Happy Belated Birthday Allen!

From Will:

His birthday was on the 20th but I haven't had time to call him. Well, I'm not sure when the best time to call him is, or even if the number I have for him is the right one. That's sad isn't it? Allen, or "leny" as we used to call him, is my oldest brother and I know so little about what's going on in his life right now. We do keep in contact some. Mostly via emails we forward.

My Mom and Dad help keep me up to date about some of the things he and his family are up to. Dad made sure to let me know about Allen's newest car and all it's bells and whistles for example. Honestly, I don't know what they tell him, I don't do anything; but I like the idea that they keep him up to date on me too. I did tag an email to his lovely wife to give him my birthday blessing a few days before his birthday, but traditionally we call each other on our birthdays and we -no I, missed it this year. I'll have to remedy that soon.

In the mean time, I thought I might use this post to make up for some of what we miss.

The best thing; The very Best Thing, about growing up with Allen as my oldest brother: He included me. Seriously, Allen is 5 years older than me and when you're kids, that's a lot! Most of the kids his age didn't want their little brothers hanging around but Allen made a point to try to include me. To be sure, there Where times he didn't want me around, but there were a number of times I remember him presenting a case to my parents to let me go off to some event or other when they were ... uh, doubtful of the wisdom of letting me attend.
From a parents point of view I don't know if it was wise to let me go or not, but from a little brother's point of view, it was Way Too Cool to be included in what the "big kids" were doing. Thirty years later and it's still too cool.

We were very different people way back then. Like the kids no longer able to go back to Narnia we have different priorities and different jobs to do. We are no longer trying to conquer the world, just keep our small part of it from blowing itself into pieces too small to sift. We take a minute to wonder what our kids world will be like when they reach our age. We wonder how to keep them from making our mistakes and hoping they will have some of the great memories of their youth to sustain them through the hard times like I do of mine.

There is no doubt that my brothers and I are only still alive by the grace of God and the perseverance of my parents; but...the stories we get to tell!

Happy Birthday Allen. My present to you: I'm not going to tell some of those stories!
...for now!(insert maniacal laughter here!)

And May the Lord Your God Bless You and Keep You and Give You Peace!
Will

Watch out ground hog!!

We received 3 inches of ice and snow junk yesterday and now it's all swirling around in a 26 mph wind...... where's that groundhog????????
He promised me only 6 more weeks of winter....does that mean it's going to suddenly be spring...poof!???Waaalaaah!Presto!!!!!!!Taaadaahh!!!!!! Two weeks from now it will suddenly be spring?

Soooooo......since he's not holding up his part of the bargain, as I promised, I'm starting research. I'm collecting ground hog recipes.....

WOODCHUCK (GROUNDHOG) STEW
1 woodchuck
2 onions, sliced
1/2 cup celery, sliced
Flour
Vinegar
water
Salt
pepper
Cloves

Clean woodchuck; remove glands; cut into serving pieces. Soak overnight in a solution of equal parts of water and vinegar with addition of one sliced onion and a little salt. Drain, wash, and wipe. Parboil 20 minutes, drain, and cover with fresh boiling water. Add one sliced onion, celery, a few cloves, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until tender; thicken gravy with flour.

Anyone else have any recipes? I'm thinking I'm gonna send the skins/fur to Bob our friend in Australia who seems to be collecting fur hats... ground hog should be a welcome addition.

As for things here...Jake back at school, me feeling much better, Jessa going to the Dr. today and Will....well right now he's in the alien chair, but I have hopes that he will rise victorious from his present circumstances and feel the urge to work....I know that's his plan.

Have a great day.
dea

Now I have guilt....

After "discussing" the joys of "teenhood" in my last post.... I now have guilt. Both kids were home sick from school yesterday. Great, now I can't even be indignant about their attitude. What fun is that?

