It never fails. This time every year, the week or 10 days after the kids go back to school...one of them will bring home a cold and the entire household will get it - well, almost the entire household, Dave never seems to get sick. It's happened again this year.  First Jake was sniffly all weekend, then Monday Shea got it, yesterday afternoon I started feeling like crap and now Davey has a headache and a sore throat.  Jake's almost over it and Shea felt well enough to go to ...

Look out, Southern Illinois and the St Louis metropolitan area, I'm behind the wheel again!!! I got the go ahead to drive for short distances today. I drove home from the squadron after dropping Dave off (about a mile) and I can understand why I'm limited to short distances.....it's not exactly comfortable. I have to get bone density scans this week and MORE x-rays....then I go back to see the surgeon in another 2 or 3 weeks.  He said I seemed like I was doing great and was impress...

As part of this base's Juvenile Disciplinary Board's punishment, young offenders are required to take a tour of the local county jail. My husband, being the NCOIC of confinement here, is the tour guide. He spent all last week and part of the week prior contacting the offender's parents and letting them know what day the tour was on and reminding them that it was part of the offender's punishment that they attend. Yesterday, right before the tour, he got a message from the parents ...

Dave had to go 'beautify' his squadron one morning late last week. Everyone was out there, pulling weeds and trimming trees, raking and sweeping and generally tidying up. Friday afternoon, dave said his wrist itched and that he must've got bitten by something when he was outside. By Sunday morning it was obvious that he hadn't been bitten by anything. He'd got into some poison ivy.  Just a little patch on his wrist, enough to produce 6 or 7 good sized blisters and a maddening it...

Gene contacted me this morning with his PayPal address and his mailing address. I also contacted the hospital that Fuzzy is at, and they said that they'd welcome checks made out ot them with 'For Fuzzy/Gene Nash' written in the memo portion.  The girl I spoke to was very moved by our wanting to help - she said that they'd cut a lot of costs to help gene out already but that she never expected to have me call and ask how we can help. if you want to send money to the hospital, please ma...

I have to do some husband-bragging for a bit. That's D's rack. Aint it purdy?!

I'm officially stir crazy. Staying home all day every day, having to rely on someone else to take me places...it's driving me nuts.  Yes, I have my knitting, and yes, I have my books, but.....they're poor substitutes for human contact.  I went and played secretary/gofer for my husband this past weekend and yesterday evening, and I forgot just how much i enjoyed being involved in the judicial process (even if it is in a miniscule kind of way).  I really had a good time h...

A few years ago, my husband's grandmothers sister (which would make her my great aunt) was put in an nursing home.  She was in her 80's, and had recently suffered a series of strokes which had left her unable to care for herself. Dave and I were over visitng and offered to take grandma to see her sister.  We trooped into Myrtle's room, expecting to see her sitting up in bed, watching TV or reading - at the very least we expected her to be aware of her surroundings. What we fo...

I've been watching a lot of Black Adder recently and seem to have developed a crush on Rowan Atkinson.  Yes, you read that right. I have a crush on Rowan Atkinson. It's his dry sarcasm that does it, I think.  I find him hysterically funny...so deadpan in his delivery of scithing one liners it just cracks me up. I'm off to watch 'Blackadder 3' now....get a half hour dose of Rowan before the kids come home.

The people who are responsible for Beau's adoption called last night.  They want to come for a home visit this weekend and bring Beau with them.  We're going to see how we all get along. I had sent an email explaining how I felt about adopting Beau, what my thoughts were about dog training and having AmStaffs with children and what I planned to do if we were given the opportunity to have Beau come live with us. They were pretty impressed, they said. I raised Henry using the 'L...

When I was a little girl, I learned how to play the recorder in school.  We had a little recorder band going, and we played at Christmas concerts and school plays.  Last week, I got our Jake a sporano recorder.  He's been wanting to learn how to play something, and I thought that the recorder would be a good place to start.  (His brother is learning how to play the harmonica, his sister's learning how to play my guitar, and their dad has voiced an interest in learning to ...

I don't know where my life is headed.  I don't know if the current state of my marriage is going to improve or if this is the beginning of the end. I don't know what the universe has in store for me. I do know that I'll be okay.  I do know that I'm tough and that things, whilst they may overwhelm me sometimes, won't keep me down permanently. I do know that I'll survive.