Happy New Year

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. It was a little strange this year because it was actually just Gary and I for Christmas. That hasn't happened since Dec of 1976, the first year we were married. Anyway, there wasn't nearly as much leftover wrappers and papers and thing to haul out to the trash. We had a good Christmas, as we always do. We got to talk to all of the grandkids and kids for Christmas. I wish that we could see all of them on Christmas but that just isn't going to happen anymore because of where we all live. Gary fixed us a good Christmas dinner. We had prime rib and the fixins'. That was a great christmas present for me because I didn't have to do the cooking. We still have 8 more days until we have to go back to work so I am pretty much useless these days doing nothing and sleeping in and going to bed early. We don't have any big plans for New Years Eve, mostly because my eyes won't stay open past about 9 p.m. so I always usher in the new year by sleeping right through it. I did get my Christmas tree and decorations taken down and put away for another year. I also shampooed my carpets upstairs after taking down the decorations. I wish that it would stay clean forever, but it seems like within about a week it looks icky again. Gary has not had gout for a few weeks which is great, but he has been having a bout with bronchitis. He is working out in the garage today putting up shelves and cabinets to get the garage organized. I need to organize on the inside too, but heck I am on vacation. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and would like to with all a Happy New Year!!!!!

Christmas is soon here

Wow, only 3 more days til Christmas. We really missed our chance at a white christmas this year because it came a week too soon. The snow is almost all gone but the cold lingers. Tomorrow Angela and I are heading over to St. George so she can go to the doctor. Grandpa is going to stay home and tend Ben and Jacob. They should have an interesting day. Grandpa is hoping it will snow because he told the kids if it does they will go out in little whitey and spin doughnuts. Gary and I are on a little winter vacation now. We actually have 17 days off of work and don't go back until January 5th. I hope I can catch up on my sleep but I doubt that will happen because I have an internal clock that makes my eyes pop open at 4 a.m. every morning. We did buy a prime rib roast so we can fix it for Christmas dinner. Gary likes to cook them every year and I like it when he does because then I don't have to cook it. We were planning a little trip to Battle Mountain to help Jason with some electrical wiring on his garage, but the ground is to frozen to dig a trench for the wiring, so I don't know what we will be doing. I think we are having a dfs person (division of family services) come to inspect the house on the 27th for a safety check and if that happens then we will have to be here for that. I talked to some people last week and they said that we are probably going to get the girls at the end of January so we also need to convert my sewing/computer room back into a bedroom for them. I hope they will be happy here and that we can provide for them what they aren't getting at home. I will keep all updated about it later when I find out more info. Changing gears a little, I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and Santa leaves what everyone wants. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Another week gone.

So I hope everyone had a wonderful week so far. For me it is the weekend, I so love four day work weeks. We just have four more days of school before we are out for the Christmas break. There really won't be a lot of teaching next week though, because we are preparing for our school program and then partying all day Thursday. Gary has had a bit of a rough week. He has been home from work for the last two days because his knee is the size of a soccer ball and really hurts. Gout again. I sure wish they could come up with a remedy for this. We have tried everything at the GNC and home remedies and everything else except for the most drastic which would remove the problem you know just cut off the offending appendage. He doesn't like that idea very much. I started the week out sick and missed Monday at work, but I am fine and back to work. I am sure thinking this is the nicest spring weather we have had in years around here. It was so nice at school today that after we got through with program practice we let the kids play outside for about 45 minutes. They needed it after sitting for 2 1/2 hours for practice. Tyson does a dance with the rest of my 5th grade class that really has turned out fun to watch. Ryan sings and his favorite song is "Here We Come A Caroling" He wants to try and learn to play it on the piano. I hope everyone enjoys the picture of my little dog Nia. She is my baby and usually follows me everywhere I go. She is always waiting for me right by the back door when I come home from work. It feels good to be loved.

