Creative Homemaker

I picked up Grammy and Leesh at the airport this afternoon. A little heavy traffic but not bad considering all the construction going on at SeaTac. We got home and the kids trickled in from a birthday party and were excited to see Gram. After dinner Grammy read to them while I took a shower and got ready to go in the morning. She is a wonderful grandma and the kids love her. I'm sure that everything will go smoothly. I've left her with enough instructions to choke a horse, and food enough to feed an army, I'm sure. Leesh will be a good "Auntie" to my kids and is a great helper to have around. To all my bloggy friends, I'll post soon about how my flight goes and classes I get to take while I'm at the spouses seminar. I'm really looking forward to spending uninterrupted time with my sweetheart. Now if I can just get some sleep.

I. Can. Not. Sleep! My heart is racing, my mind is whirring, and I’m all jittery. I feel like I’m on speed! (Not that I have ever taken it to be able to compare, what kind of person do you think I am, really!) But wow, why won’t my head shut off. Is it excitement about seeing Bear, is it excitement about seeing my mom and my niece? What is the deal here, I’ll be a wreck on the side of the road driving to SeaTac if I don’t get some rest. I’ve been up to pee, I’ve painted my nails, I helped a little Bubby go potty and change his jammies, (poor Ace fell asleep in his jeans during movie and pizza night,) I’ve tossed, turned, thumped pillows, wrestled with the sheets. I am anxious to see my sweetheart, I told him I feel like a giddy teenager on a first date. I’m looking forward to long talks with him, without interruptions. Our conversations of late have been broken and disjointed. Little ones always seem to need Mamma’s attention and/or discipline when I’m on the phone to Daddy. Bear ...

About two months ago, my dear husband let me know about an opportunity for Chaplain's spouses, so that we could attend some classes at the Army Chaplain School. I thought back then it was just a dream, a very expensive dream that would never come true. I thought it was a great opportunity and as I'm so new to this whole Army ministry thing, I could sure learn alot, but I was resigned to the fact that I would not be able to go. There were too many details, too much to try and coordinate, I didn’t think I could take care of it all. I prayed about it, thinking that God would not have this excursion in His Eternal plan for my life, and I left it in God’s hands. My dear husband asked me if I had thought about it, and if I could actually come. Wow, I didn’t realize that Bear had been praying about it too. The details were too complicated, how would I fly by myself with 5 kids (too expensive) how would we get around once we got there, I’d have to rent a minivan, (too expensive). Wha...

Today, for the first time I met a friend whom I have enjoyed getting to know. That seems so reversed, I should have met her first and then gotten to know her. In this age of computers and blogs and long-distant relationships, it is often vice versa. I found this woman’s blog through a Chaplain blogroll. As we are embarking on a new direction and path in our lives, I sought out the direction and assistance of wives who have been down this road. I sought out a Titus woman who would be able to “fill me in” so to speak about what I could expect as we travel along this journey God has put before us. I discovered to my delight that one particular Chaplain’s wife lived near me and that perhaps we could meet in real life and talk face to face. We’ve been trying to connect for months it seems, but with 10 children between us and often going separate directions, it has been difficult to say the least, with cancellations and postponements along the way. But today, we did it. Plans were pushed asi...

He is risen indeed! Aleluiah!

I didn’t sleep well last night, oh I went to bed early enough, tried to get enough rest, but Robby had leg cramps and woke me up nearly every hour wanting “med-cine” on his owies. 4 times during the night, I went in and rubbed him down with muscle cream. Then Boo woke up coughing as soon as Robby got settled for the night. Needless to say, my dreams last night were scattered and incoherent. The last one I remember was that my next-door neighbor had taken down a section of my new fence and stolen my sod. Miss Busy woke me up this morning instead of vice versa, the first thing I did was look out my back window. Nope, grass was still there.

Saturday Morning dawned partly cloudy, but no rain, it had sprinkled some during the night, I heard the rain dripping down the rain gutter at 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I arose early and had my quiet time, fed everyone and went to the backyard to start getting things ready to put down the sod. There were some rocks to be moved and tidied up. I had good workers lined up for inside with the kids and outside help with me. Our friend Brandon, 17, had a brain injury a few years ago and doesn’t have the use of his left hand, and walks with a brace and a limp with his left leg. But he is a hard worker and is willing, a commendable trait in a teenager. He picked rocks and dumped several bucketfuls and got them squared away. He was especially good with the sod knife, trimming around all the rocks in the wall and the stepping-stones. Fordman and I laid the sod, while AZ-Wheeln, Miss Busy, AZ’s daughter, Kay and a few neighbor kids brought the sod to the backyard in a wagon. The groun...

