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12.17.2006

Down on the farm.....

We went down to "the farm" as Bobby has termed it today. It's funny I haven't quite found a name yet, I keep saying "our home" and "our other home", which seems to be more confusing. I will be happy when it is just "our home"!

This isn't the first time we have been down there since it was officially labeled ours but its the first day that really meant something. Bobby brought down the big John Deere and cut part of the grass. It's funny what you get use to, after living in the city with this little patch of grass in our back yard(less and a quarter acre) it takes alot longer when your looking at more acreage. They didn't even get a 3rd of it done but it still looks much better.

While they cut grass I cleaned the kitchen. The house has been empty for well over a year maybe two so everything is dusty and dirty. The kitchen cabinets though dirty look pretty new so I set out to clean them up real good. As I sit(sit? yes I'm lazy, I know) and clean the cabinets I can look out the doublehung windows and watch them as they cut the grass both of them smiling and having a good time and I realize how happy I am. I look around at this old country house with it's odd room arrangement and it's simple little shelf made out of 2 x 4's and I'm happy. In that moment I would have loved to called Mom to share this with her. I felt like a young married person who had just bought their first house and I wanted to call Mom and just tell her that we did good that this was perfect so she could be proud of her young daughter just out on her own. Of course that all sounds good even though I'm not young or just starting out on my own, we aren't looking at our whole life ahead of us, we are looking at middle age...lol but the sentiment is the same.

I remember when I was young and starting out buying my first house, I was happy to be on my own but I just wasn't happy. Stacy and I were married and we'd just bought our first house. Children dream of getting out on there own and I more than anyone wanted out, wanted to spread my wings and be gone but what did we do? We bought a house on the very same block I grew up on, this was not spreading my wings, heck I wasn't really leaving the roost I was just moving down the block! So many times I just wanted to move but Stacy wouldn't budge and I would get so frustrated. Later we divorced and of course I started all over. I guess I got to spread my wings then, I got to get out and be on my own and get away and but never quite felt at home. Even after I married Bobby who I love with all my heart, I moved into his house or rather the house that he bought for his first wife and he. It just never felt like it was mine, I didn't have a choice, there was no decision, no asking my opinion, just Bobby's house and still 6 yrs. later I catch myself calling it Bobby's house.
When I got my disability I made decisions on what we should do with the back payment, I wanted to pay off our bills, I wanted to buy some things for Bobby he'd never get for himself kind of like my way of paying him back for all these years he's taken care of me, and I wanted to hold tight onto part of it to find a house or some land just something I could say I owned, we owned... a conscience decision that I made to be sure we did not spend the money on anything other than a piece of property, some property. I looked so hard, I read through every advertisment, I scoured the internet, I looked at all the foreclosures and every weekend we went out looking more still.

Finally, in the last days of the buying season, we turned a corner after looking at some horrible foreclosed property and there was a for sale sign on the perfect property, our property. Granted from a outsider you might not see it as the perfect property but too us, this was it and of course we just knew we couldn't afford it but I called anyway and was so happy to hear it was in the right price range. The realtor had just left the property after putting the sign in the yard not 45 mins. before we got there. We looked at it the next day, we were the first ones to see the property but 2 other people came to look at it while we were still there, we told her we were ready to make an offer before we left that night and signed a bid contract the next day. The original asking price from the owners was $79,900 but when it foreclosed the bank set a price of $69,900. We bid a low price of $47,000 knowing they wouldn't accept it and they came back with a counter offer of $56,900, we then counter offered them $49,000. Finally they came back with an offer of $49,900 which we didn't hesitate to accept. To top it all off, the property appraised for $65k so we already hav $15k in equity!! I tell you all of that to tell you this, we didn't settle for just a piece of property, a piece of land, but we actually got all that we needed. We got a 30X40 pole barn that has been estimated to have cost around $30k, we got a small 3 bedroom house, an at least half acre or more pond plus in all there is 2.81 acres of land! I am so thankful, let me just say, Thank God, I mean, Thank God! I mean really, THANK GOD!! He blessed us so and we are not deserving but still He blessed us! In Louisville Metro, this would have cost a fortune!

So I am happy. I'll write more later.....g'nite!

12.13.2006

A bittersweet day.....

