Life Goes On

Without the routine of school, it sometimes feels like the days all run together! We're heading into the home stretch before school start and Olivia and I both have mixed emotions. Summer is such a great time; sunny days, pool time, camping and no homework!! But Olivia is getting bored and I'm ready for some of the structure that comes with the school year. The first day of school is August 25th, so we've got a couple weeks left to enjoy. Olivia's school is switching to uniforms this year, and so shopping has been a little easier. Olivia's not real happy about her loss of fashion expression, but I think the mornings will be so much easier!! I'm president of the PTO at her school this year, and so things are starting to get busy for me as well. I'm hoping everything goes very smoothly to start out the year!

We have been camping some, but not as much as last year. We're still adjusting to our new home environment, and we've had a few other weekend plans. This past weekend we went with our friend and neighbor, Linda, to Fun City in Burlington, Iowa. We had such a good time! It's a huge complex with an indoor/outdoor water park, game arcade, bowling alley, go-carts, and more! It was nice to get out of town for a couple days.

My poor car is starting to show the wear and tear of 125,000 miles. It's paid for, so I'm trying to keep it as long as possible, but it's crying out for help. I had to spend over $700 last week to replace stabilizer links and fix an oil leak and this week my air conditioner is on the fritz. Another trip to the shop tomorrow and crossed fingers for a cheap fix!

Olivia seems to be doing very well with the divorce. She's actually doing way better than I am! Lafayette is still having issues with letting things go, and it's been very stressful, at least for me! I have bought a drill and tackled the "honey do" list myself, and even trimmed the bush out front (with kitchen shears!!). There is much more peace in the house, and I am confident in my decision, I just hope that Laf begins to accept the change soon.

I have been neglecting my friends who need prayer, so want to try and catch up on them all! Please continue to pray for my friend, Kim, who is bravely fighting her cancer. She's been amazing and is still enduring lots of treatment. Please pray for my friend Ingrid, who was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer, whose surgery is scheduled for this week. Please continue to pray for Olivia, I and Lafayette, as we continue with this change in our lives.

Type to you soon!!

A Bittersweet Start to Summer

Wow, it seems like a lifetime since I’ve posted a message. There’s been so much going on, and I either didn’t have the time or I didn’t have the right heart to write about it.

After much prayer and soul searching, I decided that I needed to make the changes necessary to end my marriage. It was a terribly hard decision and one I had hoped I would never have to make. I think that it’s the best decision for future, but it’s really been a tough couple of months. Lafayette has been very hurt by my decision so I would ask for your prayers for him as well as Olivia and I. We were divorced on June 29th and Lafayette has moved out of the house.

Olivia seems to be taking the change very well. I am watching very closely for any signs of distress, and I’m sure they will come, but so far, she’s been very calm, asking the normal questions any child would ask…Is Daddy going to be OK? Are we going to move? Will I still see Daddy? I’m so grateful that she is handling the situation so well.

So in between the chaos that has been our life, we’ve tried to keep some sense of normalcy. In early May, Olivia's girl scout trip went to Springfield for "Girl Scout Day at the State Capitol". It was a great day seeing the sights and the girls got to meet Miss Illinois. The last month of school went by very quickly. Olivia’s class had a field trip to Wildlife Prairie Park and an end of the year party, and we had the school carnival. On the last day of school, Olivia received an award for perfect attendance for the entire school year AND she made the A-B honor roll!!! The first time this year. She was so excited!!! I can’t believe we’re already half way through the summer vacation. Olivia has spent one week at girl scout camp, and 2 weeks at the Riverplex daycamp. Last week we were on vacation. We took a girl scout bus trip to Six Flags in St Louis and had a lot of fun. The weather was gorgeous and the crowds were very low so we got to ride everything we wanted to ride. I can barely ride anything without getting sick, but our friend and troop helper Amanda came along and she and Olivia rode them all. Would you believe Olivia rode the Evel Knievel wooden coaster??? She didn’t want to go on it again, but she did ride it once! On Thursday, we took 8 of Olivia’s friends to see “Ice Age 3” for her birthday. 3-D movies are so cool!! Then we spent the weekend at the camper. It rained ALL DAY on the 4th, which was kind of a bummer. Roger and Emmy and Donald and my Dad and Lafayette all came out for lunch and birthday cake. The rain finally stopped at night and we were able to see some fireworks. Olivia got an Ipod Shuffle and a new bicycle (along with many other things) and announced that she had the best birthday ever!! I’m so glad that the recent changes in her life didn’t dampen her excitement or enjoyment of her birthday.

