Just so you know, this is a VERY long post. I guess I'm just feeling chatty. So, as a warning, this is big - hehehe. But you know you wanna read it - hehehe. Cause I'm just so entertaining - LMBO!
OK, and now for the Aunt Shirley story. hehehe. So, Aunt Shirley is my Mom (Lyn)'s Mom (Ida)'s sister. So that makes her my great aunt. How old is she? hmmmm, like 70 or so. At least that. Grandma Ida is 78, hmmm, 70 is about right. Anyway.
Aunt Shirley's husband died about 6 months ago, so for this Thanksgiving, she decided to go to Washington State with her daughter, Cheryl and son-in law Terry. On the way home, they stopped at a gas station about an hour from Florence (home) and got gas. They got done, pulled out of the gas station, barely got back up to speed (35 mph) on Highway 99 (just this side of Junction City) (4 lane highway). Aunt Shirley got up from the front to go to bed, and stumbled, fell against the unlocked door, and it came open. Out she went. Thump. Boom. Crash.
It's the kind of motor home that when you open the door, stairs come out. She fell out backwards!!! So, she hit the stairs, and then the road. Good thing the stairs were there, or she may have been ran over. Also good thing that he was in the outside lane, so that when she fell out, there were no cars there to run her over. Holy cow!
Once they noticed that she had fallen out, Terry slowly slowed down (he didn't want to run her over), and Cheryl jumped from the (slowly) moving motor home before it got completely stopped, and got almost as hurt as Aunt Shirley. So, Aunt Shirley ended up with a huge know on her head where she landed (they used frozen french fries as an ice pack) bruises on her body, a bangded up ear, and a tiny missing patch of hair. Amazing. It could have been SO much worse.
Here's a picture of Aunt Shirley's ear with a week's worth of healing. Poor Aunt Shirley. Morale of the story is: LOCK THE MOTOR HOME DOOR when you're traveling. Goodness!
And, happier news - hehehe - my dad, the logger, was at work the other day, and were moving equipment to a new show (job site).
Lets see if I can explain what he does. OK, cutters come in, and cut down trees. But not all of them. They always leave some "straggler" trees. Then, my dad is in charge of extracting the trees. And it's not like farm land. No flat areas. Imagine the side of a STEEP hill (mountain, more like it)
Anyway, so they're at a new show, and the cutters have been in already, and he's getting ready to get his crew doing their job, and he sees, in the "straggler" trees, 4 PERFECT Christmas trees. Now, they were in the path of what would probably be the "road" anyway, so he cut the down, and brought them home for us!!!
There's one for my mom and dad, one for Captain America and I at the cabin at Baker, one for my sister's in-laws, and one for my friend, Maren. We're SO excited! Do you know how much a real Christmas tree goes for? Like $25 bucks, at the cheapest. That's insane! FREE is a much better price :) And they're not really Charlie Brown, either. Sometimes when you get trees from the woods, they're pretty Charlie Brown-ish. I'll post some good pics when we decorate the tree on Saturday :)
My dad brought the 4 trees home on the flatbed truck.
Jimmy wasn't so sure about being put up on the flatbed. But he was a good sport. Papa kept trying to drop the tree on him, and it was kinda freaking him out - LOL! Maybe he'll leave the tree alone this year - hehehe.
Another view of our 4 trees. My mom's camera actually did good pictures, considering it was pitch black outside :)
My dad, untie-ing the tree
See, it's a very pretty tree, don't ya think?
And, the little boys, watching the tree fun. Look at Joe (kid in the orange). Hehehehe, he went to the public library wearing that outfit. Ha! Tie dyed shirt, white undershirt, orange shirt (and in that order), then those jammie pants, with too short sweat pants over those, so that there was a jammie pant cuff at the bottom. Yeah, he's a classy dresser. I almost made him change, then I decided, who cares if he clashes. He piced out his outfit himself, and he was quite proud of it. Who am I to be the destroyer of fashion - hehehe.
Oh yeah, and talking about library. We went to the library today for a VERY fun after school thing they were doing there. Our school district has "early release" every Thursday. School gets out an hour early. So, the library has "GAMING" every Thursday, from 2:30 -5:00 pm. They set up 2 Wii systems, and let the kids play games. My boys had a BLAST! Jacob rode the bus home with a friend who lived near the library, then walked over. I brought the other kids up a bit later.
They really did have a good time. They played some Rabbit game. They let me play a few rounds with them. Hehehehe. In one game, the shook up soda, then drank it, then had burping contests. Who thinks up this stuff? LOL! But, the boys liked it. The one I played was some fart (we say flatch - hehehe) racing thing. That's what propelled our rabbits. Weird. I wasn't very good. I was last every time. I guess I need to refine my Wii skills - hehehe. I was thinking that it would be a fun Christmas present for my kids next year.
This really is turning into a Gi-normous blog post. Hehehe. I went to book group tonight. I almost didn't go, and was 30 minutes late, but still went. I'd actually read the book, so I figured I ought to go. I put the little kids to bed, and my mom watched the big ones.
We read 'The Giver", by Lois Lowry. It's a novel, set in the future, that at first appears to be a utopian society, but the longer it goes on, the more "problems" we see with their society. It really was a good book, and gave us lots to discuss. There's a reason why man has "free agency" or the ability to choose for himself. When you take away all choice, you take away, well, everything. The ability to choose is what makes us who we are. This society was devoid of feelings, devoid of love, devoid of emotion. SO not how it was meant to be.
Some of the girls talked about how "blessed" they felt, and how they had never known war, or poverty, or the bad things in life. How they felt removed from it all. You know, I do feel "blessed" for the things that I have, but I didn't really relate to those girls. My life is anything but stable. Yes, I have a husband who I love, and 5 loving children, but I have no "home". My husband is training to become a soldier (yeah, not so safe). We're poor (yeah, not really a good way to sugar coat that one - too much debt, house in Chicago going into forclosure because it won't sell). Most of them have husbands with stable jobs, nice homes, nice things, spending money. I guess sometimes I feel a bit more "in" (rather than removed from) the hardships of life than them. And I don't even have it bad. I know that there are SO many more who have it worse than I do.
But you know what. As much as I would like to trade it all away some days, I don't really think I would. I know that each experience I have teaches me something important. I don't always see the benefit immediately, but I know that it's for a purpose. I know that these seemingly hard lessons now will pay off someday. Maybe I'll need the experience to help someone else. Maybe I'll have to do something even bigger, harder, that this will be preparing me for. I don't know. But one lesson that that book drove home to me, is that without the pain, without the trials, without the hard time, we can't appreciate the good, the joy, the happy times. I know this is true. The saying "Opposition in all things" is SO true. We can't truly know the sweet without the bitter.
SO, this is getting quite lengthy, but remember, our trials are here to teach us something, to make us stronger, to make us better people. We all have trails. Try and learn from yours, and make yourself better because of it. I know we all can :)
OK, that's enough of that - heheheh. Are you still awake and reading?
On to WordArt, the REAL reason you are all here. This WordArt request is from Linda. Click on the image below to go to my box.net account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work.
FONTS:
Anything - Viceroy JF
All rest - Triac 71