Yesterday was a bittersweet day for me. My sister called and said she has a growth on her kidney(the bitter part) and theres a possibility of cancer. I try to be positive, after all this woman has been through so much and she comes through even stronger. I can think of different things in her life that has started out bad and ended up not being as bad as things seemed. She is a strong person and I love her so much. I always think how much I want her to find someone to love her and to take care of her, how I don't want to see her alone. I caught myself saying this to my husband yesterday when I realize and say that she does have someone to take care of her and who loves her more than anyone else possibly could and that person is God.
No one could ask for a better knight in shining armor I mean there is no greater than He. Then I tell my husband this as well and he agrees. He doesn't share my faith as strongly as I do but he is learning and sometimes I forget that it takes my simple way of saying something good about God that witnesses to him.

I pray that my sister will be fine, I believe that God will heal her and take care of her and as for my part I will pray and I will be strong for her. I was reading a devotional today and it had this scripture in it.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God." (Phil. 4:6)

How many times throughout my life does this scripture present itself to me and I realize that hardship is there so that we will pray and through prayer we will draw closer to God. Please keep my sister in your prayers if you are reading this.

After I spoke with my sister I had to get ready to go to the closing on our second home and finally it has closed! Yay!!(the sweet part) I thought this would never get done but finally it is ours. I've thought of what I would do the next day after it closes for a month now. I thought I'd get up early and go clean the house all up and get it ready for our visits. Well, it didn't happen today, I woke up at 8 am but have been miserable all day. Jeff has a virus and I guess I have gotten it too because I am sick now, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, and other things. Of course this is of no surprise to me since I always catch everything, the wind blows past someone whose a mile up wind of me and by the time the breeze hits me I'm sick....hahaha Seriously though its because of my gout I get sick so easy. I am taking the Allupurinol for gout but for me it causes celulitus which I got this weekend doing our Christmas shopping...ugh....nasty looking stuff. On the good side though, Christmas shopping is almost done, just a few gift cards now and all we have to do is wrap or bag which is the lazy man's way of wrapping....my preferred method as well...hehe

12.01.2006

December Already........

It's hard to believe it is already December.... Almost one month since we found our "house" and we're still waiting. The waiting is the hard part, I thought we were going to close today but things didn't work out that way. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday and we'll finally have the keys. I don't think Bobby understands the importance of this property to me. He had his house 10 yrs. before I moved in and in my eyes it will always be his house but this new place will be ours...mine, something that was never shared with a previous wife, something we worked for together.

Yesterday it was 69 degrees and tonight it is in the 30' or 40's, I seen snowflakes for a minute or two. My tortoises seem to be trying to hibernate in some sense, neither wants to eat much, while Speedy not at all and Rosie just half what she normally does. Both seem to want to burrow down in the dirt. I can relate to this, I went to the store today and thought I'd just die cuz it was so cold, my bones don't do cold very well.

sigh..... my fingers hurt, the medicine is starting to help but my fingers still ache....I'm going to have those permanent typist hands you know where they are all bent, noticed my first spur or bump or deformity from my gout on my finger recently, I can't straighten that finger no more at all.... guess I'll go to bed.

11.22.2006

The cure?

Why is it sometimes "the cure" is worse than the actual problem? I'm frustrated today or actually tonight now. "The cure" I am talking about is Lasix and Allupurinol. The doctor gave me Lasix about a year or two ago to help bring my blood pressure down which it does a real good job at but I have Gout. Lasix can lead to Gout which is a Rhuematic Arthuritis that affects the joints, a long time ago I took Lasix and another doctor took me off of it because of the increased uric acid in my system. That doctor put me on Allupurinol which is to keep uric acid from forming in your body. The allupurinol was like a Godsend, it took my pain away and gave me my life back. Then I went back on the Lasix and everything has seemed to change. Now I can't take the Allupurinol because it causes severe Cellulitis which is an infection of the skin. So I stopped taking it.

Now I'm suffering so bad I don't even want anyone to touch me. Of course if that isn't enough the lack of Allupurinol in my system has caused me kidney stones from the uric acid that is now in my kidneys, it seems like it's a never ending battle. I didn't want to get out of bed today but staying in bed only hurts me because it hurts when the bed touches my body. I feel like my kidney is going to explode on top of that. Yet, I'm sitting here typing on the computer and complaining....LOL I'm a mess. Ya know, I know I can do this though because nobody ever reads my blog.....hehe I could say terrible, horrible things about anybody and they'd never know because only I read it.

