My Chimers

I'm seeing if I can successfully put a short video on my blog. This should be a video of PonyGirl and Padawan at their last Bell/Chime concert. There's no sound. Not until I have to get a new camera. :-(

(Click the play button in the lower left corner of the screen)

My Most Traumatic Night Ever ~ Part 1

It's been ten years since my first baby was born. I'm sharing from my journal where I recorded what happened four days post-partum...
Part 2
Part 3
(If you are easily grossed out, read at your own risk)

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My (so far) Most Traumatic Night Ever

It was a Tuesday. June 18th, 1996. I had come home from the hospital the previous Sunday evening with a new baby girl, Rebecca. On this Tuesday my friend Lorry was visiting from Redmond, Oregon to see and help with the baby. Also, my sister Jaymarie was there and had been since before the birth. Of course, my husband Jim was there and Rebecca.

That night a family from our church had dropped off dinner. Spaghetti and Italian meatballs. I was vaguely concerned that the spicy meatballs might be a little too much for my baby whom I was nursing. A while after dinner I took a shower and I went to lie down on my brand-new bed. This bed had been delivered that very day. I had called Jim at home the day after Rebecca was born and said I wanted a new bed. Ours was in sorry shape and one night in a good hospital bed convinced me that I must have a new bed. . .NOW! Jim promptly bought one and it was delivered on Tuesday.

Now I was lying on my wonderful new bed. As I was lying there I began feeling poorly. I was getting a crampy, gassy feeling in my gut and it was getting worse. Soon it was a sharp, stabbing pain. I knew then that those meatballs were definitely doing a number on me. I then got really worried that this might have some ill effect on Rebecca eventually. At about 8pm or so I started feeling like I had a fever. I got a thermometer and sure enough, I had a low grade fever. I took my temperature 10 minutes later and it was higher. In fact, every 5 minutes it was higher than the last reading. I informed the group downstairs that I thought I needed to go to the emergency room. We decided that we would ALL go so that Rebecca would be near me when it was time for her to nurse and Lorry and Jaymarie would come to care for Rebecca so Jim wouldn’t have to worry about that.

At nine o’clock I nursed Rebecca and left for the hospital without really fixing my hair or putting on any make-up. (I was more vain then, than I am now!) We arrived at St. Luke’s at 9:30 pm. I was in extreme pain by then. I had been taking Tylenol with codeine regularly for pain related to labor and delivery until I started having these other symptoms. I wanted to know exactly where the pain was and to be able to describe it to the doctor (they always ask about the specifics). So in addition to the painful abdominal cramps and fever, my “episiotomy site” was really hurting and I was having trouble walking upright or even at a regular speed. The admitting ER nurse recorded my temperature as 103° and my pulse at 115 bpm. They said they were glad I had decided to come in.

(to be continued)

Will it be boy #1 or girl #8?

Kim at Life In A Shoe is live-blogging her latest birth. The contractions are getting more 'serious'!

It's Been A Year...

...since my friends' son died. June 28, 2005. He was only 21.

When I first moved to Idaho Jaye was four years old. I babysat his brother and him a few times. Took them to Chuck E. Cheese. Borrowed their mom as my mom-away-from-home. Let them practice their 'videography' on my camcorder. Watched them grow up.

Went to his big brother's wedding three years ago this coming September. Listened as Jaye gave an emotional best-man speech for Jared and Jaimi.

Ran into him at the grocery store and chatted one day.

Went to his memorial service three weeks later.

I'm happy I knew him. I'm sad he's gone.

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A beautifully written obituary. It's worth your time to read it.
(If the link expires, you may read the obituary here.)

Overheard

From the kitchen, Jim overheard BonusBoy (in the living room), after "reading" this book to JellyBean, say: "That was a great story. Isn't reading fun!?"

I don't know where we got that kid!! :-)

My daughter is blogging!

Check it out: Just Horsin' Around.

June Harvest

I'm so pleased. For the first time I have canned produce from my own yard!! Okay, it's only 3 quarts but hey, it's from my own yard. Usually canning is a big production because I go out and buy a BIG box of produce and then it takes a lot of time and work to get it put up. This being only 3 quarts, from my own yard, made it pretty fun and doable in just about 45 minutes. Did I mention that the fruit is from my own yard? Here it is from start to finish:

I'm thankful that the apocalyptic hail we experienced on June 13th(!) didn't do much damage to those cherries!! Here's some shots of that hail:

The big sister is home

(from camp) and we are all grateful!

Church Camp

There are some really neat things about church camp. Here's one: (click image to enlarge)

But Nobody's Perfect!

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Nobody's perfect. True. We are NOT perfect, but we ARE correctable. One of the purposes of Scripture is that of correction. If God did not intend for us to change He would not have provided for us Scripture that teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16&17

Again, nobody's perfect so why try? We try because it's what God asks of us. Maybe I'll never understand or be able to explain why God created us fallible and then asks for perfection. Maybe that's just one of those mysteries that I'm happy to let God take care of. Maybe I'll just do my best and trust God's mercy and grace will take over where I fall short. Maybe this is God's way of illustrating that I cannot do it on my own. This asking us to be impossibly perfect forces us to rely wholly upon Him.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may
increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been
baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through
baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:1-4

Clearly, our inability to be perfect is not license to sin. We are raised to a new life. A life in which we need to die to ourselves a little more each day. We just need to allow God to do His work in us and make us into the person he intended us to be all along.

But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our
potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Superpowers

I saw this t-shirt on the internet and I love it! I'll not get it or wear it because I think it has great potential to make people I know and love feel badly. Plus I don't really like drawing that much attention to my, uh, superpowers.

