He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger.... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts. ~William Shakespeare, Henry V

Friday, June 30, 2006

Jessie's tooth finally came in the day before yesterday. She still chews like crazy on her fingers and will let out a little wimper every now and then when she bites down on her finger with the tooth. She has also semi-found her thumb. It's really cute to watch her lick and rub her nose all over the palm of her hand trying to figure out how to get the thumb in her mouth. I am going to try and take picutures of it next time it happends.

When I was in Wal-Mart the other day I saw these really cute curtain rods that I think would be adorable in the girls bedroom. They were white rods with big pink balls on the end and at the base of the rod where it connects to the ball there were white feathers going all the way around. Super cute but they are nine bucks a rod and I really haven't decided what I am going to do for curtains. Maybe Brandi will have some ideas

I also found some shear curtains that I would like to hang in the living room that are really cheap but I am not sure how I am going to hang them. I am really quite challanged when it comes to home interior so I am going to need some help.

My mom and aunt are moving my grandma to a basic care appartment today. My grandma will stay at the same manor but just a different room. It's a single room apartment where the kitchen, TV, and bed are all in the same room but the bathroom is pretty decent. When you move into basic care all your needs are taken care of. They wash your clothes, they setup your meds, help you with baths, and grandma's insurance will even pay the monthly cost of living there since grandma has less than $3000. This will relieve a great stress on my mother which will be nice. Now she won't have to worry about dealing with medicine, picking up grandma's clothes once a week, and doing all that great stuff. Grandma's dementia is getting pretty bad and doesn't understand why she has to move into an apartment like that so I am hoping that they aren't having to much of a tough time with her.

My brother got an offer from his boss to be the editor of the Park River news paper. If Mike decides to take the job he would be moving there in July sometime. He hasn't decided if he's actually going to take the job or not because he may lose his benifits but he and his boss are trying to work that out right now. He would like to do it because to have on your resume that you went from reporter to editor in a year at a job will be impressive.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

PEGGY CHRISTANSON 1955-2006

My deepest condolences go out to Jason Christanson and Rainy Pierce at the passing of Jason's mother, Peggy, on Monday at the Devils Lake hospital.

Peggy was taken by ambulance on Monday to Devils Lake from Leeds. She had a perforation in her intestines. They were going to air-lift Peggy to another hospital after they got her to Devils Lake but by then her body started shutting down. Peggy passed away around 3:00 pm.

I am sure that this it a terrible time for them right now since her passing was very unexpected. I am wishing all of God's grace be with them as they endure the many hard painful steps ahead.

I called Rainy today right after I found out the bad news. She thanked me for calling and said that Peggy's husband, Jason, and Carol (Rainy's mother) were at the funeral home today making arrangements and would let me know when the date and time are set.

YOU ALWAYS THINK THAT IT CAN'T HAPPEN TO YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW

I met Tara in grade school. She was a very lively curly blonde headed rambunctious girl who had the same love for horses that I did. She was always nice to everyone and she had a lot of friends. It was her personality and our enthusiasm for horses how we came to be best friends.

We would always sit next to each other, play games together during recess, and on the weekends she would come with us up to our lake cabin where we would spend our time having fun boating, swimming, and riding the neighbors welsh ponies.

When we got into middle school I only had one class with her so we didn't see each other much; but I always looked forward to science class because I knew I would see her and we would talk about our day and what was going on and even sometimes make plans to visit each other over the weekend.

After one year at middle school our family moved to Churchs Ferry and I attended Leeds Public School. Tara was still back at the middle school in Devils Lake so we would call each other now and then or write letters. After a while there wasn't so many phone calls and the letters stopped.

I ran into Tara's mother today at the Wal-Mart and I was shocked at what she had to tell me.

Tara is now living in Woodbury, MN not far from St. Paul and it working for Target Corporation doing horticulture work. Tara found a condo that she liked and moved into it on Fathers Day of 2004. That day she called home to wish her father a happy fathers day. Her father wasn't in when she called so she told her mother that she was going to go out for a jog and call back later.

Tara went jogging on a path right across from her condo that went through a nice park. There were tons of people out enjoying the day. She passed by a gentle man playing catch with a football and gave him a quick smile and kept going. Not too much longer down the trail the gentleman with the football passed her.

When she got farther down the trail, the trail left the open area of all the park and went into a wooded area. Tara was going to go jogging through it but a sixth sense kicked in and told her not to go through it so she turned around to jog back to her apartment.

