A Christmas Angel

Although I never take time for my blog any more, I wanted to stop and say thank you to an angel who blessed me this week.  

It was an overwhelming gift, and very timely.  In an effort to feel a little more worthy of such a blessing, as well as an effort to pay it forward, my first purchase was to bless a shut in who couldn't make it to church yesterday.  I just wanted to stop by and say hi to her, but since you chose to bless me, I chose to buy her a little something to let her know that folks are thinking about her and that we are blessed by her presence and saddened by her absence.

So, dear Angel, I really hope you're reading this and know that your blessings are very well received!

Mallory's Very Close Call

Pretty hard to believe she walked away from this one.  She was on her way to choir today, from home to Sidney.  Gravel has just been put down on the east side of a bridge along the baseline, and unless you remember it's there, this is what can happen.  The bridge just has enough rise to hide the gravel from east bound traffic.  It was very loose, and at a normal speed for the baseline, Mallory hit the gravel and lost control.

After she spun on the road, she went in the ditch sideways and flipped, landing right side up.  She saw a lot of smoke, so she quickly got out of the car.  She decided it was only the air bags smoking, so she went back for her phone to call me.  It was in the back seat with the stereo.  Eeek!  It took a little while to get ahold of me, but the boys and I jumped in the car and took off.  At one point, Matthew mentioned that a second accident wouldn't help us much.  Yeah.

There are her skid marks going into the ditch and her car being pulled out.

The sheriff actually said we could take her home before the wrecker got there, so we did.  Grandma was just getting off work in Nebraska City when this all happened, so she came straight over.  About the time I pulled in the driveway, I noticed Mallory still holding her key, so I got her in the house and tucked in for Grandma to take over and ran the key back to the scene.  We watched her poor little Honda get loaded up and hauled off.

We let her rest for a little bit and then took her in for a check over.  She had some full body X-rays and found her neck a little messed up, but generally in good condition.  We had X-rays from a year ago to check them against, so that really told us a lot.  They checked her over for a concussion and were fairly satisfied that she didn't have one.  She has some bruises appearing here and there, including a nice shadow of a seat belt, and for that I am extremely grateful!!

Languid

Just feeling down today.  The family's apart and I seem to be pining away for them!  Not intentionally, as if anyone ever is, but even with two rowdy boys, the mood is down.  Even a tax refund check didn't lift spirits very long, even though it covered a lot of bills!  Well, one really big one and a smaller one, anyway.  I should feel amazingly uplifted... but still... just a bit sad.  Haven't really had enough time since losing Bonnie, either.  And then the weather... ugh... who isn't depressed by that??  It's supposed to be spring, people!!
Well, we have lots of plans for tomorrow, so I'm hoping we'll be too busy to feel down in the dumps.  

Happy Sweet 16 Mallory!

 Well, it's been quite a day!  My little Mallory turned 16 years old.  I don't know how slow we seem to think time should go, but I think it should be slower than this.  Maybe something more like first grade.  First grade seemed to take FOR.EV.ER.  Why not the babies??
Anyway, she's on her way out to California now to see her other grandma, and she is so excited.  They have been talking about this for a couple years now, and she's finally on her way.  Pastor Norm showed us flightaware.com, so we've been watching her flight since AWANA started tonight!  She has a few more minutes to go!
But anyway... we did other things today, too.  She started off in band.  I had texted the teacher that this was her birthday and it sounds like they sang to her, too!  Then, after band, we met up with her and went to the courthouse to get her driver's license!!  Always an amazing rite of passage!  At that point, she was free to drive herself home, but she instead chose to drive her daddy home.  She's so funny!
Well, I'm sure other things happened today, but they have faded.  Thought I'd post one more photo that shows once and for all that she truly did receive my good looks!!  

Another Tuesday

My daughter was absolutely thrilled yesterday when she caught me on my blog again.  I don't know why!  We were on the couch last night having some good "girl time" while the guys were at Scouts.  She's been working on some stuff for her dad lately and she was working in front of the TV last night.  They are trying to organize an inventory system that is actually published by their supplier, and the data is entered on an iPad.  Michael knows what he wants it to do, and the girl-who's-had-an-iPad-since-they-came-out is trying to make it happen.  They are quite a team. 
This morning has been less than bright.  We're all still pretty down about Bonnie, and that makes it hard to really accomplish anything.  They say that they got school "done" but that's all a matter of opinion.  They might also be taking advantage of the fact that I'm not feeling up for my normal fight, either.  Probably a good day for a big family project or something.  A couple things I know I should be doing, but it's so hard when you're just feeling SO SAD.  Maybe I should be looking through my scrapbooking stuff and make sure I'm ready for camp.  That's coming up soon.  Never soon enough!  Mallory's planning on going with me, so that will be fun.  Not sure she knows that we'll probably be taking her car!  Oh, well.  Maybe she'll drive for me!  Either way, it will be fun and couldn't possibly come soon enough.  