Oh back about "the cure", I finally broke down and took my allupurinol tonight because I'd rather suffer with cellulitis then to hurt the way I do right now. It worries me this pain, my kidney has actually drawn my attention away from my aching body now and I just want it to go away.....this can lead to kidney failure I'm told and I worry. I don't voice my opinion because everyone would just call me a hypochondriac or get aggravated because I am complaining. Oh please God, take this pain from me, even just the kidney pain because the fear of kidney failure scares me so much. God is so very good, He is a rescuer in my time of trouble, He gives me peace.......If someone does read this know that no matter how bad it is God can help you through....He's been there with me through so much and I've survived. Well, writing about my pain doesn't take it away so I guess I should find something else to do to make me forget.
Happy thanksgiving!

11.20.2006

Remembering how lucky we are........

Sometimes I forget how lucky we are but then something reminds me and I know how blessed we are. It's been 2 yrs. since Sierra had open heart surgery and she is doing great! Her recent visit to her cardiologist showed she is doing very well and there has been no change thank God!

I am blessed to have wonderful, talented children.....While Sierra is just starting out to be an artist, her brother John Daniel is so talented! Here's one of his drawings:
He's gotten even better since I scanned this picture and I know he will continue to get better and better. I look forward to the day when I see his work published in books or used in tv. Jeffrey and Todd while not my own are such good boys! Jeff is always eager to help out his dad and will always do anything for me without the slightest complaints and he's good with his hands too.

I am also blessed because Mary is doing well after having the aneuriusm removed not but a couple months before Sierra's surgery... and she still has not picked smoking back up!

Of course I am always blessed with the wonderful family I have been blessed with those related and those extended!

11.14.2006

There's a reason they call them "ex's"

I was cursed to see my ex today and this time I had my daughter with me. It's amazing how things work out but first alittle background info.

I have a tendency to want to know what area of town he lives in so that I make sure we steer way clear of him....Well, understandably this doesn't sit well with Bobby because he'd rather I not even have that much of a connection with him. So I have not "looked" for him so to speak to see what area he is in.
Well by chance a couple weeks ago we bought something from a fellow cheapcycler and as it turned out it was also a mutual aquaintance of ours and his. Well they told me what area of town that he was living in and of course it happens to be the same area I live in so I was truly upset by this. My first thought was for the safety of my daughter and how I really needed to know where he lived at now but then it occured to me that through no involvement of my own GOD used someone to tell me that I need to be on my guard.

God truly does watch out for us....... So anyway back to how amazing things turn out..... I went to pick up my daughter from her grandma's today and then went to stop by the store. Well, I had some mail I needed to get filled out before I went in so I could put it in the box so I sat there and filled it out. When I got done I opened my door to get out when I noticed Sierra was still seatbelted and playing her game so I turned to look at her and tell her to come on. Well right out of the corner of my eye I noticed this couple walking towards the store and it turned out to be my ex. I told Sierra nevermind and I got back in the car and we drove away and the whole way I was thanking God for warning me.
Had I not stopped to fill out my envelope we would have been in the store and probably would have come face to face with him, this terrible guy who abused my daughter. She has not seen him in 8 yrs. and though she has become well adjusted she still has nightmares about him and one day when she gets old enough she plans to have him prosecuted. So here was another event where we were supernaturally warned and protected by God. I am so thankful! As I said it just goes to show that God will take care of us if we allow him (even if we don't really) with no involvement from us whatsoever.

I so look forward to when we move down to our property we are buying so that I don't even have to worry about being in the same town as him! It's not that I am frightened by him or worry that he will hurt us, truthfully a man such as him well, he really isn't a man to be honest but a person such as him once he has left his mark on your life what you want is to totally be free from any contact even if it's just seeing his face in passing. I would honestly like to erase him from my memory and my life but you know Sierra tells me that even though it was a bad time for her, us that she wouldn't change anything because had we not been at that place in that time, we may not have met Bobby in the place and time we did and we would not be so blessed to have him, Jeff, and Todd in our lives. She is such a unique and understanding person, she has such a way about her. She finds the good in everything! Thank God!