My life has also seen some changes. I mowed my own yard for the first time in 12 years!! (Good thing it’s a small yard!) Adjusting to being the only parent around full time will also take some getting used to. But the biggest change has been positive, there is so much less stress in my daily life. For that I am very thankful. My diabetes has remained manageable without medication so that is another positive thing.

The summer here so far has been wet and pretty warm after a cool start in May and early June. We’ve been able to camp quite a bit, and enjoy our time there. Olivia and I have seen lots of good movies, including “Up” and “Night at the Museum”. So far her music selections for her new Ipod have been limited. Lots of Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana and Taylor Swift.

I’ll try to do much better about taking time to post and hope to have only good things to report. Hope you all are enjoying your summer!!

April Showers...

I can't believe that April is almost gone! The days have almost run together, too busy for my liking. It hasn't been a very nice Spring, weatherwise, lots and lots of rain. Listening to my neighbor's sump pump running, we're considering ourselves pretty lucky. There have been a few nice days here and there, and it hasn't kept us from camping! We've been out every weekend, and have even been thru a couple of spring storms.

My birthday was good. That weekend at the camper, the neighbors had a good cookout for me, and we had friends out with their kids for an Easter egg hunt. We went to church on Easter Sunday and then returned to the camper for a lazy afternoon...even took a nap! On Monday, Dad came in and took us all to breakfast. Then we went to Lowe's and I spent all my birthday bucks on yard stuff. Olivia was anxious to get back to school after the long Easter break (well, maybe we were more anxious than she was!)

In early April, I was voted PTO President for the next school year. It's taken a little time being brought up to speed on things that need to happen over the summer, but then a couple of big issues came up with our School Board and it turned into a little more than a little time! Our school district, along with many others across the country, have run into financial problems that are associated with lost state revenue from the recession. I'm afraid it's going to be a busy year keeping up with all the information about budget cuts.

Olivia had been complaining about a sore foot and after a couple weeks of guessing what it was, we went to the doctor and found out she had a planter's wart. I felt terrible for not bringing her in sooner. They froze it in the office and hopefully it will be gone in two weeks. If not, they'll freeze it again, which wont make Olivia happy, since she didn't like it very much!

Olivia' progress reports came in with all "A's" and "B's", even a B in math. Let's hope it holds until final report card time! She has perfect attendance for the whole year and also got an award for good behavior (she told me it was the "Amazement Behavior Award"!) We also had a few of those Olivia moments that make being a Mom so fun. The first one is when we were walking thru Kohl's looking for a new swimsuit. We passed a rack of training bras that had different colors and prints. Olivia asked if those were swimsuits and I told her no, they were training bras. She got a shocked look on her face and asked incredulously, "My boobs need training??" She also asked me what a penis was last week. I was wondering if it was time for a full blown "talk" and then I remembered that a friend had told me to just answer each question one at a time. Don't offer more information than what she's asking for. So I answered, "it's the official word for Kaiden's wee-wee." She thought about it a moment and said, "OK!" and that was that!

Last week, my Uncle Kenny and cousin, Cindy, were visiting from Seattle, so we got to go to dinner with them. He and my Dad are the last siblings in their family and have always got along, so Dad was very anxious to see them. Lafayette had gone out to Dad's for a few days to help fix a leaky roof and replace the ceiling tiles. We discovered Dad has been up on the roof himself and even fell off his stepladder trying to tear down part of the ceiling. He frustrates me like crazy! He's 83 and thinks he's 25! I have a mind to bring home all the ladders from his house, but he would probably just buy some more!

