&Etc.

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part VII

2011-01-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

Give yourself grace. Another thing I've learned is you have to give yourself grace. As women, we need to realize that our weight is heavily affected by our hormones. So if it's that time of the month or we are headed into menopause, it can affect our progress. If you are a person who has recently had surgery and have to take it easy, you'll be surprised how fast the weight can pile on, just because you may not be able to get up and walk around or move like you used to. All those things can make a huge difference in how many calories you burn or how well your metabolism processes. If you're under stress or have some sort of pain, it's easy to overeat to try to deal with that. Being in pain from my injured shoulder, the consequent surgery and recovery, and not being aware of how these things would affect me are to blame for my initial 40-pound weight gain two years ago.

Another area to give yourself grace in are the holidays. For instance, this year I knew it would be very difficult to lose weight and not feel deprived of the holiday goodies that would be around at work and at home. So my goal was to simply maintain by eating prudently for most meals during the holidays, exercising three times a week, but still enjoying the glass of wine, or small plate of cookies, or a couple of pieces of fudge as they made their way into my day. I gave myself five pounds to play with. When I weighed myself each morning and found that I was anywhere between three to five pounds up from my baseline, I would be extra careful in what I ate that day and throw in another exercise session. Because of all this, I have been successful in maintaining my weight loss during December and on New Year's Day weighed exactly the same as I did on December 1st, even though I sampled lots of goodies and saw my weight zigzag around a lot in that five-pound range!

I still have a long way to go. My next goal is to try to lose another 20 pounds by the end of my birthday month, March. I have some specific steps I'm planning to take, because 20 pounds in three months is a much higher goal than three pounds a month. My plan includes doing a month of maintenance in April, like I did in December before I do another big push. If you don't give yourself some leeway, you'll give up.

I hope these tips have been helpful and I wish you success and health in 2011. Please be sure to leave any comments or questions you may have!

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part VI

2011-01-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

Don't give up. I've already shared how having a damaged knee and injured shoulder prevents or limits some of the exercise I would like to do. I was very discouraged when I was diagnosed in the Spring of 2010 with degenerative meniscus of the knee because I knew that I could really love running (which kind of surprised me!). I knew that in my dad's family, nearly everyone has problems with their knees, but many of them are also obese and were diagnosed with their knee problems in their 50s and 60s. So to be an active person who was diagnosed with this at age 43 was very frustrating. My doctor sat me down and explained that it was exactly because I was active that I had been diagnosed at a younger age. I have almost always had some sort of exercise program in place, even when my body shape and size has not reflected my activity. All that high-impact exercise of brisk walking and doing aerobic dance and step box exercises when I was younger damaged what genetically were always going to be weak knees. Fortunately, I had already discovered spinning and cycling to keep up a healthy, hard workout I needed. And now I can do my Walk Fit in-home DVDs and just minimize the part of the routine that can be high-impact by using alternative low-impact steps instead. I also am going to do snowshoeing because I believe that I can adapt that as a low-impact exercise as well.

I also went through an entire year (2009) of plateauing, weight-wise, where even though I was attending spin class two and three times a week, I only lost about 10 pounds that year. Looking back, I realize now that I should have been exercising three to four times a week instead and also eating better. I nearly gave up on ever losing weight again. But I chalk it all up to the most important weight-loss tip, knowing your body. I learned from it.

(To be concluded tomorrow)

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part V

2011-01-05T02:00:00.000-08:00

Keep track. I weigh myself every single morning. I have to, because it's really easy for me to put on a few pounds because I don't count calories or points, being a more intuitive dieter. If I'm up a pound or two and it's not that time of the month, that means I better schedule exercise for that day and/or eat a healthy dinner. I also record my weight. I used to do it on a private blog, but it got too complicated. I found that Google Health works really well for me; I just stop in and record my weight and how many minutes I exercised that day. It graphs the info, and it's great to see the line go down!

I also recently bought a pedometer for $5.00 at Wal-mart. It tracks steps and distance (in either miles or kilometers) and you can set a goal for either or both. I can also record the info at Google Health. Currently, I am still playing around with it to find out my average daily steps and then I will set goals later.

(To be continued tomorrow)

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part IV

2011-01-04T02:00:00.000-08:00

Exercise Often and Rest. Here again you have to find something you like that works for you and stick to it. I have always loved walking, and in the past, I was able to lose weight well by walking half an hour every morning with a girlfriend. But both our schedules got too crazy and when I tried running, I discovered I had a degenerative meniscus in my right knee. I really damaged it further trying to run, to the point that I couldn't even walk for exercise anymore. Fortunately, I had already been spinning (stationary biking) during the week and cycling on the weekends and in the summer and that was a good low impact exercise that didn't bother my knee. I spin three times a week with a group from work at one of the local high school's fitness centers through a fitness program the district has set up. By paying money and by connecting with my fellow spinners, exercise becomes a financial and social priority as well as a physical one and so it helps me be consistent.

Having lost weight, I can now do my Walk Fit fitness DVDs (a walk at home program) again during holidays and weekends (because I can't ride my bike in the winter) and they don't bother my knee too much, so apparently it has either healed or the weight loss has lessened the impact. Part of my routine also includes strength training: core/ab work, squats, and arm exercises. I have to watch my arm exercises, because I have weak shoulders. I had rotator cuff surgery two years ago and if I'm not careful, I can re-injure myself. I did that a year ago and had to go back to physical therapy. So I started all over again, doing the exercises with no weights, then two-pound weights, and now I can do a long routine with three-pound weights. I hope to try four-pounds next session, but I always listen to my body.

My point to all of this is again, just like finding the right eating plan, you have to find the right exercise plan for you. Some people like working out alone (I don't) while others like exercising with a partner or in groups. Some types of exercise work well for some people (my boss was an Olympic swimmer and still works out that way) but not for others (I like swimming, but I never lose weight doing it). Having an exercise or a variety of exercises that are just fun for you is good, too. I'm planning to take up snowshoeing this winter because I know it will work out my butt, plus it just is a lot of fun (I've tried it several times in the past with borrowed snowshoes). I don't normally like being outside in the winter, except for skiing, which I can no longer afford to do, so this is a great way for me to get fresh air in winter, as well as exercise.

Lastly, get your rest. I can function fine on six to seven hours of sleep at night. I rarely can sleep more seven hours at a time anymore. But I can't function on less than six hours. And if I'm especially tired, I take a nap, even though I tend to be groggy and useless for the rest of the day. Not getting enough sleep puts your body into survival mode and it will hang on to calories and fat.

(To be continued tomorrow)

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part III

2011-01-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

Eat right. All the best diets and lifestyle changes are going to tell you to "eat right and exercise" but again, you have to know which kinds of food your body processes well and which ones it doesn't. Again I recommend the Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type book, but don't obsess over it. Basically, there are people who do well with high-protein/low-carb (like me) and those who do well as vegetarians, or as high-dairy eaters. Some people like having a lot of structure by counting Weight Watchers points, calories, etc., while others are more intuitive (again, like myself) and can have a basic plan in their head that they build around. If you know your body well and you work best with structure, find a diet plan that works for you. If I were to have a lot of structure, I'd go with Adkins or the Palm Beach Diet, because they work real well for O blood types (high protein/low carb). There are a lot of diet plans out there and if that is your "thing" then find one that works for you. Don't be discouraged if it takes some experimenting around until you find the right one.

For me, the intuitive person who doesn't like the rigid confines of a diet plan, I found that it worked best to eat a high-protein breakfast (a sausage patty, a 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, or a simple two-egg omelet with a tiny bit of cheese and some veggies like onion and bell pepper). This was followed by a lunch of two rice cakes with either turkey breast slices or cheese (if I didn't have cottage cheese for breakfast) with a little mayo and mustard, a cup of raw veggies (like carrot sticks, pea pods, and grape tomatoes) with some ranch dressing to dip in. Some days I would have an apple or some berries. Sometimes I would have a diet soda (Diet Rite with Splenda, because I don't do well with caffeinated soda or NutraSweet, although once in a great while I will have a Diet Pepsi). I'd have a mozzarella cheese stick or a couple tablespoons of smoked almonds and maybe an 8-oz. can of V-8 juice for a snack, if I really needed one. At first, I had to have a snack to make it between meals. Now I rarely have one. Then dinner is a regular meal half the time, but in child-size portions. Think of an eight-year-old kid and serve up portions for him and that should be just right. About three times a week, I would try to have a really healthy dinner, like a salmon patty from Costco with a cup of steamed broccoli...or a veggie soup from a low-carb cookbook. But it's not unusual for me to have a couple slices of pizza if we order out, or a serving of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs with a small bowl of canned peaches on the side. Like I said, I don't cut anything out completely, or I would feel deprived. I do try to keep my gluten and my dairy down to one serving a day. And yes, I take supplements to make sure I get calcium, magnesium, B vitamins and the other nutrients I'm missing because I'm lactose- and gluten-intolerant.

One last thing: drink water. I try to go for half my weight in ounces each day. So if I weigh 150 pounds, then I try to drink 75 ounces of water a day. Dehydration is a cause of a lot of overeating. You think you're hungry, but your body actually needs water to be efficient.

(To be continued tomorrow)

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part II

2011-01-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

Set realistic goals. I used to be able to set a goal of five pounds of weight loss a month and easily meet it. But I got discouraged when that goal wasn't working for me anymore. Around the same time that I decided to go for three pounds a month, I had a physical, and that was exactly the same goal my doctor recommended for me. The funny thing is, once I set that goal, started losing an average of seven pounds a month instead! I made a graph of weight loss over time, with a baseline of three pounds a month, then recorded twice a month what I actually lost. Even if I gained a little, it was good to see, because it was always much lower than my baseline goal of three pounds a month! Plus I knew that if I plateaued for a while (a problem for me at times), I would still be "ahead of the game" in my goals.

One of the things I learned in helping my students at the middle school where I work is that the best goals are called SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. For instance, instead of saying, "I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year," you say, "I'm going to lose three pounds a month this year by exercising for an hour three times a week and eating no more than 35 carbs a day" (or whatever your plan is).