As far as my ex, they say time heals all wounds....I remember when I seen him a year or so after we split up and I thought to myself, "gee, he isn't as good looking as I thought he was", well this time when I seen him I just looked at him and thought how small he looked as if he had shrunk in my mind. I remember when we first split up before I knew what he did to my daughter that I thought I just couldn't live a day without him. And even years later, I still felt saddened by this terrible thing that happened in our lives when I thought it was going to be all perfect. The truth is, you really do heal, granted it takes some time and honestly we have to learn to let go of that hurt, let go of what might have been and see what is the truth even though we may not want to see it.... We have to learn to change our perspective because it is all within us to do so and if we would learn that we cannot change or heal anyone and see a person for what they are we would all end up in a lot less of a mess then we find ourselves in. The only person you can change is yourself and the only way of changing others is through first pray and second by example. When we become good examples others genuinely want to change to be like us.

What a challenge but please make your example Christlike because if you model yourself after anyone else you set yourself up for failure.

Peace out!

11.12.2006

Blessings and hardships

I finally threw away the roses my hubby got me last week. About once every 2 or 3 months he brings me roses, I don't know why....I don't do anything special to deserve roses but still the same he brings them to me. He is a sweet man, much more of a man than I deserve at some times but always good to me. God knew what I needed, He seen the pain and suffering I had gone through previously and He blessed me with Bobby.

Whether we choose to allow Him, God knows what we need in our lives, the hard thing is allowing Him to do His will in our lives instead of us doing our will. I did my will before I met Bobby and it cost me so dearly, sometimes you can start down a road you never intended to be on but then you get lost and you can't seem to find your way back. Have you ever just wished you could stop the world sometimes and get off, just take a break? Just for a minute? I've been there, it was right before I gave up my desire to have my own will for my life and let God take control. If you find yourself at the end of your rope or you wonder how your life got to be so bad then stop and look up because God is waiting to show you a better life.

Dear Diary.................



Wow, it's almost been a month since I wrote here. I had a dream the other night but gosh I can't remember it. I know it was about Sierra my daughter and I remember thinking later that it was a dream about her growing up and my inability to control that. I think it's really important to pay attention to your dreams, your dreams are the way you deal with things, things that you are not ready to accept. It's our subconcious trying to prepare our conciousness of change.

Speaking of change boy has it been busy the last few weeks....Sierra had been having more seizures so I took her to her seizure doctor who said it was because she was changing....my child is becoming a teen. We also had dental appointments and eye appointments to go to also. Jeff had a dental appointment and we are hoping this will be his last visit adjusting his braces, the dentist said he may get his braces off in 3 wks....Yippee.

More changes to come..... We found another house we want to buy and we bid on it and got it so now we are waiting to close, we should close on it within the next 10 days....Yippee again! We are so excited about this property it's just under 3 acres, still not the size we desire but this will be a nice getaway home until we decide if this is the one we want to move to. It has so much potential and we fall in love with it each time we drive down there but then we drive back and we realize how far away we are from Louisville. Now don't get me wrong we want out of Louisville but we are not sure if we want this far out.....we are considering making this a rental property, there are 3 other properties in the area I would love to buy for rental properties but it's a big undertaking. It's such a good time to invest in property though and then you have an income stream and that changes your whole perspective of where you can live... and whether you work a job aside from your rental business.

So much to learn.....so much to do!!! Sigh....such is life but I am thankful to God for allowing us this opportunity.

More later!

10.13.2006

Dear Diary.................

Dear Diary.................

Well as usual I don't have alot to tell dreamwise so I have decided that this is just going to be my whatever blog and if someone reads it then, "hey". I guess you can spend all your life dreaming if you want but its what goes on when we are awake that counts, the people around us, the places we've been, what we are about, and who we are...etc... I'm a sleeper, wish I wasn't but I am....I think I could sleep all day well not exactly not if you count the millions of time I get up just to go pee or because the bed isn't comfy enough. Not that I sleep all day or I am lazy, well of course I'm lazy but its the drugs....haha no not the street kind but the I'm a 42 year woman living in a 90 year old body that needs medication to keep me going...pass the geritol.

Even when I'm awake it seems like I'm in a dream where time has just flew passed me. Yesterday I was 17 and getting married, yesterday I was 21 and had my firstborn a boy now the same age I was when I had him, yesterday I was 31 as I held my tiny 9 month old baby girl who was so little at that age she looked like a doll, I held her and cried because in a few moments I would watch the doctors stroll her down the hallway for her first of 3 open heart surgeries... Yesterday I was. Where does the time go I ask myself? Last night I fell asleep with various pictures running through my mind of my children when they were babies so sweet, so young and gosh I barely remember things but I see those sweet faces and I remember that yesterday God chose me to raise them, though I was and still am not worthy and every day I fail but every day after that I get up and start all over again. Thank You God for intrusting me with such precious souls!