So that about brings us up to speed. We're heading into another busy month. Our girl scout troop is going to a play on Sunday, then to the State Capitol on Wednesday for a rally on the capitol steps. I've got one paper left for my class and that will be it until the fall semester. We've got the school carnival and field trips, all working up to the last school day of the year on June 5. We got some great news this week when we found out that Olivia's class is going to "loop" into third grade. This means that the entire class and teacher will all move together to third grade! When her teacher and I asked her if she'd like the same teacher for 3rd grade, Olivia was happy for a minute, then scowled and asked..."does this mean I'm getting held back?" Mrs. George and I laughed and laughed, we didn't even consider she might think that! Looping is great because the children already know the teacher's style and rules and the teacher knows where each child is academically. We're very happy!

Let's hope all this rain goes out with the end of the month and May is full of sunshine!

Opening the Camper

We spent Friday night at the camper. Got it cleaned out and all the totes unpacked. It was a chilly night, so we ran the furnace. EVERY hour or so, the fan made a VERY loud and obnoxious noise, so it was like a fire alarm going off! Laf can sleep thru it, and Olivia even did a few times, but it was a very LONG night for me! Saturday brought some sunshine with temps in the upper 50's. I walked the entire campground (exercise is supposed to be a priority for me), and got a chance to say hi to some of the other seasonal campers.

Olivia learned to ride her bike! I knew that she was getting big enough that this should be pretty easy, but she just didn't have much interest in learning last year. I can remember as a kid that you learned to ride a bike early because that's what everyone did...ride their bikes around! But we don't have alot of places here for her to ride, so it's never been a priority. So yesterday she really wanted to try, and once I gave her a push, she took right off!!! Stopping and starting was a little rusty, and we took one good spill that skinned her knee (I know, she needs her helmet on!) But she was pretty pleased with herself for doing as well as she did. I told her that if she kept practicing and got better, she could pick out a new bike for her birthday.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting in the sun. It still was chilly, so we had a fire going. I actually got a sunburn! Our friends Christina and Hannah came out and we roasted wienies on the fire for a simple supper before coming back home. The weather didn't look good for today and we had early church (but mostly I didn't want to hear that furnace again all night!)

We're hoping the weather is good for the Easter weekend. Lots of pics to come!

Remember Me?

Hi, I'm the person who started this blog, and then never takes the time to update it??? Sorry about that. March has been a crazy month, but it's almost behind us now. It's springtime, and the warm sun is...MELTING THE SILLY SNOW we got over the weekend! Yuck! But at least it was here one day, gone the next...leaving a muddy mess in it's wake. Let's hope the springtime sun shines for real and drys things out.

To catch up, my last post indicates we were going to the RV show. We went with our neighbors from the campground, and had alot of fun. We walked thru over 50 campers, from pop ups to the big motor homes. Quite different than our little 20 year old model. All the new ones have flat screen TVs and Aerobeds!! (even the pull out couches have Aerobeds!). Anyway, we were just looking. I did find a model I liked, but that's a conversation for next year (or maybe the next year...).

The next weekend, Olivia and I went to Springfield. My best friend, Penny, and her daughter Megan came up from St Louis and we had a great time. We let the girls swim and play at the hotel on Saturday and on Sunday we went through the Illinois State Museum. I actually used to live 1/2 block from the place and didn't even know it was there! (I didn't do much museum visiting back in those days). It was fun, educational, and my favorite part...FREE! Olivia's class was discussing fossils, so she thought it was extra great. I only wish Megan and Penny lived closer. The girls love playing together and I miss my friend.

We were able to get out and check out our camper the next weekend. We found that the tile floor in the kitchen had cracked, so Lafayette laid down some new peel & sticks. He had to take out the booth in the kitchen to do the floor and it made so much more room, we decided to leave it out! We put in an island with drop leaves and two bar stools. We get more storage and the kitchen area isn't so crowded. We were able to rake up the yard and burn some leaves on a beautiful 65 degree Saturday, but that's all we had time for. And unfortunately, the weather hasn't been decent since. Hopefully we'll get out this weekend and get some cleaning done, and are hoping that Easter weekend is warm enough to stay out there.

