Every time I think I will make more time to come here and disperse my thoughts my life goes crazy and my time is consumed.

Anyway...
Since last I was here...my middle child, Bethany, graduated high school on May 20th. Chesney, my oldest child started classes today at the same school I attend, she is in pre-nursing. Bethany was suppose to start classes today but admissions messed up some forms of hers and she cannot start until next week so she opted to wait until January. Ty, my son, is now a sophomore in high school and surprisingly he is favoring his french class. This is surprising because my son is as country as they come. He comes home from school speaking new words he has learned that day. He will also be going to Italy, Monaco, France, and Spain in May 2014. Both my husband and I want to go with him, but I am not sure that I will be finished with my semester before the departure date.

My classes start tomorrow and this semester is going to be a trying one. Three of the four classes I am taking this semester are basically the core of my career path and I can go no farther on this path until I have taken all three. These three classes are only offered in the fall and they are in high demand, so much so that I went to my adviser early on the first day of registration and still ended up having to take these classes at night. I am just thankful that I am one of the fortunate ones who doesn't have to wait until fall 2014 to take them. I have each class once per week, three hours per class and I have to take them at the main campus which is in Knoxville because they are not offered at the campus closest to me. Driving Pellissippi Parkway during evening rush hour traffic is the only thing I am concerned about so far. Once tomorrow kicks off, my Tuesdays and Thursdays will be full from 6 in the morning until I get home from class around 10pm.

Other than that life is pretty much the same. I hope all of you are doing well.

Chugging right along

It has been over a month since I have been here and I promised myself that I was not going to be absent for long periods of time anymore. Oh well, it couldn't be helped because I've had more pressing matters going on. Anyway...

At this time, I only have 3 weeks left of this semester...yay! That four month break can't come quick enough for me, I am beyond ready for a break. My Bethany will be graduating high school on May 20th and I have known this was coming (obviously), but my goodness it has arrived so quickly. We are currently shopping for prom dresses and that has been fun. Bethany is finally in to pink! Pink is my favorite color and I have told her for years that she looks so pretty in pink and she is just now starting to see it. To be precise, she wants a prom dress in coral which is also beautiful on her.

I am working on my last paper in English. I was given two speeches to choose from. We are writing a rhetorical analysis on the speech we choose. Our two choices are The Inaugural Address of Governor George Wallace of Alabama..."The Segregation Now, Segregation Forever" speech from January 1963 and a speech that was done in 2005 for the Kenyon College graduating class by David Foster Wallace. I have chosen the college commencement speech because it is very different from the normal commencement speech given at college graduations. It is a little depressing and down but Mr. Wallace wraps it up nicely. I don't think I could write a good paper on the Governors speech because during a time of integration his speech was all about segregation and I didn't like his hateful, racial delivery. It is amazing to me how politicians can do speeches about bad topics and make them sound so good because they know how to incorporate ethos, pathos, and logos in just the right way to appeal to the audience. So in order to keep from stressing and getting mad, I have chosen the commencement speech.

Anyway, I hope everyone in blogland is doing well and I will be back as soon as I have time. 

gearing up for Spring break.....

The last few weeks have been very busy for me at school. I am getting ready for break next week and I do not want to be doing school assignments during my break, studying I don't mind. It seems like in each class I am taking the material just vamped up all of a sudden. In Excel we are doing Excel tables, Pivot Tables, Subtotals, and all kinds of interesting/confusing things. In Medical Terminology I just finished the Musculoskeletal System and whew was that hard due to all of the information packed in the chapter (the biggest yet). Now I am studying the Skin and I am doing surprisingly well with this one. In Music Appreciation I just finished the Baroque period and I really enjoyed it even though that to was a huge chapter. The chapter included some Bach, Handel, Purcell, and Vivaldi...some very interesting men to say the least and their music is so very beautiful. I especially enjoyed listening to Vivaldi's La Primavera (Spring), from The Four Seasons because it gives me hope that Spring will soon arrive here. Now I am studying The Classical Period which is also a very nice chapter because it includes Mozart and Beethoven.