I'm not my mom I tell my now 12 year old daughter as we sit at the breakfast table this morning. No, I'm not her but who she is, is still a mystery to me, I know that she gave birth to me and life was full of "I love you's" and ice cream and when I grew up I had a relationship with her, she's my mom but sometimes I don't know that I really knew her. Maybe its because she died so suddenly almost 10 yrs. ago, maybe its that when someone dies you often realize how little we know about someone, even as close as a mother. My mom was a widow with 4 kids to raise working a factory job to make ends meet, I always called her my "weekend mom" because its the only time I saw her because she worked 2nd shift. When I got up to go to school mom was asleep, when I got home she was gone to work, when I was asleep she came home. I'm not her but she still taught me alot, she helped to shape the person I would be. I had a list of things I would not be to my children when I grew up not because she was a bad mom but just because I didn't want to do things the way she did. This is why I sit at the breakfast table with my daughter. I'm not a "weekend mom".

"I love you's" and ice cream..... These were the most important things growing up, we were poor but we had love in our family and every Friday when mom got paid she'd bring us ice cream home as a treat. As you can imagine and you already know if you know me, I'm fat now.... Thanks mom, I love you too.... hahaha no, no just joking well not really I am fat and I do love my mom but I don't mean that sarcastically, it's just funny I guess. Mom always had a problem with my volupuous body, she always "cautioned" me that I would be so pretty if I'd just loose weight of course I never listened because my ears were frozen from eating all that ice cream but hey we had love.....sigh.... now understand I am not being sarcastic again just being my silly self. I love my mother dearly and I miss her with every inch of my heart and everyday I think of her and have my little "what would mom do" moments but mom is not me and I think she must have had such a hard life, I think my grandmother must have been an unloving mother and from what I know of my mom's life growing up life must have been hard. My mom was not her mother either she made sure we all had love. I guess grandmother didn't have ice cream.

My daughter and I are very close, we have a good relationship.....we know who each other is. We've been through hell together her and I. She with her heart surgeries and school struggles, me with my relationship problems and sicknesses, we don't hide things from each other. There have been times when I held her and she cried through her pain and there have been times when she held me and I cried through my pain.....everyday is full of "I love you's" with ice cream optional but seldom. Ice cream melts but hugs seem to last forever....my mom was a hugger, I am too, my daughter shares this trait with both of us.

To be continued......

5.11.2006

Weird dreams and being forgetful!

As usual I don't seem to keep up with this thing. We have been so busy lately or at least my hubby is the busy one, I just watch or follow along...hehe We are forever remodeling the house, I swear I don't know if we will ever get it done but it is getting there. We recently had a bad roof leak so we had to have a new roof put on so hubby, God Bless his carpenter's soul, decided he would put a nice roof over our porch....it looks great and I can sit outside now and watch the rain and not get wet! It's great to have a handyman around the house!!

I'm so excited it's flea market season.....Yay!! We made our first rounds of the bigger flea markets, every year we get out of town because of Derby and go up to Ohio. If you are a flea market fanatic you need to go to Ohio! They have some awesome flea markets up there, Traders World, Turtle Creek, and Caesars Creek just to name a few. These are up between Cinci and Dayton and they are huge! While we were up there we went by the Solid Rock Church and I got out and took pics of their 61 ft. statue of Jesus, it is awesome. Here's a pic of it:
It's not the best pic, you can actually see better ones at the church website.

Well I guess I have blabbed enough about other stuff. Nothing exciting to tell about in dreams though.....I seem to go through stages where I dream or I don't dream. Lately I have been having dreams that for the most part I forget. This last dream I had it seems that there was this faraway island in the middle of water and someone though I cannot remember who, I think maybe my ex was exiled to. It seems that the person was exiled with nothing, not even their clothes and they were exiled to this little tiny house that they didn't fit in and they were all scrunched up inside. The person was hiding from the little people of the house and for some reason I came along and was trying to help them escape.

I want to try to remember to write things down so I will know what things mean to me in my dreams. Water seems to always be apart of my dreams. I often have dreams about the same thing, though right now I cannot think of any.

Anyway, that's it for now, I'm off to bed! Nite!

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