Fordman and AZ-Wheeln picked up the sod at the turf farm. They called me and told me that the trailer had to go back to the guy who was borrowing it, so we had to unload the trailer onto the driveway. Nine thousand pounds of dirt and grass! Oh my aching back. By the end of unloading, my hands hurt and I had no strength in my wrists. Now we’ll have to slug it all through the muck and mire into the backyard tomorrow. Oh boy, what fun. I “borrowed” two teenagers from our former church to help and watch the kids inside while I help lay sod outside. There is so much to do out there; I hope it goes together smoothly. I have to set some stepping-stones too, I hope I can get them laid straight. I don’t have my sweet hubby to help me get things “just right.” Why am I doing this without him? I hate doing these kinds of things without him. Dear Lord, give me strength today, help me to supervise in a way that communication is evident and clear. Help keep everyone safe from harm today while we a...

I’ve had a request or two for pictures of my garden boxes. I’m posting one of our boxes in KCMO, and the ones I have planned for this house. I got the idea from Country Home magazine and the need to find a place for two fruit trees. (The first picture.) My dear friend Mr. T. has personally grafted two apple trees and they are waiting at his orchard for the right transplanting time. One is a 3-in-one and the other is “the consummate pie apple” a Northern Spy. I built the boxes so that the trees could go in the middle and I can plant herbs and smaller veggies around the outside. I cannot plant tomatoes in my yard as I have raspberries near the fence and tomatoes are related to nightshade, which is deadly to raspberries. I was a bit disappointed about that at first, but I’d rather have home-grown raspberries and buy my tomatoes from the farmer’s market anyway. The boxes in KCMO were built from 2”x12”x10’ then we cut them at 3 feet and made the boxes 3’x7’ rectangles. This is a good si...

Goodness gracious, I feel like I haven’t had time to even sit down lately. This week has been crazy; Monday Chels stayed home from school, her arm was really hurting. Tuesday Chels, AZ-Wheeln and I went to Home Depot and purchased boards for my garden boxes, and then bought sod. We have 2180 square feet of yard, that’s 4 ½ pallets of sod weighing 9000 pounds! That’s a lot of grass! Later in the day I dropped Chels at school, she didn’t want to miss library day, and picked up Miss Busy for her eye appointment. She has 20/20 vision but the Doctor said that children her age should have a bit of farsightedness to compensate for stretching as the retina grows. So he thinks that she may become nearsighted in the future based on family history, me, Dad and Gadget Boy all have glasses. So he prescribed reading glasses, we picked out and purchased them, she’ll look so cute! Today, Wednesday, was Chels’ field trip to the Art Museum. What fun! We rode the bus together; I got great pictures of the...

If you didn't read the first part, click here . The Docs told me that she needed surgery to pull the fragment out and get the joint back together. It wasn’t an emergency so they scheduled it for Sunday morning. Sometime around 2:30, which was actually 3:30 because of Daylight Savings time they got her into a room in the Pediatric Ward. I had some allergy medication that I should have taken around bedtime and I was having stuffy nose symptoms, so I drove home after she was settled and sleeping. While I was there I picked up her Get-better Bear. She got it from a Doc about 8 years ago when she had pneumonia. She had been asking for it all night. After I got back, the nurse had a pull out convertible chair/sleeper and had sheets and a pillow for me. I slept for a couple of hours and the Ortho Doc and the Ortho Surgeon came in and said surgery would be in about 30 minutes. I helped her get robed and ready, and then we walked (she rode) to OR. I said goodbye after they had her sedated a...

We had such a nice morning yesterday; we came home from Women’s Bible Study and the kids played outside in the neighborhood. Boo took a nap, cranky boy. I was taking pictures of the back yard and talking with Bear on the phone after I had posted them. He was impressed with the landscape guy’s work and we were talking about sod. Miss Busy came running in and said that Chels had gotten hurt on the trampoline and was screaming. Screaming! She is a tough kid, high level of pain tolerance, if she is screaming, it’s got to be bad. I hung up quickly with Bear, told him I’d keep him posted and went into Mommy Trauma Mode, MTM for short. I got to our neighbor’s backyard and saw her sitting on the tramp with her right arm all wrapped up with a bag of ice. She had to skooch over to the edge and I somehow got her through the mesh-Velcroed opening of the safety net, well at least she didn’t fall off of it. (Ha Ha!) I unwrapped Miss Busy’s jacket from around her elbow and saw immediately we had a...

We're getting our backyard done!! I'm so excited, we've only lived here for nearly 2 years. This has been a project and a half, (and a hernia, by the way!) Finally! Fence and sod next week, still undecided on seed or sod, any thoughts? Give me opinions people, I'm looking at cost of course, but then I have 5 kids to consider, can we play on it relatively soon?

"diffusing the fragrance of His knowledge in every place." 2 Corinthians 2:14 Am I doing this in my life? My Blog? My family? Kim over at A Planting of the Lord thinks so. I am touched by her thoughtfullness. I don't always do a good job of setting a pleasant tone in our home, it is something with which I constantly battle. I love to burn candles in my home, I love vanilla the best, and then clean fruity fragrances next. Sometimes I have gotten a bad smelling one and it nearly makes me sick to smell it. It reminds me how God made each of our senses and how he draws analogies in His Word with examples of those senses. Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Luke 14:34-35 Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Job 11:18 And you will feel secure, because there...