elfdance

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

So here it is the middle of the night. I am up because I have caught myself a doosy of a cold and I am congested and have a sore throat and so I can't get comfortable. The only way I can breathe is sitting up so here I am. I got ambitious today and cut out and sewed up a skirt. It was actually fun. I haven't sewn anything for quite some time mainly because my sewing machine has a mind of its' own. I will be sewing along fine doing a straight stitch and all of a sudden my machine will decide I need to be zig zagging instead so it changes stitches on me. The other day Angela was using it to put together a quilt and it decided to start embroidering, so it went into a flower pattern. I called the company and they said that they really can't troubleshoot a computerized machine so I have to send it to Monteal Canada to get fixed. They are sending me a shipping label. I just haven't decided if I want to let it go that far away.
I am not sure what I am going to do with myself tomorrow because Gary is feeling better now so he is going to go spend the day plowing at the ranch and Angela and Aaron and the boys are heading off to Las Vegas to see Aarons parents before they leave for Christmas so I will be all alone. I think I will go to school and change out a hard drive on a computer and see if I can make it useful again. We keep getting new students so I can't afford to let a computer in the lab be down and no one else attempts to fix them so I have learned (self taught) how to dismantle and change out parts on them. It is really kind of fun and I am always excited when they actually work when I put them back together. I have been doing MAPS testing last week and will continue it this week until I get all the students second through fifth in the school tested in math, reading, and language arts. We are also practicing for our Christmas performance so I have had to schedule each class around that. The good thing is that it will be all done before we get out for Christmas break.
So Christmas will be here before I know it and I still haven't come up with an idea of what to get Gary for Christmas. I have a hard time surprising him anymore because he likes to get tools and I have bought him so many of them that I have to have him actually pick out the new ones so that I don't get him repeats of something he already has and then he gets the ones he really wants. I just don't think there are many more to get him. Our garage is full of wood working tools like saws, sanders, planes, drills, biscuit machines, etc. you name it he has it. I think we will go shopping next weekend and he can pick out yet another tool. SURPRISE!!!! I still have to wrap up the grandkids presents. I wrapped up some of them and sent them home after Thanksgiving, but I still have to wrap for Tyson, Ryan, Ben, and Jacob. Wrapping isn't my favorite thing. I have never been so slothful when it comes to Christmas but I just am not in the Christmas mood this year with everything that has been going on around here.
Merry Christmas to all and to ALL a good night.

So today has definitly been an interesting day for me. I have learned that I now am able to put on a hard shell and let things roll off my back. I had an experience at school which let me see this. It is interesting what some people come up with and where they get it from. To make a long story short, if you are a pretty girl then you need to watch out for me because I am a mean mean mean mean bully to pretty girls. Someday when I feel like typing a lot a will elaborate on the story. Maybe I should just write a book about all of my experiences as a teacher. I was really tired last night and went to bed at 5:30 p.m. I had a couple of bed mates for a while. They laid (and crawled) by me to watch cars. I went out for the night. I don't know what time their dad came and got them. Anyway, I am totally rested today. I was so tired because I went to work at 3:00 a.m. yesterday because I wasn't prepared for the day yet. I am really enjoying this blog thing by now. I am not used to writing about my everyday life and this kind of gives me more of a chance to reflect on things in my life. I also enjoy reading up on everything that is going on with all my siblings and thier families. Thank goodness for electronics and email because if it were left up to me to write letters and send them in the mail, everyone would think that I had died because they would never hear from me.