(To be continued tomorrow)

How I Lost Weight in 2010 and What I Recommend - Part I

2011-01-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

I gained 40 pounds at the end of 2008 and into early 2009 around a shoulder injury and consequent surgery. I slowly lost about 10 pounds in 2009 and then lost a total of 32 pounds in 2010. The first ten pounds of 2010 I lost in the spring right before I went to a genealogical conference in which I knew I was going to meet a lot of people in real life that I had been online friends with for about three years. That ten came off the way most people's ten pounds come off...exercising hard and really watching what I ate for about six weeks. Then I was able to maintain that loss because I kept exercising throughout the summer, although I didn't lose anymore until I started getting serious about weight loss again in September. From September 1st to December 1st, I lost 22 more pounds.

How did I lose that 22 pounds in three months? I've had a lot of people ask me in the last month or so and thought I would share it here. I looked back and figured out the most important points, which I think will be helpful to anyone:

Know your body. Over the years, I have read a lot of books and web reports on nutrition, diets, and exercise. My blood type is O- and I am short and curvy, but have a small bone frame. I have learned that my body is most efficient when I keep my diet low-gluten and low-dairy and eat lots of fibrous, low-carb veggies and some fruits (but not a lot of the latter). I do well with high-protein meals (red meat, fish, and some dairy). I don't try to eliminate any foods at all, just keep the ones that don't work well with my body to a minimum, so I don't feel deprived. I also lose weight best when I do hard, aerobic exercise that makes me sweat, three to four times a week, for at least an hour to an hour-and-a-half. It has to be low-impact, too, because of my joint problems. To learn more about your own body and which foods and exercise work best, I recommend reading Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type, but I don't insist you follow it to a T. Feel free to experiment around until you find out what works best and what is easy for you to maintain. If you feel like it's hard all the time, you won't be successful.

(To be continued tomorrow)

Week of October 17 - 23, 2010

2010-10-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

(Actually, I should title this the "Week of October 16 - 23" because I will also include information from the previous Saturday.)

On Saturday the 16th, I carpooled over to Hayden, Idaho with several members of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society to attend the Hayden Family History Center's free Fall Family History Seminar. Donna Potter Phillips and I were both presenting. Her two presentations were in the morning and my two were in the afternoon. I ran the laptop for hers and she ran it for mine; it was good teamwork. I presented, "Finding Your Ancestors' Vital Records Online" and "Accessing Historical Newspapers Online." They served some great soups and salads for lunch. The ride over and back was beautiful, and I enjoyed the stunning autumn colors.

That evening, Missy and Brady dropped by to visit for a short while before they headed out to church. It was good to see them again, and nice to have them living closer to our home.

Sunday, I went over to my brother-in-law's to visit for a bit. He was gone up to Green Bluff with his youngest two daughters, but I visited with his wife and picked up her old bike she was giving me after purchasing a newer one. I don't know if I'll get any riding time in before the bad weather comes. The seat on her bike is much wider than what I'm used to and rather uncomfortable, so maybe Norm can switch out the seat from my old bike.

I didn't have spinning on Monday because my spin instructor was gone to attend her daughter's cross country race. Tuesday, I took some time off work to accompany Matt to his high school to withdraw from his classes there. On Wednesday, he attended his new school program, Contract Based Education (see second page of this brochure). He will meet with a teacher once a week, get his assignments in packets, and work on them at home. We are very blessed that he'll be able to continue with AP American Studies, because one of the teachers in that program taught it last year. Normally, the students at CBE only take basic courses and they are not set up for advanced classes. However, the CBE staff are so willing to work with Matt and know that he is very bright and needs the challenge. He will also take some credit retrieval classes, since he needs to make up a 10th grade Language Arts credit and a 10th grade History credit. Finally, he will continue to take AP Calculus, online. His CBE teacher called me and was concerned that Matt would not have the support he needed if he had difficulty in his calculus class, as she is not certified to teach it. I assured her that we had resources to help Matt if he needed them, including an uncle who teaches high school math up in Deer Park, and a former math teacher of Matt's that is a now colleague of mine at my work location who is always inquiring after Matt.

I already shared how I took Wednesday off work. But I did attend spinning that day as well as on Thursday, and both days had a very good workout. It is amazing what a stress reliever it is. I have now lost 12 pounds since I started really eating right and keeping track of my health on September 1st. I had planned to lose three pounds a month, so I am way ahead of the game and it also gives me room if I plateau again.

Friday I did errands after work. Got my nails done again. I wish I could wait and do them every four weeks, but they get really bad by the end of three weeks, mainly because they grow so fast. Plus, I was going to speak the next day and wanted them to look nice. I also just needed to allow myself to feel pampered. Then I did the grocery shopping. It was after 7 PM before I got home and got everything put away. Matt blessed me so much by offering to make me his famous chicken quesadillas. They are so good, and I enjoyed eating them while sipping a glass of wine and playing Mahjong on Facebook.

The next day, one of the EWGS members picked me up at o'dark thirty to head up to Colville so that I could give my presentations as the featured speaker at the Northeast Washington Genealogical Society's Fall Workshop. We met another member in Loon Lake and continued carpooling up, arriving at 8 AM. It was a good thing I arrived early, as there were some technical glitches with the computer I needed to use there, as well as missing information in the syllabus. Everything was taken care of before I got started, thanks to NeWGS President Karen Struve and her husband Gordy, and NeWGS member Gary Sheehan. My four presentations were: Using RootsWeb to Find and Share Your Ancestors; Finding Vital Records and Obituaries Online; Using County Genealogical Websites; and Finding Volunteer (or Low-Cost) Researchers Online. There were all sorts of cookies and sweet breads served with coffee in the morning and at breaks, and we ate a great lunch with croissant sandwiches, chips, veggies, and fruits. There were over 40 door prizes, so some individuals walked away with more than one, as well as a table full of freebies. I snagged some genealogy magazines that looked like they might have some articles of value for myself. I also enjoyed chatting with some of the 40 attendees during lunch and the breaks. They have an excellent well-attended group and I have always enjoyed speaking there.

The day was very rainy and the ride through the countryside not nearly as lovely as the week before, but still it was nice to get out of town. After I got home, I found that Missy had picked up Charlie (her cat that we have had living at our house for over a year) and brought him to her house, now that she lives in a place that allows pets. Norm was having a hard time with it, as he really enjoyed Charlie. That cat thought he was a dog and would follow Norm every where around outside, curious about each and every project Norm was working on. Missy had invited Matt to hang out for a bit, which is always nice for both of them. I popped a frozen lasagna from Costco into the oven and Norm and I drove over to Idaho so he could get his smokes and we could gas up. Again, it was dreary outside and getting dark, but after my long day, I really didn't have any energy to do anything except sit, anyway. After we got home and ate dinner, I had a glass of wine and we watched some old M*A*S*H episodes on DVD before bed.

What's Been Happening Lately

2010-10-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I went through a difficult time in my life and I turned to writing to help me focus and move forward. The end result was my genealogy blog, AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors. I'm proud to say that it has won many awards in both the genealogy and in the blogging world. Lately, life has been throwing me curve balls again and I thought it would be good to do some journaling here on my personal blog for a while to help me through it.

So what are the curve balls? While I can't give all the details, some of the most difficult things lately have included the fact that Norm has been unemployed since the end of May 2009. His unemployment benefits ended a year later, so we've been living solely on my income--essentially a part-time one--for the past six months. We switched from his employer's insurance provider to mine, and although we are grateful it's the same HMO and that we are all still insured, it does cost quite a bit more through my employer. I have had a couple of health issues this year, and we are trying to get Matt's chronic sinusitis taken care of, because it has affected his school attendance so badly. Both of our cars have some major repairs due and we have been limping them along with the hope that they will make it until February, when we should get a fairly decent income tax return.

Needless to say, I've been under a tremendous amount of stress. Today I took a "mental health" day off from work, and my boss--who is also a good friend--offered me the use of her house which is located right on Medical Lake. It was very quiet and serene there, with only the occasional meow of her cat and the honk of the Canada Geese swimming just beyond her backyard. I brought a small bottle of wine, some tea, and my lunch. I spent time crying, napping, taking a hot bath, and doing a lot of thinking. Some ideas came to me while I slept, others while I was pacing the floor, thinking. And again, while I can't share every detail here, I was able to come up with some epiphanies and priorities:

There are choices I've made recently because I just gave up on life. In some areas of my life, I felt worthless and felt that there was no future ahead. Today, I chose to believe that there will be some good things waiting for me at the end of this dark tunnel, and that until I reach that place, I choose to be the kind of person that will be worthy of those good things.
One of the things I had given up on was really doing my best as a parent. The past three years have been a real struggle as both kids have had poor attendance and poor grades, with Missy barely graduating a year and a half ago...despite the fact that both my children are bright, intelligent people. The daily challenges took a lot out of me, and I didn't want to deal with things anymore. When they were younger and winning awards for their school work, sports, and activities, I never would have guessed we would end up on this path. I felt like a failure as a parent.
I decided I really want to be there for my son in the next 20 months before he graduates high school. And instead of fighting him when he makes choices I disagree with or that may be harmful to him, I will try to come alongside him and support him with love and understanding, while standing firm on my parenting principles.
Now that my daughter is on her own, I am so proud of many of the choices she has made the past year and a half. She has become a lovely, responsible young woman who is really blossoming. I want to encourage her to continue to grow as an adult, as a woman, and to see her develop in a career that will be fulfilling for her.
My health remains a priority, and I will continue to exercise frequently and eat right. The exercise (spinning on a stationary bike) helps to relieve a lot of stress as well as improves my knee. I'm starting to feel better about my body now that I am finally losing weight again, after being stuck in a rut for over a year. Matt's health is also a priority, and hopefully with a visit to his sinus specialist in December, we can make a decision that will improve it.
Getting my finances in order is another huge must. I know how much money I have, but I am way behind on entering my receipts into my computer, due to a computer crash that happened a year and a half ago.
Enlisting the help of professionals for some of the steps I may need to make in the future is another item on my list. These may include a counselor, an attorney, and of course, my doctors.
I plan on going on a retreat every three or four months, just in a quiet place, like a friends' house, or if I can afford it, a cheap hotel room for the weekend to evaluate and assess where these goals are going, to keep me on track, and to just give me a respite. I realized I really don't take time for myself; I tell myself that researching my family tree is my time for myself, but really, I end up blogging about press releases that are sent to me or writing posts that are not quality writing. This makes me feel frustrated and feel like genealogy is a chore, not a fun escape.