I was so encouraged and blessed to have a “celebrity commenter” on my blog. I posted a comment on Renee Swope’s blog asking a question. I think that it might have been a rhetorical question not really needing an answer, but more of an inward self-examination, yet Renee replied to my question on her blog. It was such a blessing to me that I wanted to put it in my blog-journal to be able to refer back to the things she wrote. To have a wonderful writer offer encouragement to a fledgling is so encouraging and I know that there will be times when I’ll need to look at and reread her encouraging words. Here is my question and her response. Renee, Sometimes I think...There are so many wonderful writers and authors out there, how could I possibly contribute? But maybe in some way, with God's help, I can be an encouragement to others. MaryLu, I completely understand how you feel. I felt that way for so long, and I still do when I walk through a bookstore. How could I say it any better or di...

I was washing a cute new cotten jersey knit cardigan given to me by my friend, Rachel. In that same load unbeknownst to me was a red crayon from a pocket of my son's pants. The red crayon melted all over the cardigan. I am so sad! I loved it! What can I do to remove the crayon? Or maybe my only recourse is to dye it? Burgundy would be cute, it is 95% cotton and only 5% spandex, will that dye easily? What about the white stitching on the edges, will it dye too? I've never had that great of success with dying red things really red? Any good dyers out there? Please help! Oh, I am just so sad, magic eraser did get it out of my dryer drum, but what about my poor poor jacket, sob!!

Are you fearful? Are you overwhelmed by some circumstance in your life over which you have no control? Is it finances, health, fear that you will lose loved ones? I have had my share of fears. I’m sure we all have something about which we are afraid. The Bible has much to say about fear, but before I share those verses, I’m going to share my story of fear. Bear was the funds clerk Chaplain Assistant at our new assignment in the Army but before serving there for very long he got notification that another unit was in need of a Chaplain’s assistant, and by the way, they were deploying soon. Though Bear didn’t want to deploy, he knew that he could help these soldiers and wanted the opportunity to serve with them. This was at the end of 2002 and things were just beginning to happen in Iraq and we didn’t know when they would deploy, the dates kept getting changed, we had two months, then we had 6 weeks, then we had 5 weeks, then it would be back to 2 months again. The packing list kept chang...

We had just returned from Christmas Eve service, and prepared for our traditional Christmas Eve gifts, usually new jammies. We open one gift each and get dressed and ready for bed. My mother started this tradition with my siblings and me, probably so that we would look good in our Christmas morning pictures. It is a tradition that I have tried to follow as well. Being the scrapbooking and history-preserving mommy I am, I got out the camera and started snapping pictures, one of Gadget Boy, oh, he’s so cute snuggling with his little baby sissies; one of Chels and Miss Busy in their matching sleepers. (Only three kiddos at this time in our lives.) Snap-whir, snap-whir, snap then click. No snap-whir? No more film, “Oh, no! That can’t be the end. There has got to be more film in the buffet drawer!” None, zilch, nada, not a single roll of unused film. What to do, what to do! Panic! Now, we have to back up a bit in the story. For about a year, I had been trying to start an online eBay busine...

Ace and I were in the potty, he was sitting, I was reading while he did his business. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” was the selection for the night. Daddy often recites a favorite verse from this book, changing it just a bit, “My hat is old, my teeth are gold. I have a Mommy I like to hold.” Ace gave me his version tonight, “My shoe is off. My foot is cold. My hat is new, my Mom is old.” Thanks Dr. Seuss.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25. It is good to go to the House of the Lord, it is good to stand in His presence and sing His praises. It is good to have fellowship with believers. As one who has been unable to partake of such a blessing for several (six) weeks due to illness in the family, I have been blessed immeasurably today by standing and partaking in worship. Though I was unable to hear most of the sermon because I sit with 4 children under the age of 10, to be in God’s presence in His house was healing to me. It was a balm in my Gilead; it was salve to my woundedness of the past weeks. It was nourishment for my sin-sick and starving soul. We have recently changed denominations so that my husba...

I think I may have figured out my computer problem. My hard drive was at 80% of full and it just kept crashing because it didn't have enough space to move around. I purchased an external hard drive and loaded all my photos on it and then cleaned out duplicate files and defragged, and ran scan disk utilities. I felt so "techie" that I was able to do it without my Computer Whiz of a husband around. (Good training, I suppose.) I still have to reload a virus software, but I'm safe now, no threat of lost photos or files. I have multiple backups, both on CD and on my EHD. For anyone who cares, I use a wonderful program called Memory Manager from Creative Memories, I am a consultant and I've used this wonderful program for about 2 years now. With it, you can edit photos, crop, recolor, name them, write stories about them and then transfer them into another program called Storybook Creator and make beautiful hardbound scrapbooks. It is so much fun to play with. OK, enough...