Hello 2015, Goodbye 2014

Caution:  Long Post w pics...

Where oh where do I begin?  Where do I start?  I left you all here in blogland, friends, to mourn the loss of my sister, Lisa, and just flat lost my blogging mojo.  Still not sure if it's back yet, tho, so be patient with me.  Time will tell...  Grief kinda comes in waves...

In February, it'll be two years since we learned of Lisa's cancer, and our world turned upside down and sideways.  I HATED that she had to go through the surgery, hated that she had to endure the chemo which in the end didn't really help, hated that she had pain and suffering especially those last few months.  But, we had almost a year and a half to share, to love, to talk, to laugh, to cry, to hold each other, to pray together and with our parents and our families.  We saw family members mend some hurt feelings and broken bonds and we all drew together as a family. Now, we've always been a close tight family, but you can't all be perfect all the time.  Lisa's undaunting faith in the Lord and love impacted us all.  Little things that used to bother me DO NOT MATTER.  What matters is our love for God and our love for each other. That's all.

Lisa and I have always been connected at the hip.  How we could grow any closer is hard to fathom, but grow closer we did.  We had to get down to the nitty gritty and talk about some really hard stuff.  Her kids first and foremost.  All five of our kids belonged to both of us.  Tony and I now have all five of these grown kids to call our own.

With Lisa, nothing was left unspoken, no love or feelings were not expressed, no tears cried together were not cried.  I guess that's the thing with an extended illness - having time to say goodbye.  Would that I could have gone through this for my little sister. Our parents have really had a hard time.  It's not for me or us to understand except that we live in a fallen world.  And if there were no pain and suffering, we would not need the love and saving grace of God. There was no pain or sorrow in the world when God created it - it was only when sin entered the garden and the world that the perfect became imperfect.  We need the Lord desperately, and when we go through these times (and we all will) He promises to be with us and help us through.  We will understand in the great by and by.  Lisa's favorite verses...

Isaiah 40:31New International Version (NIV)

31 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

My sister is soaring on wings like eagles and her strength has been renewed!!!

We shared SO much, sometimes we would even call each other at the same time or look at each other with unspoken words that we didn't need and KNOW what the other was thinking. One of the most wonderful things that we shared besides our faith is that we both became first time grandmothers in 2014.  Lisa didn't get to see her little grandson make his grand entrance nor did she see my little granddaughter.  But Tony said that perhaps she got to hold and love on both of them in heaven - that's comforting and I like to think that.  It makes me happy to think about her holding both of those babies before we ever got to!  I'm sharing a pic of Lisa's little Gauge, and one of my little Isabella. My daughter in law and son gave Bella my sister's middle name, much to my delight!  Of course, that brought happy tears and I know it would be a hoot for Lisa to know that!

Gauge

Isabella

The Lord is SO GOOD to us!  These two little babies have been a huge band-aid on our broken hearts!  There IS Joy in the midst of pain and sorrow!  Joy that we know that Lisa awaits us in Heaven, and Joy and thankfulness that God has brought these two little miracles into our lives at a time when we needed them most.  

So...  I want to end this long post on a good note, with a heavy but joyful heart feeling immersed in God's love and comfort upon our families at this time.  Thank you, my blog friends, for all your love and prayers and well wishes that have come my way in these past two years.  I'm looking forward to 2015!  

Stretch Marks

You simply HAVE to go to visit Stretch Marks this morning and read her post. This young mother had one of the best posts I've read in a long time... Tell her Vickie sent you!  You won't be sorry!

WHEN I WAS A KID...

I see blogs from time to time that post their own baby pics and so I decided to do that, too, seein' as how I'm runnin' a little low in the subject matter department today. Won't get any more new pictures of Europe from Josh until he gets home I guess, which 'll be Sunday week.

mom & dad both grew up in hometown. Mom worked at one of the banks downtown, dad worked at Penney's and then Sears. Drat! I think I left my photos of them when they were newlyweds at the farm !&&*^(@!$#^!@@. Oh well, guess I'll just show you a few of me. Mom and her friend Jimmie Sue were big shoe nuts back when, and they would go on their lunch hour to Penney's and look at shoes and to the dime store to have lunch at the fountain. Well, her and dad finally spotted each other and mom went for several weeks to spy on him and decide for sure whether she wanted to meet him. I guess she finally did after he caught her lookin' and smiled at her. A mutual friend introduced them, and they started dating and fell madly in love! They were engaged after about 6 months and married within a year. I came along a couple of years later...

Here's me at 18 mos. I have some older photos and a good little baby pic somewhere but I'll have to find it. Mom and Dad thought I was quite cute! My hair is still very curly. Mother would brush out my white blond hair and in a minute or two, it had sprung back up in little knots and ringlets. I still fight it to this day! (we're never happy with our hair are we?)

I think I mentioned once before how much I loved the Palladin show "Have Gun Will Travel". Mom and Dad bought me this little cowboy outfit which I absolutely LOVED and I rode my palomino spring horse thousands of miles watching Palladin and dreaming of becoming a cowboy when I grew up! I even had six-shooters! I never was much of a girly-girl when I was young...