I don't at all expect life to get any easier any time soon. But I know that if I can just keep putting one foot in front of the other while keeping my eyes on my goals, that it will help me get through to the other side with my health, my heart, and my dignity intact.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2010-10-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't written on this blog in ages, but I thought I would post a recipe that is one of my favorites. I recently bought a bunch of canned pumpkin at Costco because I love using pumpkin in a variety of dishes and recipes. This morning I woke up craving pumpkin pancakes, although I didn't get to making them until lunchtime. This recipe comes from Washington State University Extension's Nutrition Program (I think). My special needs classroom has several people from the Extension come in once a week to do a cooking class for our students and I believe I got this recipe last year from them.

2 c. flour
3 T. brown sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 t. allspice
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 c. milk
1 c. canned pumpkin
1 egg
2 T. oil
2 T. vinegar

Mix the dry ingredients and the moist ingredients separately, then combine and mix well. Batter will be lumpy. Pour by 1/4 cupful onto a heated and greased griddle. Serve with butter or peanut butter and syrup. Especially good with sausage on the side. Makes 4-6 servings.

These pancakes refrigerate very well, and I usually make up extra to eat later in the week.

February 22 - 28, 2009

2009-03-01T23:41:00.000-08:00

Sunday I hosted Scanfest with a new platform. It had its kinks, but I think it will work out pretty well.

Missy had a bad headache and wasn't feeling well most of the week. She only attended school on Monday. I finally got her in to the doctor, who said she had one of the worst sinus headaches he'd seen in a while. She got on antibiotics and is feeling better, finally.

Monday I came home from work to find Norm home with some bad news. General Dynamix-Itronix is shutting down the plant in about 60 days to outsource overseas. It is a hard blow to take, but we have survived three other layoffs in the past 14 years. I know we can survive this.

Tuesday was the beginning of my six-week course, Intermediate Online Genealogy. This is only the second time I've taught this course, and I was amazed at how much I had to update on my syllabus and presentation. The amount of online military resources has magnified greatly in the past year!

On Wednesday, I attended a three-hour course after work on Trauma Training. This was the second of two parts, the first which I attended a month ago. This course taught us what tramau is, how to recognize the signs that students may be undergoing traumatic events in their lives, how trauma interferes with the learning/memorization/retention processes in the brain, and how to refer students to the necessary resources when needed. The presenter is a counselor for our school district, who has an amazing list of national credentials. She was a very dynamic and charismatic speaker and we were all very much engaged in her presentation.

After two evenings away from home, I spent a lot of time on Thursday evening just doing some necessary housework. It felt good to get my house back, so to speak! By Friday, I was just crashed and ready for the weekend!

Saturday, I got together with three other co-workers and we stayed overnight at a hotel downtown, where one of the gals had won a free room. We enjoyed the hot tub, going out to several places, and coming back to our room for refreshments and Apples to Apples (a great game that I highly recommend). It was

February 15 - 21, 2009

2009-03-01T23:29:00.000-08:00

My parents dropped by Sunday evening after spending the day in town for a train show (my dad collects, repairs, and sells Marx toy trains and other Marx toys). We had an enjoyable visit with them.

Monday was Presidents Day, so the kids and I did not have school, although Norm had to work. I love three-day weekends, because there's enough time to rest up, get needed work done around the house/yard/home office AND have some time to plan.

The work week was kind of a rough one, however. The former husband of an acquaintance of mine passed away unexpectedly at his home the previous Saturday and one of my other co-workers was the one who found him and called the police. It put a damper on the whole week, as they were planning the funeral. Then, to top it off, the deceased man's mother passed away Wednesday. In the midst of it all, we tried to celebrate the birthday of the teacher I assist on Thursday with a mini-potluck lunch, but we had a lot of interruptions that kind of took away what little festivity we were feeling.

A physical therapist who is a colleague of the one I'm seeing came to assess the dynamics of my workplace. The tables and chairs of the room are all a good 25 - 30 years old (terrible ergodynamics). He suggested that I purchase a slanted foot rest which will help support me, since my feet don't touch the floor completely when I sit in adult-sized chairs. He also said I should use a gel wrist guard for any computer keyboard I use.

Saturday, I made two presentations for my genealogical society's computer class at the local library's computer lab. The topic was "Using Mailing Lists to Find Your Ancestors." I always enjoy doing these, because of the collaborative effect that it has among the attendees and the presenter.

February 8 - 14, 2009

2009-03-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

On Monday, I went to see my surgeon about the shoulder pain and loss of range of motion I've been experiencing. He examined me and told me I did not have frozen shoulder, which was a relief, and that he agreed with my physical therapist that I should have the ergodynamics of my work place evaluated to see if they were the cause. He also prescribed a week's worth of steroids. I was a little hesitant to use them, because one of the side effects is weight gain, but they did the trick by bringing down the inflammation and relieving the pain. I had another physical therapy appointment on Wednesday, and got my shoulder taped again, which also helped tremendously.

On Friday, I met with the rest of the members of the Washington State Genealogical Society's state conference committee. Our local society, the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, is hosting the state conference in September, and my responsibilities on the committee include finding vendors for the conference.

Saturday, Valentine's Day, Norm and I went to see "New Girl in Town." It was a cute chick-flick movie that we both enjoyed; however, Renee Zellweger did not look so great. I believe she is younger than I am, and although her body is in great shape, her face looked quite aged. I normally don't remark on actors' appearances, but it was so markedly different from the way I remember her from previous movies. We went to the matinee showing, then went to a candy store in the mall. Norm's niece and nephew-in-law had gotten us a gift certificate to that store for Christmas, and we hadn't used it yet. So we picked up some chocolates and red hots for all four of us to enjoy. That evening, we watched "Fireproof" on DVD at home.

February 1 - 7, 2009

2009-03-01T23:04:00.001-08:00

I went to physical therapy on Monday, still in terrible pain. Nancy, my PT, was very worried about me and my shoulder and how I've regressed since I've returned to work. She suggested that I see my surgeon and theorized that perhaps the ergodynamics of my classroom were causing me to have so many problems. I was told to stay off the computer as much as possible. I saw her again on Thursday, and she taped my shoulder, which really helped stabilize it.

Monday was also the start of the new semester, which was hard to believe. Tuesday night was Groovy Shoes, a long-standing annual basketball and spirit competition between the two high schools that my teens attend. My daughter's school won the boys' and the girls' basketball games, but my son's school won the spirit competition, which is what really counts!

I taught the last Basic Online Genealogy class at the Spokane County Library District, and invited my students to take my Intermediate course through the Community Colleges of Spokane's Community Ed program.

Saturday was the February general meeting of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society. Rose Kraus of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture spoke on how to research the history of your house, a topic near and dear to me.

A New Chapter Coming Soon to Hubby's Career

2009-02-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.krem.com/topstories/stories/krem2-022309-itronix-layoffs.461d455e.html

January 25 - 31, 2009

2009-02-03T06:23:00.001-08:00

Well, my shoulder feels a tad bit bigger, so I'm going to try to start catching up on my posts, bit by bit.

On Sunday the 25th, Norm and I went out to dinner at the Onion with a couple from his work. I had met them at the annual barbecue they host at their home in the summer for many of the crew on Norm's shift. I had the Hula burger, which was pretty good, but not fabulous. We enjoyed our time with R and C and just getting out of the house to relax. Earlier in the day, I had hosted Scanfest and finished scanning my great-grandfather's funeral book and started on my grandmother's yearbook.

In the middle of the week, we got a notification from our credit union that my debit card would have to be canceled. Seems like a Visa processing center in New Jersey had a security breach and my card number was at risk for possibly being used for fraudulent purposes. So I had to either use Norm's debit card (our checking account was unaffected) or one of my credit cards for bills and shopping until I received the new one they mailed to me.

The kids had eye exams for the first time in years on Wednesday. When they were little, our insurance covered eye exams, but we changed providers over time and weren't covered. Later, when Norm was hired at Itronix, we added vision insurance for him and me since we were in need of reading glasses, but not the kids as they seemed to be doing OK. We decided a few months ago to add the kids to our vision when Missy started complaining of headaches and eye fatigue. Matt's vision was 20/20, but Missy did need some corrective lenses. I really like the frames she picked out.

I had been running short on sleep all week and it was obvious when I went to teach my third Online Beginning Genealogy class Thursday evening and discovered I had forgotten to bring my flash drive with my PowerPoint presentation, "Clues in the Census," on it! At least I had reviewed it the evening before, so it was fresh in my mind. I was able to wing it by simply going to the genealogy websites that had census data and talking about the various highlights of each decade's census.

Saturday was the best and worst day all rolled into one. It was the best because I got to see my brother and my paternal aunt, neither of whom I'd seen in a year. The awful wintry weather across Washington State had prevented my brother, who lives on Whidbey Island, from visiting during Christmas. My aunt is a nurse with a traveling nurses agency and she has been working in the San Francisco area. Both this year and last year she came at the end of January to stay with my other aunt who lives in Spokane Valley and to get together with all the extended family in the area at a restaurant. My parents came down, as well as my sister and her boys, and her biological daughter with her adoptive family. We celebrated the January birthdays of my visiting aunt, my niece, and my son Matt. I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do, and none of them were posed very well, but here are a few shots:

My mom and my sister

My dad and his sisters

My siblings and I

As usual, someone snapped the camera while I was talking.I'm sure some family member will now wisecrack about how it is impossible to photograph me when I am not talking!

And now the "worst day" part: Saturday night was the worst night I had, painwise, since my shoulder problems started eight months ago. While it wasn't the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life (that's a three-way-tie between ear infections, a tooth nerve dying, and childbirth), it was constant pain at a fairly intense level and I was so exhausted and frustrated that my shoulder has only gotten worse since I returned to work earlier in the month. I took a painkiller for the first time in about six weeks, which took nearly two hours to kick in. Fortunately, it did not make me itch (someone told me later this may be an allergic reaction), but I did get horribly nauseous, had insomnia, and swelled up (another symptom of an allergic reaction?). The next day I was simply exhausted, even though I slept til 1 PM (after finally falling asleep at 3 AM). This was not a great way to end the week.

Taking a Break

2009-02-01T19:48:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a self-imposed break from blogging for one week. My shoulder has been getting progressively worse since I started work a month ago, in both the intensity and duration of pain as well as the involuntary movements and muscle spasms I'm experiencing--identical to what was occurring in the weeks before surgery. Last night was the worst night, painwise, I've had in the eight months since all this started and I can't continue blogging, working, driving, doing paperwork, and keeping house without risking injury or worse. Something has to give for a bit, and I'm hoping a break from blogging will relieve the symptoms some.