No church last night for the youth group. I wasn't feeling up to it yet and the kids are still sick.... I called around and half of the other kids are sick too. They had a Christian Youth night/concert at the local kids place on Friday and everyone went. I bet they shared with each other. Hopefully, we will all be better this next week. We are working towards a goal with our lessons and hopefully are going to have a "passover" meal with the whole church next month before Easter. I want them to learn how it was back then and why the Jewish people still observe the passover. How it works and what it's about. When some others in the church heard about it they wanted to be included too. I think it could be a fun night learning about it for everyone. Now I need to find some good recipes.

I bought new curtains for the living room yesterday and the color is still not right. Our couch is one of those tans that is not quite tan and not quite green??????? Trying to find a match for it is becoming quite a task. I really want curtains up before the appraisal, so I'll keep trying.

My arm still seems to be on the mend. Here's hoping and praying that I can finally be done with it and get on with life.

Big storm here today... up to 8 inches of snow and sleet before tomorrow.

I'm telling you that ground hog is living on borrowed time. He said only 6 more weeks of winter.....that means he only has 2 more weeks to go and it's not looking like it wants to get warmer. If he only knew that I found my recipe from Civil war times for ground hog stew....he'd be working harder on this spring stuff.. Twerp.

Come on and spring already!!!
Have a great day.
dea

Mom's back online!

I finally feel alive and maybe even kicking. Good thing too.. things are getting busy around here. Trying to get caught up on the housework that I should have done while I was sick (I think it's a lost cause), trying to get the little things done around the house before our appraisal (we're refinancing-God willing), trying to get another Cranfest round table discussion together for tomorrow night and many other numerous things that need to be done. It's crazy.

My children have both really been great during my illness, but now that I'm better, I'm back to "Mom". You know that special time that we are going through right now......."teen hood". It's when your children are acting like a 2 year old, while yelling at you that you need to treat them like an adult. It's the time that the same children who used to believe that you hung the moon, don't believe that you can know the best way to hang up a bath towel. The same children who used to tell you that you were the only one who understood, tell you now that you "just don't understand".

I'm telling you they say that it's the teenage years, but it's not...it's the terrible two all over, except this time they know more words AND sarcasm. Sometimes I just want to ask them "do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" but then I really don't want them to answer because I'm tired of listening to them talk.

Do not get me wrong....my kids are wonderful. They are respectful to adults, respectful to other kids and for the main part very well behaved in public. It's just every once in a while the terrible two's rear their head and I would love to just tie their ears in a knot. Especially when my son who is taller than me looks at me like he wants to pat me on the head and send me to bed, or my daughter who is too smart for her own good corrects me when I am speaking to her (and for cryin' out loud, she's right sometimes).

The best one is when they use your own words against you.... Jake told me the other day (in a condescending tone) "Now Mom you know that you never have been a 16 year old boy and never will be so how could you understand?".......I WANTED TO JUMP UP AND DOWN LIKE A 2 YEAR OLD. Maybe it's catching?

Well, time to wake the "kiddies"... of course they didn't believe "because I said so" all those years ago, I don't know why it would work now.

Have a great day.
dea

The last time I posted...

was the last time that I felt ok.

I have had the "flu" since then. Well, I don't really know if it is the flu or what, but fever of 100+, upset stomach, stopped up nose and head and numerous other symptoms. Whatever it was, I'm sure that having your head shut up in a drawer for a couple of days, feels the same way. Yuck.
I slept most of the day away for 3 days. Unheard of in my world.

Now I finally feel better. Still using a million tissues, but hey I'm alive and can actually function. Life goes on at the Donaldson house.

Also on the "me" front... had that injection(s) in my shoulder last week and low and behold...it really seems to be working. The range of motion in my shoulder is really getting better and the stiffness seems to be working itself out. I'm pleased. I know that they say that steroids can turn into plastic in your joint after 50 years, but who am I kidding...I'll be 94 in 50 years. By then, they'll be able to pop in new joints with velcro or some such thing. Besides if I'm in heaven by then I get a new one anyway. No worries.

Sales and reviews of the CD are good so far. I think that I'm probably the harshest critic that we have. I have been very surprised at how many people are really liking what they hear. Just goes to show you what God can do.

The dog and the cat really enjoyed me being sick. They follow me from room to room, all the time, every day. At least when I was sick I held still. They were loving just hanging out in the bedroom with me. I think that they are disgruntled now because I will not hold still. Sam sighs and follows every time I move, like he is so "put apon".

