am so happy to see more homeschool stuff. When I was homeschooled as a child it seemed almost unheard of, at least where I was living…we were like aliens from another planet or so it seemed when talking to other people. Now that I’m homeschooling my girls, it may not be an excepted practice, but at least not a completely forgein thought. And I am just thrilled to see t-shirts, totes and other products that proudly display that we are homeschoolers, and proud of it.

Amanda has several ways to enter her giveaway, so pop on over to her blog, by clicking the above link to her blog, or hop on over to the Homeschool Boutique by clicking the link above to see what awesome things they have!

Forgive the Lapses

It seems, even though I have been at home, that I have not had time to do entries. In some ways life seems to be flying by at the speed of light, but in other ways it seems to drag on day after day.

A lot of time lately has been spent praying, reading my Bible, and reading to the girls. That is aside from schoolwork of course, which takes a pretty large chunk of time every day. The girls are doing well with schoolwork. I am proud of them, and we finally seem to have hit a pretty easy rhythm to getting our schoolwork done, as well as our chores everyday. I have found that the girls like working with math flashcards, as well as our personal favorite right now is Monopoly. We still work out of our Abeka books, but we take time for having fun math by playing monopoly. Not only do we get the money factory, and counting by 1’s, 5’s, 10’s, 20’s, and 50’s (we haven’t worked in the 100’s or 500’s), but we also use 2 dice to play, and when we roll the dice, we say 6+3=9 (or whatever the dice come up as). As we master addition, than we will move on to doing this with subtraction and muliplication as well. Monopoly is a great math game, even if people do give you funny looks after asking the girls what they did for math, and the girls say “we played monopoly”.

As for Bible reading, well I’m not a particular fan of reading out loud at all, but I have made it a point to read 1 chapter out of whatever book they choose (we are reading Call of the Wild right now), and than I read at least 1 chapter out of the Bible to them. We started in Genesis. After we read, we talk about what we read. It’s great!! The girls are asking more and more questions about God, and people in the Bible.

Well, that’s a brief update on our life right now. Blessings to you all, and thank you so much for your prayers and support!!!

HELP IS NEEDED

The following email was written by my sister, of which I’d like to thank her for all of her support, and help!! This email is about me, and my current situation. Please feel free to contact me!!! The email can be sent to you on request, for you to forward on to others, and ANY donations would be GREATLY appreciated, as well as prayers!!!

Thank you all for being my faithful readers, supporters, and friends!!
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Hey, all!!!

This is just a quick note to let you know that we need your help. My Sister and her two girls were involved in a car accident on October 10th, as some of you know. At that time, the doctors thought she had sprained her right wrist. When it wasn’t getting any better, she went back to the doctor and they found a hairline fracture. After doing what the doctor said, she still found her wrist “popping”, even when she was wearing the brace they gave her. So the doctor told her to come back in. They put her in a cast earlier this week, and they are saying that she will be in it AT LEAST 4 weeks.

Why am I telling you this? Well, with her in a cast, she can’t work, which means she has no money coming in to pay rent and utilities. SRS is helping with food by giving her food stamps, but that’s about all the help they have given to this point. Sooooooo, this is where you come in. I know times are rough right now, with Christmas coming and all, and we understand that. But you know what? Even $5 would help buy cleaning supplies and and toilet paper and such!!! Soooooooo, forgive me for sounding like an advertisement here, but IF you can and if God puts it in your heart to help, you can make a contribution to our “Help The Sister” fund by PayPal. You can send your contributions to: mommamonster79@yahoo.com. No, I’m afraid your contributions aren’t tax deductible…Sorry!!! But if you’re like me, it feels good to help, even if you don’t get a tax write-off. If you can’t help, financially, that’s okay too…we DO understand. At least pray for my Sister and her two girls as they go through this time of testing and trial.

What else can you do to help? Well…since you asked….forward this to a few people out of your address book that you consider TRUE friends.

Thank you SOOOOO much for your time….your prayers….AND your efforts to help!!!
God Bless You And Yours ABUNDANTLY!!!
Wenona
AKA
Simba

Book Giveaway

I can’t tell you how excited I am by the articles in Growing In Grace online magazine. The magazine is designed for young ladies, but I myself get a lot of enjoyment out of it. The contributers put in a lot of time and effort on their articles, and they turn out wonderfully!! They have something for just about anyone. Some wonderful recipes that I can’t wait to try out, tips on modesty, how to apply God’s Word to your life…It’s just great!!!