I'll still be online, as I can read other blogs and my e-mails and publish my comments. It's just keyboarding that is stressing my left shoulder and arm, and while it's possible to type with just one hand, it's too frustrating for me to go that slow.

Thank you for your understanding.

January 18 - 24, 2009

2009-01-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

Beine's Blinkies

On Sunday, Norm and I went to the theater and saw Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood. What a great story of redemption. There are so many similar elements to John Wayne's last movie, The Shootist. I highly recommend it!

Monday, the kids and I didn't have any school because of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, of course, although Norm had to work. The furnace repairman showed up and cleaned the flame sensor to the tune of $100! In the course of trying to figure out what the problem was last weekend, Norm had cleaned out some of it, which improved the situation. Oh, well! At least now we know what to do in the future, and we're enjoying having warm, consistent air flow again.

Missy's boyfriend's mom had knee surgery a week ago Friday and Monday I brought over my famous Spicy Potato Soup along with some sour cream and potato chips. It was a definite hit!

I had four students at my Beginning Online Genealogy class at the Spokane County Library Thursday evening. It was nice to have a few more. I also discovered that I can get a county library card for free, and I was able to pick up They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins by Loretto Dennis Szucs. I want to see if I can enhance the Immigration and Naturalization lesson in my Intermediate Online Genealogy class I'll be teaching beginning in February.

Matt and I had our yearly dental exams on Friday, with clean reports except for a soft spot on one of Matt's teeth. It's not yet a cavity, so he has to be sure to keep on brushing and also rinse twice a day with fluoride. We wondered as we drove home if dentists and dental assistants ever tell their patients, "You're brushing too much. You need to cut back." Ha!

Missy went to Winter Camp with her church youth group up at Chewelah Peak Learning Center. Sounds like she had a lot of fun as usual and got quite a bit of scrapbooking done. She's really been enjoying learning how to do scrapbooking for her senior culminating project.

My shoulder has really been giving me grief for about 10 days. I had seen my physical therapist mid-week last week, and she had suggested cutting way back on my exercises, which I did. In fact, I didn't do anything except some light stretches each day, plus I started wearing my sling to work. I was getting to the point where I was really worried that not only had I plateaued, but perhaps had regressed. It was very frustrating and the pain and stiffness were starting to get to me. Finally, this morning, I woke up and was able to do not only my stretches but all my exercises in the shower with the warm water cascading over my shoulder and upper back. I am encouraged and looking forward to going back to therapy tomorrow.

Did you know that Goodwill has its own auction website, similar to eBay? Looks like some great stuff here! I discovered this through one of the genealogy blogs that I read. I've been eyeing the teapots up for bid, because I think I want to get a few more. My aunt gave me two strawberry decorated ones years ago, to match my kitchen decor. One, the smaller one above left, is a two-cup teapot and I've been using it a lot lately for tea for both Norm and myself. Our favorites are usually the Stash brand, both black and decaf. I am looking for a good, quick, easy teapot cozy crochet pattern for free online, but haven't run across anything I like so far...believe me, I've looked! I might have to just make up my own.

Speaking of crocheting, I haven't added anything this week to the afghan I'm making for Missy because I was too sore this week. We'll see what next week brings!

Our yucky stagnant air will hopefully be going soon. The hoarfrost on fences and trees is just beautiful, but the gray skies and gray and brown frozen berms of snow everywhere are not. Just to the west of us, in Lincoln County, the hoarfrost (fog that freezes in feathery patterns of heavy frost) has brought down power lines all over the county and with them the poles, both wooden and metal, that hold them. School has been out for a few days in those districts and the local power companies' crews have been working 18 hours a day to get the lines back up and the power turned on for the thousands of unfortuante families in the area.

And that's a wrap!

January 11 - 17, 2009

2009-01-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

The big news of the week is that my sister got hired as a nurse at an area hospital! I'm so excited for her! We've celebrated all the milestones: getting her LPN degree, passing her LPN state board exams, graduating from college with her RN degree, passing her RN state board exams, and now this!

I worked a full 30-hour week this past week for the first time since the week of November 2 - 8 (I worked a four-day/24-hour week the next week, but had surgery that Friday). Boy, was I tired! And sore! When I went to see my physical therapist, she was really worried about my muscle pain and told me to back way off my exercises. I have done so, and while there's still stiffness, it isn't so bad. It does make me worry that it will take a lot longer to recover than I originally thought. The shoulder doesn't hurt; it's the muscle that comes diagonally across my upper back from my spine across my shoulder blade to the shoulder.

Thursday night was the first evening of a four-week Beginning Online Genealogy class I'm teaching at the Spokane County Regional Library. I had only two people show up; the weather is keeping them away, I'm sure, because the library did a great job of advertising. Oh, well! Maybe more will come next week, and I'm just as committed to the two that came as to a class of 20.

We have had furnace problems on and off for several months, and Friday morning I woke up to a freezing cold house. Fortunately, we all have electric blankets, so we slept well, but getting up and dressed in the cold was no fun. I called a repairman, but unless I wanted to pay an arm and a leg and another arm, I had to wait until Monday. Norm did some cleaning of the electronics board and found a loose wire and fixed it, which improved the situation some. It'll run and run and run, shut off for a few minutes and run and run again. Or it will not come on at all. Sometimes it brings heat, and sometimes it just blows air.

I started crocheting an afghan for Missy at her request. It's a zigzag pattern with black and shades of purple from very dark to very light, giving it that Amish quilt look of bright colors against black. The pattern is from a Seven-Day Afghan book my aunt gave me for Christmas some years back. The original color scheme called for shades of rose and white, but I like this one better (Missy picked out the colors herself).

I decided I wanted to keep track of the books I'm reading again this year, although I didn't do a very good job last year. Right now I'm reading three: A Week in Winter by Marcia Willett (I'm so happy to discover another British novelist!); Discovering the History of Your House and Neighborhood by Betsey J. Green; and Heritage from Heroes by Dorothy Rochon Powers, written about the famous and interesting people buried in Spokane's cemeteries. The last two books are for genealogy; the Green book is for a project I want to do later this year on my main genealogy blog and the Powers book is to educate myself so that I can do a good job on the Graveyard Rabbit blog I've recently started.

Matt was ill with that same nasty cold and cough I had, and missed school two days last week. Seems he is having a hard time, health-wise, getting back into the swing of things at school. Hopefully next week, he'll attend all week. My cold is better, though I still have an occasional cough.

We've had fog all week, gray overcast clouds and chill temps. It's supposed to be sunnier next week. I'm getting awfully tired of gray skies, gray snow, gray ice, and gray fog. I need some light!

January 1 - 10, 2009

2009-01-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

Part of my New Year's resolutions was to blog more frequently at this site. I planned to do this Sunday afternoon, but this weekend, I succumbed to a pretty nasty cold that I've had for a week. I'd done a lot of blogging on my genealogy blog, AnceStories, on Saturday, and Sunday my kids clamored to use the computers; Missy needed the laptop for a school project and Matt wanted to play some Runescape on the desktop as he had not been on at all on Saturday, having a friend over to hang out with. Between feeling exhausted and the computers not being available, I had to delay my writing for a day.

New Year's Day we finally got together with my brother-in-law's family to do "Christmas." Between the awful weather, family members' work schedules, and his visiting daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters being very sick with bronchitis, we kept having to change our get together date. As it turns out, we never got to see Norm's niece and her family before they had to return to Illinois. Hopefully, they'll be back in the spring. Anyway, we had a nice dinner at my brother-in-law's, then opened our gifts from each other. Everyone seemed to enjoy the calendars I'd created, and one gift we received and especially liked was a printed book of my brother-in-law's photography.

Saturday the 3rd, I attended the annual luncheon of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, held at the Spokane Club. After being served our delicious meal (my choice was cedar planked king salmon with a fruit sauce, wild rice, and steamed broccoli in cheddar, along with a teapot of Earl Grey tea), we listened to a fascinating presentation by Ian Chambers, Professor of History, University of Idaho on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Why Pirates Matter to History." Despite the weather, there was a pretty good turnout, and I'm sure no one was disappointed in either the food or the presentation!

This last week was an odd one. We were supposed to return to school on January 5th, but the weather and many unshoveled sidewalks made dangerous conditions for children walking to school. Instead, we started on Tuesday, but many parents were up in arms, as the snow (75+ inches) had begun to melt, and roofs of commercial and residential buildings all over the county had been collapsing; 60-something, at last count. School closed again Wednesday and Thursday, and reopened Friday.

I saw my surgeon for my post-op exam on Tuesday, which was about five minutes long. I'll see his assistant in March. All is going well, which was confirmed by my latest session with my physical therapist, who continues to be pleased with my progress. Each week, I'm given new range-of-motion exercises, and now I'm doing resistance moves to improve strength. I'm supposed to progress to resistance bands and maybe half-pound weights next.

Over the weekend, as I said, I got bogged down with this cold. It just made me feel exhausted every time I exerted myself in the least way. I was worried I would have to take a sick day off work today, but I woke up feeling all right. Matt now has a bad cough, so I'll give him some cough syrup before bed.

Speaking of Matt, he had his 15th birthday on Thursday. His favorite gift, he says, was getting the day off of school. I felt bad, because we didn't really have anything special planned for him; Norm had to work and the roads were not that great, so I wasn't comfortable taking Matt out to do things. He wasn't giving me any ideas; said he didn't want a big fuss, plus I know he doesn't like cake. I felt better when he called me after school on Friday and asked if a friend could spend the night. Of course, I agreed, and since I was out getting grocery-shopping right after work, I picked up his favorite chips and dip and some soda, Scrubs (2nd season) on DVD, and a couple of pizzas from Little Caesar's to kind of make a "party" of it for him and his friend.

Saturday, we heard some sad news. Ann Hoke, a former co-worker of Norm's that had worked with him at Telect and Logan, had passed away on Friday. She had requested that Norm be a pallbearer. Her daughter-in-law called us to let us know about it all. She had been ill for years, so it wasn't a shock, but still, Norm was fairly upset. The upside of it was, he connected by phone with a couple of former co-workers that he hadn't seen in years. We still haven't heard when (or if) the funeral will be.

That's a wrap up of the first week and a half of 2009!

I'm a Winner!