That's funny...Will just made this strange sound in his sleep and the dog had to go and check on him. Poor dog... he never gets a moment's peace. Now I've woke the kids up for school and he will try to be in many places at once making sure everyone is ok, but he will finally give up and just stick to following me around. The funny thing is that he will wake us up at 4:00 am on the days that Will is not supposed to work because that is when we usually get up every other day. He comes and whines at me when it's 6:15 because that's when the kids start getting ready to go out to the bus. He starts to get pitiful and mope at 7:45 am because that's when I get ready to leave and he starts listening for the bus at 4:00 pm. When we are outside waiting for the bus, as soon as he hears it, he sits on his butt and just waits staring off into the distance, so the kids know it's coming. He's quite a hoot.

Well, it's time for the kids to get ready for school. I can't think today enough to multi task.

Have a great day.
dea

Wasted days and wasted nights.

This seems to be the story of my life lately. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I was so excited to stay home and actually get something done yesterday. I didn't get near enough done. I did laundry. How can 4 people wear so many clothes? I spent the morning just puttering, went to therapy and then came home with a terrible headache. Great. Sooooo....I sat in a chair trying not to move too quickly, between my shoulder and my head, movement was a problem. Day wasted.

AND since my shoulder has been hurting...not sleeping well at night...what a pain. When you don't feel good you are supposed to at least be able to sleep.

I'm so ready for spring that I've been walking around the yard with the dog making plans on what I'll do first. Where I'll put this and what I will get rid of . The dog loves it. He gets to smell everything. According to the way he acts, a heard of elephants walked through our yard or something. He is bound and determined to smell every inch of the yard. It's actually quite funny to watch him be walking along sniffing the air when all of a sudden he does a double take, stops in his tracks and then spins around to go smell something he just walked by. Sure takes awhile for us to make a circuit of the yard.

Poor Will. Sunday morning is supposed to be his morning to sleep in, although to tell you the truth, most mornings that he is home, I let him sleep in. He works hard, so he deserves all the rest that he can get. Anyway, I digress, Sunday morning he is sleeping very peacefully and is awakened very suddenly to the cat biting his toe. Evidentally, he had left it outside of the covers and was wiggling it around. She just walked over and chomp. How rude. Sure woke him up quick. That'll teach him.

Snow here tomorrow. I am not thrilled and then Wednesday, blizzard conditions with below zero temps again. I'm telling you, I am ready for spring to be sprung already!!!!! That ground hog promised me only 6 more weeks of winter and if he was lying.....I'm thinking about a recipe I found for groundhog stew. It didn't sound too great at the time, but now it's sounding like just rewards, just for spite.

Hope you have a great day!
dea

owwee, yummee and wowee !!!

Ok so it's a stupid title. Give me a break..I'm tired. Last Wednesday I went to therapy. My usual therapist was gone for schooling, so I had a fill in. Somehow one of us messed up my shoulder. I'm not back to square one, but I've had a setback that's for sure. It hurts to lay down again and it hurts when I walk again(no I don't walk with my arm, but the gravity that affects your shoulder as you walk causes pain, go figure). That's all been better for a week or 2, so here we go again.

Friday afternoon I went in to the church at 3:00 and started cooking supper. By 5:00 I had spaghetti sauce, fettucini alfredo with bacon and onions and 4 dozen cupcakes made. Jessalyn got off of the bus at 4:00 and made a great salad and then helped me make 42 individual cheesecake trifles. When the other kids showed up they cooked the 7 loaves of french bread, made drinks, frosted the cupcakes and helped set things up. We ended up feeding about 40 people, I think. Things were busy there for a minute, so I didn't count too closely. After everyone had eaten we went upstairs and some watched Fireproof. Others had stuff to do, so they left, but all in all it was a great night.
Saturday was Valentine's Day. I usually pick something up for the kids and Will, but it's not a big holiday for us around here. If they do dishes for me during the day, I figure I've gotten a great V-day present. Boy was I surprised when Jessa showed up at work with a gift basket full of flowers, a balloon and doughnuts for everyone at work. Boy was I popular. Will and Jessalyn had done it all themselves. It was beautiful. I was the only person at work to get something. That was special.
So today was church. I've been dealing with this new hair cut. You know how it is after you first get it cut. It's like your hair goes into shock and you have a hard time figuring out how to deal with it. So... on a fluke today, I decided to go "curly". I set it all in hot rollers and ran with it. My hubby was in shock and still has not told me whether he liked it or not. He said that he would get burned no matter what he said. Everyone at church really liked it, so we'll see what happens. For so long, I have not had the time to deal with hair etc. I just did the simplest stuff I could. Now the kids are older and I have more "me" time. We'll see how this all pans out, but it's different.
Hope you have a great day tomorrow.
dea