Right after she turned around someone grabbed her shoulders from behind and pulled her down into a ditch. The man that grabbed her started punching her in the face and was shouting at her, "shut the fuck up you stupid bitch" as Tara kicked and screamed with all her might to get away from the guy. As she was fighting she realized that it was the gentleman with the football that she had passed earlier.

Tara finally started screaming loud enough that people started running to help her and the guy took off running. No body from the park was able to catch him.

She was taken to the hospital and the guy had broken Tara's nose, dislocated her jaw, and both her eyes were black and swollen. Since she got a good look at the guy earlier before he attacked her she was able to give the cops a good description of him.

The cops found the man the next day and had even found a pair of his shorts in the bushes that he planned on changing into after his intended rape.

Tara wrote a letter to the judge and even went to court for his trial. The guy only served 18 months in jail opposed to a full 7 years which is the maximum sentence. He had also committed another rape earlier but no one could positively identify the man so he never served time for that.

Poor Tara is still afraid of men except for family and her close friends. She can't go anywhere without someone being with her and she never puts herself in a situation where she can not see anyone coming up behind her. This attack totally changed Tara's personality and who she was. She was also afraid that since he was out of jail so soon that he would come back for her.

Tara has since moved and is doing better but still is causious around men. The guy that attacked her is back in jail serving his full 7 year sentence because he broke probation.

I feel just terrible for her. She was the sweetest, kindest person that I knew and I just can't believe that something like that happened to her.

She is going to be home in July for a friends wedding so I hope to see her then. Her mother also gave me her email address so I am going to write to her and hopefully we can start up our old strong friendship again.

STILL FIGHTING THE EAR

Last night was another rough night with Jessie. The poor girl was fussy again and she has been crying a lot. I am taking her in to see HER doctor today; I am pretty sure that the ear infection has not gone away. From 11 o'clock pm to 3:30 am all she did was cry. She was starting to get hoarse and raspy from all the crying.

I had some homework to get done and a test I needed to take today at 6 pm. I don't know if I am going to get them finished on time so I wrote an email to my instructor to see if it's alright if I had them in a little late.

I broke down around 3:00 and started crying myself. About 3:20 I called my mom while I was bawling. I had been giving Jessie ear drops every hour and tylenol about every 3 to 4 hours. Nothing was working. My mom could not really do much since she was getting ready to go to work but Jessie did fall asleep while I was on the phone. She stayed sleeping until about 5 when she woke up to nurse and then went back to bed again until around 8.

My mom is going to meet me at my grandma's so that I do not have to take Cassie with to the clinic. On the way in to town I will have to stop some where and get Cassie lunch. I also need to run to Wal-Mart if my mother doesn't mind and I was also thinking of calling my Creative Memories Scrapbooking representative to see if she could meet me some where so I can buy stickers for Jessie's scrapbook pages.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

STUFF GOING ON

Jessie is all finished with her medicine and I am hoping that the ear infection doesn't come back. I can handle one every now and then but I don't think I am ready for what Cassie had for ear infections. Jessie is again all smiles, giggles, grins, and laughs. Her tooth hasn't come in yet.....gggrrrr....she has had a white tooth blister on her gum forever and so we are still waiting for that. Jessie started rice cereal a week ago today. She swallows it and seems to like it. After another week or so we can start on veggies.

Cassie has started to help me a lot around the house. He likes to cook with me when she can pour stuff into a bowl and stir. She likes to help me cut stuff up too. Yesterday evening she helped me cut and cube a butternut squash for a casserole that was really yummy. I think her favorite part was removing the seedy part of the squash. I found a spaghetti squash at the store too and was tempted to buy it but didn't. My sister buys them all the time because the inside of the squash is just like spaghetti so instead of cooking spaghetti noodles my sister just uses the squash and there isn't much difference. I may try that next time I go to the store.

I am amazed with myself. I have been able to keep my house pretty clean, take care of the kids, and still maintain my B average in both my classes. I can't take all the credit because my mom helps me out A LOT with the girls.

I spoke to a lady in York to see if she can mow our grass on Thursdays or Fridays that way the grass doesn't get a way on us and that is something that Darren doesn't have to worry about. She is going to come over and mow it today just to see how long it takes to mow then she will let me know how much it will cost and if she is going to have time to do it because she mows a couple other lawns here in town as well as the church yard, park, legion, and the post office. She used to mow the cemetery too but doesn't do that anymore. I am hoping she has time because then Darren isn't spending a full day doing that and we can do something as a family on the weekends.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS TRIP PICS

Holy shit! My sister actually got the pics of our trip in May sent to me this year!!! So for all of you that have been waiting....here they are.