2008-12-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

I just started getting into digital scrapbooking, and have been finding tons of great freebie kits around the Internet! This is my first attempt at making a digital scrapbooking page:

It features my great-great-grandmother, Berber "Barbara" J. (DeJONG) VALK with her grandson, Gerrit John HEIDEMA, Jr., around 1919. The backgrounds and all the elements except for the green ribbon were from A-liya's Christmas Around the World freebie kit, while the green ribbon was from Nore's Nice-ities, who also put out a Christmas Around the World freebie kit. There are 113 kits in the Christmas Around the World event, and they are free to grab until the end of the year!

I added A-liya's blog to my Google Reader, and then found out she was having a drawing for this lovely Breathtaking Winter kit, so I signed up:

Well, today I got an e-mail saying I had won! I'm so delighted. Thank you, A-liya!

Jalapeño-Beef Stew

2008-07-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I haven't blogged here in forever, and realize I have a lot of catching up to do, but I promised Thomas that I would post my recipe for Jalapeño-Beef Stew. It's a recipe I created after hunting around on the Internet for some ideas to use up the stockpiled canned goods we have leftover from the winter. I merged a couple of recipes I found online and added or substituted ingredients I had on hand, which somehow always manages to create the best dish! My picky-eating 14-year-old son loved it; he had two servings the first night and then two servings of leftovers the next! This was cheap, easy, and delicious. The only thing I could find fault with was that you would not want to eat this if you were on a low-sodium diet.

Jalapeño-Beef Stew

1 12-oz. can of roast beef in beef broth, undrained (can you tell I shop at Costco? LOL!)
1 15-oz. can of corn, undrained
1 15-oz. can of stewed tomatoes (I used Italian-style), undrained
1 15-oz. can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 c. jarred sliced hot jalapeño peppers, drained and chopped (avoid touching your eyes or face while doing this and wash your hands well after chopping)
1/2 can (about 1 cup) of water (I rinsed out the stewed tomatoes can and used it with all the good juicy tomato bits in it)
2 T. powdered beef soup base (or the equivalent of beef bullion cubes)
2 t. chili powder
dried oregano, to taste

Empty all ingredients in a quart-sized sauce pan. Heat thoroughly on medium-high, then simmer while your muffins or cornbread are baking! I got about 6 good-sized servings from this.

Would taste great with shredded cheddar cheese and/or sour cream on top.

Merry Christmas from the Midkiffs

2007-12-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

It's a Jib Jab, Wonderful Life, starring Norm, Miriam, Missy & Matt, with a little help from Norm's brother Mike and Miriam's dad, Bryan.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Homecoming 2007

2007-10-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Missy's Homecoming Dance. The first two photos were taken on the day she purchased the dress. The one with her boyfriend was taken this evening, right before they went to dinner. How grown up she's getting!

(To zoom in, choose a photo and keep clicking on it...you'll be taken to several other pages in the process.)

A New School Year

2007-09-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted any news in over two weeks...I've just been so darn busy! Labor Day weekend was filled with back-to-school shopping. We also had some distant relatives visit that Monday, which was very enjoyable.

Matt really is enjoying all his classes as an 8th-grader at his middle school. He has a 10th-grade honors math class at the neighboring high school three days a week (because they have an A-B schedule). The other two days he has a study hall period back at the middle school. He also has Health and Fitness (P.E.), Life Skills (required class - home ec., sex. ed., etc.), Honors English and History, and Science.

Missy is a junior this year, and continues with Stage Crew during zero hour for the second year in a row. The school decreased the amount of drama classes available, so she is taking Leadership instead, with the same teacher who taught her past drama classes and current Stage Crew class. She also has a second year of German, Honors English, AP American Studies, Human Biology, and Pre-calculus. The homework load is heavy this year...typical for a junior year. She started working at Cinnabon tonight and will be working three or four days a week, mostly evenings the latter half of the week and on the weekends.

In my classroom, we have only 13 students, none in wheelchairs for the first time ever. Five--or about 38%--of our students have some sort of autism spectrum disorder; three of them quite defined. One of our teachers is out on maternity leave, having given birth just a few days before the school year started. Her long-term sub is a mom of three, expecting a fourth. Two years ago, one of the assistants was pregnant. So we've had a pregnant staff member in our classroom three years running. I'm not drinking the water (or talking to the water boy)! I was able to slip right into the swing of things right away. First period is a combination of Technology and Social Skills (keyboarding several days a week in the library, social skills the rest of the week). Second and third periods are math and reading, respectively. Each of us staff is leading a different part of math; mine is measurement. Fourth is vocational training. We gather the recycling products around the building (paper, aluminum cans) and take care of the rags used to erase the white boards (gather dirty ones and do the laundry; fold the clean ones and replace the dirty ones with them). We also shred confidential papers (those particular students either can't read or can't comprehend what little they can). After lunch, I assist two of our higher-functioning students in a Humanities (Language Arts - Social Studies) two-period block.

Tomorrow our class will go to the Spokane Interstate Fair, something I look forward to every year. We don't do rides; just look at exhibits and animals, and enjoy our lunch. We usually see old friends (students and staff) from other special ed classrooms in the district.

Matt has some sort of injury or inflammation in his right foot. It started Labor Day weekend, and he ended up missing school last Thursday because he couldn't walk on it. I took him to the doctor and he couldn't find anything wrong with it. It still wasn't better on Monday, so I took him in again. His "knuckle" on his big toe was pretty swollen. They took X-rays of both feet for comparison; no fractures. They also ran blood tests to check for arthritis and synovitis (inflammation of the membrane that lines a joint). The results came back negative. He was given crutches to use if necessary, and it seems to be slowly healing.

His bowling league started up last Saturday, and he enjoyed hanging out with his old gang from elementary school all day.

Norm's been putting in his second week of overtime in a row. He also worked a full day Saturday. So not much has been getting done on the house, and I keep telling him not to worry about it; he needs his rest. He anxious to get things done before the cold sets in. He's just about got all the flooring done, so we can use the front door again. I got a new camera, but I haven't taken any pictures yet...I'll try to do so this weekend and get them posted here.

Both units in the duplex next door are filled: a couple on the south side and a mother with children on the north. Everyone seems quiet, so far, and friendly, so we are grateful!

Please keep my mom and dad in your thoughts and prayers. My mom's health has not been so great lately, and I know it is tough for my dad.

My sister just finished her classes and received her LPN certificate! I'm so proud of her! She just needs to take her state exam to be an official nurse. She'll continue on in school towards her R.N. degree.

That's all I can think of. We've been busy!

Nice Matters Award - Part 2

2007-08-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

This is my third attempt to complete this post. There's a bit of a storm blowing in the online genealogy world, so I've been compelled to blog-as-it-happens on my genealogy blog, AnceStories. As I said a couple of days ago, I received the Nice Matters Award, and I'm eager to pass it on! Here are my nominees, and the reasons why I chose them:

Mauro C. at 1 Million Love Messages has a great idea: post one million love messages from around the world. Can hear you hear the music? "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love..." Mauro's been doing a great job making sure the love gets passed around and thus making the world a better place. Head over to his site and spend some time reading. Then send him an e-mail with a message for your sweetie, and he'll post it.
Dawn Meehan of Because I Said So recently became a Famous Person. As a mom of six kids (yes, they're all hers!), her hilarious description as to why she was selling her son's Pokemon cards on E-bay received thousands upon thousands of views at the auction site. She was instantaneously jet-propelled into national and worldwide attention, receiving 100,000 hits on her blog and 10,000 e-mails IN ONE DAY. I'm awarding her the Nice Matters Award because she is using her fame to help others, by placing ads on her blog so people can donate to breast cancer research and St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
Vienne, of Eavesdrop Writer, deserves this award for compassionately, yet frankly, writing about the little dramas she daily overhears or views: the proud wife of a blind man, the intolerance of teens toward a homeless woman. Reading her observations makes me stop and think about ways in which, perhaps, I'm not so nice; and determine to do better.

Nice Matters Award

2007-08-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

Francis over at Caught in the Stream nominated me for the Nice Matters Award. I blogged about it on my AnceStories blog. I'm also going to post more about it here, and nominate some of my favorite non-genealogy blogs...but later.

Today was my first day back at the district...six hours of training in de-escalation and soft restraint. I'm pooped and would have gone to bed a few hours ago, but Missy is at an Indians game with her youth group doing post-game cleanup, and I am waiting for her call to pick her up.

Stay tuned!

A Different Kind of Family

2007-08-26T08:08:00.001-07:00

This is a duplicate of something I posted over at my genealogy blog, AnceStories, this morning:

This really doesn't have anything to do with genealogy, but this morning my dad instant messaged me about an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he knew I'd be interested in.

A new totem pole was dedicated at The Center for Wooden Boats...a 24-foot pole that was carved by five young carvers (including at least one girl) from my hometown of Klawock, Alaska, to return the favor of a gift to a man who had created a canoe to honor the community where his wife once lived. These teens were trained by none other than my "Indian brother," Jon Rowan, a master carver and teacher at my childhood community. A celebration involving other Tlinget communities, as well as Haida, Tshimshian (both also from Alaska) and Duwamish (Washington state) tribes, took place yesterday as the pole was raised into position. Each figure on the pole tells part of a story, and I'm sorry to say there aren't better photos of the pole, nor was their anything really written about the story behind it. According to what I can tell, the top figure is a wolf, the next-to-the bottom figure is a killer whale, and the middle figure is holding a canoe.

The article is located here, and there is a photo gallery link you can click on (photo 9 includes a shot of Jon). The Heenya Kwan dancers are the troupe from Klawock. When I was in elementary school, I was a part of this group and had a beautiful black-and-red button dress and blanket made by Jon's grandmother. In ancient times, the buttons were made of abalone shells, but now they are purchased plastic pearly-colored buttons. I also had a headband that I had beaded myself with blue, red, black and white seed beads. (I'll try to find a photo later and add it to this post). Looking at these photos, I can hear the drum beating and I know which native Tlinget songs are being sung. The last sentence of the article mentions one of my favorite treats: smoked salmon. Yum! If I had known this celebration was taking place, I would have made an effort to take the 6-hour drive over to Seattle to be present!