Last week was the school book fair, of which I was the co-chairperson. It's always fun, but always CRAZY. We provide a free dinner on Thursday night (gondolas, chips and cookie) and always plan for about 200 people. We served 200 people in 40 minutes!!! So we had to run and buy more food. We ended up serving 300 people and sales for the fair were great! It was also parent teacher conferences last week. Olivia was disappointed to discover that "C" in math is still sticking around. She got one "B" and the rest were "A's", so just that math keeps her off the honor roll. But she's got a great attitude and will just keep on trying! They did a speech screening for some pronunciation issues, but didn't find any major problems. She's going to join and intervention group to work on her r's and a couple other sounds.

This past Saturday was our "cookie booth" at Kroger. In about 4 1/2 hours, we sold 240 boxes of cookies! I'm so proud of our girls! Throughout the whole month that we sold cookies, the girls sold over 1500 boxes of cookies, earning over $800 for our troop!! WOOHOO!! Way to go, girls! That money will pay membership dues and all our troop activities until cookie time next year. But did I mention I'm SO GLAD it's over?? If someone asks me for one more box of Thin Mints, I think I'll scream!! One funny thing is that on Saturday, when one girl went to the bathroom, they ALL went together! (Do girls really start that this early??)

Financial Peace University is going good. 5 weeks down, 8 to go! I've learned alot, have written a budget, and am trying the "envelope" system of paying for things. This means carrying around cash that has been divided into categories (food, gas, entertainment, etc) to pay for things. The theory behind it is that you will actually spend less money if you pay cash for things instead of swiping the debit card. We'll see! Once the envelope is empty, there's no more money for that category until the next month! (Hmmmm, interesting concept!)

The low carb diet to control my diabetes is going so-so. Some good days, some not so good. But I'm hoping that I'm making the right choices more days than not, and eventually it will become a habit to eat the right things. I'm such an emotional eater and my schedule combined with some need for comfort has led me to fast food more times than I should have lately, but things should slow down more and I vow to do some better planning! I went to the second half of the diabetes education class and was startled to learn that an apple the size of a tennis ball is the correct serving size. Who has seen an apple that small, lately?? Geez!

So, that about catches you up on things. Let's hope April has nice warm days and the camping can begin. I'm looking forward to a visit from my Uncle Kenny and cousin, Cindy from Seattle later in the month. No job prospects for Lafayette, yet. Until Caterpillar picks back up, this area is going to be really slow. Please keep my friend, Kim, in your prayers during her ongoing battle with cancer.

I promise to write again soon!

A Time for Change

It’s been a long time since I had time to post. It’s almost midnight now, so hope I’m not to sleepy to remember all that’s been going on.

The first praise is that my cold is over…well, almost. The cough is gone, and there’s just a little stuffy nose left. It’s been such a long couple months, I’m so happy to be feeling better! So even thought it was just a cold, it’s actually a good thing I went to the doctor. She decided to run my annual screening tests and we found that I’m “pre-diabetic”. My blood sugar is in the 120-140 range, but I’m very thankful I don’t have to go on any medication at this time. I’ve taken a couple of education sessions on diabetes and got an eating plan to control the number of carbohydrates I eat to hopefully keep my blood sugar at manageable levels. I went to one of the classes thinking that this would “go away” if I lost weight, but one of the nurses brought me back to reality, explaining that while diet and exercise can keep me off medication for (hopefully) several years, I will be diabetic for the rest of my life. My Grandma Brown and my Aunt Phyllis (Dad’s Mom and sister) were both diabetic, and I remember their struggles with insulin, so I am going to try to do all I can to avoid meds as long as possible! Carbohydrates having always been my favorite, so it wont be easy, but I know it’s something I have to do to remain healthy. I just have to get used to sticking my finger every day to test my blood…ouch! I’m such a wimp!

