Auction

Today I went to an auction with my dear friend Kelley.  It is her birthday today and to celebrate we went out to breakfast and spent the rest of the day at this auction.  We got some neat things.  Both of us purchased quilts that had interesting patterns and were handmade.  Kelley bought a great display case to place the pottery she and her husband make in their basement shop.  They make gorgeous stuff too.  I bought about 300 mason canning jars.  My kids say I am a hoarder and I think they may be right!!  I bought these jars because one day Megan will get married and she wants a very rustic wedding.  One of the themes we want to use is canning jars.  She wants to use them as drinking glasses and in the decorations.  I have seen so many things on pinterest using them that I can't wait to get started on stuff!  While at the auction I got to thinking about all the stuff we gather in a lifetime.  My house is full of stuff.  There are many things that I treasure and love.  Nothing of any real monetary value but deep sentimental value.  But...one day I will no longer be here.....and what will happen to my stuff???  Will anyone else want it?  Treasure it like I do???  Or will it find its way in a box that someone will bid $5 for?  Will strangers run their fingers through it and pick it up, turn it over, fling it down?  Only to rifle through something else.  In some of the boxes of jars today I found a whole box of family photos.  Discarded.  So sad to me.  I found a term paper that the daughter had written 30 years ago in the 5th grade on the state of Idaho.  Why save it for 30 years only to throw it away in a box of trash that nobody wants.  This whole idea of "stuff" made me really think as I was unpacking my car.  What do I really treasure while I am here on this earth?  My children.  My grandchildren.  My family.  My friends.  I treasure my memories of when my babies were small.  I am learning to treasure each day with Piper.  She is growing so fast.  I am learning to treasure my friends more and more.  They are so valuable to me.  Stuff??  It is replaceable.  And in the long haul, who cares?  It is just stuff.  I realize that many people place great value on buying, buying and buying more stuff.  Cars, boats, houses, motorhomes, vacation homes, bigger homes.....more,more,more.  But the real question is why.  What hole are they trying to fill.  When we obtain new things in just a few months they are old things.  So we run out and get another new thing.  Then another.  It is life in the hamster wheel.  I think that after mulling this over today I will pay closer attention to my real earthly treasures.  The only ones that I may have in heaven.  My family and my friends.  Nothing there is ever auctioned to the highest bidder.  The price was already paid.

Land Of The Living....

I am so, so glad to be back in the land of the living!!!  I have been sick for about 5 days with the "Noro-Virus" or as it is known "The Cruise-Ship Virus".  Only I have never been on a cruise.  But I felt like I had been drug around by a big ole boat.  To say that you would have to be dead to feel better is a huge understatement.  Thank the Lord my daughter's boyfriends' Mom is a nurse in a local family practitioners office and she does awesome housecalls.  It pays sometimes to have any kind of connection.  She gave me some medicine called "zorflan" (?).  When I called into work the second day I told my boss that I was taking norplant.  I later found out that is a kind of birth control.  That is a medicine that I do not need since I am unmarried and OLD!!  Anyway, the medicine did help the nausea but the virus had to run its course.  It was highly contagious and I was advised not to prep any food for at least 5 days.  My sweet girl, Megan, is to put it lightly a complete germ freak.  this is odd considering she lives like a pig but she says those are her germs and she likes them spread out.  She cloroxed my house twice a day all over.  I was so impressed the last day I was home that I took her picture.  I don't get the chance to see her clean so well often so I wanted some proof that she could!!!

Here she is cleaning the door from the garage.  Just in case I touched the top of the door!

She even cleaned the outside of the garbage can!  I was really proud of her though.  She really doesn't like to be around sickness at all and she was a real help to me and a real trooper too!!

I finally got to see this bright spot after 5 days of not!!  She is just the ray of sunshine I needed to make me feel so good!  Nothing hits the spot like an ice cream sandwich!!

M&M'S & Learning To Wink

Here is a short video of my sweet little Piper.  Please ignore my hicky voice.  I sound so dorky.  But who likes the sound of their own voice anyhow??  I gave Piper her first taste of M&M'S...she is hooked.  I am also teaching her to color and her colors.  We have been practicing winking.  She is only 18 months old but she is really so smart!!  She is growing so fast.  I can't wait to meet her little sister coming soon but that means she will be getting closer to 2 years old!!  I can't stand it!  They really do not stay babies long enough.  Piper is so independent and a real "do it myself" kind of little girl.  She just tickles me to death!

"D" is not for me!

Hoooey!  Am I super glad it is Friday.  This has been one of the longest weeks of my entire life.  I am not kidding either.  To top it off I have a terrible cold.  I get a cold about once every 3 or 4 years so I feel bad complaining about it...but I am really feeling yucky.  I felt so bad last night that I took a Mucinex D.  I really don't ever take any medicine and I don't think I have ever taken anything with a "D" in it but I found these in the medicine chest and thought, "What the heck!"  I popped one in my mouth laid on the couch to watch "Chopped" (my new tv obsession) at 6:00 p.m.  I watched 2 episodes and then I fell asleep.  Megan woke me up and I went to bed.  I woke up at what I thought was a few minutes before my clock was to go off because I was about to die to go to the bathroom.  I got up, looked at the clock and thought, "What in the world???"  It was 11:23...at night.  Then I proceeded to have the longest night of the longest week of my entire life.  I woke up every hour.  My skin felt like it was crawling all over me.  My head felt so weird and well, just weird!  When I talked (yes, I talk to myself...don't you?)  I could hear my voice in my head.  Does that sentence even make any sense.  All day today I just felt so strange.  I still kinda do.  I will never take anything with "D" in it again.  I mean it.  Even one of my teacher friends said, "You don't feel good do you?  You're never sick but you look like you just feel awful."  I agreed with her and wished I had stayed home today.  I will not take anything but plain old advil or tylenol from now on.  I have a busy weekend ahead of me.  So I have to get better.  We are having the missions conference at church and I plan on being there each night next week.  It is so fun and I learn so much about what God is doing all over the world.  Tomorrow I am getting a massage and I cannot wait.  I got this as a gift from my sweet niece for helping with her wedding back in September and I am now just using it.  Hopefully I will fall asleep.  I hope I just don't snore or have my nose run all over the massage table.  I will just put kleenex under my nose to fix that!  I think I will take a bath and go to bed.  Unmedicated..... Hopefully I will get some sleep and feel tons better tomorrow.

Ouch! That Hurts!!

I have been in a new Bible study for 3 weeks now.  It is the new Beth Moore study:  James;  Mercy Triumphs.  It has completely stomped my toes...off.  But, I have learned so much in just these few short weeks.  Historically about James and the Jewish faith.  But more importantly the words and the ways of Christ.  What He desires for me to learn and live and to become.  Like Him.  Am I quick to listen???  Uh, no.  Am I slow to speak?  Uh, errr, no.  Am I slow to anger???  Uh, well, sorta, kinda...NO!  I have truly tried to apply this principal this week.  Some success and some failure.  It makes me really call upon the Holy Spirit in my life to clip my tongue and push down my temper and perk up my ears.  Not just the ears on my head either.  My heart ears.  What are people really saying.  I am learning to "listen" between the lines.  I consider myself observant and aware so this is just a new skill to add to that part of my life.  This week we wrote about and learned about favoritism.  I never really considered myself one who shows that but once again.   Wrong!!  To just be cordial to people without actually investing is well, just plain ole snobbery.  I can be so polite but do I go the extra mile?  Sometimes, but not often enough.  To say that I am work in progress is right on target.  I just didn't  realize how much and how hard this work was going to be!!  Lord, have mercy on this soul!!  Triumphantly!!