Then here I am showing you a high school pic when my husband and I were only 17 and just started dating. This was at the Sadie Hawkins dance. I look back now and realize how young we were, but of course we thought we knew everything! We were highschool sweethearts from then on. I have known him since I was 16!

I don't know how this goofy Blogger is going to show these photos. It's jumpin' around on me and the photos won't stay where I put 'em!!!

Here I am at 18. This was my free spirit-hippie stage. I was a teen in the 70's - a little late for the hippie generation, but at 17-18, it all seemed so cool and romantic and I remember being said that it was all over before I was old enough to be a part. Of course, now in retrospect, I wouldn't dare be involved in all the stuff that came with being a hippie!!! I still feel like free spirit sometimes tho. It would be nice to really get into the artist/bohemian/gypsy/hippie personna and just be weird - aren't artists supposed to be that way? and wear lots of silver and turquoise and maybe have a nose-ring and a tattoo on my ankle? whadaya think dear readers??? then I could travel around and paint and sell my paintings on the sidewalk in California and Colorado for enough money to go to Europe and paint my way through Tuscany and Spain... sigh.... sounds purty swooft to me... no really, wouldn't it be nice to just escape sometime?

I think part of the free spirit thing is that at 52, I think I've finally gotten to the point that I don't care what others think of me, I care what I think of me. I'm comfortable in my own skin, no matter what it looks like, I'm comfortable doing whatever makes me happy and makes me smile, and painting my way through life and wearing what I want and gettin' into the artsy-fartsy thing might make me happy (all this according to the Lord's will of course) I never cared for big expensive houses, or expensive cars or clothes. The Lord provides me with everything I need and most things I want. He gave me a talent that I'm really wasting right now, what with work and all. I'm too tired to even think about painting when I get home from work, and laundry and housework and cooking are all screaming to be done first.

But NO! I'm trapped in this midlife, conservative lookin' body and family and lifestyle. EEEEk! I've turned into my mother, I'm exactly like her. How many of us said we were NEVER gonna be like our parents? I sure did! I couldn't wait to get out from under their wing, and then I couldn't wait to get back. Now I want to spend as much time with them as I can before they're gone. Guess that makes me a "mature" woman.

Speaking of which..... There's this real estate magazine-lette that we have around town where all the local realtors put ads for their realty in there and they always try to have some fancy-shmancy description of their homes. This goofy guy that I went to high school works for one of the realtys and several years ago, he worded his ad somewhat like this:

"This home......she has all the charm, elegance and gracefulness of a beautiful older woman..." CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS GUY??? OF ALL THE NERVE comparing an old house to a woman! He was a PIG in high school, and by gum, he's STILL a PIG!!!!

How did I get off on that tangent? Ok, I guess I'm tired. I'm palaverin' again. I guess I need to git ya'll used to that word. Add it to your vocabulary girls - people may really think you're smart, especially you northern gals. Us sutheners generally know what that means, at least I think most of us do. Night, night- sleep tight - sweet dreams - I love you.... my mom and dad used to say that to me and my sibs every single night, with a kiss on the forehead (then say night-night), kiss on one cheek (say sleep tight), kiss on other cheek (say sweet dreams), I love you (kiss nose). I did that to my kids and still do when they'll let me! ...... sweet dreams.....

103rd Post

I know I said I was having a 100th post giveaway, but life has a way of throwing a wrench into the best laid plans of mice and men. I haven't forgotten, but it's going to be in the very near future and will probably be some random post # like 107.5 or something.

Seems like there's been someone or something having a crisis for the last few weeks and I've been unable to do much of anything, let alone blog. Here's what's been going on...

1. Spent $1500.00 on my car getting some much needed things fixed and it was in the shop for two weeks, during which time, me & Tony were carpooling and all that jazz.
2. Spent another $750.00 on my daughter's car getting a new a/c & running back and forth from her college town to swap cars with her.
3. Two weeks ago - I had several days off getting my heart procedure done & recuperating.
4. We've had 3 funerals to attend in the last 10 days.
5. We had one wedding to attend.
6. Been out on the farm trying to get the garden in for the last two weekends and evenings after work.
7. Mom had knee surgery this morning and I will be helping Dad out with her for a few days.
8. Been dog-sitting for Princess while she spent spring break in Orlando with her roommate and roomie's big sister who is a flight attendant (they got really cheap-o plane tickets) (that makes 3 dogs for me to take care of & Princess's dog is very time-consuming)
9. One of my friends confided to me yesterday that her 18 year old daughter is pregnant & I'm trying to lend my shoulders to them. I hate it so bad for them. They are trying to wrap their brains around this right now and figure out what to do. They've checked into open adoption, but are not sure they could actually give the baby up. Marriage to the young man is a definite NO. They even had already paid for her college tuition for the 09-10 school year. They are good Christian people. Mistakes do happen to all of us, don't they, whether we're Christians or not.

Anyway, I may be away for a little while, and I will definitely be back with my giveaway. I'll try to check in on ya'll as I can. I miss ya when I'm away - I like to know what's going in your lives.