Just take a deep breath!

My kitchen is clean. Life is full, and well worth living.

Well, it is Labor Day Weekend. In the last three weeks our family has had some real character growing time.

As I mentioned in my last post, I began a part time job. Which I really like. But I'm a little out of practice, because I haven't had a "5 days a week , away from the home", type job since the month before Jacob was born (December 1992). So it has been a time of figuring out chores and spreading them around, shopping and meal prep! I am tired. I don't know how all you professional women handle it.

A friend from some time back took his life and Maury did the funeral. Talk about heavy.

A dear elderly lady in the church passed away and he did that funeral.

Maury's mom went into the hospital and was there for 11 days she is now home and doing much better. The first 4 or 5 days were very scary as she slowly began to get better. I know many of our friends were praying and we are forever grateful.

Another dear friend, Bernie, has gone to the hospital. Bernie is Christina's "fairy grandmother". She is the one that has encouraged Christy to pursue her horsie dreams. Although Bernie is on a very tight budget she always has a little extra money to buy something for Christy and Shiloh. She is currently battling for her life. She has had numerous medical issues for some time. The biggest being that she has kidney failure and does her own dialysis at home. Well, she developed an infection and became septic and is now in ICU, she is unresponsive and has a breathing tube. In short, she is on life support and has no immediate family to speak of. Without a miracle, she is in dire straights. Again, many people from our church family have been praying and visiting her along with our dear horse friends.

Maury began his adjunct teaching job at Golden Gate Theological Seminary last week. He has two classes that he teaches on Mondays, and he will begin an online class on Tuesdays. He has much on his plate and works hard to keep us fat and happy.

An elderly man from church passed away on Thursday night. His funeral will be next Friday.

Well, this is turning into a real downer of a post. But through it all, our Lord carries us and takes our burdens as His own. We have truly felt the prayers of our friends through all of these trials. I now realize how answered prayer feels. It feels easy. Like everything is normal and life just goes on. Even when the answer is not the one I want, I can still feel safe knowing that God knows what He is doing.

At the end of a long day, he gives me strength to clean the kitchen.

A New Year

This is the beginning of a new year on many fronts.

Maury and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. (Have I mentioned yet that he shaved his head in July? I'll have to post a picture sometime)

Taryn just turned 11 years old!
She celebrated with her buddies, Timarie and Heather. We spent the day at a new, local water park, came home to barbecue hot dogs, eat cake and of course, open presents!

I bought yet another havanese. I wanted to name him Pete (as in, Amor's for the Love of Pete). But it looks like the name that is sticking is Max. So now I have to come up with a different AKC name for him. Perhaps, Amor's Mad Max? He's very curious, cute and lovable. If paper is left on the floor or anywhere that he can get to it, he shreds it! Maybe I could rent him out to a politician that has a lot of shredding to be done.
I have a permanent job now. I got hired by the local school. It's only 5.5 hours a day doing instructional aid stuff, but to this lady, that hasn't worked on a daily basis in nearly 16 years it feels full time! I'm doing all sorts of jobs, working in classrooms with kids, in the lunch room keeping the peace and I have a 7th grade corrective reading class too! The day goes fast and keeps me on my toes. So far, I really like it! But when will I find time to sew? Boy, now I have to plan my errands, get up earlier to exercise or shop and clean house on the weekends. I am sooo spoiled! Correction, WAS sooo spoiled. Although I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy getting a pay check.

Update on Jacob. He's had his permit for a month now. I know on a previous post I bragged that I wasn't nervous. I must have written that BEFORE I got in the car with him. Now I am nervous. Actually, he's not a bad driver, considering the circumstances, it's just that those of us in the car with him could die in a fiery crash! LOL

This Amazing World

A couple of week ago our friend, Philip showed up. I believe he is a green heron, and he comes by our pond several times a year to see if the fishing is any good. We have had an egret come by too, but we try to chase him away. He's much bigger and might eat the koi that we've had in there for at least 7 years.

The wild life that comes with a pond is just so cool! When we first created the pond it was overrun with tiny little frogs. Then the bull frogs moved in and ate most of the little guys. We had so many bull frogs in it that the neighbor would complain about their "singing" that went on all night long. I have to admit they were awfully loud. We tried all sorts of ways to get rid of those bull frogs. (Although we never ate one frog leg.) We wanted the cute little frogs back. We finally just gave up and let nature take charge of the whole chain of life thing. Now we have just five or six bulls frogs out there and it is much more manageable. The little frogs have moved to the back of the house into my little pond, and that's a good place for them. I can still hear them at night when we open the bedroom doors.

