Serenity Now

It is the last day of January and of course it is snowing again. I had to laugh yesterday when Smiley said on the way to church, "it is spring!" I WISH. I had to burst his bubble when I told him it was still winter and would be for some time yet. I am freezing and even as I sit at the computer typing this I must pause to get another hoodie on ... that's better. Sorry cute turquoise sweater but warmth over fashion wins. Of course now my outfit doesn't match... dang! No wonder my family makes fun of me. Oh well.

A cold day like today takes me back to our family trip to Hawaii a few years back. You probably got green with envy the second you read the word Hawaii right? Am I right? Who wouldn't? Any time I heard someone say Hawaii that was my reaction. Of course that was before I found out about weather in Hawaii in December. I didn't know that Hawaii had a RAINY season. I should have suspected that because there is a rain curse in our family. I am starting to suspect that I may have inherited it from my father. He has a rain curse. When he takes holidays it rains. True story. Our next-door neighbors would even ask my dad when he was taking vacation so that they wouldn't take theirs at the same time because they didn't want it to rain during their summer vacation. Honest. One time my dad took an unexpected vacation day and didn't tell our neighbor. It rained. Our neighbor called up because he had also taken a vacation day that day and said, "Bill, did you take a holiday today and didn't tell me???" When my sister got married in Arizona they had been experiencing a drought. My parents when down for the wedding and it rained so hard it flooded.

So we went to Hawaii and it rained every day except for one day. The one day it DIDN'T rain they had wind so bad that it blew the shingles off of the roofs. We went to a popular beach to swim and couldn't because the wind blew in the man 'o war which made it too dangerous to swim there. After the first few days of rain we decided we would just have to make the best of things and go sight seeing in the rain. We went to various waterfalls and the rain made the waterfalls full and beautiful.

One waterfall was very difficult to get to however and required going down a very muddy trail on which we slipped and fell many times.
We tried to keep the boys as clean as possible but it really was mission impossible. By the time we got back to the rental van they were covered in mud. Thank goodness for the 24 pack of bottled water in the back of the van! We had a lot of fun slipping and sliding and at the end of the hike I shot what has turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of my boys:


If only winter could be a little warmer...

This week's assignment was lines and I have to say that this was a much trickier assignment than last week's assignment of "dirty". I looked everywhere for lines and although I saw many lines in things I rejected possible photo after photo. I even considered taking a picture of myself staring at the blank lines of a page - believe me... as I write my book the blank lines of a page are very daunting. I was loving the lines in the empty fields as I drive along the back roads of town but when I took a picture of them the photo isn't as appealing as in real life.
Probably an expert photographer would make it look soooo much better. So I drove around town again this morning and saw this broken down barn and fell in love with the variety of lines. It is hard to see on my blog but there is chicken wire in the windows adding another line pattern to the photo.

It always makes me a little sad to see run-down barns. Sort of like when you see a house that is abandoned and falling apart... it makes you sad that it is not being used anymore, taken care or loved. I love it when I see old homes and barns still lovingly taken care of and preserved.
Despite its condition we can still find something interesting when we look closely at things.

This year I was very late in getting out some of my Christmas cards. In fact, the cards I sent to friends in the Ukraine did not get mailed until AFTER Christmas. That's what happens when your Russian gets a little rusty... you put off writing your cards until things settle down. So I finally sat down and wrote my cards and mailed them off. In my cards I included my email address and blog address not really expecting to get email from anyone in the Ukraine as times are tough and to own a computer would be very expensive. On the off chance that they might have access to the internet I sent my information anyways.

I was thrilled to get a response a few days ago from a wonderful family that I met in Donyetsk. They have three beautiful daughters who are now grown. Their oldest is now serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Ukraine. It brought tears to my eyes to see that the Sichova family are still active in the church after all these years. I have lost contact with a number of individuals in the Ukraine so it was wonderful to receive this email and see this beautiful family who continue strong in the gospel.

I looked up Project 52 to see what this week's challenge was.... or maybe I am off a week and I actually did last week's challenge come to think of it. My brain kind of work's that way now I realize. I don't pay attention to the details anymore. I sort of scan stuff now and that gets me into trouble. I scan and assume and then I read it closer later and go, "oh CRAP!" I should have read that more carefully because I got it all wrong! hahaha!!! That's me now.... 40 and getting it all wrong. Oh well. Take me as I am I guess. Or don't.

So this week or last week's challenge depending on how you carefully you read it, is Dirty. So I was watching my little fostergirl eat her sandwich and this is about as dirty as she gets:


As soon as she gets anything on the table or herself she wants it washed off so for her, this is "dirty".

Despite our two hour wait for Santa we survived to tell the tale. That's how I feel about much of 2010. I survived. I'm much more hopeful about 2011 though. My sisters keep trying to convince me that turning 40 is great but I still hated it. It didn't help that the other week I had someone ask me when they saw me with my foster-daughter if I was a grandma. What?!? Thanks a lot! I hate 40. (for those of you who didn't hear the news... our foster-daughter who left in March of last year returned to us on December 9th - Yeah!!!!)

Despite a two-week intestinal flu during the month of December I managed to pull everything together at the last minute and recovery in time for Christmas. That was a relief not only for present buying and wrapping but also in time to enjoy Christmas dinner. It would have been a tragedy to miss the turkey, gravy and best of all... my sister's stuffing!

Two of my kids confessed that this was the "best Christmas ever!" It really was a great Christmas.



Any Christmas is great when my sister and her family come to stay with us. I dread the day when her kids grow old enough to have families of their own and when she will decide to stay home and have Christmas with them at her house. I am already trying to convince my nephews now that when they get married they will definitely still want to come to my house for Christmas because that is TRADITION.

Thank goodness I did all my shopping for the string pull before I got sick. The string pull is our family Christmas game where you pull on a string and you never know what you will find in the bag on the other end of the string.
It could be something good like a bag of Ghiardelli chocolates or something silly like a pink hat from the dollar store.
It could even be money in an envelope. We had a lot of fun with the string pull this year with Pirate gear, an army hat and Franken-monkey making appearances.


My sister was supposed to end up with the Franken-monkey yet somehow with all of the trading at the end of the string pull it went home with my mother-in-law to go in her arcade "claw" machine with lots of other stuffed animals that she received for Christmas this year.

Unfortunately my boys went over to their grandma's and played the claw machine and as luck would have it Sheriff used the claw and pulled Franken-monkey out. (it wasn't really luck because he REALLY wanted the Franken-monkey). So much for my evil plan. It bit me in the you-know-what.

Of course we mustn't forget the current sock monkey war going on between April and myself. You already know about Franken-monkey but I also gave her a whole sock monkey ensemble and another sock monkey tied onto the outside of a gift bag for her and Drew. That makes a total of 5 sock monkeys for Christmas this year. April gave me a sock monkey candy jar and two candy dishes but of course she also hid a sock monkey reindeer and sock monkey on my tree at the beginning of December so that also takes her up to 5. Rats! It is a tie. Of course I hid one of her sock monkeys in her backpacks to take home when she left so that gives me 6! Yeah!!!!! She vows she will get me back. I believe it.





The best part of Christmas this year though was not the presents but to have our little foster-daughter back with us. She went back to her birth-father in March and in December she returned. Of course as foster parenting goes we don't count on it being permanent but we are enjoying her company while we have it. She is a beautiful 2-year-old now with a strong personality and our boys continue to shower her with love and attention. She, in turn, entertains them and gives them hugs and smiles. So although it was rough going for us for most of 2010 as we missed her terribly, it ended on a positive note to have her back at the end. Our Christmas gift.