Our Christmas

Well here it is...two days past Christmas already!! I can't believe how fast time flies...it's kinda sad to see the Christmas holidays pass so quickly.
Like I mentioned in previous posts, we stayed home this year and didn't have any family around...which for many of you would be normal but not for us! But anyway...our Christmas day turned out very nicely. We had some friends over for the day. We made dinner together...two turkeys!! We both had tons left over. It's kinda funny how alike our families are. Most of the time when we have company over I forget to make dessert. So this time I made sure I picked up a pumpkin and apple pie on Christmas Eve. I chuckled to myself when I told Louise that I had picked up a couple pies for dessert because she had a similar reaction to what mine would have been...oh yeah--dessert!?! I think we all enjoyed the day. We ate dinner fairly early..if I remember right! We played a game of charades altogether. There were enough of us to make 3 teams. It was alot of fun. These friends are about as close to family as we could ever get. After dinner, Randal headed up to the hospital to visit his mom. While he was gone Louise knitted, Steve napped for an hour or two on the lazy boy(sounds like family,hey?!), the girls made cookies, some of the kids played nintendo, some played on the computer and some of the others just played. (we have 8 kids between us.) All in all it was a relaxing, enjoyable day. I really enjoyed the wonderful family atmosphere. I hope you all had a great Christmas.

We wish you a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

And a happy New Year!

DONE!!

I finished my Christmas shopping!! I shopped for all four kids in two evenings...about 4 hours! I did it with wish lists in hand and the cash in my pocket! The best way to avoid over shopping! If you don't have a debit card in your pocket to fall back on this really helps you stay within budget when you see something that you "know they would love" but is way over budget! It's not as fun but it is a good way to keep yourself(myself) from overspending. Anyway...now we just need to wrap it all up. I told Randal that I did the hunting and gathering of the gifts and now it's time for him to do the wrapping of the gifts. :D I'm sure we'll do it together.
I'd like to do a little bit of baking since we'll be staying home. I usually do a little bit to take with us but not alot because we (my siblings) all bring something with us when we all get together. We will definitely miss everyone this year...and Auntie Shanda and Uncle Craig's deep fried crispy turkey! And then there are all those yummy goodies that Auntie Shanda makes....she's always trying new things and we get to enjoy them!! Great Grandma's tarts...Auntie Tracie's tarts....okay okay...enough....I'm starting to drool. I think maybe tomorrow I'll make some butter tarts!! Well have a great Sunday....the last before Christmas! I can hardly believe that it's the 22nd of December! The year has flown by!
Happy Sunday!!
:) Heather

Grandma's surgery.

I just wanted to let you know that Grandma's surgery seems to have been successful. I don't really know any details yet. Thanks again for praying ladies! And I'm off to finish my Christmas shopping! I started last night and took a fair chunk out of it! Have a great Friday!!

Please pray for Grandma.

Randal's mom is going in for a major surgery tomorrow(Dec 20th). Please pray that the Lord will have those dr.s hands in His while they are doing the surgery. We don't know the time yet.
Thanks so much!

Here's Grandma.

Christmas -scroll for pictures

Okay...I'll start off on a light note. I think we caught the culprit in the kitchen. I came out to the kitchen yesterday morning and found a mouse in the mousetrap in front of the dishwasher....the bad part---it was alive and caught by the back foot in the trap! I went in and woke up Randal to get rid of the dead mouse for me. {I just realized after 2 days that I typed "DEAD" mouse..it wasn't dead, it was alive...that's why I was getting him to come get rid of it!!!} He used gloves so it couldn't reach around and bite him. Janelle heard me wake up Randal and came out to see the critter. She trailed Randal into the washroom, as he carried the mouse to the toilet....hmmm not a good thing...she cried loudly as the silly mouse swam round and round and round......oh dear....she cried for quite some time. We sat on the couch for quite awhile as I explained the downside of having mice in the house....I think it eventually sunk in when I told her that a boy died in our town from having a mouse in his room that carried the Hantavirus. So I'm hoping that this was the ONLY mouse. It was not the kind of mouse that carries that virus, thank the Lord for that!
Onto other news not so light. My mother in law has been back in the hospital for the last week. As you may have read previously, she had surgery about a month ago to clean out blood clots in her legs. She has now had 16 surgeries on her legs for this reason! The dr decided to do some tests to see why the legs keep clotting up. He's decided that the legs are in bad enough shape that they need to be amputated, but she doesn't want to do this so he's come up with a couple of options for more artery bypasses. She has alot of artificial arteries in her lower abdomen/legs. He's decided to go with the less risky of the two options, which is grafting into the main artery that goes down the arm. Then he'll run a line down her right side under the skin, to her bypass in the lower abdomen. The objective is to increase blood pressure to her legs so that the clots will hopefully stop happening. I guess part of the reason that she keeps clotting up is that the blood flow is too light to her legs. So we're really hoping that this will do the trick.
If you can believe this....I haven't started Christmas shopping yet!!! I'm in a bit of a panic now. I get payed on the 20th...and that cheque is dedicated to Christmas. I popped into Walmart today and the lineups were insane!!! I was thinking that I could just go and get my shopping done in one day....hmmmm I sure hope this works out.
We were supposed to be going away for Christmas this year....We go to my family's Christmas get together every 2 years....so I'm quite saddened that we can't go this year with my mil in hospital. I guess we could go really but I just can't see leaving her here all alone for Christmas.
Nonetheless we will miss seeing everyone. It doesn't happen often that we see everyone at once anymore. Our kids are getting older now and starting to have jobs. Family get togethers are difficult to coordinate with so many new schedules to add to the mix! Anyway...You all have a super awesome Christmas!! Hug your loved ones! :D
Love Heather

This was taken on the drive up to visit Grandma at the hospital today.





Missy having dinner with Grandma at said hospital.