We've had numerous friends bring us gold fish that were no longer wanted. We've planted crawdads and a snake or two. Someone even brought us a turtle that tried to move into their swimming pool, it stayed with us several months and then moved on to greener ponds I guess.

It's so amazing to sit by the pond and just watch the life that happens in that little universe. It just goes on without any help from us. The good Lord just takes care of His creature, and I get to sit back and enjoy the show.

This is getting really old!

Okay, California has been on fire since June 11th. It's been smoky most of the time since then.

You see the lovely picture of the Sutter Buttes on the top of my blog? Well that was taken one evening when the clouds were so pretty.

This is my view today. Yuck!
Here's a creepy sunset picture...

Hey, we Californian's are breathing this stuff! I started coughing because of a cold the week before the fires started. Well, that cough just wouldn't go away, I was driving my husband nutty. He kept telling me, "go see the doctor!" I figured that the cough would go away when the smoke cleared. Well, the smoke wouldn't clear and my cough wouldn't go away. I finally went to the doctor this week and left with an inhaler thingy! That seems to be helping more or less.


Here is a picture I took of Half Dome in the Yosemite Valley a couple of weeks ago. The smoke seems to everywhere.
Okay, enough complaining from me. I just had to get that off of my chest. (I wish I could get it out of my chest too!)

Near Sighted Veggies?

This may look like a yellow squash wearing glasses. But it's much more than that!
These are Jacob's new glasses. He broke his old ones, again. Recently I'd heard about Zenni Optical
on a radio program and how great and affordable the glasses are. So I decided to go ahead and give them a try. Well I have to tell you, I am not disappointed! Jacob bought these glasses...These are titanium frames and they fit him very well. Would you like to know what I paid for these? $300? $250? Nope.
How about $48! Yes, $48 for the lenses and frames! Plus some fun little clip on sun shades.
I am not kidding about this place! Metal frame and lenses starting at $8!
It took two weeks to get them, so if your not in a big hurry it's no big deal. At these prices you could have several pairs!

A Week in Paradise

We spent a week in Yosemite with Maury's cousin Jack and his two boys, Jake and Jordy. We really had a good time.
We did some hiking, enjoyed more by some than others. My favorite was playing in the water at the end of the hikes. And Taryn, well, let's just say she did make it to the top of Vernal Falls after lots of encouragement.


Here we have Jordy and his culinary creation, Yosemite Slam's. On the last night of camping we were making yummy creations of refrigerator rolls wrapped around a stick and cooked over the camp fire. Well, Jordy had the brilliant idea of taking those rolls and wrapping them around marshmallows. (I have to admit that I was totally skeptical about the idea.)

So he went ahead and tried it
.
Guess what?! They were great! A picture is worth a thousand words!

By the end of the night we were tucking in a bit a chocolate and they just couldn't be beat. This little creation will definitely take the place of smores at our campfires from now on! When the chocolate went in I finally gave in to the temptation and ate just one. YUM, YUM, YUMMY!!!

One day we went to this really cool ghost town called Bodie. If you ever have a chance to go you should. It's really big and has a lot of houses and a big stamp mill that they used in the process of mining the gold.

Of course when we got there Jacob had to use the outhouse. That boy! (jk)

By the way, Jake got his drivers permit yesterday and began drivers training today. I know I should be nervous and scared, but I'm just so excited for him. At the same time I wonder how in the world I could possibly have a kid old enough to drive. I did the math and it is possible! NUTS!

My Great Idea That Someone Else Will Make Money With...

Last night I went to my local Goodwill store. I hadn't been in ages and I had time to kill.
In my community we have a large population of East Indians. The women dress in saris' and the fabrics are always bright and beautiful, very flashy!
Well I went up to the rack where I thought I'd find fabric or linens and I was amazed at the beautiful selection of fabrics that were there. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were the scarfs that the Indian women wear over the shoulder. Each one was at least 1 yard of fabric and I just knew that somehow I could repurpose them and turn them into retro aprons!



Here is a peek at the few I did buy.





I found a fun idea on this blog. The assignment is to post my "Bucket List" here, for all the world to see. Now I've only told a couple of people about my bucket list, my husband being one, and I'm embarrassed at how simple it is, but I hate to be disappointed! So here it goes...

My Bucket List
1. Stand in a warm rain shower. (in California we have no summer rains) I felt a little in Hawaii but I want more.
2. See fireflies.
3. See New England in the Fall.
4. Buy an outfit right out of the window display, no matter the cost!
5. Make a gourmet dinner, and enjoy the process, not stress out.
6. Enjoy hiking with my husband.
7. Go to Hawaii. Check! I went in March to see my sister and her husband.
8. Win first place with one of my dogs.

That's all I have for now. All very doable and safe. That's me!