My family was "adopted" into the Tlinget community, with my father being a Raven and my mother and siblings and I being Eagles. Jon, his mother and his siblings were also Eagles, so we were considered siblings, too. It's a complicated sort of family structure, created--no doubt--to prevent incest by the ancient ancestors of the Southeast Alaskan natives. In the old days, the tribe was divided into two clans, the Raven (who has supernatural powers) and Eagle (his friend). There are also sub-clans. For instance, the Wolf is a sub-clan of the Raven, and the Killer Whale is a sub-clan of the Eagle (my blanket had killer whales on the back of it). You could not marry another person of the same clan; it was considered incest, no matter how far apart you may have been related. In this matriarchal society, the children of a couple were considered to be members of the mother's clan, and her brothers and male cousins would take on the father's role and help to raise her children. Her husband, meanwhile, would instruct and care for his sisters' and female cousins' children.

Chiefdom was passed on to the nephews on the women's side, rather than from father to son. And the tribe had its own form of Social Security: old widowed people were married off to young men and women, who were young and strong enough to care for their elderly spouses. When their spouses died, they could pick someone of their own choice (provided their spouse wasn't of the same clan), knowing that when they were old and alone, a strong, healthy teen would be assigned to care for them in their elder years. Of course this system was obsolete by the time we arrived in Klawock in February 1971.

One of the things I think my father enjoyed the most about being a minister to this community was his visitation duties: checking on the sick and elderly, he loved to sit for hours at a time (which was considered proper and respectful) and listen to the old people, who still could speak the native language, tell the old legends and how it used to be. One elder, told my father of the three wives he had had during his lifetime (I just checked the Social Security Death Index, and he was born in1900). The first wife was an elder, and he cared for her when he was young. The second wife was a woman he fell in love with from his own clan. He married her, but the elders came and took her away from him. He always referred to her as the "wife I loved." After this, he found a woman from the other clan. I've always thought this was a tragically romantic story!

Psshhh!

2007-08-25T09:11:00.001-07:00

I noticed on the news feed for KREM-2 (lower right hand of this blog) that a "Watchful Neighbor Stops Drug Deal With One Call." Give me a break!

Do you know how many times in the past nearly 11 years I have called the police on drug deals going down in the parking lots of KFC and Peking North, and they never showed up?

Do you know how many times they've shown up too late, or made enough of an entrance to the block in their patrol car that the dealers/buyers hid the goods by the time they were questioned?

What about that time a year ago August, when two doors down, the drunk twenty-somethings were firing a gun (target practice) in their backyard, and I called 911 five times over the course of three hours...and to my knowledge, the police never showed up?

My neighbors have similar stories. One involved an attempted breaking and entering, and the police wouldn't show up until the neighbor told 911 he was going to shoot the intruders himself.

This is not a bad neighborhood; it's a working class neighborhood with concerned, involved citizens.

Kudos to the guy on West Frederick who called the police, and kudos to the police for stopping the drug dealing in that neighborhood.

But what about ours?

Missy Got a Job!

2007-08-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

Missy had an interview yesterday morning at Cinnabon at the mall. She received a call in the afternoon that she could start training as soon as she obtained her food handler's card. She immediately took the course online, but will have to take her test and pay her fee in person on Monday when the county health district office opens.

She's very excited about her first job, as am I!

Have You Voted?

2007-08-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

I found this handy voter's guide for Eastern Washington on the Spokesman-Review's website here. Tomorrow (August 21st) is the last day to vote in the primary. Here in Spokane, we have mail-in ballots. They must be postmarked by tomorrow, but if you miss the postal carrier, there are drop box locations, including all public libraries within the county, where you can leave your ballot.

Our Week at Lake Gillette

2007-08-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share some of our experiences from cabin camping at Beaver Lodge at Lake Gillette. This resort is located in the heart of the Colville National Forest on Highway 20 on one of the chain lakes of the Little Pend Oreille (pon duh RAY) Lakes in the Selkirk Mountains of Northeast Washington.

First off, a little history: I used to live in the Colville area, during my 8th-12th grade school years, and my parents continue to reside there. I first saw Beaver Lodge on a Labor Day weekend drive many years ago (early 80s). Our family used to drive into Canada every Labor Day weekend on a day trip (back way before border crossings were no big deal!), and I remember seeing the rustic lodge on the side of the road. That original building burned down in the mid 80s and was rebuilt.

Fast forward to Summer 1990: I was pregnant with our oldest, and the church we were then attending had a church camp out for the weekend at Beaver Lodge in late July or early August, I believe. Norm and I had done a lot of weekend camping that summer, figuring it would probably be our last opportunity for a while (we were right), and trying out our new, family-sized tent. We had already camped at several of the Forest Service campgrounds at some of the other chain lakes nearby (Lake Sherry and Lake Leo come to mind). So it was an easy decision to go up with the church group. By that time, I was well into my pregnancy, and the tent sites were located far from the restrooms; in fact, you had to cross the highway to get to them. I well remember getting up several times a night to trek the long path through the woods and across the highway to get to the restrooms, with a full bladder and a kicking baby, to boot. I was young (23) and probably pretty foolish in those days (but then, too, I lived many years of my childhood without either running water or electricity)! Seventeen years later, I felt pretty inconvenienced to walk only 25 yards away from the cabin we rented (which was much more comfortable than a tent). I'm getting older...

I don't remember the church camp out the following year, but I definitely do in 1992. The main reason I remember is that is was the first time I had been away from our daughter since she was born. My parents and my teenaged sister babysat her, and it was a relief (for me) and a worry (for Norm) for us to get away. My family brought Missy to us at the resort before we left, and we have a photograph of her and Kayla (my niece) as toddlers in a little wading pool at the lakeshore. I think we tent camped once more with both the kids (our son Matt was born 3 years later) as part of the church group, and then we had a long absence. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law continued to bring his kids (most of whom are much older than ours) up to the resort for special dad-daughter or dad-son tent camping weekends, and the occasional family vacation renting one of the cabins for the week.

Four years ago, we decided to plan our family vacations together with my brother-in-law's family, and ended up renting two cabins in mid-August, during probably the wettest August on record! Fortunately, the cabins, while rustic, were well equipped for bad weather; in fact, they are used year round, and snowmobilers and cross-country skiers use them frequently in winter. Each cabin has a couple of beds, a wood stove, table and chairs, a TV and VCR, a refrigerator, coffee pot, hot plate, microwave and toaster, a cold-water sink, a kitchenette equipped to feed four. The store has groceries, a little restaurant, a selection of videos for rent, and a couple of gasoline pumps. So even though it was really too cold and miserable to swim, we were able to play games, stay warm by the fire, and we took a number of drives around to the various lakes, as well as up to the Gardner Caves near the Canadian border. In fact, there's a half-mile trail from the mouth of the cave to the border: did you know there's a cleared border of about 50 feet wide from the Pacific to the Atlantic, all along the U.S.-Canadian border? Check out Google Earth or Windows Live Local (aerial view) to view it!

The last three summers we've had beautiful weather. In 2005 and 2006, we went in mid-July; this year, we again went in August. Here's a list of some of the activities we engage in while there: swimming (of course!); water fights (ditto!); fishing (Matt always does well at that); kayaking (several of the lakes are connected by a canal); sailing; renting a paddle boat; hiking (there are mountain trails all over); driving around to find wildlife to photograph (moose, deer, bear, turkey, pheasants, cougar, etc.); basketball; pool (except this year, they had taken out the pool table - sad!); toasting s'mores and enjoying drinks over a campfire (not this year, due to a burn ban); reading; napping; playing board and card games (Balderdash is a favorite, and this year we learned Pass the Pig); checking out the hot guys (oh, wait, that was what Missy, Kayla, and their friend Stephanie were doing...!); sitting down at the dock late at night and looking up at the stars so bright you could see their reflection in the water below; ditto for the meteorites; driving around and visiting the other lakes and communities (a lot of railroading, lumber, and mining history here); exploring the caves and seeing the border as mentioned above; and sharing meals (we usually do a big pancake breakfast, a spaghetti dinner, and a burger cookout as joint meals with my brother-in-law's family).

There were some disappointments, some of which I've mentioned in the last paragraph. The other was that this resort has gone through many hands over the years, and the latest owner, for which we've had so many high hopes, has decided to sell as well. It can't be easy to run such a place, and really, I think it can't be done without better, more reliable help, a computer system for registration ease, and a website for advertisement. While there was a badly-needed new dock this year, it wasn't conducive for swimmers' convenience, with no ladders available. One of the newly-built cabins was so poorly constructed that the floor is sagging and separating from the wall; it also had no sink installed, with only a spicket on the outside of the structure. My brother-in-law had reserved it, but after two nights of listening to a rat or squirrel in the walls, requested a different cabin (and got it).

So will we return next year? That's a discussion (or two) we'll probably have in the next nine or ten months. And I hope to post some photos soon of this year's visit.

We're at Lake Gillette!

2007-08-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

We're enjoying our vacation at Lake Gillette. Check out our photos from last year. Hover your mouse over any photo to read the caption. Click on the + or - symbols in the lower left corner to speed up or slow down the slide show. Enjoy!

The Porch

2007-08-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Norm's brother Mike and nephew David came over and the guys worked for seven hours on the front porch. How I wish I had my camera working! :-( I had actually asked to borrow my sister's and then she and I both forgot about it...anyway, the guys tore off all three layers of the old porch flooring and frame, 80+ years' worth. The house was build 1907/8 and the porch was not original to the house; it appeared sometime before 1920. Every time the porch flooring rotted during the last century, the current owner would throw another layer of good wood on top of it! We had three layers of rotten wood flooring, and the pillars holding up the porch roof were rotting, too (Norm had replaced two of the worst pillars over a year ago)!

Besides tearing out the old porch flooring and joists, the guys replaced the third pillar, and added more cinder blocks to the crawl space beneath the porch in order to support the new joints, which they nailed in place. The joists are made out of treated wood, so no worries about rotting wood anytime soon! They also cut out some of the plywood that will be used for the new floor, although it needs to be primed and sealed with Kilz before being bolted into place. It's hard to believe all this took seven hours, but there really was a lot of hard hot work to do! We are so grateful for Mike and David's help!

Sunday, Norm and I spent several hours cleaning up the mess. All the old porch wood was piled up on a tarp in the middle of our lawn. He sawed up all the old wood into approximately 3-foot lengths and I hauled them over and filled up the crawl space under the porch with them. That way, we don't have to slowly fill our garbage can or rent a dumpster to get rid of the debris. It'll slowly finish rotting into the soil until the next century. Norm's going to seal off the entire crawl space so we don't get any cats or skunks under there like we have occasionally had in the past.

So there's plenty more work to do, and right now the front door's not usable as an entrance or exit; but I am dreaming of the day when I can sit on my front porch in a comfortable Adirondack chair, looking at my new beds of flowers and enjoying listening to the wind chimes while I read a good book!

