Monday Madness

Weekly Menu

Monday: fend for yourself - I ate with my Dad and sister
Tuesday: spaghetti
Wednesday: leftovers or fend for yourself
Thursday: fish sticks and potato salad
Friday: out to dinner
Saturday: fend for yourself

Kind of took it easy today so as not to aggravate the back. Thank goodness there were no muscle spasms like I had yesterday. I do not enjoy standing through church (both services) and then at our table at lunch. People look at you funny if you are just standing at the table while everyone else is sitting down!
Tomorrow I will once again start filling out job applications. I do not like having to fill out applications on-line. I never know if it is actually going where it is supposed to go. Not looking forward to interviews. They make me really nervous. AND I really hate when they ask me questions that I don't know the answer to!
Well, that is enough useless info for today.

Hi Mrs. H's Mom. Thank you so much for the lovely note you sent me. :)

The Lord's Day

Was a beautiful day. We had a guest preacher who had a really good sermon. Great numbers for all three services (for those of you that don't know we are a congregation of believers who have only been meeting for four years), great singing and just an overall wonderful day of fellowship. I love my church family!

Oh, Am I Going to Hurt Tomorrow!!

I worked in my parents yard today with some TAMU students from the Big Event. If you are wondering what the Big Event is well, it is the largest, one-day student-run service project in the nation where students of TAMU come together to say "Thank You" to the residents of BCS. Our group were from the Pre-Med Society. I had the help of 5 girls and 1 boy. We only got one flower bed done but it looks so much better. I worked in the back yard mainly because it is over run with thistle. Boy, am I going to feel it tomorrow. I may have pictures to post later if they remember to send them to me. There were over 13,000 students working around the community today and 1500 projects.
Dad and I worked at the cemetery after we finished at their house. We moved rocks and dirt and did just some general clean up. Everything looks better but it still needs some work but it will have to be after they move the mountain of rocks from our area. I need to work on some more flower arrangements. Looks like I will be getting a lot of practice now that Mom isn't around to do them.
Man, I miss her so much. The strangest things make me think of her and hit me like a sledge hammer. Her birthday is in April and that is going to be hard. I am just so angry that she is gone. I don't like feeling this way but I can't stop it. Please continue to pray for my family as we are all struggling.

Yes, the cows in the last post are right outside my backyard and they were something that my Mom enjoyed taking care of (most of the time anyway!). I think that the one closest to the camera is Stormy and we bottle fed her. We still have her and she can be such a pain.

The weather today is sunny, so much better than yesterday. Thank goodness. I am having such a hard time wanting to get out of my house and do anything, well to be honest I just plain don't want to do anything inside or out. Motivation is not in my vocabulary this week.

Can you guess what the picture is? I took it on our spring break trip last year. This was the last camping trip we got to take with my Mom and Dad. The day I took this is was absolutely gorgeous and we had such a nice time together.

Tonight we were invited over to eat dinner with some friends from church. We had an awesome dinner and a wonderful visit. Enjoyed visiting with their three girls. Mr. Giggles and I can't wait until we move into a bigger place so we can have people over!

Well, that is all for tonight.

Wordless Wednesday

New Week

Weekly Menu:
Monday: Slovacek sausage in bread
Tuesday: sloppy joes and tator tots
Wednesday: fend for yourself
Thursday: dinner at friends from church house
Friday: out to dinner
Saturday: fend for yourself



The end of spring break weak was pretty busy for us. Thursday we went to my sister B's in-laws farm for fishing, burgers and birthday cake. . . .oh, and presents. The short people celebrate birthdays this month. We had a good time just being together and playing with the kids. Friday night we met at Mr. Gatti's for pizza and games. The short people had a great time playing games and I think B and Rae did too. We had more birthday cake and they still took some home! They headed back home on Saturday and got snow. We went from really beautiful weather with temps in the low 70's to temps in the 50's and crazy wind that blew for two days straight and blew at over 20 mph.
Saturday we had to make an out of town trip for the funeral of a friend of ours dad. He had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer. Ken and Lea had come to town for my Mom's funeral, then his step grandmother passed away and then his dad. He has had a rough month. We spent six hours on the road Saturday. That evening we received a call from Mr. Giggles mom to let us know that his sister was in the hospital and that she needed us to follow her to where they were living so we could bring his dad back. That was four hours on the road plus the hospital visit. I had a very hard time at the hospital and ended up having to sit out in the hall. We hope that the doctors are able to find what is causing his sister to have severe back pain and to have seizures. Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got home last night.
Today has been a long day. I had to go wait at my parents house for repair men to fix the bathtub drain. This is all still part of the foundation repair from last summer. It was really hard for me today to sit amongst all their stuff and remember how much my Mom would have enjoyed decorating the house when she began feeling better. Today is also the one year anniversary of the loss of Baby Giggles # 3. I have shed a lot of tears today.
I hope this is not an indication of how the rest of the week is going to be. Well, that is all for tonight. I need to get off the computer and change the sheets so we can go to bed. Night y'all.

