And 2018 Begins.

Happy New Year!!! Since we are only halfway through the first month, surely I'm not too late. I made my "resolutions" for lack of a better word, and am working on my life. So thankful I am so blessed that resolutions are something I can focus on because I don't have to worry about my basic needs. So thankful.

In the recent cold snap...heck, deep freeze!...I gave thanks for a protective and warm shelter, warm electric blanket, and running water when I woke up in the mornings. I'm hoping I don't have frozen pipes this morning as I forgot to leave a faucet dripping! I have yet to figure out how you people in the north survived crazy cold winters and don't have frozen pipes. Baffled. Beyond my comprehension.

 So what have I been up to, you ask? Because it's obvious it hasn't been blogging. Last year was a tough work year. What should have been our down year, recuperation time, reorganize and get the office back in order year, became one of the busiest years I think I've ever experienced there. Including an election on Halloween!!! And the week of Thanksgiving! But my sweet nieces came to see me at work so I wouldn't miss out. Little Miss trick or treated from desk to desk.

I've spent my downtime exploring many interests, including family history and genealogy. I find this fascinating! This pic, my great grandmother and brother sitting on the porch of the house I live in now.  Wonder if the paw prints were in the concrete at this point or if it was repoured at some point. Anyway, I've hit a roadblock on my great great grandfather that will take some real digging and hopefully that will crack the case.  Although this is a "big" election year, I still think it will be less crazy than last year. So i should be able to find time to take some days off and Visit the historical center. I'll let you know if i figure it out.

Y'all, I started this entry early yesterday morning, having no idea what had happened overnight.  Our police officers were ambushed, four sent to the hospital.  One barely hanging on to life.  I'm not sure why it is settling so heavy on my heart, but it definitely is. I am familiar with two of the officers through my work.  Even if i weren't, the images in my mind of the chaos, fear, adrenaline, grief, anger, confusion...the families at home having no clue anything had happened.  Or maybe listening to it unfold over a scanner, and feeling so totally helpless.  My heart physically hurts for the officers, their family and friends. Please pray for them and especially for officer Doty.

Thanks y'all.

Sprang is Here!

Happy belated Easter and Happy Sprang!! So happy we are seeing fresh green and pretty pinks popping up everywhere. Hate the nasty yellow pollen causing everyone grief, but you gotta have pollen to have Spring.

Roger celebrated birthday 42 and had Macy's help opening presents and blowing out candles. 

A random night on Katie's deck. She's all about dressing up. 

Dyed eggs for Easter, of course. 

Serious concentration going on so we don't drop and break the egg. 

I'm not sure what Katie used but she made dye that pretty much dyed the egg the second it went into the liquid. Great for impatient Macy. We ended up with a ton of dye cups and a ton of eggs!! 

Easter Sunday. He is risen!! So thankful Macy is in a Christian family and already grasps so much about Jesus and His love for her. 

Family photo!! Missing sweet niece #1, but she's a teen now and doesn't come home here much. ;)  I try to remember that but it's been forever since I've seen her! 

Some of the cousins came to Mom's for Easter egg hunts. These two should be brother and sister they are so much alike - Macy and River. 

 The only girl in her family group. And she can hold her own :) What a sweetie! 

Cutie Rylan, closest to Macy's age and one of her good friends. 

These two are first cousins and great friends. Leilla and Gates. 

My aunt and uncle (mom's sister) and their grand babies!! Eddie has Rylan and Emmett, Ann is holding Perrin, Leilla Gates and River are standing by her. :) 

While we are talking about family, my aunt Brenda came up from Georgia for an extended weekend and the sisters got together at aunt Kathy's house! (And one sister-in-law!) Back row, Brenda, mom, Dot, Ann. Front row: Bonnie Jean, Kathy and Faye. Love this pic! 

Macy's first school program was last night! She had five songs memorized with motions. She did so well! 

Aunt Faye came, too! So she and mom made the sisters' trip and then came to Macy's program. Busy day! 

Very proud of this sweet girl! 

At least that catches me up on pics! All of them are of Macy, but that's what I see the most of these days. Looking forward to getting the work life calmed down, so I can spend some time with my nephews. Gosh they are growing so fast, learning so much. What blessings! 

Ok I gotta get my booty out the door and off to work! 

Sleepless

Ugh. I accidentally fell asleep last night about 8:30 pm, woke up about 1:09 am and haven't been back to sleep since. That sucks. Finally, I've decided to just be done with the attempts (now that it's about 4:30 am) and be awake. Maybe I'll get moving and go have breakfast somewhere before work! Yum!