This Week's Update on the House Project

2007-08-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

Norm has been working very hard these last few weeks on the prep work for the house painting project. He tries to put in at least an hour every day between breakfast and getting ready for work, and as long as it's not too hot on the weekends, he puts in quite a few hours those days as well.

He spent a long time prepping the front window next to the front door, because that's the main window the public sees as well as visitors to the front door. It had a lot of little nail holes in the frame back from when this place was a rental and people would tack up plastic over the windows in the fall to keep out the cold (the previous owner seems to have been a bit of a slumlord). Norm filled in the holes with wood putty and sanded it down, then applied several coats of Kilz primer and sealer to seal the wood and cover up the old rose trim color. He then put several coats of the off-white trim and dark red counter trim on the frame. He also has cleaned and prepped the aluminum storm window and primed that frame with Kilz. He needs to finish painting the frame and after the porch has been rebuilt, he'll put the storm window back in place. He only has a couple more windows to do; most were done last year or the previous fall when he first started working on this project.

Norm has also applied a coat of Kilz to the entire first floor of the south side of the house (including the aluminum screen door), since it receives so much direct sun, as a way to preserve the paint he'll add later. He also has put Kilz on all the other sides of the house from the ground up about 3 feet, where the water has splashed off the roof or from the sprinklers and has taken the old paint and primer off the siding.

Another thing he's done is borrowed a Dremmel tool and clipped off all the roofing nails that protrude through the underside of the eaves so that it will be easier to scrape and paint them. Speaking of scraping, my very small part in all this has been to begin scraping the porch ceiling using a scraping pad attached to a drill. It's a lot harder than it sounds, because the steps on the ladder are either too high or two low for me to reach the ceiling just right. So I either have the power tool very close to my face or have to reach and operate it with less control and more discomfort to the shoulder. It takes me about an hour to scrape a 2 x 5 foot area. And by the time an hour's up, I'm hot, sweaty, and covered with tiny flakes of paint...more than ready for a shower!

Tomorrow my brother-in-law and nephew will be coming over to rebuilt the front porch. It will be so nice to have a safe, nice-looking porch for really the first time since we've lived here (10 1/2 years)!

Not A Quick Fix

2007-08-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

So I ran out a bought a new wireless card this afternoon, loaded up the installation disk, plugged in the card and voila! a very quick, great connection...for 15 minutes. And then, the same old problems: pages not loading, the connection timing out, sluggishness, etc., etc.

Called Norm at work and we both wondered if the slot the card slides into is shot or one or more pins are bent or broken. Norm had me talk to one of his co-workers, who suggested that something may be getting too hot and shutting down.

SO thirty-five bucks later, nothing solved, but one more possible problem crossed off the list.

Computers...gotta love 'em.

Cabin Fever

2007-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

I think I've figured out why on earth I've been so uptight this summer: I've got cabin fever. Yes, you know that confined, claustrophobic feeling you get at the end of a long winter, when you've spent too many hours indoors with your family in what seems to be a never-shrinking house? Well, I've got it...in the summer.

It's been too hot this summer to go much of anyplace that's not air-conditioned. Prohibitive gas prices don't allow for the traditional Sunday drives we used to take into nearby rural communities. We've had major expenditures this summer: an online math course, driver's ed., Norm's company rearranging the pay schedule resulting in a week's "lost" pay, rebuilding the porch and painting the house, and putting aside savings for vacation.

The kids aren't little anymore. You can't entertain them with free movies at the Garland Theatre, free-swim time at the city parks, or story hour at the library. They're too cool for the Boys and Girls Club, too young (Matt) or too busy (Missy) for jobs, and the budget's too tight to set them loose in the mall. We all want to use the computer to "escape"; trouble is, we're down to one computer, and that one is being used several hours a day for math. The digital camera gave up the ghost. If one more thing breaks or dies, I'm going to scream! The kids are on each other's nerves, on my nerves, on Norm's nerves, and I'm on theirs and his, I'm sure!

Summertime cabin fever: now that I understand it, I can deal with it. It's the not understanding why I'm so cranky and crabby all the time that makes it worse.

And some "good" news: Norm got someone to test the wireless card from our laptop. The card is bad. It's good news, because I've been tearing my hair out wondering if we simply had the network set up wrong on the laptop after it had been re-configured. See, the wireless card works enough to get a good signal for 10 or 15 minutes, then the connection gets very sporadic. Now that we know it's bad, we can easily--and fairly inexpensively--replace it.

Sometimes you gotta look--and be grateful--for the silver linings in all the storm clouds above. I have to remind myself of that a lot these days. :-)

This Week's Family Celebrations: July 22 - 28

2007-07-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to my cousin's son, Xander, who turned four on Wednesday!

This Week's News

2007-07-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

This week has been hot, hot, hot! Actually, it's been this way all summer. We never did have our cooling beginning-of-summer rains, so things are really parched around here. My laptop is having problems connecting to the Internet. I took it to the library last Saturday to try to connect to the library's hot spot. That didn't work. When I got it home, the wireless card seemed to work fine, but the network connection was gone. A long call to my ISP tech person didn't help. I called my husband's nephew, who helps us with so many of our computer issues. He worked on it for an hour and a half, and finally got a connection, but it failed about five minutes after he left.

I called our ISP tech person again today. I think we have it partially figured out; but I need help figuring out how to reconfigure the rest of the settings, and I couldn't get back through to tech support.

Missy was at church camp all this week. While there, she received a text message from one of her friends informing her that the little sister of another friend had passed away on Monday. You can see Maddie's obituary here. I felt so badly that I wasn't there when Missy heard the news, and of course, I feel badly for Maddie's family.

It's just kind of been a rotten week, and I'm glad it's almost over.

This Week's Family Celebrations: July 15 - 21

2007-07-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary to Norm's Aunt Carol and Uncle Ray, who celebrated their 44th anniversary on Wednesday, July 18th.

Peach Dessert

2007-07-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

This recipe was shared with me by a girlfriend years ago. I'm not sure where she found it, but we both agreed it was scrumptious! It's a family-pleaser, too!

Ingredients:

Filling:

32-oz. can of sliced peaches, drained
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. all-purpose flour

Topping:

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ground cloves
dash of salt
1 t. vanilla
1 egg
1 stick (1/4 #) butter or margarine

1. Heat oven to 350° F. Mix filling ingredients well and put in bottom of a 9" square oiled glass pan.

2. Mix dry topping ingredients. Mix vanilla, egg, and butter and then add to the dry topping ingredients, using a shortening cutter, until the mixture is damp, but crumbly. Crumble this topping over the filling.

3. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes. Topping will be crunchy-looking but bubbly. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream or whipped topping. Wrap leftovers in pan well with plastic wrap before refrigerating, or dessert may crystallize and be difficult to serve when cold.

This favorite goes well with my spaghetti dinner.

My Spaghetti Recipe

2007-07-14T11:55:00.001-07:00

My kids really love my spaghetti recipe. The last time we went to a buffet house, my son got a plate of spaghetti and after a couple of bites, put it aside. "It doesn't taste good at all, Mom. It's not like yours." My daughter went to Tomato Street with some family friends several years ago and tried their spaghetti. She told the family she was with that her mom's was much better. High praise from some picky eaters!

So I'm not Italian at all, and can't say I spend hours simmering my sauce or use fresh-from-the garden ingredients. I don't even use meatballs, but instead use ground beef. Despite all this, it's a family favorite, and easy to make into dinner for a crowd.

Ingredients:

Cooked spaghetti noodles, drained (when I throw the dried ones into boiling water, I grab a bunch big enough to fit within the circle of my thumb and index finger...about quarter-sized)
1 # ground beef
1/2 c. diced onion (I prefer Walla Walla Sweets, but any will do)
a couple cloves of garlic, pressed (or use garlic salt with the spices, instead)
1 15-oz. can of stewed tomatoes, undrained
1 15-oz. can of tomato sauce
1 6-oz. can of tomato paste
1 small (8 oz.?) can of sliced mushrooms, drained; or a few fresh ones, sliced
1 small can of sliced olives, drained
oregano
cumin
basil
seasoning salt (like Lawry's); omit if using garlic salt instead

1. In a large skillet, brown the ground beef with onion and garlic. Chop up meat into very small chunks. Drain meat into colander to remove excess grease, wipe out skillet with paper towel, and return meat to pan.

2. Add canned ingredients and mix well. Generously sprinkle entire sauce with the spices and seasoning (or garlic) salt. Mix well. Let simmer for a few minutes (about 10).

3. Add drained cooked noodles to sauce. Mix well. Serve with a tossed green salad and/or cut green beans (fresh or canned), and garlic toast. Sprinkle spaghetti with grated Parmesan cheese if desired. A favorite ending to this meal is Peach Dessert, served with vanilla ice cream or whipped topping.

This Week's Family Celebrations & Memorials: July 8 - 14

2007-07-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Norm's Aunt Carol on July 8, and his niece Jennie on July 10.

We received news earlier this week that my granduncle, Lloyd Jack Robbins, had passed away in Florida on July 12.

Sizzlin' Hot!

2007-07-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

The last few days it's been in the 100s here in Spokane. Today, we had humidity, overcast skies, and strong winds. Later in the afternoon, there were lightning strikes and downpours here and there. It cooled down 20 degrees in 2 hours...from 102 at 5 PM to 82 at 7 PM. I went out and filled my garbage can with small twigs and cones from the trees in our yard while talking to a friend on the phone. She was also talking from her front yard, and we both remarked on how good it felt outdoors in the 80s!

My dad e-mailed me earlier today and sent me the weather report from Colville - 108! Sheesh! It is supposed to be 103 tomorrow, with another chance of storms, then cool down into the 90s next week.

Fourth of July Photos

2007-07-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

My parents stopped by last night, and Dad gave me a CD of photos he had taken at our Fourth of July barbecue. He is the only one that does not appear in the slideshow below:

Projects: Wall, Porch, House Painting

2007-07-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

I'm very excited because next weekend, Norm, his brother, and his nephew will begin rebuilding our front porch! This weekend, he's finishing up the retaining wall he built around the back end of the shed next to the driveway of the duplex that was recently built. This is to prevent a vehicle from running into our shed and storage area, as the driveway is pretty narrow and about four feet above our property level. We also purchased the rest of the paint we'll need for the house. Right now my digital camera is unusable; I'm hoping to get a replacement next week so that I can document the work as it is done and post it here for you all to see. It's a tremendous amount a work, and I know that Norm and the others will do a quality job!

