Where Have I Been?

Why can't I get my act together to keep this blog and my other one  "Alice's Restaurant" updated on a regular basis???  I think of all the things I want to write about but time just gets away from me....so here I go again.

We are doing fine.   Ron made it safely home from Idaho and Oregon...he took 535 pictures and I finally got them onto the computer.  Now to get them into a post or two or three....they are in my head, just have to get them onto the computer.  Today I finally wrote a letter that I have been needing to write for almost 3 months...what is with that????

I think I need to go back to carrying a daytimer of some sort.  I have been looking at them to start in January but what to do in the meantime???  Suggestions.  I have made lists, lots of lists and where are they - on my desk in the office when I am in the motor home or in the motor home when I am in the office.  Agh....I just need to get my act together.  Not only about writing and keeping them up to date but also stuff aIround here.  I feel like I am just being a slug....and I don't like this slug that I am turning into.

 I have been doing two things that were missing in my life.  I am now getting up at 6 a.m. and exercising...I have got to lose some weight.  First goal is 7.2 lbs down and I am down 2 of that 7!  Then the next goal is down 25 lbs and then another 25 lbs.  Timeline wise I want to be down 20 lbs by 11/14 when my friend Dee arrives for a week.  So I only have 18 more to go to reach that goal.

The other thing is spending time in the Word every morning.  Right now it is about 15 to 20 minutes a day.  I would like to be able to spend 45 to 60 minutes each morning in the Word and in prayer.  And I know that will improve as I get connected to a Bible study that begins the middle of September.  More directed study is the best and easiest way for me to spend more time in God's Word.

Our motor home feels crowded and cluttered.  I need to purge and get rid of stuff but don't even know where to begin.  I need to get my monthly menus back on track.  I have done pretty good this week with meal planning by day.  But I do so much better eating wise, grocery shopping wise, spending wise and not eating out wise.  

I need help, some plans, some ideas - please share, please ask me if I am doing "xyz" - what do you do to keep your home organized and simplified?  How do you do monthly meal planning?  How do you keep motivated to keep a clean and tidy home?  Yes we live in our motor home but it is our home...it's not just a place to go camping and play in???

So to close I will share the one movie Ron took while he was with Brandon and his family.  The background noise you here is Max playing a Wii shooting game.  The baby is Treyson and it is so fun to watch his little movements.

Hope you have enjoyed catching up with us even if it is just a little bit.

Wrestling with a Couple of Things

I don't know about y'all but sometimes when I go to bed at night and I turn the lights out and think I am about ready to go to sleep my mind starts running at 100 miles per hours.  Not just little thoughts about day to day things, well sometimes it's like the day to day things.   But the last few nights I find myself with my thoughts just running and running.

The first issue has to do with sharing my blog.  I have a whole list of people who I send an email to whenever I update either of my blogs.  Not all the same names are the same on both lists.  And specifically I have been thinking of who I send this blog to and thinking I want to take some of those names out of that email list.  You may be asking yourself why would I want to remove someone from that list?  Well I wonder if the people on my list really want to know what I am thinking about, what is going on in my life, what issues I struggle with or is it that I want them to know all those things about me, about my family, about my job.  And that therein lies the problem - if people who really wanted to know about me, about my family, about my job, about my life would they not contact me in some way.  Many people on this list I communicate with on Facebook, via the telephone, email or snail mail but there are a handful that I never communicate with and so I wonder why do I keep sending them the emails.  If someone really wanted to be a part of my life, wouldn't you they would at least acknowledge an email or a blog post once in awhile.

I am sure I will struggle with this issue for a while longer, but if you stop hearing about postings on my blog via email that would mean that I am not struggling with that issue any more.  What do you think?  Do  I just blindly keep sending emails to people to let them know when I post or do I clean up my list? I am not sure what I am going to do - guess I will keep mulling things over.  And then I wrestle with if someone really wants to know what I am up to they could choose to follow along on my blogs.  I know people can do that because I have 101 followers on The Wandering Workentins and there are over 15 followers on this blog. Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

The other issue I have been struggling with is a moral issue.  IF you know someone has done something very wrong and others know about that wrong and those others were affected by that wrong but no one reports that wrong to the appropriate people (the authorities) do you just continue to go along with them and not say or do anything?  I know I am being somewhat vague about this and I am sorry about that BUT until I can wrestle with my own mind about what to do it is best that way.  I would just like some feedback or thoughts on this very vague issue.