So I left off here with frustrations about my niece. Hopefully, this situation will never happen to another student. But today, I'd like to share good news! More of God's blessings - Macy had her annual cardiologist appointment and everything looks great!! What a huge relief! Why does the 4-year-old have annual cardiologist appointments?  The condition she has - Marfans - typically impacts the heart. Feel free to google it, it's interesting to read, I guess. President Lincoln is a famous Marfans person.  

Anyway, her good news is a huge relief. My dad, who we also suspect has Marfans, also received a good cardiologist check up. He has all the heart symptoms - leaky heart valve and aneurysm in the aorta - but so far they have held off on surgery and continue to do so. Hooray! 

Mom couldn't shake a sinus infection - some serious steroids finally helped out. I'm not talking about that first round you get- this was scary amounts - but it worked! And after allergy tests, she doesn't seem to be allergic to environmental things - another great blessing! Woo Hoo! 

Mom and my brother have allergies to food. Mom: peaches, carrots, almonds, shellfish. Clay: tomatoes, black pepper, beef, oranges, I can't remember what all. And he has a tin of other allergies, too. He has sneezefests of 20+ sneezes at one time. Craziness. 

Macy and ree family went to the circus to see the last year of performances! So glad they were able to do this. She lived it!! 

 Katie, Macy, and I headed to Columbia to celebrate a very special girl's first birthda (with a quick stop at Krispie Kreme). Paulene and I became friends through United Way. 

And look at her precious girl!!! What a great celebration! 

The older sweet niece made it home. Our weather has been crazy warm so both girls rode bikes at Macy's school parking lot. Happy to have her home! 

We had no idea Macy was getting sick, but when you see her coloring in this picture, it makes sense. Her curls are so stinkin' cute! 

This is for my mom!! She's making bows now, doing such a good job!!! But she talks about the HUGE bows some mamas put in their daughters' heads. I had to explain it's kinda like big hair... The bigger the bow, the closer to heaven, right? HAHAHAHAHAH! 

Ok let's see if I can get one more hour of rest. :) sweet dreams! 

Talk about Protection from Above!

ARRRGGGHHH.  Frustrations. Ok folks, how about some advice here.

My niece, she is 4.5.  In 4K at our local school and since Christmas has just been a royal handful. She's totally boy crazy, which is bizarre because that's not encouraged in her homelife. She's had these two boys as her best friends from day one, but suddenly they are boyfriends, and she blows kisses and follows them around. The school separates them, but it's not really helping. Any ideas?

Additionally to that, last week when her mama dropped her off at school, the teachers were walking towards the entrance door.  My sister told her daughter to run and catch up and she drove off.  The school uses a flag to indicate if you have to stop and sign your child in and the flag wasn't out.

Weeeeellllllll, the teachers didn't turn around to see a little girl behind them, the doors shut and my niece couldn't get the door open.  She was locked out of the school and had no idea what to do.  She sat on the grass outside and cried.  One of her classmate's mother was running behind and thankfully saw her crying in the grass, bringing her into the school with her son.

CAN. YOU. IMAGINE. My sister didn't find out until the parent got word to her 4 days later through a mutal aquaintance my sister works with - and the horror of what all COULD have happened... Oh my gosh, we were all just sick with the "what ifs."  God really took care of this situation, protected my niece and brought her classmate's mother there just at the perfect time. My sister has spoken to the school and there is a new policy where an administrator will make a "last lap" outside after the first bell rings and the teachers who slipped out of duty early (or so it seems) were all called into the admins office for a conversation.

I'm hoping my sister also realizes you can't drive off until you know she's in the school, but that's another issue outside of this particular one.  Heaven help, just thinking what could have happened...

Thank you, Lord.  You are so good to us.

From 9 to 77

Holy smokes, only in the south can you go from 9 degrees to 77 degrees in one week. Craziness?! But today was totally beautiful, driving with the windows down and music pumping. It just brought everything back to life for this one day. Tomorrow - we go back to 50s as a high. It's all good, it is January, after all. But I'm so thankful for this one awesome sunshiney day in the middle of winter. 

My drive into work this morning 

I have all this creativity in my head right now - it's almost stifling because I can't seem to pick one idea and run with it. Argh! I have some beautiful fabrics and can't make a final decision on which pattern to move forward with. Any ideas on how to choose one?! 

I did finally decide on this one. I need to put on the red border. Love this fabric but I almost had a panic attack when I cut it hahaha!! 

This sweet girl... (She's missing her glasses in this pic) but I hadn't seen her all week until yesterday. She was so excited! Hopped up into my arms and hugged, snuggled, nose squished, and showered me with love. Wow what a blessing. She can bring tears to my eyes with her sweetness. I'm so blessed. 