Close up of our Christmas tree. It looks like we'll be postponing our Christmas trip so I decided to get the tree decorated since we'll be here! It looks really pretty but the camera is very old and takes terrible pictures with the flash....everything looks awful. I'll have to try it out in daylight to see if it works better.

more....



a weird picture of the tree....I tried to take it without the flash but the shutter stays open for a long time and apparently I moved!

EEEEEEEEEK!! We have MICE!!!

I opened the cupboard to get the flour out for pancakes and all of a sudden realized that there were mouse droppings all over the bottom shelf of the pantry cupboard!! NOOO! I HATE mice! I started opening drawers and cupboards and realized that it's EVERYWHERE!!! Even on the corner of the countertop! I left some clean dishes to dry on a tea towel beside the sink...I guess he was a thirsty mouse..cuz there was mouse poo on the tea towel. :( We've lived here for 17 months and have not had any mice before this..I'm thinking that someone left the door open one too many times.
Well I'm off to eat pancakes then get the kitchen de-mouse pooped!!
Have a great day/night.
:D
Heather
okay maybe the big grin isn't quite accurate~ :~\

Update....

It's been a long 3 weeks! Randal had surgery on Nov. 16th, friday. [The disk between the 4th and 5th vertebrae ruptured INTO the spinal canal!! This caused him to lose control of his legs. They wouldn't hold him up and he ended up falling all over the place.]The following Tuesday he was mistakenly sent home! He called me from the hospital with the names of two drugs he needed a prescription for...he wasn't certain of how to spell them. I found this very odd that they'd send him home without prescriptions! He was told to go home and call outpatient services. We couldn't even find anything by that name! So called the rehab centre at the hospital. They sent someone over twice. Then after having him home for almost a week I was feeling quite at loose ends as to what should be happening with him. I was concerned about the incision and dressing on his back. He had 20 staples! It didn't look pretty...If I'd thought of it I'd have grossed you all out and taken pictures. :D
So I took him in to see our dr. on Monday, after him being home for 6 days. Our doctor was surprised to see him. He asked why Randal wasn't in the rehab unit at the hospital. Randal told him that the nurse had said that the hospital he was supposed to transfer to was full and that he should go home. Dr. was very surprised! He showed us the letter he had gotten from our neurosurgeon, saying that he'd arranged a bed for him in the rehab unit and that he'd been transferred there!! He quickly left the room and went out to make some calls. He came back in after speaking to the neurologist and the rehab unit. He said that yes they still wanted him in there but now there really were no beds, so go home and wait for them to call. Our dr. seemed very stressed and upset about this mixup! He said you hear about people dying because of medical mixups in hospitals but this was the first time he'd seen such a stupid mistake. They finally called on Thursday afternoon and I took him up there. He stayed until today. Six days with a 24 hr pass over the weekend.
My mom was here for 2 weeks and 1 day throughout this time. It was so nice to have her here. I don't really like staying alone with the kids but do on occasion, if I have to. I didn't ask her to come because I don't like to ask her to do things. She's quite busy with what she has going on at home there and in their church. But she came. So it was great having her here. She took over the cooking, the laundry, schooling Janelle and many other tasks! (I was her assistant :D )
It was so wonderful..We got alot of work done around here too. We sorted out the kids clothes and got rid of the stuff that no longer fits anyone....a huge job to tackle! Another job that she helped me with was grocery shopping...I really don't care for this task. So it was very cool to have someone help me with it.
We also switched two of the girls rooms. We got paint to do their rooms too. We also picked out some inexpensive blinds for the living room windows. There are 5 3x5 windows and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with them other than the white blinds.
We did alot of different things, including hospital visits, all the while doing the everyday stuff...It has been exhausting.
There is still a bunch of stuff to finish up before we can start our Christmas decorating. Courtenay put up our prelit artificial tree on the weekend. We're debating getting a real live tree that's extra tall...our ceiling is about 10 ft. So we'll have to see how that works out.
Anyway.. that's the long and the short of it. We've just been plugging away here, bit by bit getting things done.
Randal will now have to see a physiotherapist for awhile, privately. We just found out that our health plan doesn't cover this...well I shouldn't say that they don't cover it...they cover $8 of each visit. Each visit is between $50 and $65! But we serve a big God who takes care of his children! He will work this out..even when things seem impossible...they aren't..not with God!
Oh...I almost forgot! His Mom is doing well too. She had a bloodclot that wasn't too big...which is a first! She usually waits until she is going crazy with pain before she goes in and by then the clot is huge. One time she went in with a clot that went from her knee down to her foot! So this was great to catch it before it grew. She's driving and back to herself!

THANK YOU all for your prayer~ I so very much appreciated it!

I just got a call from Randal. There are 15 people in the hallway in the hospital here in town where they want to transfer him. In other words...no beds available. They need the bed where he's at for someone else, so they are discharging him home and having someone come here to do rehab with him. This is not exciting. I'm exhausted and stressed....the thought of looking after him is...well...a bit overwhelming. Not that I don't want him home...it will be nice...I'm just worried about him not getting the care that he needs. He's going to need dressing changes on his back..and I don't know what else...But I guess we'll see about all that when he gets home. I guess this is a symptom of our health program in crisis.
Randal's mom is also coming home today. She'll go to her sister's in town here, as she shouldn't be staying alone. Will update later when I know more.

Today is Monday....first day after a very busy weekend. Like I've already said..Randal and his mom both had surgery in the past three days. Randal on Friday night and then his mom on Sunday night. She was supposed to have her surgery on Sunday morning, but the nurse didn't follow dr.'s orders and put blood thinners into her I.V. bag. Which caused her to have a long nosebleed and her blood was much too thin to be able to do surgery. She spent the afternoon/evening coughing up the blood. Then the other thing the nurse did was give her food on Sunday morning. She figured she should feed her because Florence is a diabetic and her blood sugar was really low. She should have put dextrose or something of that sort into her I.V. This made it impossible for them to do surgery for 12 hours. When her dr. came in he was furious! He went up one side of the nurse and down the other...right in front of Florence. She was quite amazed...she said she'd never seen a dr. do that before. Can't say that I'd blame him though. If the clot in Flo's leg had gone to her heart/brain and she had died before surgery because of these mistakes...it would have been very bad, obviously. So it has been quite the weekend! Hope you're all well.
So here's my devotional today... I thought it was an apt subject after the experience I just described.