That's all from this brain for now.  Hope you are all doing fine.

Monday, Aug. 15, 1977 - Difficult, Scary and most of all Thankful,

We slept well that Sunday night ~ I think more from exhaustion than anything.

Our day got off to a rough start - (this gets kinda graphic).  Before starting my day I expressed milk for Jamie, the nurses at the NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit) kept encouraging me to do so for Jamie.  And then it was time to get in the shower.  And then I got dressed and then started crying ~ I was leaking all over everything!  Ron kept trying to tell me it was okay.  How could it be okay,  I had just leaked all over the only dress that fit me!  Now what was I going to wear to Royce's funeral? After much reassurances from Ron and my mom I put on one of my favorite dresses that I wore throughout my pregnancy and felt a little better.  First crisis of the day averted.

We then got ready to go to the church.   I think we (Ron & I) were pretty nervous.  What was going to happen, what would people say, could I get through the funeral without collapsing?  And then we were walking into the sanctuary.  Ron and I went in alone.  That little casket looked so tiny compared to the altar.  And we walked up to it and ran our hands across it.  And we looked at the flowers placed on the altar.  I don't remember who all sent flowers but I remember the Tupper's had sent a bouquet of blue & white flowers.  The Tupper's were my bosses from the real estate office where I had worked.  We had decided to have a closed casket.  We knew how hard it was to see our little boy in there and knew that it would make most people uncomfortable to see him like that.

The service began by the playing of Jesus Loves Me by the organist.  And then Adrian shared John 14 and some other scriptures.   And then we sang Jesus Loves the Little Children and .Jesus Loves Me.  And then Adrian prayed for God to be near us as we mourned the loss of Royce.  And then people walked by us, giving us hugs and loving on us.  We could not believe the number of people who were there.  Guys and couples from Ron's work, my bosses from the real estate office where I had worked, some friends from the radiologists office where I had worked and people from our church. And our family: my mom and my two sisters.  Ron's parents  and his brother and sister.  After everyone left the church Ron and I stood by the casket and told our precious little boy good-bye.  Definitely one of the hardest things we have ever had to do.

Royce is buried in at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S Eastern Ave., Las Vegas, NV.  We know his little body was buried there and we do go there when we are in Las Vegas we know without a shadow of a doubt, that Royce is in heaven with all four of his grandparents and other loved ones.

 

And then we went back to the house where my step-dad had made finger foods for all of us.  And then the phone rang.  My mom answered and said it was the doctor from the NICU.  Immediately Ron & I froze and our thoughts jumped to what is wrong with Jamie.  We can't lose him after just losing Royce.  My anxiety must have been evident because immediately the doctor said everything was okay with Jamie.  In fact, they were going to move him back to Women's Hospital where he had been born.  They needed his spot in the NICU - great news for sure!!  The doctor told us to give them a couple of hours and then we could go to Women's Hospital to see Jamie but to call first to make sure he was all settled.  No problem I said with a smile.

We continued to visit with family and friends till about 4:00 when we called the hospital to make sure it was okay for us to come to the hospital.  And then crisis #2 hit.  Women's Hospital said Jamie was not there.  We then called the NICU - no Jamie was not there.  Where the heck was my baby????  I started crying and screaming.  What had they done with my baby?  No one seemed to know.  Ron took the phone from me and spoke with them at the NICU.  He then called Women's Hospital back and spoke to someone in the nursery.  Jamie was in the nursery - he was just not listed as a patient at the hospital.  The hospital had never had a male admitted to the hospital that was not a newborn and they didn't know how to do that.  After a lot of reassurance from the nurse and making sure Jamie was okay we made plans to go and see him that evening.  

Ron's family also went with us to the hospital to see Jamie - their first glimpse at our other precious baby boy. 

We are so thankful for our family and friends who were there for us 34 years ago and every day sense.  We have lost contact with most of the friends we had when we lived in Las Vegas and yet God has  blessed us with many friend since and through this day.  We were blessed and surprised to see Pastor Adrian & his wife, Nancy, in Beaverton, OR when Brandon had surgery when he was 13 years old.  It had been 15 years since we had seen them but that didn't  seem to matter - we visited and prayed together.  Shared about our families and enjoyed that unexpected treat of seeing them after so many years.  