Spring Break Trip

We did take a short trip for spring break with my middle sis and my Dad. We had a good time. The weather was beautiful and I saw a beautiful butterfly that reminded me of Mom. I had received a note from my grandmother's cousin on the day of Mom's funeral and she mentioned something about a butterfly; she wrote. . . .left this earthly life she is still with each of you in spirit, that beautiful butterfly landing on you while in the garden will be her letting you know she is there with you, that twinkling star in the night sky will be her winking at ya, that ripple in the lake or pond on a still day will be her letting you know she is still right there looking over each of you,. . . .and I thought of this as I watched the butterfly fly between me and my sister and then beside us as we rode the train through the park. I really hope to see a lot of butterflies, twinkling stars and rippling water in the future. Anyway back to our trip, we ate some really good food (too much of it of course), saw some neat sights, some beautiful homes and some people who really should have looked in the mirror before they left home (that is always the most interesting part of a trip for me. . . .the people watching). Dad and my sis left on Monday afternoon while we stayed another day. On Tuesday we didn't do anything except sleep late, eat lunch and then head home. Overall the trip was nice even if we were missing my Mom and wishing that my other sis and her family could be with us. But the best part of the trip for me was the butterfly (it was my secret for the day because I couldn't tell anyone else about it because I knew if I did that I would cry and I didn't want to do that. I guess they will find out about it if they happen to read this.).

If you happen to read both of my blogs, you will read some of the same stuff, sorry about that. I still miss my Mom so much and I can't think of anything else to write about. I wish each one of you could have met her and seen first hand what a wonderful person she was.

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

Hello Mrs. H's Mom.

Spring Break

The weather the last couple of days has been really beautiful. Makes me miss my Mom even more. This was her time of the year. This week I am hoping to get some yardwork done at both my house and my parents house. Mr. Giggles is off this week so I will get to spend time with him which helps with the missing Mom part. It will be a hard week for my Dad as he tries to get some work done on their house so he can move back in. I know that he is not looking forward to moving back into the house that our church lovingly had remodeled for them, that we all grew up in, that he and my Mom built together. I can hardly stand the pain that he is going through because there is only so much that we can do. We love him and do what we can but we can't make the nights less lonely, the quiet time less lonely, the time alone less lonely. My heart breaks for my Dad. My parents had the kind of marriage that everyone should want and work for. They never argued because they loved each other so much and didn't want to waste any precious time being mad at each other. They truly loved being together, they completed each other. They were true soulmates. Isn't that what we should all work towards in a marriage? Now I see that my title doesn't really fit my post but such is life.

Frustrating

Ok, I graduated from college with a degree in education in 2007. I had to take three certification tests to be able to teach. One was the professional test which everyone has to take, the second was a prek - 4th generalist test which allows me to teach those grades, and the third was 4-8 English, Language Arts, Reading in those grades. Well, last summer when I interviewed for a pre-K job I was told that I really needed to become ESL certified to become hirable at the districts near us. No, I will not be teaching ESL but I still "need" to become certified (just so you know, these tests are not cheap and they stress me out) so now I am trying to find study guides so that I can take the test. We also found out the other day that if I want to teach 5 - 6 grade, I will need to take yet another test that will give me a generalist certification to be highly qualified to teach those grades. Now, in our state by the time you get to 5th grade, you are not with the same teacher all day long, you have different teachers for different subject yet, I have to take another test. Not looking forward to the testing, like I said, taking tests like this really stress me out and I don't think that I really need a lot of added stress right now. Oh well, I have to get a job because I am already going to have a hard time getting all the continuing education hours I need so that at the end of 5 years I don't have to retake ALL of the certification tests. Well, that is all for today. Becoming an educator can be a real pain in the butt.