Fellowship Without Forgiveness: Impossible
by Jon Walker

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

Fellowship without forgiveness is impossible.

As believers, we’re called “to settle our relationships with each other.” (2 Corinthians 5:18 MSG) We need to consistently forgive others and receive forgiveness from others, or we’ll “give up in despair.” (2 Corinthians 2:7 CEV)

Whenever we’re hurt by someone, we have a choice to make: Will we focus on retaliation or resolution?

The Bible speaks candidly about settling the score: “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15 NIV)

In God’s economy, it’s not enough to say we won’t seek revenge; we’re to press into the very heart of forgiveness, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave us. (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

The Bible is very clear that forgiveness is not optional for the Christ-follower. God sets this high standard because he knows how much is at stake in your life: Bitterness and unforgiveness are a cancer that eventually will destroy you from the inside out. Forgiveness is the scalpel that removes the tumor.

This doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to immediately forgive and be done with it. As you become more and more Christ-like, that will become possible, but for now you may have to work at forgiving someone who has hurt you in a particularly painful way. In other words, you may forgive this person but soon begin to feel a root of unforgiveness growing in your heart.

When this occurs, you can go to King Jesus and ask him to help you with this cycle. He will help you release the offender, and the Holy Spirit will guide you in your effort.

A major point here is that forgiveness is a choice you can make. The power of God, working within you, means you no longer have to remain a slave to unforgiveness or bitterness.

In Colossians, the Apostle Paul provides the basis and motivation for forgiveness: “You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13 NLT, italics added). When we remember the price Jesus paid to forgive us, how can we not forgive? (Romans 5:8)

What now?

· When you forgive, you’re not pretending it didn’t hurt – Forgiveness means you no longer hold the offense against the offender. It means you’ve pardoned the debt, and you’ve intentionally chosen to release the one who hurt you. We’re to love deeply, because “love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 NIV)

· Stop right now and talk to God – Have an honest conversation with God about someone you need to forgive. Our heavenly Father knows that it’s not easy to let go of our hurts, but he will give you the grace to forgive.

· Be honest with God – Cry out to God; tell him exactly how you feel. He won’t be surprised or upset by your anger, hurt, insecurity, or bitterness.

© 2007 Jon Walker. All rights reserved.

UPDATE

Randal is doing quite well.. the surgeon is happy with the surgery. It looks pretty good. I don't think there will be any permanent nerve damage..he was up and walked with a walker to the door of his room once today and sat up twice. I've been away from home for 2 nights and the kids farmed out to some wonderful friends.
The kids were brought to the hospital tonight to see Dad and then I brought them home. So we're all at home tonight except for Randal.
I stopped in at Randal's mom's place on the way home and she was having strong symptoms of a blood clot in her leg. So I made some calls and had her other son "convince" her to go to the hospital. I don't think she was very pleased with me, but you don't mess with this! She has already had 14 leg surgeries with life and death implications, in the past couple or three years. So anyway..this is not good but our God is and He is very capable and willing to take care of her and to see her through this as He is with Randal...
So....please add Florence to your list of people to pray for.
thank you so much...and please pray that nothing else happens around here!
♥Heather

M.I.A.

I just wanted to let you all kn0w that I may not be around for a few days.
Randal hurt his back and the last several days have been bad for him. He has been having a LOT of trouble walking. He's needed support to walk. So he ended up falling quite a few times this week. We figured it probably happened on Tuesday as that was an extra bad day. When I say "it", I mean the ruptured disk. His disc between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae has ruptured out and into the spinal canal. It is compressing the nerves that normally hang in that space and he has next to no control over his legs. Why didn't we go to the dr. sooner, you say? Mmmmm... well mostly because he's hurt his back before and going to the chiropractor and resting has fixed it up. So Wednesday and Thursday he saw the chiropractor and he told Randal that this looks very serious and to go see his dr. So yesterday morning we went to our dr. and he sent us straight to emergency to meet the neurologist. He had several tests done. Once the results were back the neurologist came back and explained to us that Randal has a ruptured disk and that they want to operate right away last night. The hospital here doesn't do that kind of surgery so they want to transfer him to the next city where the neurosurgeon is. There weren't any beds at the hospital where they do the surgery, so they ended up keeping him overnight where he is. So right now I'm waiting to hear from them as to when they will transfer him. The neurologist did say that they want to do this surgery pronto so that there isn't permanent paralysis in his legs. So sometime today. Please pray for him today.
Thanks alot.
♥Heather

Unprecedented Wind Storm

Today we had an incredible wind storm. It started last night and continued through the night and throughout the day. It was awesome to watch but had sad results for many inhabitants of our fine city. The winds were gusting up to 65 mph/105kmh! Very high winds..maybe not for those of you who live in hurricane country but this is unheard of in this area! We went for a walk down by the lake where the wind was gusting in off the lake.I was SO annoyed that I didn't have a camera, but I did find some pictures on the internet. So here you go......


One of the many broken pine trees in the park.



Uprooted trees by the dozens! I heard that about half of the pine trees in the park are down.




The waves were roaring up onto the beach..I don't think I've ever seen such large waves on a lake..although it's hard to tell how big they are in this picture. On the news they had footage of someone surfing and the guy disappeared under the curl of the wave!!



