Thanksgiving Vacation

by Marianna Bailey

I got to visit my family for Thanksgiving. There was a time in my life where that didn't mean a lot, it just "was". That time was a LONG time ago though, and now whenever I can visit with my family, it means a great deal to me. We even did the un-imagineable: we let Ryan go too! He drives almost 2 hours to our house just to get into my car and ride another 5 hours (or more if we count the stops along the way). I didn't hear any complaining though....

We got to TN and stopped by Walmart to pick up a few things we needed (like pants that FIT and ingredients for food the next day). Strangely enough, every one of us went in a different direction! I got what I needed and headed towards the others. I walked through the aisle with Hallmark Cards in it, and met a guy who talked in a low voice to a girl who was already there. She started yelling at him, saying something like "I told you not to come over here near me!" I thought she just didn't want him to see she was picking out a card for him, so I kept on moving - not my business. All the sudden there are store employees with radios racing around me and voices over the intercom system and then EMTs and who knows who all...that same guy and girl had gotten in a fight. One of them pulled a knife and the girl ended up in the floor bleeding. Seriously....never try to get a sneak peak of a girl when she's shopping for you!

The next day we go to Catherine & Dave's house for dinner. Mama had baked a pea picking cake, and that is among my favorite cakes. We had sampled the frosting before leaving for Catherine's, so we KNEW it was good. Lee carried the cake with her...I guess they thought it was in danger otherwise. Lee was put in charge of taking care of the cake...and would be held responsible. Not long after Lee left, I left with my family and arrived at Catherine's before Mama did. The cake was vulnerable! Lee and I had a playful scuffle-- I won --and the cake was marked.

The dinner was fabulous...the company was fabulous-er.

...no matter what they might think! And all the little cousins got to know each other over a terrific pile of leaves.

Even Uncle Bob (Dave's brother) thought the leaf pile was awesome.


I must admit, not everybody was happy the whole time...

...but the majority had a blast.

All in all, we had great food,...

... great fun,...

...great family,...






...great presents,...

...great music, .....

...great memories...

...and great reminders...

Thanks to great parents who created this great family.

Bragging on Morgan

My Morgan is a sweet boy. He loves everybody,...even people he doesn't particular enjoy being around, he loves them too! I don't understand that. I haven't learned how to yet! Anyway, Morgan has a very hard time reading. He is an ADD kid with some ADHD tendencies. This makes it super hard for him and he knows it. He is painfully aware of his struggles and that he is behind a lot of kids his age, but he still tries very hard. This makes it sting me even more when insensitive people feel the need to embarrass him about it or confront me about it. (Just a hint,...I don't advise doing that. My tolerance quota is full.)

Morgan is a cub scout, and we use cub scout activities to enhance schooling for him. There is a lot reading and writing involved in scouts, which gives him lots of practice time while HE thinks he's just doing fun stuff. Today we had a moment together that seemed perfect for working on his Faith In God award, the religious award offered by our church to cub scouts. Morgan only has 2 more things to finish and he'll receive it. One of those requirements is to write a poem about something Heavenly Father created. I talked to Morgan about what a poem is and how you pull one out of your heart. I told him it didn't have to rhyme and that if he'd just tell me the words, I would be his scribe and write it for him. He closed his eyes and in just a moment, he spoke these words....bringing tears to his mothers eyes....

I love nature,
And nature loves me.
The trees give me shade;
That makes me happy.
The ground lets me run
As much as I can.
When I hear the birds sing,
I think about Heavenly Father:
He made them...
And He made me.





How beautiful that is, in more ways than one.

Halloween

I don't do halloween much. It's not that I don't like it, its just pointless to me. The end result is hyper children in my house and annoying children in the community. Yeah, bah humbug. I'm going to blame Mesa who was terrified of halloween activities when she was little and we couldn't talk her out of it for YEARS. So we abandoned all halloween until she promised me she was a big girl and could handle it (I think she was 12? haha)

Well this year, something got into me. I'm sure it was viral. I just couldn't help myself. I actually decorated my car and did trunk or treat at the church. I even went as far as to irritate the children by insisting that if they wanted some of MY candy, they would perform SOME kind of trick for me first! It was great!

But I made one mistake,....

I let the kids talk me into stopping by the herb shop to "spook Mrs. Linda."


This little alien won 1st place in the costume contest for his age group!


She loved it that I had dressed up too,....and asked me to dress up for work the next day. I started not to,...but then my conscience nagged me and I did it. Thank goodness I did! She "dropped by" that day to see if I had!


I had to come back and edit this in. I realized it might not be easy to figure out what Mesa was. She had a coffin built just for her (seriously, they measured her and built it for her!) and this was her in position at the YSA spook alley at the church halloween festival.

A Mother / Daughter Story

Yesterday, I wrote and illustrated a story. I'd like to share that with you now.

A Mother / Daughter Story

Once upon a time, a mother and daughter had a happy afternoon outside with a camera....

The fun seemed to wane a bit, and the daughter got a sneaky thought in her mind...