Jessie smiling being her cute little self before we start the day. Posted by Picasa

Cassie waving from one of the horses on the carousel. Posted by Picasa

Cassie waving from her pretty pony. Posted by Picasa

I like this pic because of all the lights. Posted by Picasa

This is the kids rollercoaster. Does the same thing a big rollercoaster does but it travels on an oval track and there are no loops. Posted by Picasa

I had to post this pic because I think it's so funny that you only see Cassie's head. Posted by Picasa

This is the infamous Camp Bus ride that Cassie insisted on riding over, and over, and over again. The bus moved up and down in a circle and then it would stop in mid-air and then go around in the circle backwards. My sister could count 15 times that Cassie rode the bus for sure but we know it was more than that, we just stopped counting after 15. Posted by Picasa

Auntie Lynnette and Cassie on bus ride number 1563. Posted by Picasa

Here is the baloon ride. I liked it because you got really warm with all the humidity, people, and sun light coming in to the park during the day so the breeze as you spun around in this big circle felt really good. Posted by Picasa

Now by the looks of it, you would think that this Race Car Ride is a nice innocent little ride....wrong. The corners were extremely viscious and would literally fling you to the oposite side of the car. Mom and I laughed as we would watch Auntie and Cassie fly to the right side of the car at the corners. Posted by Picasa

The Red Baron Plane Ride!!! Posted by Picasa

The children can actually control their plane and make them fly up and down by using a stick that comes up from the floor. The boy in the back flew the plane and Cassie just went along for the ride. Again, you can just barely see Cassie's head. Posted by Picasa

This is a really good pic that wasn't posed for. Lynnette just happend to snap a shot while Cassie was climbing out of the Trucker Ride. Auntie Lynnette likes this picture because it remindes her of our dad and when he used to truck. Posted by Picasa

I like to call this picture "Whistler's Mother: Millenium". My mom was so tired from the drive down the night before that she would literally fall asleep while Michael was doing her hair. She tired to tell all of us that she was just resting her eyes but tow minutes after she would say that she would do this jello neck headbob thing. We just HAD to take a pic to prove that she was sleeping. Posted by Picasa

Jessie waiting happily while everyone is having their hair done. Posted by Picasa

Cassie checking out mommy before she gets her hair cut. she just wants to make sure that this is something that she is going to like. Posted by Picasa

When Michael was ready to cut Cassie's hair, he just had Cassie get up on my lap. I was very proud of Cassie because you could tell she was scared, she sat hunched over and she would grab my legs tightly, but she did not cry at all about it. She was very quiet and did everything that Michael asked her to do. Posted by Picasa

More cutting. Posted by Picasa

Look at that really short hair!! Posted by Picasa

Now Michael is "styling" Cassie's hair so she will look beautiful. Posted by Picasa

A very gorgeous girl with her hair all curled. I just can't get over how much she looks like her Aunt Missy in this picture. Posted by Picasa

Cassie was very fond of this one styling chair in the corner that nobody was using when we were there. I think she liked it because she could be by herself and not bothered. Posted by Picasa

After her morning bath before we went out shopping, Cassie decided to go through Auntie Lynnette's closet to find a pair of shoes to wear. Posted by Picasa

Auntie Lynnette took Cassie to Claires in the mall to buy Cassie a purse and some lipstick (don't worry, that's what she calls lipgloss). There were so many purses to choose from I think it took them 15 minutes to find the perfect one. Cassie went with a small white one with purple and pink pok-a-dots with a pink strap. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

SWIMMING

Today I took Cassie and Jessie up to the Leeds Public Swimming pool. Cassie's Early Head Start instructor was treating all the kids to an afternoon of swimming, snacks, and book reading. I must admit that it was a lot of fun.

We went to the pool at 4 o'clock and swam for an hour. Cassie totally LOVED it!! There were other families there from the area that were also in the Early Head Start program that we were able to meet and Cassie had a ball playing with all the other children and jumping in and out of the water. I even got to swim a little bit with Cassie too!

Afterwards we sat under some shady trees in front of the pool building and had gogurts and apple juice. For any of you out there that have had the gogurts yet, the berry burst ones are really yummy. Then after our snack the Early Head Start instructor read a book to the children and then the kids got to read books after she was done.

I was really impressed. I went there expecting it to be really lame and the only fun part would be swimming but I really enjoyed the whole thing and Cassie and I had fun together and we were even able to have little Jessie with us. In fact, we had so much fun up there I just may have to take Cassie up to the public swimming pool more often since admission into the kiddy pool is only $1.

A close up of an excited Cassie ready to go swimming. Posted by Picasa
 


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