The water is normally about 20 feet to the left of that sign.
While we walked along the sea(lake)wall the wind was almost blowing us off our feet. It made us weave as we walked along. The sand was whipped up and we felt like we were being sand blasted at times. Why, you say, would you go out in this?? Well...for no good reason other than to feel the sheer force of the wind and be out in it experiencing natures amazing force!
They said on the news that this is the worst wind storm that our city has ever experienced.
photos courtesy of Goog*le.
(Peter...I can't comment on your new blog...can you contact me via my email on my profile? thx)

Remembrance Day.

Today we paused to remember those who gave their lives in honour of their families and their countries.
Since today was Remembrance Day our church service was rescheduled to start at 9 am so that we'd all have lots of time to get over to the cenotaph for the ceremony.
We got there and I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge crowd! We couldn't see anything that was going on until we walked around to the other side of the crowd and then we were able to at least peek around and through the crowd. I found it an emotional ceremony. All our lives we've heard about these men dying for their country.(now women too) Today it really hit home for me. I suddenly had a revelation of just what these people actually sacrificed for! They did NOT do this for themselves, really...They did it for the generations coming after them. Generations that they would not see, even if they did manage to survive the war! What an incredible sacrifice...it's mind boggling really..and I have to really think about it to grasp and hold onto that "aha!" moment that I had today. I was also contemplating and wondering how many generations after would we remember...would it really have any meaning for. How many....one, two, maybe three...It's really sad how forgetful we are. It's our responsibility to remember.

I found it a sober day today thinking about this all. Especially now that we have a current conflict going on that we're involved in.
I'm so thankful for those that have sacrificed and continue to...Many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice..and to all of them I say THANK YOU!

National Bring Your Grade Nine to Work Day.

Last week it was National bring your Grade Nine to Work Day. So Randal took Courtenay with him out in the bush. She got to have a look and experience a day in the life of "Dad at work". She's decided it isn't something that she'd want to have as a career, although she does enjoy going out in the bush with Dad. Here's the report she wrote to send to Daddy's boss. She also took a copy to school and is using it for credits for school. Kinda nice to spend the day out driving in the bush and have it count towards school!!! Well I'll leave you with it then...Enjoy!

Bring Your Grade 9 To Work Day

November 7^th 2007

Ministry of Forest and Range

Compliance and Enforcement

The three sites that I went to today with my Dad were:

******** Bros. Mill

Logging sites

Several range pastures.

At ***** mill we visited the scale site. I learned that the logging trucks park their full load on the scale, go and unload it, and then come back and weigh it again to find the difference.

They categorize the different kinds of wood to find out how much they should be paid according to the weight of the logs. A cubic metre of logs is worth from $50-$200 depending on the type of wood. They put all the information into their computers and send it down to Victoria. The mills that don’t have access to computers store their information in booklets

The logs are unloaded either few by few by a front end loader or by a big electric machine called Letourneau that picks up the whole load at once. It is electric because it is more efficient than diesel powered Wagners because it can go uphill with a load and it has the ability to brake coming back downhill. After the logs are unloaded they are either taken to log decks or directly to the mill. Before they take it to the mill they mark and chop the logs every five meters to make sure it isn’t rotten on the inside.

After we left the mill we drove up to Jack Creek area and drove around looking at piles of logs and logged areas. Here I learned that loggers cut down the trees by hand with chainsaws. I also learned that if you want to log an area you must have a license to cut, unless it is your own private property.

We stopped in a few clearings and I was taught about the mountain pine beetle and how to identify a “MPB” attacked tree. The bark has squiggly indents in it from the beetles burrowing around and laying eggs, there is usually spots of pitch on the bark from trying to push the bug out, and there is a blue ring of fungus on the butt of the tree. Here I also learned a little about how GPS works and that if a moose were to ever charge you to climb a tree and call for help.

The third thing we did was go to Brownie Pasture area and looked for cows that were or weren’t supposed to be on certain property.

You can tell who the owner of the cow is by the brand on the cow. The brandings are either right or left, hip, rib, or shoulder. The ones we were looking at were RRC, right rib cow. We weren’t able to make out any markings on any of the cows though because they were all either too wet or too old and faded. The cows eat basically the same thing as deer or moose: grass or small green plants, though sometimes when they are desperately hungry they will eat twigs. Ranchers place salt blocks in the grazing area for the cows to lick. Putting the salt block somewhere ungrazed will help move the cows into a new area. You can tell that an area has been grazed by the height of the grass and whether it’s been trampled down. In the whole day we saw approximately thirty-two cows.

In conclusion, I had a good day today. I enjoy trekking through the bush and looking at stuff. The positives were just the whole day in general. The only negatives I can think of were getting up, the cold weather in the morning, and trying to write notes on the bumpy bush roads.

thanks for reading. Have an awesome night/day.

A Giveaway!!!

Hey you all!! Sue over at Praise and Coffee is having an awesome giveaway!!! Go take a look!
See ya tomorrow. :D

Today was a tiring day. I woke up with a headache and it progressed from bad to worse. I hate taking migraine pills so waited for too long to take it. Why do I do this?? It never goes away!! Just take the pill and get it over with. I ended up taking it but had to take more because I waited too long-DUH! Some day I will learn...either that or go get my neck/back worked over!! I'm tired so am just doing a quick "hi how are ya? how was your day" kinda post..so take care and we'll talk again tomorrow.

ps. I have an interesting post with pictures that I'll probably do tomorrow..or possibly saturday.
:)

The Janelle song!!

This song is not really about Janelle, but it could be written for her word for word! As I'm sure all you parents can attest, it is a very truthful song. :D I'm sure most of you have experienced the things listed in this song. It's very painful and extremely frustrating...annoying..need I go on..when your child(ren) won't STAY in bed!! Hope you enjoy the video!