Procrastination

Well, it is almost time for school to start up again after the Thanksgiving holiday. I have been off of work since last Monday because we had Dr. Appt. in St. George on Tues. and our holdiay from school always starts with Wed. before Thanksgiving. Anyway, I have put off doing what has to be done and so I will have to go do it sometime today. I haven't filled out my planbook for the week or changed the calendar or corrected any papers from Tues. yet so today is the day. I cannot start the week at school without all of that stuff done.
Angela and I went to see the movie "Twilight" yesterday in Las Vegas. It was great because we went to a 10:30 a.m. matinee and there were only about 12 people in the theater so we got really good seats. The movie was good. I am glad I saw it and will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. I don't think I am ga ga over it like most people though. I have seen better movies. Maybe it is my age or I just took a reality check. It was good just not GREAT!!!! in my opinion. We also went to lunch and did a little shopping. I found a good sale at Sears on baby clothes so I bought a couple of outfits each for the two new arrivals coming in March. I went to Lakeshore, one of my favorite stores, and got some more teacher supplies. Then we came home. I really don't like going to Vegas very much, I prefer to go to St. George, but lately the only reason I go there is for Dr. or to put Gary back in the hospital again. So, I guess I should say I prefer to just stay home.
Thanksgiving was good. It is my favorite holiday. Michael and Tonia and the kids were here and Jeremy and Andrea and kids came over and so we had everyone except for Jason and Leslie and Brock. Everything went great. We all got along fine and had a good time.
I haven't talked about the town project that is going on right now, but I am so excited because they have put the irrigation ditch which runs right behind my back lawn into a big old pipe and covered it up. Now I don't have to worry about the kids and the ditch anymore and the "ditchwitch" has been burried no longer able to grab kids and take them down into the depths of the ditch. Best money the town ever spent if you ask me.
That is all I have to say for now. Happy December to all.

Well, we took Gary back to the Dr.(s) yesterday and he seems to be doing better. The nurse at Dr. Jentzer's office told him he had the best looking EKG of all the patients they had seen yesterday (that is saying a lot for a heart doctors office) Anyway, they gave him his Dr. note so that he can go back to work with no restrictions. We still don't know when they are going to be able to do anything with the kdney mass that is growing we haven't gotten a go ahead on the biopsy yet. We had a nice day in St. George. We went and visited with dad and dockie for a little while. Our dogs were all happy to see us come home because we brought them their months supply of doggie cookies from petco. We went to Walmart and finished up our shopping for Thanksgiving. The worst part of that is putting all of the stuff away when we got home. On the brighter side there was plenty of room in the fridge and freezer because of the fridge incident on Saturday. There is a bright side to everything. Today I am going to get the camp trailer ready for Michael and Tonia to stay in while they are here for Thanksgiving. I also have some housework to do before family arrives. I am going to get ambitious one of these days and take a picture of my new car and post it on my blog. I am really enjoying it. It has all the bells and whistles. Gary even drove it a little last night on the way home from St. George. He doesn't drive very often because he has this nodding out condition and that can be a little scary when you look over and the driver is napping, but he drove from Coyote Springs home last night. Well, I have to get busy now. I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving celebration. It is my favorite.

Wow, we had a busy morning. Ang and I were going to go to mesquite to watch twilight but we never made it out the door so I guess we will see it another time. First thing this morning we noticed that things just weren't quite right with the freezer and fridge in the kitchen. We tried to do a couple of things but it still would not come on so I started cleaning out because things in the freezer were melting. I know that I needed to clean it out but that is not the way I like to do it, under pressure. Anyway, we got it all emptied. I threw away three large trash bags full of food gone bad out of the fridge and freezer. There were some things still good and so I found room for them in the downstairs freezer and then put the fridge stuff out in the garage fridge. I told Ang that we really should count our blessings because I had a place to put stuff and didn't have to go and immediately buy a new fridge. Well, we pushed the fridge out onto the deck and proceeded to diagnose (we do that with anything that troubles us because we can't afford to call someone in to fix it for us and we can't just run down to the corner store to buy new because there is no corner store in Alamo) Anyway, we vacuumed off the vents and coils and then Gary got out the air compressor and blew out all the remaining ick from the bottom of the fridge and then we put it to the test. We put a little bowl with water in the freezer and plugged her in. After an hour I opened the freezer to check it out and walla!!! we had ice. So we pushed her back into her spot and plugged her in and little by little I am filling it back up when we need something from the fridge we go outside to the garage and get it but then put it back into the inside fridge. Thank goodness we didn't haul it off to the dump!!! It is working great now, I guess you just have to be better at routine maintenance with this stuff.
Now for an update on Gary. He is all a flutter today (back in afib) so I am makeing him stay down for the rest of the day. Some of the new medication the dr. put him on is giving him tremendous headaches also. Yesterday while we were tending jacob and ben we had a little mishap and had to make a quick trip to Caliente to have stitches put in jacob's head. He was drinking his milk and stepped off of the chair and fell to the floor apparentely hitting the bookcase or edge of the table on the way down and split his head open. I hate it when things like that happen especially on my watch. We did what we could and loaded the kids up in the car and headed out. He did fine and felt better when we took him to the store and let him pick out a toy for being such a big boy. I am sure angela will post a picture to show his owee. All in all the last couple of days have not been very good days. I have had a discussion with Michael and he seems to remember a very bad childhood which really makes me feel bad and breaks my heart. I have always thought that I have done everything I could for my children but apparently I have been very inadequate in the motherhood department. I really can't write too much about it because it makes my heart ache and I start leaking. I cried for many hours last night and I don't want to cry anymore. To all my children who read my blogs, I am sorry for the horrible childhood that I caused them to have and hope that they all know how much I love them ALL and would do whatever I could for them.