I also started a financial class at church last week called “Financial Peace University”. It’s a 13 week program from Dave Ramsey, who also hosts a financial radio and television program. It’s pretty simple to grasp…budget your spending, pay cash for everything and build a stable financial future. I am looking forward to getting some good information and hoping to start using money a little wiser in the future. His message is perfect for the economy right now.

We’ve had lots of other things to keep us busy as well. My class has been very reading and writing intensive, so I’ve been spending lots of time on homework. Our Brownie troop has received our girl scout cookies (all 1200 boxes!), so we’re in delivery mode. I got to see my friend, Kim, on Tuesday and take her some Girl Scout cookies. She’s undergoing chemo this week, but looks good and remains strong in spirit.

And with today’s weather close to 70 degrees, we’re getting spring (and camping) fever! We’re going to the RV/camping expo at our civic center tomorrow…JUST LOOKING! (See that paragraph above about not spending any money!) We can get into the campground the first of April, so we’re hoping the weather cooperates and we have a good spring. Olivia is counting down the days! She’s hopeful that she can drive the golf cart by herself this year, but I’m thinking not. L

So, change is in the air. Change in my eating habits, change in my spending habits, and hopefully a change in the weather! Let’s all hope Spring is here to stay.

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired

Hello everyone, happy post Valentine's Day to you! February has brought some warmer days to central Illinois, along with the hope of winter's end. The groundhog at our local zoo did not see his shadow, so I'm hoping for 70's by March (Hey, I can hope, can't I?) I'll fill you in on our activites the last couple weeks.

Unfortunately, I still have my chest cold. I finished one round of antibiotics, with no real progress, so the doc assumes it's viral. I had a chest x-ray that came back clear, after some drama, of course. I had the x-ray on Monday afternoon and they called me at home on Monday evening and asked me to come in first thing Tuesday for more x-rays. Of course, I got a little freaked out and then after 10 x-rays on Tues morning, I was even more freaked out!! But, thankfully, everything is fine. But that doesn't explain this tiresome cough!!! I've gone thru two bottles of cough medicine, bags of cough drops, and a bottle of mucinex, but no effect. With Nyquil I'm finally sleeping thru the night, so that's a praise. I hope by my next post, I'm cold free! I did talk to Dad who's also had a bad chest cold, but he is better. I haven't been around him, so don't blame me!!

We have been needing new living room furniture for a while now, and had intended to get it with our tax refund. We even had a set picked out at American Furniture. But then Laf got laid off and we started second guessing that we shouldn't spend the money. Last Sunday, Laf came charging up the stairs with the Sunday paper more excited than a kid on Christmas. American was offering a free flat screen TV with furniture purchase. So, as every good American should right now :>) we went out and stimulated the economy with some of our tax refund. We got a reclining sofa and loveseat. Chocolate colored, microfibre material (for spill happy children). You can really tell how BAD your old furniture is when you sit on new furniture!! We're very happy with it, and Laf loves his new TV (since he's been spending alot of time watching TV, I guess that's important to him!) Of course, he's being completely anal about getting the new furniture getting dirty and wont allow food or drinks in the living room (which lasted about 5 minutes).

Olivia got her mid-term report card and she brought up that math grade to a "B"!!! Good job, Livvy! If she keeps it up, she'll make the honor roll for this quarter, which has eluded her with that "C" in math all year. She had her Valentine's party at school on Friday, which seems to be as big a hit with the kids since I was in grade school. She also got a new Webkinz for Valentine's Day, a gecko she named Jack (after our real leopard gecko named Jack). President Obama came to Peoria on Thursday, and she cried when she found out we couldn't go and see him, but she waved toward the skies when Air Force One took off. (Too bad we couldn't actually see the plane).

Like I said, the weather has improved. It was 65 degrees Tuesday, and there was snow on the ground Saturday, so you just never know in Illinois.

Am sending prayers out to Kim, who was hospitalized for her chemo treatment this week. Also to our family friend, Joe, who broke his arm this week and needs surgery. Also praying for a friend, Sarah, who's marriage is in trouble, and for all those facing job losses. Laf's yet had no job prospects.

Until next time,
Deb