Mothers have super powers, and this mother detected the sneaky thought. The daughter had been warned over her whole life, and the time had come for her punishment to be more than a threat....

Mom began to eat daughters face!

Who knew daughter face tasted soooo goood?

The faceless daughter was suddenly quieted, and the mom reveled in a moment of sweet satisfaction...

What joy comes from parenthood! Now where are my boys?

Updates

My ears:
All better, thanks to vinegar (of all things)! It took 3 days once I learned the trick, and now I'm back to normal. WHEW! Thank goodness of that!

My blood pressure:
Well, it turns out that my bp isn't as high as it seemed. My monitor wasn't working right. It might need new batteries, I don't know. I have a different monitor now and it seems to agree with every other monitor and doctor/paramedic that has checked my bp lately. So that means 130'ish over 90'ish is where I am. Still not perfect, but not as deadly as it was seeming. The other symptoms I was having along with that .... DEHYDRATION! Now that's a crazy one, right? It just never dawned on me that in my enjoyment of other drinks, I had neglected water so badly. So now I'm drinking water with the occasional taste of something else. It let my pulse rate go down from 146 bpm to 80 bpm and my kidneys quit screaming in pain and my color has normalized. Insane that I even got in this position,...but I'm out now and much much better. Still not taking bp meds though!

My weight:
I'm down 18 pounds now :) WOOHOO!

Manti and Girlfriend:
He's still in love.

Mesa's "love life":
She's got an interest, of course its yet another long-distance thing so it won't be too intense yet I don't think. He's a nice kid who actually cares what I think, so he can hang around a little while longer.

Tommy's health:
His heart is doing very well. The doctor is proud of its current performance. His back is a degenerative condition, so it is steadily degenerating as expected. That means pain, but he's a tough guy and is hanging in there as usual. His knee isn't doing great though. Remember he had surgery on it back in 1994? He was told it likely would have to be done again in 15-20 years. We're in that time period now. It popped last night and he says it really hurts right now. I'm not interested in any more doctors or surgeries or recovery periods. I say he isn't allowed new pain right now. He's trying to listen.

My sanity:
I'm working on getting that back. I've been beading lately, and have made up lots of little things. Linda (my boss at work) fell in love with some jewelry I beaded and she had me put it up for sale at the herb shop. So if you are in Carrollton, stop in and see it for yourself! Or watch the herb shop's blog to see the announcement that will go up there soon.

So,... did I miss anything you wanted to know about?

AHHHH!

It's raining or pouring at all times, isn't it?

I ended up pleading with a doctor friend to get some relief for my ears. I figured 3 weeks was too long to suffer and my hearing loss might become permanent. So I tossed out pride and asked for his help. He was great. He looked at my ears, explained to me (in English) what he saw, and gave me a prescription for pain drops, but told me how to use vinegar and water to take care of my problem. It was the most amazing recovery too! I was totally impressed,...

:: cue dark clouds, stage left, roll in boys! ::

And then my feelings were hurt. Not a little hurt, a BIG hurt. I couldn't help but notice that my entire head throbbed during that emotional drama too. Something told me to check my blood pressure, which I HATE to do because it's always 135/95-ish. Wellllll.... good news and bad news. Good news is, it wasn't 135/95! Bad news is, it was 162/105. One hour and 3 aspirin later, it was 161/109. Last night, we went to a missionary farewell party and it was held at my doctor friends house. So Tommy took advantage of an opportunity to tell him my ears were tremendously better, and my bp was starting to rage. Doc says "let me call something in for you," so I shrug and say ok. Today I'm at the store picking up Tommy's refills, and thought to ask about mine getting called in. It wasn't ready (of course) so I asked what was the name of it. The girl tells me its Lysinopril (is that spelled right?) and I froze in my place. I don't know that I have the courage to take that. Tommy (who handles a LOT of pain on a constant basis) couldn't tolerate the body aches and pains that were a side effect of that drug. Someone else I know (John) takes it also, and he tells me he hurts when taking it too, but that he has to take it so he just deals with it.

People,....I am SUPER WIMP! So now I have a Rx waiting for me to pick up and I'm too scared to do it. Yet if I don't,.... well let's just say that an hour ago, my bp was 159/104. Top it off with a headache on the right side of my head, and some throbbing muscle aches in my left arm from time to time (hasn't started tonight, but I had that last night).

Like I said,... rain-pour-rain-pour-rain-pour-AAAHHHHHH!!!!!

New Ears

For 3 weeks now, my ears have been bothering me. I don't remember ever having an ear infection before. If I did, it was when I was younger than my memory reaches to. Let me speak for those little ones who suffer from them: THEY HURT!

I broke down and went to the doctor, forked out money I needed for other things, and here it is 3 weeks later and my ears STILL HURT!

I give up. I just need new ears.
So if you try to call me and I don't answer, or if I do answer but don't make sense, or if you expected me to call and I didn't,.... it's because I'm virtually deaf and can't hear well enough to understand the noises around me. :( I'm sorry! Maybe Santa will hear my cries and bring me new ears for Christmas.