Our family has faced many challenges and trials over the past 34 years but through it all the Lord has walked right beside us.  And for that we are thankful.  

Update on Jamie: he is 34 years old, lives with his sweet girlfriend, Suzanne and precious daughter Opal.  They reside in Washington State and we look forward to seeing them when we get back to that area.

Jamie, Suzanne & Opal, Summer of 2011

Thank you for reading along as I shared one of the hardest journeys we have ever been on.  Again, we give thanks to the Lord for his faithfulness, care and love along this journey we call life.

And the Bathroom is Finished!!!

Let me begin this post with an order:

IF ANYONE HEARS ME MENTION PAINTING ANYTHING IN THE MOTOR HOME - TELL ME NO!!!!

This is what it looked like before I started painting.  The wallpaper is an avocado green with white.  Took 3 coats of paint to cover the green so it would not show.  The cabinets were an off white and they took 2 coats of paint.

And this was just after I had been at it for about 45 minutes and I was asking myself "why did I want to paint the  bathroom?"  You may also be wondering why I didn't take the wooden cabinet down.  Because I couldn't ~ it had two screws inside and they came right out but that cabinet was stuck to the wall.  I have no idea what we did to get that cabinet to stay up there but it is there for good!  Also giving credit where due - my cousin Mike Stortroen and his girlfriend Betsy Cook are the ones who made that cabinet for me many years ago for Christmas.

And this is the finished bathroom.  I went with a blue to compliment the yellow.  What I originally thought was off white was really a lite yellow and the yellow of the cabinets is actually 3 shades of yellow above the light yellow on the color strip.  What do you think of my earring holder?  I took a piece of corkboard and put it in a 8x10 picture frame and then thought it would be nice to add some pictures of our kids and grandkids.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the project of painting the bathroom in our motor home.  I really like how it turned out but again

IF YOU HEAR ME MENTION PAINTING ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOTOR HOME TELL ME NO!!!!

Taking a Break

It is hot!!! here in D'Hanis and things are slow in the park so Jared (Ron's assistant and who is working Ron's regular schedule while Grandpa is off playing in Molalla, OR) and I decided to shampoo the carpet in the office.  It really needed it...after the 3" of rain we got on May 26th in less than an hour which leaked into the office through the window the carpet was looking pretty dingy.

So yesterday Jared left a little early and went to H.E.B. and rented a rug doctor shampooer.  This morning after the regular stuff was done: reading the water meters, compiling the rental pool book and checking work emails we got a moving.  First we moved everything off the floor and all the chairs into the membership office.  Then I vacuumed and vacuumed again.  And then we scurried around and picked up all the little rocks off the carpet that the vacuum would not pick up.

Then Jared started shampooing the carpet.  Took him about an hour and as he was pulling the shampooer out the back door he turned and laughed and said "we forgot to turn the lights out."  No problem, I walked around to the front of the office and opened the door between the lobby and the office, reached in and turned the lights out.  We had already put the radio and a sign that said we were shampooing the carpet and would be in the library, cruising the park or in the motor home.

Then Jared went to hang out in the library and I took advantage of the break from the office a.nd painted the first coat of the yellow paint on the cupboards in the bathroom.  Boy does it look bright!!  And it was very clear it will need a second coat :(  I will do that tonight after dinner.  Hopefully the brightness will tone down after it dries and I get the blue towels hung up in there.*

And then I had lunch - leftovers from my dinner last night with Mindi.  She made chicken spaghetti.  I had never had chicken spaghetti but boy was it delicious!!  I am definitely going to have to get the recipe as I know Ron would enjoy it as well.

After lunch I mozied over to the library to see how things were going there.  Watched a group play bridge for awhile - seemed like Greek to me :)  And then I delivered some of the mail packages that came - since the office is closed it is important to make sure people get their mail.  Plus it gets me outside and I really don't mind driving around the park with the golf cart :)

Jared and I then went back to the office to see how the carpet looked.  It looked pretty good but some spots were still noticeable so we decided to go over those spots again.  Took us another hour or so to get that done.  Then Jared drove around the park and then went back to the library for awhile. 

So I am hanging out in the motor home, have the radio handy and making use  of my time writing some blog posts.  Nothing exciting but at least I am writing :)

*Pictures will follow as soon as it is all done - hopefully by the end of the day on Saturday.