Not your typical Tuesday.

oh Nooo... I see that there is a scheduled outage for RIGHT NOW!!!
I started to write this post and noticed that Blogger just went offline! I nearly had a panic attack!! That's not a good sign! :P Obviously it came back on within a minute or so.
Well today was the funeral that I was telling you about prepping for on Sunday. It went really well and the family was so happy with the decorating that we did as well as the food. It was really good to know that they were happy with the results.
At one point during the service they had an open mic. I decided that I would go up and just say a few brief words. Now you have to understand that I'm the person that used to look for the nearest hole in the ground if someone spoke to me from the pulpit, at one time. Well I'm much better than I used to be about that, but still find it hard to speak in front of a crowd, but felt that I really wanted to say a little something. So I rehearsed in my head what I was going to say and as soon as the first guy finished talking I jumped up(almost literally!) and headed up to the mic. I adjusted the mic and tried to open my mouth to speak...well my chin started to quiver and there was no way that words were going to come out of my mouth! I tried a couple of times and thought I should just go back to my seat. Then thought-'no...I need to do this'. So I sucked it up...took a deep breath and started talking. What I said was really not what I had planned on saying and am a bit disappointed in that but ...oh well..at least it was something. Some people(that KNOW me)were fairly surprised when I stood up, because, like I said...NOT something I'd normally do voluntarily!! One lady said to me she couldn't believe it and said to the lady beside her.."HEATHER is going up there?!? But anyway.. it really isn't as bad as you think..well actually it was worse than I thought, because I didn't count on getting all emotional!! Anyway...it was fine in the end... It was a lovely remembrance of an amazing lady! I count it a privilege to have been able to serve in honour of her today.
Hope you all have a great night...or day whichever it is when you read this!!
take care...
ps...
we didn't see Maude nearly as much as I would have liked in the last year and now am regretting it...so don't forget to take time for the important things in life...People!! Not activities, things or events but *people*.

Wow...5 days in a row..

This could actually end up being good for me!! I'm not very good with doing the same thing very many days in a row! Well since I've signed up to post everyday for a month....I'm thinking that blogging could actually force me to form a habit!!
How many days do they say it takes to form a habit?? Well I googled that. I came up with a few answers, 30 days, 21 days, 90 days...but the consensus seems to be 21 days. So...after this month of blogging I figure that I should have a habit formed! Hmmm we shall see. I am so NOT a creature of habit. How about you? Are you one of those people that drives the same route every time you go to the grocery store...or take the kids to school..go to work? Yeah..not me....I take a different route...one of many...each time, whichever strikes my fancy, so to speak. But I do tend to avoid main street in case you cared haha. I have to say though that becoming a bit more of a creature of habit would be a good thing. I've always liked change though, so this is a long habit in the making. I've tried before to form some good habits but gave up too soon... Blogging...hmm I'm not sure that this is the BEST habit to form but I'm hoping that any habit will help!! :P
But then one could look at it from another point of view! It could be said that I am very flexible!! :)That is a very admirable quality is it not?!? That's the way that I prefer to put it. So I think we'll leave it at that! At the end of posting for a whole month(30 days), we will be past those 21 days..and I will be one habit less flexible than I was at the beginning of November 2007!

Our Sunday

Today started off with church. We go to a small church of around 100 people. We've gone there..well I have...since 1989. Randal grew up in this church. The neighbour lady took him to Sunday School there and eventually his mom started going too. So when you're taking that next door kid to church or just under your wing...don't think it's insignificant...it can change the course of that person's life! That church is the center point (after God of course) of our lives. Randal's brother met his wife there. It's been really good. Alot of people have come and gone...There are some that we've been friends with for a long time. They've almost become family..mine doesn't live nearby(until this year)and some of them have become family away from family. We experienced weddings together...we've had children together...we've held each others babies..had showers for each other...had some really fun and good times over the years. Some of them helped us through a tragic funeral...well the funeral wasn't but you know what I mean...we've watched our children grow and begin school...and some of them have almost reached graduation already...The crazy part is how fast this has all happened! Before you know it we'll be helping each other with our kids weddings!

This afternoon a friend and I spent a couple of hours getting the fellowship room at our church set up and decorated for a funeral. One of our good friends lost their mother yesterday afternoon. So Lorraine(my girlfriend) and I are getting things in order to have the funeral on Tuesday. Maude was 89 yrs old so this isn't really too sad a funeral..well they're always sad..but it's not so bad when they're this age. You know that they've gone to a better place, where they are no longer in pain, and their body parts all work again...well actually better than they ever did!! It was great to get together and do this for a mutual friend! There's just something special about being there for those people in your life that have been there for you when you needed it! :)
so now we're home...eating a late supper and watching Evan Almighty...good end to a good day. Well I hope you all had a great weekend too!
♥Heather

Saturday...the THIRD day!

Today was Saturday...and we spent the whole day home...It was really nice. It seems like we rarely do that...especially with all of us here! Randal was outside cleaning up leaves and finishing off winterizing the pool. That kept him busy all day because he also put away the deck furniture and I don't know what else! But it looks great out there...other than the fact that everything is either dead or dying :\
We're doing an experiment with the potted plants from the pool deck. The girls and Randal brought them all in. They're sitting down in the workshop for the winter. We're hoping that they'll survive and we can put them back out in the spring. Annuals are SO expensive. It's really easy to spend a couple hundred $$ on flowers! Although it's also very painful. This year I waited until everything was clearance priced....One downside to that, is that then everything takes so long to get big. By the end of the growing season it all is looking just beautiful! So hopefully the little experiment works.

Courtenay and I spent the day painting. We got the kitchen and the livingroom finished, well almost! The trim still needs doing, but at least we got those tall walls done! Once we finish the trim (tomorrow, I hope)the next challenge will be to reach the ceiling in the entrance! It's about 10' going up to about 14'...I'm not sure where we'll find a couple of ladders tall enough to get that done!? Oh well..we'll figure that out when we get to it.