Road trip to Caliente

Have you ever truly had your heart broken? Today that happened to me when I found out that I have always been a terrible mother. Michael let me know today that I was always very mean and abusive to him as he grew up. He said that if I didn't believe him, I could just ask any of my other children and they would back him up on that. I don't remember being such a terrible mother but I guess age does that to a person. I hope that I have learned something from this experience. I apparently never should have been allowed to be a mother. I feel really bad for my children for having to put up with me as they grew up. I hope that someday he can find it in his heart to forgive me for treating him so badly during his life.
Gary and I tended jacob and ben today while his parents went to find out about the baby. By the way we are getting Caden Dallas in our family. We also found out that Angela is due a month earlier than she thought. Anyway while on our watch, Jacob fell and split his head open so we had to have a road trip to Caliente to get stitches in his head. I guess I am not doing the grandma thing any better than I did the children thing. He seems to be fine tonight and really not feeling the pain, but it wasn't too much fun to watch him go through the whole sewing up process.
Well, so much for today, I have had better days. Gary is feeling a little better ever day. At least the doctors can help him with his heart problems, I feel like my broken heart is never going to heal.

Yeah! Tomorrow is Friday

If anyone ever tries to tell you that a four day school week just doesnt' work, DON'T believe them. I love it when Thursday comes around because I know that I always have a three day weekend to look forward to. Tomorrow Gary and I will be babysitting Ben and Jacob while Ang and Aaron go to St. George for the ultrasound to see if they can determine the sex of the baby. I think she will be having a girl, but I know I only have a 50/50 chance of being right. We really just want a nice healthy baby so it doesn't really matter whether girl or boy. Gary is feeling a little better these days. He has been up and around a little but he gets tired really easy. He sleeps a lot and freezes a lot also. Andrea went to Vegas today so I had her pick up the movie Wall-e for me and we watched that tonight. I wasn't very impressed, but apparently Benjamin was because he just kept going through the house saying "Wall-e" over and over. I am excited for next week because I really like Thanksgiving better than any other holiday. I have been saving turkey bucks from the store so that I can get about ten dollars off of my turkey. Also, I am only working on Monday because Gary has Dr. appointments in St. George on Tuesday and he can't drive there alone, so I play chauffer for him. Oh, by the way, he lost his glasses yet again. I looked everywhere for them. He had been up at school in my classroom and that is where I found them sitting by a computer. I went to Del Pueblo and also searched through the house, I was glad to finally find them. I think I am going to super glue them to his head so that he can't lose them anymore. Well, it is late and I am ready to go to bed, so I will blog again later.