One of my most favorite articles is done by Miss Rachel and it’s called Snuggle Up With A Good Book. This month she did a review on the Circle C Adventure Series. I have not read these books, but I have heard of them, been to the website and etc. and I have to say that they sound wonderful!!! I can’t wait until I can get these books, because I’m almost sure that the girl’s will LOVE these books!!

This month, not only did she do a review, but there is a GIVEAWAY too!!! You can find the icon on my sidebar, or click below to find out how you can enter!!!

In Memory Of George

*******************Written October 31**************************************

On this day, when most are blindly dressing up in costumes and going out to seek candy, we are sitting here with tears in our eyes, and a heaviness upon our hearts!!

Our Beloved George died this morning, of unknown cause. He was a darling cat, as I’m sure you can see by the picture. Megan’s darling, as he slept with her EVERY night, without fail, no matter where she slept, he would find her. It is sweet memories we have of him. Chasing his tail and romping through the house, but most of all was the endearing bond he had with Megan.

As some of you know, he was taken to the VET earlier this week to have surgery done on one of his eyes. He came home Wednesday, and other than being just a bit tired from the surgery, he acted completely fine. Even last night, he seemed to be fine. This morning I woke up and noticed that he was not with Meg, and so I went searching for him. I found him laying in our laundry room. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing, but upon looking closer, found he was breathing. We rushed him to the VET, where he died acouple of hours later.

We do not know what happened, we only know that we miss him dearly, and his passing has left a hole in our hearts and an emptiness in our house. It is small comfort to know that he is with God. He is not in pain anymore, for that we are thankful, though we ourselves are in pain because of his heavenly assent.

It is times like these that I wonder if God’s clock is working right..Yes, I do mean that as a joke. Here in this world I can not see why God chose to take George, as I think we’ve had enough to deal with lately…but there is the popular saying “God’s timing is not alway ours”. I hold my daughter and dry her tears as my own fall, and I tell her that God had a reason, even though it hurts us, and even though we don’t know the reason, God did have a reason. George is in a better place now.

Goodbye my dear George, we will miss you always!

Rambling

Well, I’ve had pictures of the car, after the car accident for acouple of weeks now, and never seem to get them posted….Maybe this weekend, I’ll have to see how things go.

Tomorrow we have a dentist appointment for the girls. I’m not really looking forward to it, because it’s about 1 1/2 hours away, but I’ve already rescheduled it once, and I don’t want to reschedule again.

I am finishing up the last chapter before the mid-term test for my transcriptioning course. I’m very excited. After mid-terms, I will only have 7 more chapters to get through. It has taken a lot longer than expected, because of grading delays, and the car accident. My typing is still not up to par, but servicable to make it through transcribing, as long as I take plenty of breaks in between.

The girls’ schooling is going okay, considering. It seems hard to do five days straight, without the interuptions of a million other things to do, especially when I’m still dealing with Dr.’s appointments and such from the car accident. We made a valent attempt to get back in the swing of things this week, only to remember that we will be out of town for most of the day yesterday, and had several errands this morning…Still we can make up the paperwork that we have missed getting done, that’s easy. And the hours we require, well, many things are learning experiences, including going grocery shopping, and going to the VET center this morning.

We had to go pick up one of our cats from the VET. Some people might think it silly to spend the money on a cat right now, when I am having financial difficulties, but my animals are a part of my family, and to me there was no other choice. Anyway, our George developed an ulcer in his eye a few weeks ago, best guess is that he scratched his eye at some point. In any case I took him in, and our wonderful Vet Assistant gave me some medicine. But the medicine didn’t do the trick, the ulcer continued to grow…so I had to take him back in on Monday for them to do surgery to remove the eye. We were very excited to get him back today. He is tired, and obviously a bit under the weather, but he’s home where he belongs. He has been purring nonstop all day, in his excitement to be back home. He’ll be fine with only one eye, especially being indoors. I think it’s kind of funny that one of my “normal” cats now has a “disability”. I have a soft heart for “special” animals.

Well, I suppose that’s enough rambling for today. Have lots to do still.