Hope you all had a great Saturday today, and we'll chat again tomorrow! :D
ps... I see this is technically after midnight... but it's still the same day for me! especially since I haven't gone to bed yet!

Charts and Rewards~Ideas anyone??

Okay well here we go...the second post in as many days!! Wow....shocking, I know!
Well today was just another average day. Janelle and I did school for the morning which we ended off by baking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. She loves baking. When we finished that, we headed over to Tim Horton's. I treated her to a hot chocolate. This is a huge deal to her, as it isn't something that I do often...I think maybe 4 times total for her! She was so excited. I talked to her about doing this weekly as a reward for completing a certain number of tasks. Of course she thought this was a great idea!! So I'm going to put together a reward system of checks for certain tasks completed. When she gets so many checks than she can cash it in for a trip to Tim Horton's with Mommy...or Walmart with a few dollars for some sort of reward. I'm thinking that this is probably the best way to motivate this child. I was trying to find something that was really important to her. I racked my brain and couldn't really think of anything that she REALLY likes to do or have, etc.. Then I realized her favourite thing to do is spend time with me(swelled head I know!)and even that much more so if we're going somewhere fun, or if it involves hot chocolate or shopping. So now I need to do a chart of some sort for her. IDEAS anyone???? I'm not very good with charts...I like them but I really have to work at it to keep up with them! So hopefully we can stick with this chart this time. If you know of a good chore/routine chart, please let me know! Thanks :)Have a super weekend! ~Heather

And time keeps marching on.....

Well here it is Thursday night. Tomorrow is the last day of the week already! I can't believe how fast the time is flying by! Only 53 days until Christmas! That scares the heck outa me! I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet...Shopping is something that I don't enjoy, so I guess I procrastinate doing it...Not a smart strategy!! Oh well...I guess I still have time if I get my butt in gear right away. In the meantime I have lots that is keeping me busy right now.
As you may already know, I'm homeschooling Janelle. I'm still trying to figure out where to place her in all her subjects. We've been working on CAT tests for the last few days. She doesn't mind doing them, it just takes SO long to get them done. She's not doing too badly on them so far, but I won't know the official results until I send them in to be scored. This should really help with getting her set up and going on the rest of her subjects. We've been working on science, socials studies, cursive and a bit of math so far. We've also been working on a novel study entitled, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It's a great book that she seems to be enjoying. I remember that book from elementary school and loved it! Our teacher read it out loud to the class and he substituted students names for the characters in the book. It must have mad a huge impact on me because I still remember that and that was back in grade 3! That's 30 yrs ago!! yikes...and we're back to time flying!
I've also been wanting to get the painting finished. My daughter and I have been painting for several months off and on. We started with the livngroom. It has a vaulted ceiling, so the wall is 8' on one side but goes up to 10' or 11' on the high side. It also has one wood wall that has grooves that go up and down. They're about a half inch deep...so they are a total pain to paint! Well first off we painted the primer. Then the first coat of paint. I then went back and got a second can of paint to do the second coat, since it hadn't covered very well. We put the paint on and then realized that it was the WRONG colour!!! GRRR! Ya know...the $$ of the paint wasn't the hardest part to swallow (altho that was big too), it was the fact that we had to get back up onto that ladder that I had to stand on the very top of to barely reach the top of the high wall! I struggle with having enough energy just to do the regularly daily stuff, so this was reeeaaally frustrating! Anyway...this put me off for quite awhile..not that I was sitting around...there is always LOTS to be done with a family of6!!In the meantime we painted Courtenay's room. It looks great. I should post some finished pictures. It went from being a plain white room to lime green on three walls and the end wall is black and white vertical stripes with a wavy mirror going across it. She picked the colour herself and did a good job of it. Anyway, we got back at the painting in the livingroom and diningroom. We didn't finish but I'm hoping that I can talk her into painting this Saturday with me and finishing the job! She's a huge help, actually if truth be known, she does most of the painting. That's the way she likes it. She wants me to be her "go-fer".So anyway I'm hoping to finish it this weekend.
Randal put up the new light fixtures in the diningroom this past week as well, so I'll post some pics of those too. I got the light fixtures on sale for a great price. I walked into R*ona one day for some small thing and ended up walking out with new light fixtures for the main floor. The store was having a garage sale in their empty green house. They had matching fixtures on clearance priced at about 70% off! I was so pleased and they look great with the new paint colour. They didn't look as nice along the former (pink)wall colour!! Anyway must get off to bed. Hope everyone is keeping well.
take care and pop in again sometime...I'll keep you posted on the painting/light fixture installation progress!

A REALLY FUN GIVE AWAY!!!

I've entered a giveaway contest only once before if I remember correctly. This one looks really cool, so go on over to Molly Coddled and have a peek! Friday the 26th is the deadline though...sorry...it was a very small window!

From the Publisher

Make room on your kitchen shelf-our biggest, most complete cookbook ever is here!

The Taste of Home Cookbook is jam-packed with over 1,200 family-favorite, classic recipes… plus all the cooking basics, practical tips and how-tos you’ll need to make every meal a guaranteed winner.

You’ll find over 300 main dishes alone, like succulent “Honey-Ginger Barbecued Ribs.” Hundreds of desserts are included, too, along with appetizers, sides, salads and more.

This sturdy hardcover, 5-ring binder book has 676 pages with more than 1,300 full-color photos! 9-1/8″ x 10″.

PS: scroll down..lotsa goodies below!

Good Morning

Good Friday morning to you all! I see that my daughter got into my blog last night! Well if you can understand what she's saying or follow her story line...congratulations!! She's 15 and need I say more!?!? :D
Well I can hardly believe it's the end of the week already...although I'm really ready for it! Homeschooling is going great with Janelle. She's learning to like school again. The first time I pulled out the science she groaned and said that she hates science. That only lasted for about 2 minutes! Once I showed her what we were going to be doing later, she wanted to do it right then and there! She's realizing that she CAN do schoolwork! Which is a big step for her..She's enjoying school and so am I! :D
Well have a great weekend ladies, I'm hoping to get around for a visit today sometime.