Love her! And her imagination. Her unique personality. Her smarts. And sass. Lol! 

With my early afternoon off today I ran by the store I sell my bib sets in and dropped off these Valentine's Day bibs. Cute!??! I thought so. I'm hoping someone else does, too, and buys a few. Sheesh. I keep wondering if this is the right path. 

Ok it's Friday night and here I am, squeezed into a love seat in my living room watching Shark Tank and wanting to throw things at my tv. Sometimes at the Sharks, sometimes at the presenters. 

So I'm going to go stretch my legs and I hope you have a lovely weekend :)

I originally posted this on my Pressed Clovers blog by accident. Oops! So it's a little out of date here. Sorry!   

Wrapping up the Birth Month

September has been wonderful, y'all! Loved the many blessings and celebrations - it's been one thing after another that I'll claim as a birthday celebration.

      My family, minus Roger and Aliah

Gifts on my doorstep night after night, beautiful star-filled evenings to greet me as I got home late, visits with friends and babies, it's just been so wonderful! 

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of it :) Truly thanks for making September and year 41 so special!

Nobody gets as excited about birthdays as much as this girl! Well, except for maybe me! 

It's been difficult and confusing, too. I live just South of Charlotte so seeing that situation play out on the local news... It's so hard to understand how totally destroying a city can be perceived as the answer. Hurting other innocent people cannot improve the situation. I hope and PRAY tonight is better and calmer. Thanks to all who have worked to bring peace to the city, to those who have prayed for peace. 

And work kicked into overdrive already, which is exhausting. For all of us. Therefore, sometimes those frustrations, stressors, and such are taken out on other coworkers. Pray for that, too. Because when it happens, cool heads are often difficult to maintain. 

I've been in a pillow making mood. These two are for mom - the Christmas pillow came first, the second is an autumn pillow. I love creating and trying new patterns. Glad I got these done before work became too chaotic. 

....and I've been sitting on this for who knows how long. :). That's what happens when you work in an elections office and it's a Presidential year. Sorry y'all. 

Pray to God!

Oh gracious - I'm in a hotel room, my mom and Macy is in the bed beside mine. Macy has tried every thing under the sun to keep from going to sleep. But just now she GASPED and said, "MawMaw! We forgot to pray to God!" It made me proud of her. A lot of what she's done has made me proud this week. She's a very kind, loving, smart, perceptive girl. I'm so thankful I have the chance to see her grow from the house next door.

Macy playing at the children's museum earlier today. Holy cow, keeping up with her was a workout!!

I haven't blogged since May. Life became hectic with the work life. Thankfully we are all taking time off to spend with our families before it really cuts loose. 

Two of the cuties I miss when work kicks into overdrive.

I work for elections. We had two days of primaries because we had a run off. That's in addition to two days of presidential primaries and a smaller election. Another tiny one in August and the Mac daddy election in November. Heaven help because my life gears up in September. Sigh. 

I've really gotten into sewing bibs and some quilting. The bibs... Well I went a little crazy and signed up for a shelf in a local store. I have 40 bib/burp cloth sets and Katie has 7 paintings so our shelf is a bit crowded. 

Then I finished my first pieces pillow for a friend's birthday. I really enjoyed making it and was tickled to give it to her when she came to visit. 

Thankfully, an online friend sent me a link to teach about the envelope back-love it!! Thanks Renee!!

Macy turned FOUR and Clay and I bought her a bike!! I think she loves it and is learning to peddle :)

We also had a family reunion where the twins were introduced to mom's family. Those boys loved all the attention and were soooo good. Love these boys!!! 

Angela and Kellan 💗

Fourth of July nieces!!

 

A friend gave me a ticket to see Wizard of Oz with her. Loved it! Great props. It was a really neat show. :)

I'm literally am falling asleep now. Let me post this and write again soon. Night friends! 

New Rules.

Since I have to get my food life in order, I thought I should get my financial life in order, too.  I've done the Dave Ramsey class.  It's good - really, it is.  I wish I had applied it to my life much more than I did, because I've lost my envelopes and I'm still not balancing my checkbook.

But here is my new way of thinking - both with foods and money:

Don't Eat It and
You Won't Have to Work It Off. 

Don't Spend It and
You Won't Have To Earn It Again. 

Does that make sense? If I leave the cheese off my sub sandwich, I don't have to work to burn those calories and fats!  I can use those banked baddies somewhere else that's more tasty.  OR I could just be good and I'll know the calories I'm burning are making me healthier! It is helping me say NO NO NO NO NO.  No to fats. No to chips.  No to chocolates... sorta. Can't say I'm doing great with this one.  No to soft drinks.  No to McDonald's tea (and this one is killing me).