Further Updates on My Father-In-Law

2007-07-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Norm talked to his dad the other day, and he's feeling much better...especially since he's allowed to sleep. While in the hospital, he had been woken by nurses every two hours to get his vitals checked, and it wore him out so badly, he couldn't even keep food down. He has spent the last few days sleeping and eating, and it has helped tremendously! He will have to keep it easy for about six months to help prevent more clots.

Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts sent his way!

This Week's Family Celebrations

2007-07-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to two of my cousins--brothers Ted (July 3rd) and Karl (July 7th)--ages 21 and 23 this year!

Happy 5th Anniversary to Norm's niece and nephew-in-law, Jennie & Nathan, on July 6th (their online family photo album can be found in the right-hand menu)!

Another Update on My Father-In-Law

2007-07-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

We were away from home most of the day with the holiday celebrations, but received phone messages and e-mails notifying us that Norm's dad was discharged from the hospital today. He's still pretty tired and in some pain, so he could continue to use your thoughts and prayers. Thank you to all of you who've been doing so!

Wave Your Flag Cake

2007-07-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'll be making this dessert today in preparation for the annual Robbins Fourth of July Picnic held at my parents' log house north of Colville. There's usually a small crowd attending: we four, my sister and her children, her birth daughter and her adoptive family, family friends, and church friends. Norm is usually in charge of the grill (burgers or hotdogs?), and everyone brings a dish or two. Dad makes his famous baked beans (a Robbins tradition...at Robbins Family Reunions in Michigan, you could find dishes and dishes of baked beans on the table!), and supervises the s'mores makings. Laurie often brings her delicious cold three-bean dish. There's always potato salad, chips, and soft drinks. Janet brought a peanut butter pie last year! Pete helps Dad set up the tables, and Mom puts out the red-white-and-blue tablecloths, dishes, tableware, and condiments. While things are being prepared, the little boys will play with Grandpa's train layout. Then Dad will gather anyone around to say a prayer of gratitude for the good food, good company, and our freedoms. We'll dig in, enjoy each other, and go home to watch fireworks in the evening!

Wave Your Flag Cake

(image and recipe from Kraft Foods)

1 qt. fresh strawberries (about 4 cups), divided
1 1/2 c. boiling water
1 8-serving pkg. or 2 4-serving pkg. of red Jell-o (I prefer strawberry flavor)
ice cubes
1 12-oz. pound cake (or I use Sara Lee 10.5 oz. pound cake, and slice it very thin), cut into 10 slices
1 1/3 c. fresh blueberries, divided
2 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. sugar
1 8-oz. tub of whipped topping (store brand is fine)

Wash and hull strawberries. Slice one cup, set aside. Halve remaining strawberries, set aside.

Stir boiling water into Jell-o dry mix for two minutes until completely dissolved. Add enough ice to cold water to measure 2 cups. Add to Jell-o; stir until ice is melted. Refrigerate 5 minutes or until slightly thickened (consistency of unbeaten egg whites).

Meanwhile, line bottom of 13x9-inch dish with cake slices. Add sliced strawberries and 1 cup of the blueberries to thickened gelatin; stir gently. Spoon over cake slices. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm.

Beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with wire whisk or electric mixer until well blended; gently stir in whipped topping. Spread over Jell-o. Arrange strawberry halves on whipped topping for "stripes" of "flag." Arrange remaining 1/3 cup blueberries on whipped topping for "stars." Store leftover cake in refrigerator (hmm...there's rarely any leftovers at our picnic!).

Another Update on My Father-In-Law

2007-07-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, we had a message from Norm's brother that he had called Norm's dad in the hospital and talked with him, and that his dad said he would like to hear from Norm. So Norm called his dad and talked with him for a little while. Norm was a little shook up afterwards; said his dad sounded just terrible; he couldn't remember Norm's brother calling him; and was confused and kept calling Norm by his brother's name at first. I reminded him that his dad is doped up on pain killers, has some oxygen deprivation (which is why he is on oxygen); has lost track of time; and is fighting some pain after he has had the painkillers reduced. Still, I know it is hard to see (or hear) a parent in a weakened state. It reminds us of our mortality, and how fragile life really is.

Norm then talked to his mother for a while. The doctors are fairly convinced that if his dad didn't have pneumonia, then he has had at least a severe infection. He won't be released from the hospital tomorrow as first expected, because of this infection. It will be a few more days. This has been really hard on Norm's mom, so please continue to keep both his parents in your thoughts and prayers...thanks!

Update on My Father-In-Law

2007-06-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law is better...but he has pneumonia...the doctors think. I have no idea why having pneumonia is "better," but maybe what this means is that the blood clot is going away.

Thanks for keeping him, my mother-in-law, and the family in your thoughts and prayers. I'll keep posting updates as I hear them.

New Design

2007-06-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

While this is a rather new blog, you may have noticed that there was a change in the design and colors today. The pixel painting in the upper right hand corner, with the plaid background, is a drawing I created using my Paint Shop Pro 6. And yes, it is of our house...at least the way I want it to look when the front porch has been repaired, the exterior paint job finished, and new flowers planted. Right now it's still looking a little run down around the heels! I took a photograph of the house and using PSP drew over the house with digital paint, changed the colors, highlighted and added shadows, and then used a filter to create a plaid background. I'd love to get some stationery made with this printed on it...actually, I could print some myself! What do you think?

Another Gun Brought to My School

2007-06-30T12:38:00.001-07:00

As I added a feed to one of the local television news stations on the right-hand menu on this page (near the bottom), I noticed one of the headlines was "Airsoft gun brought to Spokane middle school." Clicking on the link brought up a photo of my work location and the story of how a pellet gun was brought to the summer school program being held there. (Sigh!) This is the third incident (that I know of) where some type of gun was brought to school in the past 12 months. It's a tough neighborhood, and a tough population of kids, which is why we have chosen not to have our own children attend that particular middle school or the high school that it feeds into. Guns don't scare me; it's the fact that it's the kids who have not been trained properly in gun usage and safety who are the most likely to pull such a stunt. Their reasons for bringing a weapon to school are to show off, protect themselves, or use it for revenge--none of which are very reassuring.

[By the way, the news article was wrong. The school is located in East Spokane, not West.]

June 15 - 29

2007-06-29T21:15:00.001-07:00

Here's a summary of what's been going on in our lives. School got out June 15th, the same day Norm's sister and brother-in-law stopped in on their way to Mt. Rushmore from the Portland area with their new-used 5th wheel. We enjoyed the visit and admired their new rig. I have to say that my sister-in-law is pretty handy with the sewing machine and does a great job at decorating!

Saturday, June 16th, Norm's niece Becky graduated from Eastern Washington University with a B.A. The next day, we celebrated the 5th birthday of my sister's middle boy, River, at Chuck E. Cheese's. All last week the kids and I just enjoyed not having to do anything, not being at school, sleeping when we wished! I did work hard for my presentation to the Bonner County Genealogical Society up in Sandpoint, Idaho. More on that here. And Missy started working with her youth group cleaning up the Indians stadium after games to earn credit towards church camp next month.

This week, Missy began her first week of Driver's Ed, two hours a day, three days a week, for five weeks. She and a friend turned in a dozen-anda-half applications and resumes apiece at various business at our nearby mall. Matt started his virtual math class online; he will be in 8th grade next year. The online class is for 9th grade math, and next fall, he will spend one period a day--his math class--at the high school, taking the 10th grade course. I spent several days--ugh!--entering months of receipts into my Quicken program on the computer. In the midst of it all, I discovered that someone had used our credit card number to apparently create a false card and swiped it to make two purchases of gas in Mexico last month! I reported it right away, and it seems to be resolved, thank goodness!

This morning we received an e-mail from Norm's sister telling us his father has been hospitalized for a blood clot in his lung. Things seem to be stable, now, but please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

We have had gorgeous weather for this time of year. Generally, we get a lot of rain during June, that doesn't let up until around the 4th of July. This year, it's been drier and hotter. My rhubarb is more than ready to be picked and frozen, ready to make pies. This year, we got a small yield of sweet, juicy, and huge strawberries (we learned late last year that they shouldn't be fertilized, which is why we never had any fruit before!). My peonies and wild roses were gorgeous, and I'm so sad my digital camera is broken; I would love to post some garden photos on this blog. I planted some petunias again, and the alyssum is starting to bloom. I'm not putting in any perennials until after the porch gets fixed and the house painted. I don't want to spend a lot of money on flowers just to have them trampled during projects and repairs!

Last week, they tore down that house across the street next to KFC. They're going to enlarge the restaurant parking log. It's so sad! The house could have been sold and moved elsewhere. I blogged about it here. Next door, the new duplex is getting finished on the inside. They drywalled most of the week. I hope we get some quiet, clean, private neighbors. It will be unsettling to have people living so close. Their front doors will be on our side, and as that lot is a couple of feet higher, they'll be looking right down into our yard and windows (we have had the blinds shut on that side for some time, now).

In other neighborhood news, the Chevron that we frequently patron, has been sold to a firm from Seattle. The place has been owned by a couple that have wanted to retire. It was a modern version of a mom-and-pop shop. Their adult children worked there, and they always have hired friendly employees. I hope things won't change too much when the new owners take over.

So that has been our summer vacation so far! Thanks for dropping by!

This Week's Family Celebrations and Memorial Events

2007-06-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

June is an eventful month in this family. Between Norm and me, we have seven birthdays, an anniversary, Father's Day, and usually a graduation or two to celebrate within our extended families. My grandfather's passing in January brought down the number of birthdays from eight to seven.

This week's celebrations and events:

June 25th - Happy Anniversary to my parents who are celebrating 42 years together!
June 26th - In Memorium. My cousin Chris was born on this day 40 years ago. He passed away December 15, 1985. He was more than a cousin; he was a good friend. I miss him and his sister Carrie tremendously.
June 27th - Happy 63rd Birthday to my mom!

Oh, Just One More Thing, Ma'am...

2007-06-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

Just what I need: another blog. Problem is, there's too much I want to write about that doesn't fit under genealogy. So here it is, a place to post my other random thoughts and maybe try my hand at some fiction, daily life, rantings & ravings. This is for Everything Else In My Life, and that's why it's called "&Etc."