The Midnight Run

Well, we were at it again last night. Jeremy and I loaded Gary Lee into the car and headed back to St. George to the emergency room. He has not been feeling good at all. His gout came back to both ankles, he has been running a fever, and he has a sick stomach from the colcachine ( gout medicine). His blood pressure sky rocketed and his heart went back into afib so off we went. When we got there, sure enough, his blood pressure was very elevated, his pulse rate was 136 and he felt like #$%^. They took him in and put him in a bed and hooked him up to a bunch of monitors and put in an iv and started working on him. They immediately did and EKG and it showed him in afib again. I got very discouraged. The ER dr. started talking to him and told him what the tests showed and then looked at the monitor and amazingly everything had calmed down. His blood pressure was down. His heart rate was down to 79. The dr. hurried and made them do another EKG to track the change. They increased his new meds to keep his heart under control and then gave him morphine (twice) for the gout pain. They let us come home because after 3 hours his heart and blood pressure were still good. I am so glad that Jeremy went with us because I just crawled into the back seat and laid down and went to sleep while he drove us home. Anyway, this morning Gary's pulse rate is back up to 120 something and so I am making him stay in bed all day. He has a fever and sick stomach. I don't know what to do next. I guess we will just take it one day at a time. He is off of work until after Thanksgiving so hopefully he will get to feeling better.
On a lighter note, I finally did some Christmas shopping. Angela and I loaded up yesterday morning and went to Vegas to get shopping done. We left Gary in the care of Benjamin (he was so willing to look after Grandpa), Aaron, Jeremy, and Jason. We had a good day and got a lot done, but I probably never should have left Gary because he was not well. I guess you do what you have to do. Well, Gary just walked by so I am going to go check on him. Bye for now.

We are back home again

Well, it has been an exhausting last few days. Gary has been through a lot these past few days with a lot of medical testing and then the surgical procedures. He is tough and getting through it all. He lost his glasses while in St. George and we searched and searched everywhere for them but could not find them anywhere. I went back to my sisters and searched again yesterday morning and lo and behold there they were just sitting on the dresser like someone had just set them there. Anyway, tragedy diverted, he can see again. He slept pretty good last night at home in his own bed. It is hard for him to move around much but I am sure he will bounce back fine. He's a trooper. On a lighter note, a good thing happened yesterday. When I got home from St. George, the UPS man showed up with my new huggie pillows. Anyone who knows me really well knows that I sleep with my huggie pillow every night no matter where I go. Well, the other day I washed my huggie pillow and put it in the dryer (like I have so many times before) This time I left it in a little too long and it no longer was huggable. I could have used it to slay a giant. At any rate, I slept a lot better last night with my huggie pillow replacement. The only place I can find pillows like these is through Books Are Fun, so I ordered it last Thursday immediately after the tragedy struck. Thank goodness my new one is here.
I found out last night that Michael and Tonia and kids are going to come here for Thanksgiving. It will be nice to get to hug my grandkids that I don't get to see so much. I feel bad because the other grandkids except Brock, are very close in proximity to me and I get to see them all the time, but I don't get to see Jercie, Blaze, Kaia, or Brock as often, but I love them just as much and hope they know that.
Well, I am going to have to go and wake up Gary for his morning injection. I am so thankful that Angela is willing to "shoot" him twice a day for the next several days, or else we would have had to stay in the hospital for them.
That is it for now. Everyone have a nice day.

My second (first) attempt at blogging

This is my first attempt at blogging. Dawnita inspired me to start a blog. It is very cold and blustery outside today, the kind of day you just want to stay inside and stay warm. I am not looking forward to this coming week, because I will be spending most of it in St. George with Gary while he goes through various procedures to see if they can get his heart back in good shape. He is really nervous. I am glad that the doctors know what they are doing when it comes to this kind of stuff. The worst part of it all is getting ready for a sub at school. It is a short week though so I actually only have to prepare for Thursday, because kids will be out of school on Tuesday (veterans day) and Wednesday (district inservice day). This is just a short blog to see how it goes. Actually this is the second time I have had to type this first blog attempt because I didn't save the first one right. It's a learning process.

My New Blog

I want to see if this works.