Hijacked

Hello Dames and Doods.
I was thinking, "My mother's blog lacks some up-to-date lingo and pizazz." So I, in my youthful zest, will inform you about what's happening in this household. (p.s.,mom, please don't delete this. You blog buddies might chuckle at the ramblings of my fingers...maybe. Or they will just find me wacky)

So, last weekend my homeslices, youth pastor and mother, Mademoiselle Watt piled into Trooper, and another vehicle and headed to Grand Forks, British Columbia. And man, oh, man, that is a beautiful place. There are alot of steep mountains then it all OPENS up into a wide, flat plateau-type valley with lots of red and orange trees and a tiny little town smack in the centre. When we got there it was pretty much a riot of greatness. I got to meet people, hang out with old buddies, get surprised, play volleyball with inspirational group hugs, exclamations of massacring the v-ball,and sand kicked into my face. I knew about eight of the guys whose bands were playing that weekend, so when they were playing their concerts I got to run their merch tables. and now hear this, that is some fun. Having to dig around for the correct t-shirt size and design and taking peoples denari and putting it into the heavy cash box and marking it down in the record book. THen just sitting back with a rubik's cube and having a blast. Then I got a challenge. Tyler (whom plays the skins for Kiros www.myspace.com/kiros or www.kiros.com) comes up and sits down and says, "You know you're never gonna get that." and I said, "Cause of the stickers." and he said "Yep." then left. lots of the stickers on the cube were missing. So, to prove him wrong and get one side a solid colour, I got about 7 reds on one side, and methodically peeled the other red stickers of and switched them around until i had one face of the cube all red. wahoo. so then I said, "Hey, Tyler. "and he looked and I said "Proved you wrong." and he looked amazed for about 1.13 seconds, then said "You peeled the stickers"
so, there's a play by play on one conversation, here's another one
Kerline: SH! be quiet! he'll hear you! you're embarassing me!
me;"Why? because CURTIS MIGHT HEAR ME?"
kerline; (grabs me forcibly by the neck) YOU BE QUIET!"
she was literally chasing some guy around with two other of our youth, so my mother and I were shouting out things such as, "OH! YOU FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH HIM?" and "YOU'RE STILL CHASING HIM?"

I ate smarties with chopsticks for a guy with a video camera. The chopsticks were pretty dang cool. I wanted to steal them. I got about 3 hours of sleep the first night, because me, Carmen and Starr were laughing and exploring too much. and Laceydawn is protective of me.
Laceydawn is my mother/youthpastor.
She didn't want to put a band button into my ear, but when Ryan offered, she was very quick to offer her services of poking something through my ear.
I would love to write more anecdotes, but my ring finger is aching from playing guitar, so I think I'm done typing for now.

check out my buddies' bands
www.myspace.com/kiros
www.myspace.com/birdstoairplanes
www.myspace.com/drewmckay

my mother likes all these guys' music, so you might too. specially drew, he's folk/acoustic music.

goodbye
Lindsay
p.s.
Hi mom. I'm probably downstairs almost to sleep when you find this, so please do not come downstairs and say, "DO NOT TOUCH MY BLOG" cause that'll wake me up. But if you could, wake me up and about 7:20 so I can have a shower. I have alot of glue in my hair. It feels like my hair got petrified. and remember, we've gotta pick Starr up outside of Maggie right after school.
adios, mes amici.
spanish, french and italian.

Hardy Falls

This summer we went on a little hike up to a water fall. It was a really pretty walk through a narrow canyon. The creek was full of red salmon spawning...some of them were quite rotten and didn't smell too good! It's an amazing and quite fascinating thing to watch!
We went with my brother, Tom and sis in law, Allison and nephew, Silas. When we were at the top Lindsay gave Silas a pear and there was No way he was going to give it up!! He absolutely loved it! It was funny to watch him eat it with such gusto!! =D




Janelle and Silas with his pear.


Lindsay enjoying the falls.
I have a whole bunch more photos that I wanted to post but Blogger won't let me put anymore up! :S
I'll try again later.

Pictures from last weekend

Just wanted to add some photos from where we went last weekend! it was such a pretty place.
There are two rivers that come together...thus the name of the place....Grand Forks..I wish I had taken a camera...these are just some pictures I found online...they really don't do it justice! This place is known as "the land of sunshine and borscht." MMM yummy I love borscht but didn't get out to have some...guess I'll have to go back!






The colours looked like these leaves....it was so beautiful!!

The weekend

Happy Monday friends! Hope you had a great weekend! I did!! I went on a youth retreat with my two oldest girl's youth group. It was about 21/2 hours away from here. We left Friday afternoon and got home at about supper time on Sunday. It was such a pretty place to go to...not that we spent our time looking at the pretty scenery! It was an action packed weekend of Christian bands, speakers, hubs (workshops), and lots of other fun stuff! The kids were sad to come home...they just wanted the fun to keep on and on and on.....
At one point 3 of the other ladies that went and I snuck away for an afternoon cup of tea and pie at a little restaurant in town...It was sooo nice. We just spent some time visiting and enjoying some quiet time to connect.
Randal spent the weekend at home with the two younger girls....not that they were home at all over the weekend!! But they had a great time with the hubby of the other mom that went with us...as well as with their kids....apparently they ate lots of yummy food and drank lotsa pop while Mommy was away!! The stuff that doesn't happen too often if Mommy's home!! =)
What did you do this weekend?

HAPPY THURSDAY FRIENDS!!!

