Good Monday Morning

After a busy week last week ending with two days at Creating Keepsakes Convention in Bellevue, I have been a little slow in catching up the blog. Today I am borrowing a couple of lines from an email I got yesterday as I think they are a good start to the week for me - I hope they are for you too!

To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.

When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hand to receive something better.

The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

Have a good week!

Happy Veterans Day

As I sat at church on Sunday, I reached into my new purse to find a scrap of paper to take a few notes on our excellent sermon on Hope (a welcome message after the elections), no scraps were found as I only move useful things to the new purse and leave all the scraps (trash) in the old purse. What I did run across was a little composition book (the little one that is like less than 3 Inches by 5 inches) that I had covered with cute paper and recorded thought-provoking things in exactly 2 years ago. I cannot tell you what the challenge was in life at that time but my mother had emailed me a couple of things that I felt strong enough about that I created a place to keep them (even hand writing them in it, not just printing and pasting).

Today, on a day we have our thoughts on the veterans that have given tirelessly to keep this country the free one that it is, I thought I would share one of these things from my Thought-provoking Notes book.

"How often do we say we are involved in a project or commited to a project? We may say it about our religious life, our home life, etc. The analogy I came across was both humorous & yet thought provoking. Next time you sit down to an old fashioned breakast of hand and eggs, remember this thought. When you look at the eggs, the hen practiced involvement. When you look at the ham, the pig practiced total commitment!! Are you involved or commited?" (email from Mom 11/9/06)

Wishing you all a thought provoking day as we remember the veterans in the world and those in our families as well.

Questions from a kindergartener

As most of you know I have a 5 1/2 year old son and a 4+ year old daughter. They never cease to amaze me with the questions they ask. However, lately my son has been asking some very thought-provoking questions that I do not easily have an instant answer for.

We were riding home from church this morning when he asked the first doozy of the day "Mom, if we eat food and fill our bodies with food today, then what happens with all that food so we have room to eat food tomorrow?" That was one that I had to think about for a few seconds before responding that we go potty and get rid of today's food by tomorrow.

Then after dinner tonight, he had to pose another one to me, it goes like this - "Mom, what is the difference between up and down, like when you die down here but then you are alive up there with God?" I went on to answer that your body dies here but your spirit lives up there after you die. Thankfully he was accepting of those answers thankfully.

Mackenzie, not to be outdone by her brother, posed a big one for me on Tuesday. Her's went like this - "Mommy, where do my words come from?" I replied "well, they come from your throat from your voice box and out your mouth." I thought that was a reasonable explanation for a 4 year old. She then added "but they come from my brain first Mommy!" I didn't have a reply to that.

Hope you enjoy the chuckle from these that I get to experince nearly every day.

Sad times

Just a short note that today is a sad day. My 89 year old grandfather passed peacefully in his sleep last night. He has lived a full life and I have so many many memories from times with him to treasure. May he rest in peace.

Mackenzie's Hair Cut

Many of you in blogland know that my daughter Mackenzie is 4 years old and has lots of long hair - maybe I should say she DID have lots of long hair. Recently she has come to notice that all her little friends have short hair and of course Mommy has short hair. She all of a sudden started asking to have her hair cut. I made an appt for it and waited the days out for her to make sure she was really sure. After several days of waiting, she jumped out of bed this morning very excited about getting her hair cut. We are done and home. She had enough to put in 4 ponytails that were 10 inches long so she can donate to Locks of Love. She is excited about other kids having her hair. She looks so cute and grown up with the new hair cut. Here are the pictures to prove it.

My Freedom Day 12

OK, so I fell off the blogging wagon for a few days - I guess the good news is that I did get back on today! Back to my My Freedom Prompts from the summer that I fell behind on mut I had several people who enjoyed them so I will pick them up here again.

Today's prompt is to share my first job experience. I guess there are two or maybe three jobs that I consider "first" jobs of sorts. Ok maybe actually four - 1. the first job I got paid for - babysitting 2. the first job in a real location of employment - filling in summers at Dr. Opdahl's office (oral surgeon where my Mom worked) 3. first real job that I applied for and got on my own - Kentucky Fried Chicken (my junior year in high school through summer between freshman and sophomore in college) and last but not least 4. My first real job after college using the education I worked for and Mom and Dad paid for - Working at Marion Retirement Center as a full fledged RN.

I guess that was the long answer to a fairly straight forward question but I feel that those job experiences all gave me different things. I got the joy of making my own money at 13 babysitting and had lots of school teachers that lived within a couple of blocks that kept me busy most weekends. I liked going to work with Mom and working in a "real" place of employment - besides I got to see classmates of mine getting teeth pulled and I was involved in one way or another (even saw some of the big tough guys from school cry). The job at Kentucky Fried Chicken brought with it several growing steps. Once I got a job, I was able to take my driver's license test and get my driver's license as I had to have a way to pay my insurance and gas money as that was not Mom and Dad's responsibility (I think that is how they put it). I also got to drive to school on days I worked as I couldn't make it home on the bus and then to work on time. That was a big deal to me at age 16 almost 17. Yes, I was one month shy of my 17th birthday when I got my driver's license - February 2, 1988 - sadly February 2, 1989 brough the sudden tragic death of my Uncle Wally so that day carries good and bad thing sin my mind. Lastly, I had been in school for 16 years total (12 of basic education and 4 of college) and was thrilled to get a job making more money since I had a degree and my RN credentials. Funny how babysitting at a dollar or so an hour brought its own sense of accomplishments as did minimum wage at Dr. Opdahl's office and Kentucky Fried Chicken and then breaking the $10.00/hr mark as an RN. All had their moments of grown and pain but all taught me the value of working for what you have.

Share with me your first job moments! Have a good Monday - we are since it is late start day in beautiful Chelan.

Snakes!

OK, to those of you who know me - you know I really dislike snakes. Unfortunately my children do not share that fear so I have had to become better about looking at them behind glass and that sort of thing. Anyway, for the days prior to Creative Escape I had been rushing around getting kids ready for school and getting my stuff together to go to Phoenix. My mind was a mess and in the following story you will see that my dreams followed that mess . . .

I had never been to Phoenix except to change planes so I only had preconceived notions of what to expect. Several things had crossed my mind - heat, snakes, bug, heat . . . but I hadn't reallly talked about them at all. Well, the night before we went to the airport I was spending the night at Megan's and boy did my dreams go crazy. I dreamt that we got to Phoenix and there where snakes everywhere around the resort Sheraton Wild Horse Pass. They were slithering everywhere, hanging out of trees , crawling in our rooms - literally EVERYWHERE. In the dream, Megan found this to be very funny. I needed rescued badly and Megan was clearly not going to do it so finally someone came to rescue me - of all people it was Ande (lovely Jane's daughter) who came to my aid and rid the place of all the snakes and was ever so caring about me and my fears. I have no idea how Ande got into the picture but in the dream I was ever so glad that she had.

I did share this dream with Megan on the plane in hopes that she would be more sympathetic in real life if a snake did cross our path. She thought the dream was a riot and convinced me that I needed to share it here. Once we got checked into our hotel we wandered outside to check things out and first thing outside the door I see something flash in front of my feet while Megan declares "Oh, look Michelle, a lizard!" I thought I was going to have to go put on dry clothes but I did fine. Lizards don't really bother me if they are small like this little 6 inch long guy. We did survive the days in Arizona with NO SNAKES!!!

Thanks Ande for saving me nonetheless.