Birthday-Again

Another birthday come and gone again. They're not quite as fun as when I celebrated my 6th birthday. This, however, is the first time I had my grandson shout "happy birthday, nanna" and drag me excitedly into the house to see the birthday cake he helped make for me. He was definitely more excited than I! It might be because he normally doesn't get cake that created such excitement in him! Anyway, birthdays are good milestones for me to check: where have i been this year, spiritually. Where am I headed? Can I make some changes and what do i need to do to stretch and grow some more. The next birthday to enjoy will be Isaiah's! He'll be the big 3!

Best things

I know the picture doesn't seem to fit but this was part of our meandering drive to the twin cities this weekend. This was so much fun. After all, what positive things can be said about having to sit in a doctor's office for a whole morning? Hungry to boot. It took us 8 months to get in to see a neurologist and we probably won't be going back. (cheer!) It seems with nueropathy it is difficult to figure out what causes it let alone how to fix it. At least we can say that neither one of us are diabetic. The nuerologist ordered a few more blood tests (3 for Ron 2 for me) and told us we'd hear back in 4 to 6 weeks but not to expect much. Ron will have to learn to live with the nueropathy he's experiencing, apparently so will I. But we did have a nice, uneventful trip to the cities. Went to the Mall of America, a wild bird store and at least 3 different apple orchards on the way up to Minneapolis. Ate at Applebees. Watched the rain from our hotel room and watched the Packers get beat by the Bears. It was a good time together. Will let you know if we hear anything interesting back from our blood donation!

Yup! That's orange!

We (well, ok. Ron) painted the ceiling in the basement washroom on Saturday. As you can see by the pictures it is really orange! Even Ron got into the spirit of the thing. He's orange too. And it smells like paint and we're no where near being done with this thing. I sure hope it turns out better than what we have right now. Yikes! It scares me. We paint the walls next, then the floor. Good thing we covered the washer, dryer and freezer or else they'd be orange too. What a job. I'm sure what ever it was I envisioned it wasn't quite like this.

Grandson

Hey! we're so pleased, Jon and Mindy's little boy has become theirs more officially tonight. They will just wait for the state to make the adoption final in about 6 months. God is truly good. We're thinking He has amazing things in store for this little boy. I'm looking forward to having him come and visit grandma and grandpa. Camping. playing in the park. Christmas. Dedication. Exasperating his parents. kisses.Bike riding.... I didn't realize how great it was to be a grandma. I like this season.

Random picture

Ok here's a blast from the past. Taken in about 1989, when my hair has hardly any grey in it at all. This is a 3 generation picture: my paternal grandmother, Amy at 14 and myself. I really value these kinds of pictures now, as I don't have a whole lot of pictures of my kids with their great grandmother. She wasn't exactly a "grandmotherly" (whatever that is) type of person. But she was at least trying for this moment! Someone was telling me that they were getting a formal 4 generation picture taken soon. That's pretty cool. This second picture is a 5 generation picture taken in

about 1970. It's awful and I wonder

if I was holding the camera and

cutting people off! My grandmother is at the left, again looking much younger. Still not overly fond of the grandma thing. Oh well.

Hands

Working, playing, praying, helping, holding...Our hands seem to express something of our inner selves. Open hands that give and reflect the selflessness of our lives. Hands that grasp and hold tight, the greediness of our hearts. With my hands I sense the world around me. I use them to make sense of what's in front of me. The sense of touch is so important in our everyday lives we often don't even think about it. Maybe because my hand still hurts from surgery, i'm thinking more about hands and how much I use even my unhandy left hand. These photos i've posted are cropped from bigger pictures. Isn't it amazing how our whole focus changes when we just look at the small portion of the picture? Each one of these hands has a story to tell all by itself! Wow.

Does this look Orange?

Well, you know how one thing leads to another? That's our basement project for sure! I just wanted to paint, so Ron let me have at it on the ugly green chimney. Now it looks like a chimney. Everything else? Looks just the same. That's because he looks at things a bit differently than I do. He looked at all those pipes and said, "those galvanized pipes are going to start leaking" (said in low male voice) "That 1" hot water pipe is not big enough. I will fix". And so it went. He spent the whole day Saturday happily plumbing. Which meant that I ... cleaned, napped, cooked and lolled around. Oh well. Tonight he will go to get another portion of the project over in Peterson. Nothing is too simple for us! Just keep telling myself that it will be worth the effort!