Same with money.  If I don't spend it, I don't have to re-earn it.  I'll still have it from the first earning! NO to buying something for Macy that she doesn't really need.  No to random purchases because they are on clearance.  No to ... well, to whatever I was spending my money on.



And that's what I've been doing for the past few weeks, trying to look at something, and put it back. Or not touch it to begin with. Not saying it's fun, but saying it's OK and I'm somewhat managing it.(Until the weekend ... when I bought 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!!!! pairs of shoes!!! Oh holy cow!! But for $240 or so... three pairs of Danskos! WHOA! Who knows when I'll wear all these shoes, but I'm tickled.  Heck, I may resell them if I find I never wear them.

Is this not the CUTEST photo you have ever seen? My dad and my niece at a family reunion. I just love it.  It's my new favorite photo of Mae Monkey. My dad got good news this week, too - he completed his bladder cancer check and it came back good! WHEW! Thank you, Lord, for taking care of my family like You do.  We are so so so thankful. 

And here is my sweet niece and me at her Muffins with Macy event at her preschool.  (It was actually Muffins with Mommy but her Mommy was in the middle of standardized testing in school, so there was no way she could get off from work).  She is such a sweetie, while also being the most stubborn person on the face of the earth.  I'm not sure if it will do her well in the future or get her in a ton of trouble... hahahaha.


I'm reviewing my sermon notes, just a random sermon, and written down the side of my notebook I have "Look at Jesus' Love."  It's bracketing these notes: 

• Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
• The Lady at the well.
• Let the children come to me for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.
• On the cross - Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.

While we were still sinners, - God's only Son died for us! 
Only when we see how desperately needing we are will we begin to understand God's love!
God's love is a self sacrificing love for people who deserve nothing.


Wow. Just a few notes, obviously random.  He was preaching from Romans 5: 1-11.  Now we are in Genesis, which I've really enjoyed.  It's always nice to start at the beginning and have that opportunity to see those stories you have grown up learning from an adult perspective. 


Ok, I'm thinking I've rambled on about randomness and should shut it down.  Giving thanks for all the blessings this week! :) Have a great one!

Blog writer, Part 2

I knew if I added many more photos, that last post would never go. Then I fell asleep! (Sleep- Success!)

Macy practicing giving the boys bottles... Hahaha! Ok, not really. She was feeding her baby-dang I can't remember the baby's name. She's in this great imaginative play phase and I just love it!

I finally got well enough to have the shots I needed to visit with "the boys" aka Liam and Kellan. What sweethearts. Liam was my twin for the day so I fed him bottles and snuggled. These are my nephews who were born at 28 weeks. And at 6 months you wouldn't know it. I consider them miracles from The Lord. Getting back to my visit, Liam snuggled up on my chest and slept for a good while. Gosh they melt my heart. 

So of course, on the morning of my second visit I woke up sick and haven't been well since. Sigh. I hope to see them again before they graduate college! Yes, dramatic I know... I just want to see my nephews! 

My nephews were in the NICU for quite a bit of time. What an amazing place! One thing we learned about were isolette covers that make the baby's incubator (isolette) dark and quiet. I'm not sure why I became obsessed with making and donating as many of these as possible. Shared it on Facebook and my work intranet. 

A lady from church made it a Women I the Church project. Let's tell you, we have many amazing quilters at church. So these babies have some incredible cute handcrafted isolette blankets!  

When we finally gathered our blanket and headed for the children's hospital, we had a total of 18 blankets! The stack was almost as tall as her son! It was great to deliver these directly to one of the NICU nurses that watched after my nephews. 

I love thinking about these babies tucked into their dark and quiet Isolettes with their cover on top. Warms my heart. 

Once I chilled with making isolette covers, I went back to quilting. New pattern I saw for sell and just figured it out. I'll be working on this one for a long time. 

My ADD tendencies kicked in so in the middle of a sewing fest, I worked on this project.

Mom found this empty frame at a yard sale years ago and I just managed to turn it into a photo board for my bedroom. Love having easy access to update photos. And love having family pics in sight :) 

Last photo- taken this week at my parents. Sweet niece was crawling all over me so I made her stop for a pic.

Work is already kicking in, full speed ahead. Sigh. I wish I could have gotten more time off before it picks back up but it didn't work out that way. I knew 2016 was going to be a doozy. 

It's now Saturday and the sun is up! Time for me to get moving and see what I can find to get into! Have a wonderful weekend. :)