Odds and ends

Things are pretty busy here at Donaldson Central. For me last week was filled with trips to the Dr. and Physical Therapy. Will had his weekend to work for three days before being off yesterday and today.

Most of our area youth leaders from the local churches have formed an alliance (for lack of a better name) called Catalyst. We all combined youth groups last week and took 2 bus loads of kids over to Lacrosse for CityPraze. A praise and worship service in the civic center. We thought at first that it was going to be geared for mainly the youth this time, but it didn't work out that way. The kids enjoyed it anyway. I was going to go, but ended up sick and decided I better not sit on a crowded bus with all those kids and spread my germs around. I'm sure parents would have been thrilled if I had.

Our CD's went on sale last week from New Journey. Sales are going very well, which surprises the heck out of me. We might end up even having to make a second printing? Something I never even slightly expected. My Uncle Ken (our bass) has been wintering at his home in Alabama, but is planning on returning to the area by April 1rst. Our first singing engagement is April 11th, when Cranfest and the local businesses are planning a Warrens area Easter breakfast. It should be cool. Cranfest will supply the food and drinks, the Warrens Area Business Assoc. will help with syrup etc., the Lions Club will cook, the 4H clubs are going to supply eggs and have a hunt and our group and the Gospel Word Singers will sing. It's pretty cool.

Cranfest is gearing up for me for the next couple of months. We are having round table discussions where we start from the "bottom and go up" on how Cranfest works. It's hard to see the forest when you are stuck in your own little part of the woods, so we try to educate others on what everyone does. The Governor's Conference on Tourism is next month and we are going through some staff changes. All will cost me a little more time and then things will calm down from May through June/July.

It's warmer weather here with a high of 50 or so today, but we are not thinking of getting used to it. The weather people say back to the 30's again next week. I am just hoping it will get rid of the ice and all of the ice dams on everyone's roofs from having so much snow and the ice storms etc.

That ground hog said only 6 more weeks of winter and "I'm holding him to it". I am ready for spring!

Went to Madison for a family meeting with the Oakes Family Gathering Committee. For anyone reading the Gathering is June 27th this year at Devil's Lake, information is coming. We got together to plan some changes. This will be the second year at the Lake. We are splitting things up more with me not being responsible for so many things. I'm truthfully having a hard time convincing people that "I like to do this", so everyone keeps worrying about me doing too much and working too hard. I wish that people would understand that "this is what I do and this is what I like to do" . I love to do things for other people. I love to cook for others. I love to take care of others...I think that while they are trying to help me....the way I think is a foreign concept for most people. I do appreciate their motives and their concerns though.

Well, speaking of doing for others it's time to get the kids ready for school. Have a great day!
dea

19 years and still going strong!

Monday marked the 19th anniversary of Will proposing to me on WTNT radio in Tallahassee, Florida. Aside from the fact that he proposed on Ground Hog's Day and married me on Bastille Day so that he could remember the dates (he will deny that I'm sure), it was a pretty special day.

Of course the stupid things rule did apply that day too....

Will being sneaky had asked to bring him lunch on my way to the Dentist's office. I had gotten off of work early and dressed in comfortable clothes to go to the dentist (who wants to sit in the chair for that long in something tight or pokey). I try to get him something different, so I dropped by a couple of fast food joints so that his selection was better. As I'm carrying his food in his drink spilled all down the front of my t-shirt (which at least was not white, if you get my meaning). I walk into the station in a hot pink t-shirt with a huge spill down the front.