Wordless Wednesday

Cleaning

I have started some "spring" cleaning. Why you ask? Well, my house is such a mess and has so much stuff in it. I am not a good housekeeper to start with but with me being gone so much for the last seven month, it has gotten to be too much. Cleaning for me is always an overwhelming task because I don't like doing it and I am not good at it. I really wish I did a better job of it because I would love to just have people over at a moments notice instead of having to plan weeks ahead of time just so I can get my house cleaned. One thing that doesn't help is that our house is over 75 years old and doesn't really have any storage. My closet is only about three feet deep so I have a hard time getting much stuff in there. I never iron anything before I put it up because that is a waste of time. Our house has three bedrooms but only two closets plus one in the bathroom and they are all small. We store our out of season clothing in plastic crates which isn't bad but we don't have any place to store those except in my office. Another problem is that we have a lot of furniture and I don't want to get rid of anything because eventually we will move somewhere else. To rent a storage place around here is pretty expensive so we are trying not to go that route. Oh my, I have gotten off subject haven't I. Anyway, I am trying to get my house semi cleaned so that I can then get my parents house back in order as we get their stuff moved back in. I am not looking forward to that job because I was going to help my Mom get everything taken care of. And since the weather is warming up, I really need to start getting yard work done at both houses. I really miss my Mom.

13 Years Ago

I just wanted to share a few of my favorite wedding pictures. You will notice that Mr. Giggles is not pictured and that is because he doesn't want to have his picture posted on my blog. Since I love him, I left him out. The decorations were all done by my Mom, the wooden portion was built by my Dad. All of the flowers for the bridesmaids were done by my Mom (I will try to post some of those later). When I went to look for wedding dresses, I had in mind what I wanted but once I tried them on they didn't work. Mom picked up this dress that she wanted me to try on and I thought it was horrible. She finally convinced me to try it on and I fell in LOVE with it. We bought it and took it home and with just a couple alterations we had the perfect dress. Our wedding and reception were beautiful and I have my Mom and Dad to thank. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Happy Anniversary

On this day 13 years ago I married the most wonderful man in the world.

Happy Anniversary Mr. Giggles!
I love you more with each passing year.
You make me a better person.

A New Week

Weekly Menu:
Monday: out to dinner
Tuesday: leftovers
Wednesday: fend for yourself or leftovers
Thursday: sloppy joes
Friday: out to dinner
Saturday: fend for yourself or leftovers

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I am not looking forward to this week. I have so much that needs to be done but I don't know where to start. Everyone that doesn't live here has gone home and everyone that does live here has to go back to work tomorrow. That is everyone but G-mom and me. I need to go birthday shopping for the niece and the nephew because one has a birthday on Wednesday and one has a birthday on the 24th. Don't have a clue what to get either one and I need to help Dad with his shopping. Mom was so good at always picking the perfect present for everyone. I miss her so much.
Well, that is all for tonight.

Wow

Last night was Mom's viewing and it was wonderful. There were over three hundred people that came by to pay their respect to an incredible woman. There were tears shed but lots of laughter. The viewing was supposed to last from 6 to 8 but people began showing up before 6 and lasted until around 9:30. We got in the car to go eat dinner at about 9:45.
The suit we picked for Mom looked really good. The funeral home did a good job on getting her dressed. It didn't look quite like her because, well, her body has been through hell for the last eight months but you could still catch a glimpse of her. What was missing was her beautiful smile and her incredible eyes. I always thought that my Mom was a pretty lady but looking at pictures over the past few days, I realized that my Mom was stunning. She had the most beautiful blue eyes and a smile that lit up a room.
The flowers. . . . .Mom would have been so proud. They are so pretty and there were so many.
If you want to read more about the viewing, go here.

Some Things

Last night as I lay in bed trying to go to sleep, I began thinking of all the things we would never do again. No phone calls just to see how I was doing, no more shopping, no more birthday or Christmas presents that you took such a care with picking out, yummy dinners, you won’t be there to help me decorate my first classroom, or come read to my kids, or meet your future grandkids, or to help me with my crafts or projects. Not sure what I am going to do with you.

Sometimes Life Just Really Isn't Fair

Why do things have to be so hard? I wasn't supposed to lose my Mom at 39 years of age. I was supposed to get to push her around in her wheelchair and pick out her nursing home but now we are having to plan her funeral. She passed away this afternoon after 5:00 pm. Please continue to keep my family in your prayers. She was our rock and we are now floundering with our loss.

Prayers Needed

My mom is not doing well. We were told that if she doesn't make a turn around, they are giving us a week or so. Please keep us in your prayers.