I thought this was cute....and no I won't be staying in bed!! It does seem like a good plan on some of those tired days though!! =D

Blog Content

I've done a bit of an experiment on my blog.....
Quite some time ago I put up a post with political content. My readers/comments dropped right off...
So I did it again and I see that the same thing has happened again... =) I find that interesting...That tells me that you my blogger friends must all be alot like me! Really not into politics all that much. There are times that the odd thing catches my attention though....But I have a confession to make....I didn't even watch the whole video that I posted on my site! :D I found it quite disturbing... but I thought after watching the bit that I did~ this is what the people in power kind of like! People like me, that don't keep themselves informed....So yeah..I'm left feeling ill-at-ease...
There are many people that say oh this is just a bunch of garbage...conspiracy hunters....and I'd love to believe those people because they help me keep my little bubble intact. But sometimes when I see things like this I notice the walls of my bubble starting to stretch and tighten....
What do you all think?? Do you keep yourself informed about what's going on? If so...what is your main source of information? Is it the mainstream media...or something else..?? Or do you just try to ignore it all and stick your head in the sand like me???
Let's hear from you, my bloggie friends!
Thanks!! Heather

Forgiveness

Have you ever been wronged by someone....? A close friend....family member....boss.....spouse? Man doesn't that just make you want to retaliate--Just let 'em have it?!? I can tell ya, sometimes I do(want to that is!!) That is just not my style though! :D However, lashing out at the person is NOT the ONLY way to retaliate. Sometimes when we're upset we'll NOT lash out at them, but instead just hold the anger inside and stew and think of all the things we should have said. Rather than now doing something though, we'll just cut them off--give them the cold shoulder---silent treatment. (Actually I don't usually do this...mostly in extreme cases..but ya..I'd have to have a memory for that!! lol) But guess what~it may feel good to stick it to them that way for a short while but slowly the Holy Spirit starts whispering to us....and if we're listening and obedient, we'll start to come around and admit to that this is just as wrong as freaking out and yelling at them or whatever other way of retaliation one can think of.

Here's a devotional I was reading on this topic this morning. Take a look...it's very well written and layed out! I really enjoyed it.

Yes, you can and you must! Not next week or next month, either - you need to forgive that person today!

Spiritually speaking, unforgiveness is downright dangerous. It will make your spirit feeble and your prayers ineffective. It will pull the plug on your faith so completely that you won't have enough power to move the molehills in your life - much less the mountains.

Read Mark 11:22-25 and you'll see why I say that. There you'll find one of Jesus' most powerful teachings on faith. He concludes that teaching with these words, "And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any...."

Notice He didn't say, "When ye stand praying, try to forgive" or "When ye stand praying, forgive if you can." He simply said, "Forgive." Period.

Jesus made forgiveness a command. It would be unjust for Him to command us to do something we couldn't do. So you can be sure it's within your power to obey His command and forgive - no matter how badly you've been wronged.

Why then has it been so difficult for you to do so? Probably because you have fears that are holding you back. Most people don't realize it, but unforgiveness is actually a form of fear. Quite often we don't forgive because we're afraid of getting hurt again. We're afraid we're never going to recover from the damage that person has done to our lives.

If you want to freely forgive, get rid of those fears. Cleanse yourself from them by the "washing of the water by the word" (Ephesians 5:26). Fill your mind and heart with promises of God that apply to your situation.

If your business has been threatened by this person, for example, meditate on the fact that no weapon formed against you will prosper (Isaiah 54:17), and rely on the fact that your God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). Let the knowledge of the merciful, protective love of God cast out all your fears (see 1 John 4:18).

Then forgive, not by feelings but by faith. Do it the same way you would receive healing or anything else by faith. First, make a quality decision. Determine that you're going to do what God's Word instructs - no matter what. You're going to forgive.

Second, speak and act in accordance with that decision. Refuse to say anything negative about that person. Refuse to rehearse in your mind or with your mouth the hurt they have caused you. Instead, look for opportunities to bless that person both in word and in deed.

Finally, don't be moved by what you feel. Forgiveness is an act of the will, not feelings. When lying symptoms of unforgiveness well up inside you, come against them in faith. Say, "Praise God, I have forgiven that person by an act of my will. In the Name of Jesus, I'm not moved by these feelings. They'll just have to get in line. They'll have to submit to the faith and the love of God that's been shed abroad in my heart."

If you'll continue to do that, I can assure you from my own experience, your feelings will change. It may not happen overnight...but it will happen. One of these days, almost without thinking, you'll throw your arms around that person, give them a big hug and say, "I love you." What's more, you'll mean it from the bottom of your heart.

North American Union...???

Okay my blogger friends I know I'm NOT a political kind of person, normally but this really caught my attention. Has anyone heard of this?? What do you think...is it legitimate??? It does sound like it is...
Please tell me what your thoughts are on this one.

Family trip to Bears Fruit Stand.

This weekend we took a drive down to a fruit stand to see their harvest display and just have a look around. It was a nice drive. The kids goofed off at the fruit stand and we took lots of pictures. Amanda hates having her picture taken so there aren't many of her....mostly just the ones that I made her sit for...and you can tell!!! There are a whole ton of pictures on this post...when I post pictures I really go for it!!Can you see the bear peeking over the hilltop??? Isn't it cute? It's an ad for the Bear Fruitstand.Amanda being silly when I was trying to get some nice pictures of them.
All of us together trying to balance on that pile of pumpkins!!
goofy Lindsay
Courtenay peeking through the corn.
No.....they're not for sale!!
more girls posing for Mom.
This is one of Lindsay "roaring" through the fruitstand on an ancient tractor.

It was such a pretty, colourful display of the summer's bounty!

Lindsay posing for Mom. :D

Little Miss Sunshine trying out the tractor.
Janelle balancing on a leaning stack of hay bales.












Candy!! This one's for you! Here are some WHITE pumpkins!! Maybe you can find them in
your area! :D


After the fruit stand we went for a drive in the area...it's really pretty but it was an overcast day, so the pictures didn't turn out that great.
They call this K Mountain...can you see why??