So much going on

We've been pretty busy lately. Here's an abbreviated recap of the past couple of weeks.

First Padawan turned 8 and we had a little birthday party that somehow morphed into something bigger (more people than we were expecting!). It was fun and loaded with lots of kids swimming in the pool, playing on the slip-n-slide, and doing crafts. Also there was the obligatory cake and ice cream. We were all having such a good time that we forgot about opening presents until the first of the parents arrived to pick up their child. Oh, oh, hurry open the presents!!

Eight days later is PonyGirl's birthday. She turned 10. She wanted a sleep over with four of her friends. That was a calmer party in some ways because there was only the five girls. But five giggling girls is in no way calm!

In the middle of this I started not feeling well and ended up having strep throat. The second time in about 3 months! Miserable. Now the strep is gone but I have a nasty cough that sounds like I'm bringing up a lung. I've pulled a muscle in my lower abdomen from all the coughing and now I have to curl into a tight ball in order to cough without pain. Makes for an interesting sight while in line at Wal-Mart...

Lastly, on Father's Day, PonyGirl left for church camp. This is her first time to be gone for a whole week of camp. Up until now she has gone to First Chance Camp which is much shorter. It's a Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. We'll see how the week-long camp goes. We are halfway though it now and I haven't heard from her so I'm guessing she's just fine. She's there with at least 6-10 kids that she knows. She probably doesn't miss us a bit. We are busy enough here at home that we aren't missing her all that much ourselves. Monday morning Padawan said, "This week just isn't going to seem right." He's doing just fine tho'! :-) Sadly, I must admit that it's been pretty calm around here without the 10-year-old, female drama that we are accustomed to! I guess it would get boring around here if the drama were gone too long! We'll all be happy to see her back home again on Saturday.

Here's another picture of PonyGirl's birthday. I love the shot of BonusBoy in the background observing and enraptured by his big sister. (Click to enlarge) (arrgh! you'll have to check back for this photo as Blogger isn't letting me upload it for some reason!)

In Our "Neck" of the Woods

Here's a "lovely" article about a horrific event in Boise, Idaho yesterday. Warning: it's a bit gruesome.

Kabob Recipe

As requested, here is the recipe. I don’t measure much but this is approximately what I did:

Beef and chicken cut into about 1-inch cubes
Refrigerate it over night in a ziplock bag containing:

1 – 18 oz. bottle of BBQ sauce
the juice of one lemon (about 1/4-1/3 cup)
½ cup of virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. parsley flakes
salt & pepper (I didn’t measure)

Next day:
Cut up veggies. I used:

1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 onion
a few mushrooms
a few cherry tomatoes

Layer the meat and veggies onto SOAKED skewers. (I only soaked mine the 20 minutes it said on the package. Next time I’ll do it AT LEAST one hour. The exposed ends scorched badly!) I did beef kabobs and chicken kabobs. Both with veggies. I only put on one tomato per skewer and I didn’t always use a tomato since the kids don’t like ‘em. Next time I’ll use more than one onion. One wasn’t enough for me!!

Place kabobs on a well-heated grill over medium to medium high heat. You’ll have to figure this out a bit on your own since grill vary quite a lot! Cook for about 10 minutes or so before trying to turn the kabobs. If the chicken sticks it’s probably not ready to turn. Use the leftover marinade from the bag to baste over the kabobs while they are cooking. Be sure to COOK COMPLETELY after the last time you brush it because you have raw chicken juices (UGH!!) in that marinade. Don’t give it a final brush and then immediately remove it from the grill!!!!!

Just watch it and turn them every once in a while to cook evenly on all sides. I took a hunk of chicken off a skewer and cut into it to test for doneness. I didn’t know how else to know. I think it took about 20-25 minutes to cook. The prep work takes longer than the actual cooking time.

The beef turned out a little tough. I don’t know the best cut of meat to use for this purpose and I probably didn’t choose well. (I used top round steak) The chicken breast was wonderful and I prefer chicken anyway!!

There was probably a shorter way of saying all this but I’m not known for being pithy!! J

Let me know if you try this and how it turned out!!

Frugal Gourmets

I just had to share that tonight we went out to dinner at Golden Corral. Seeing the HUGE TUREEN of fruit that my son, Padawan, had acquired for himself (it's a buffet restaurant), I mentioned that it's not that as a family of six we can't afford to go out to dinner, it's that we can't afford NOT to. That boy is going to eat us out of house and home! "Eat up", I said. "This food's got to last you a week!" Then Jim said what will now be our catch phrase when eating out at AYCE buffets: "Leave with your mouth full!"

BTW, Padawan ate every last bite of that fruit!

No Story, Just a Cute Picture

This is BonusBoy and his cousin. She is four days younger than he. They are eating M&M's. See one of the wrappers on the ground?? :-)

Of kittens and boys

Yesterday...

BonusBoy knocking at the back, sliding door
Jim (opening door): Yes?
BonusBoy: Scooter swimming.
Jim: Scooter is swimming?
BonusBoy: Yes.
Jim, running out the door, rescues the kitty who was dog-paddling around the kids' pool.

There's no way that kitten could have gotten out of that pool. It's a good thing BonusBoy 'fessed up!!!!!














Scooter today. Drier and planning ahead!

Dinner Tonight

See what I made for dinner tonight? It was yummy! We had it with baby reds and rice. PonyGirl marginally liked it, Padawan did NOT like it, Bonus Boy ate it without comment, and Jim and I loved it. It was a success! Thank you to my brother-in-law for the recipe and for making it while I was at my parents' house over Memorial Day.