Long, sad day

It's been another tough one.  This morning we awoke to find the sun rising on the lifeless body of our beloved Bonnie in the driveway.  There really isn't any way to describe the way a moment like that just stops you in your tracks.  The plans for the day just didn't matter anymore.  Details became irrelevant.  The other two dogs seemed to be lifted when we came out.  They seemed sure that we could fix her.  As events played out, they seemed to get how sad we were and that there was nothing we could do, either.  We put her on the bike hill where we've put so many kitties.  We wish Clyde could be there, too, but we lost him while our house was under water.  Our friends buried him at their house, so he's safe.
Well, like I said, it's been a rough one.
On a stranger note, my daughter has been watching "Touch" for a while on Netflix and I just decided to watch it tonight for the first time.  She said I'd really like it.  Now, the creepy part... for those who don't remember...  The pilot episode took place on March 18.  =/ 
Oh, and one more thing... I made another attempt at the mozzarella cheese today.  Gave myself permission to go off on a tangent, I suppose.  Made it a little farther this time.  I had a lot of curds, but then had to leave for an appointment before it was ready!  But the Chef was still home, so he picked up the process.  He never really got a cohesive ball of cheese, but it tasted pretty good.  It was more like ricotta in texture, so I decided to make a Manicotti.  We've never had a better manicotti than this one!!  The cheese came out rather sweet, in a way.
Anyway, it certainly ended the day on a brighter note.

Seriously?

So how long does it take most people to move into a new home?  I mean, essentially, that's what we had.  It was all repainted and most of the flooring was replaced, and it was totally empty!  So why, 5 months later, do I still have so much unpacking to do??  We even had more basement space added, but still... You'd think I'd be happily moving on with my life.  

We just had the electrician finish installing the humidifier on the furnace, so he should be done with his part, except that we may be adding an all-house generator.  We'd been tossing the idea around and even have it approved in the loan, but still, it comes with quite a hefty price tag.  Then we had the rain the other night and water gushing into the basement.  Now imagine no sump pump to get it back out during a power outage.  Also keeping in mind, we're at the end of the power line:  If anything happens anywhere along the lines, we lose!  So it's probably a go.  Really no sense in going to all the work we have if the basement is going to have an inch of water every time it rains.

But at least the burn ban has been lifted!  We spent the better part of a whole morning burning all the boxes and packing that had been piling up.  That gave us some room to do some more unpacking!  Our box pile is now back up to huge, and we now have 40 mph wind!  

When we moved in, nearly everything that was not critical got stacked in my new scrapbooking room.  You can imagine what that looked like!  Then, one day while I was gone, my mom and Matthew cleared out a huge spot to set up my cutting table so we could get some fair projects going.  That was sweet!  Then, as we slowly unpacked the rest of the house, you guessed it, more stuff piled in the scrapbooking room!  Things are slowly getting cleared out.  After a year in storage and another 5 months stored around here, you really second guess what's important and what you can live without!  We are throwing tons of stuff out, and it feels so good to live smaller.  I'm trying to organize more and save less.  I know it's going to feel amazing in the end.  I should just be glad I didn't end up on Hoarders.

I was doing a pretty good job getting things cleared and moved in the scrapbooking room yesterday when Matthew decided to come help.  There are a lot of things he'd rather do than homework.  Go figure!  Anyway, we had to stop for Cubbies, but then spent another couple hours down there after we got home.  I now have two dressers to clean up and start using.  Those should go far!  I'm really looking forward to more time down there.  It comes along fast when you can really give it the time!  The next step has to involve some deep cleaning.  The tote lids are all grimey from spending a year in storage and everything is covered with dust and web-clods.  I'm waiting for the car to be serviced and hopefully Matthew is finishing his homework so we can get back to it when I get home!

We were supposed to have a campfire tonight at our house, but with this wind, it has moved to G-ma's house.  And I had almost found the dining room!!  Oh, well, my family will still appreciate it if I keep trying!