You saw my granddaughter when she was born. Now Annabelle is 18 months old.

I had pretty much forgotten that I had this journal. It's been a busy year with lots of changes. This is just a quick stop and hello again.

Annabelle is now just over a year old and walking, running, talking and into everything and so curious.

I also have a new grandson - Jaidin, born on February 1st of this year! He's a doll!

Be back soon to update and revamp

gotta get ready for work

SEE YA

It's been a while since I posted anything here. Time flies and all that....

Tonight is high school graduation here and my son, the youngest of 5, graduates tonight! It's been a long haul... but he made it. He came home the other day and told me he'd failed a final and that meant he'd failed the class for the year...yikes! I was not impressed. But Jason lies about as good as his father and when I saw his nostrils flare I knew he was pulling my leg. I'm excited. Sunday we're having a huge cookout for him and Larry's giving him a truck for a grad. gift!

I'll put pictures on once I've got them!!

I am off to a sort of interview

See Ya

No matter what else might be going on in my life right now today was an incredible day!!

My granddaughter, Annabelle was born! She is beautiful. My son and his wife did an amazing job and the birth was easy and quick - well this considering it wasn't me in labor, lol, and the fact that for a first baby it was relatively short.

I was able to be there through the entire event. Even though I've had 6 of my own I was always too busy to watch much of the goings on...

I was surprised to learn from the midwife that an old Irish belief (because the sac of water never broke) says that a baby "born in the caul is of the ocean and protected against drowing" I'd never heard of this and I tried to find more about it online - not much luck, but I found one short statement that basically said what the midwife had said.

Hold on for pictures...

Today is Saturday. Wednesday is spaghetti day, Friday is for fish and Saturday used to be beans???... Around here Saturday is "dump" day. Yes ~ when our 5 kids were young it was pretty tough to get any time to spend together, alone. My husband and I eventually found that going to the dump (or transfer station) was at least a half hour or so of good quality time away from the kids. We'd have time to discuss important issues like dinner, friends, bills, report cards, the kids, the dog...which one of us is getting stuck grabbing that last stinky trash bag from the back of the van.... quality stuff.

Well today we decided to fore-go the dump in favor of looking at a house in Vermont and doing a bit of yard sale-ing (lol, is that a word?) The house had moving issues and the yard sales were great! Larry thought we should look for furniture to give me a start on my "business venture". We found a child's rocking chair, a mail sorter, a deacon's bench w/storage, a shadow box. I'd like to be ready for the Old Home Day weekend and have a booth set up.

My dad was here last weekend for the baby shower and I'm told he strongly suggested Larry give me a spot in his garage to work in. This was sternly mentioned ~ as it would be because that's my dad, stern. And I'm sure I'll be given an area because although I'm not stern, I am a spoiled brat!

Most of this afternoon I spent working in the gardens. I love this time of year and I love gardening, ya know seeing all the perennials popping up again and planting new things too. But for those of you who don't already know, I have a huge ~ HUGE ~ phobia of frogs. Yes Frogs. Frogs, toads...yuck - they're all the same to me and I cannot even move when I see one, it's that bad.>>>>>> We set the border of our "island" garden with boulders...(see pics) and I was busy cleaning out the old dead leaves from in between the boulders. One crevice was too tight for me to reach my hand in and so I took an old branch and began to poke and pull out leaves. Suddenly, without any warning at all (because that's how they operate) a toad wiggled, hopped, attacked...in a toadly way... I couldn't breathe, couldn't move fast enough, couldn't scream, You know how people faced with a terrifying situation say they felt like they were in quick sand?? Well it's true!!! I felt like I was standing in quick sand, like everything was surreal, slow motion. It was horrifying!!

At last I was unstuck. I threw my garden gloves across the driveway. Just the thought that they may have grazed the toad was more than I could handle. I kicked at the dirt and I spit (but just once), and finally I screeched!!!

Larry & Jess were cracking up. I begged Jessica to pleeaasse get the toad and move him across the street - anywhere, just away. She refused!!! She laughed some more. But she did point out what a silly phobia it is. This is a college educated girl here. So I asked with all of her education didn't she ever learn about phobias??? Oh yeah she's heard of phobias, learned about them, wrote papers on them even. Her conclusion??? Phobias simply aren't real... and she isn't moving that toad. Larry just sat there smirking. So much for family support.

Larry hates spiders and so does Jess. It so happens I'm not afraid of spiders, not one tiny bit. Phobias aren't real huh? don't exist? alrighty... let the games begin!

See Ya