I hand him his food and start flapping my t-shirt as much as possible to get it to dry. I should have known something was up because as I turned to look through the window that comprised the wall between the office/hallway and the studio where we were...there were all of these people lining the window watching. Now this was not normal. Most times people didn't even notice when I came in and here they were staring. Stupid me....I didn't get it. Then Will starts talking and suddenly it became clear.

Will proposes and my heart is singing while my body tries to fold itself down under the counter so that the people listening on the radio do not see me with my wet shirt. Go figure. It's really strange what stupid things will run through your mind when you are in a panic.

Thank God we did not take pictures that day. The station probably would have used it for promotion and there I would have been looking like I had drooled down my shirt and I hadn't even been to the dentist yet!

It's been 19 years now and I love him more now than I did then, although it's more mellow most times. Deeper somehow. Do you know what I mean? When you first start dating you get that funny feeling in your stomach and most of it is nerves because of the newness of the situation, the excitement, the idea of falling in love.

Then after a couple of years, the newness part wears off, but you still get that feeling although it's all tied up with what lies ahead and the changes that are happening, so it's excitment wrapped up with ideas, plans and dreams.

Then you come to the point where I am now.... I get that feeling when I'm around him because of who he is. I still get giddy when he reaches to grab my hand to walk (each and every time we walk somewhere together he takes my hand and it means so much to me). I get that feeling when he walks into the room, even if I don't see him come in, or know that he's going to be there, I still "feel" him walk in, don't ask me how, I don't know but we've tested the theory). I get that feeling when he turns over in bed at night or is just laying there breathing. I get that feeling when he yells "coffee" in the morning (most times) or when he eats too much at dinner and then yells at me for making him eat too much, like I spoon fed him or something. I get that feeling watching him with the kids or playing with the dog or cat.

Like I said it's deeper now, built on trust, knowledge and emotions instead of the situation or newness or being in love with being in love. If that makes any sense. I love my Godly husband (even with all his faults) and I think one of the things that I love the most about him is that he does not harrass me about my stupid things rule. He accepts me for me, weirdness and all. He's a great man and I wouldn't trade him for the world.

I do feel sometimes though that what is going to come out of his mouth will be "Lucy you got some Splaining to do".

Have a great day!
dea

The Love Dare...

With our area being so "small town" the only movies we get are the mainstream type. You know the big star, big hit movies that have the big bucks for promotion. Will's parents had wanted us to go and see the movie "Fireproof", but it didn't come to a theatre within 200 miles. It finally came out on video, so I rented it right away. We watched that yesterday afternoon instead of all the football stuff (Will still watched part of the game later, but the Packers were not playing so...).

Let me tell you this....I feel that every person over the age of 12 should see this movie. Especially anyone married or planning on being married in their lifetime. The acting might not be the best in some parts, but I'm telling you the story is dead on. It deals with marraige in a whole different way. It also reminds you of how things were when you were first married in comparison to now. With time we tend to take things for granted about our spouse. This is just a great movie with a great message and even though it seems like it deals with just marraige, there are other aspects of dealing with other people such as parents etc. It touches a lot of subjects.

A friend of mine who is not a Christian watched the movie and came to me to tell me what a good movie it was. He said that he and his wife had both watched it and they were going to go home and watch it again. There was a different light in his eyes after watching it, so I'm really praying that he will see the truth and "really watch it".

The movie company that made this movie is out of a small church in Albany Georgia. They also made "Facing the Giants". I'm going to get that one for my youth group to watch. I have not seen their other movie called Flywheel, but I'm going to look for it.

So....watch Fireproof. You will not be sorry.

The other thing we are watching at our house is the "web cam" for the Redoubt Volcano/Mountain. It's something we have been following since we have family in Alaska. They have webcams facing the summit and the steam vents etc. It's interesting to see what's going on and also to watch the sun rise over the mountain. You should check it out.

Have a great day!
dea