As far as life outside of school...
I have wanted to repaint the master bedroom and bathroom for over two years now and finally last weekend we did just that. I love the new colors..for the bedroom I chose a color called Caramelized Onions and in the bathroom Timber Line. Both colors are what I call earth colors and I am loving them. Later that night after we painted, my son woke up horribly sick at 2:30 in the morning and after seeing that he didn't have just some regular stomach flu we called the dr. He had Norovirus and oh my dear was it terrible. He is all better now but at the time he lost 6lbs from Sunday to Tuesday and he is still not eating like he did before the virus plus he has dropped some more pounds. Thankfully my son inherited my love of clean hands and he washes his hands thoroughly after touching anything, therefore, no one else in the house contracted the virus. Other than that everybody else is doing pretty much the same things. Bethany is still touring college campuses and deciding if culinary is what she really wants to do when she grows up. Chesney is working and enjoying a semester off from school, she is however registered and set to go for the Fall semester. Shawn is just working as usual and praying for Spring/ Summer to arrive so that we can get out of the house more. It has been a very rainy year here so we all experienced cabin fever. This coming weekend is supposed to be beautiful with spring-like temps and we plan to enjoy every second that we can get.

Miracles are still happening!

I don't think I have posted this many times in the period of two weeks in the last two or three years. I do believe I will really enjoy getting back into the habit of coming here and typing all my thoughts out. Anyway..on to it...

I seem to be moving right along on my school work and getting into a regular routine that allows me to complete my assignments for each class a few days early. As I have mentioned previously, last semester was the first online class that I have ever had and the instructor didn't communicate with us at all and now this semester I am taking three classes online and all of my instructors are in constant communication. Even though a lot of people assume that online classes are easier and on your own time, I have found that you actually spend more time studying because you are not sitting and hearing lectures so you have to study harder. Either way, I like the routine I have set up for myself because my evenings are pretty much free and if I work harder during the week then my weekends are clear as well.

Before beginning last semester I talked to students who had already taken Medical Terminology I to get an idea of what to expect because I had heard nothing but horror stories over this one class. Once the semester began I found that I not only enjoyed the class but was very good at it. In the class we started out with word roots, prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms and the words are basically sentences. For example....achondroplasia (a form of dwarfism where the arms and legs are short yet the rest of the body is normal).
a- = no, not, without, lack of
chondr/o = cartilage
-plasia = development, growth, formation
so it reads like this....lack of cartilage growth. The definition in my textbook explains it as a defect in cartilage growth.

Anyway...I am  currently studying the blood system and wow, who knew there was so much about the blood to know. For some odd reason, the respiratory system really clicked with me and now the blood system is doing the same and I am thankful for it. So far, the two hardest systems I have studied are the urinary system and cardiovascular system. I found the urinary system to be hard only when it came to the laboratory tests and clinical procedures simply because most of those tests and procedures are recognized by initials instead of full names and with all of the initials, it gets confusing.

I now need to sign off and head out for groceries. You all have a great Monday and be safe out there!

proud moments and a little weeping

I can't remember exactly all I have posted on here in the past couple of years concerning my offspring so I am going to hit the high points.

My oldest child, Chesney, has been working at a local hospital for two years. She is a CNA and has grabbed some other small certificates during her time there. She is phlebotomy certified and in December she finished college and is studying to take her pharmacy technician certification exam very soon. In the Fall she will go back to school to start on her pre-nursing classes and then she will go on into a nursing program.

My middle child, Bethany, is in her senior year of high school and she has decided that she wants a future in culinary but she was having trouble deciding where to go to school. She has been looking hard at The Art Institute of Tennessee-Nashville and The Art Institute of Atlanta because both are about the same distance from our home. Lately Bethany decided that she wanted to start out at a smaller school so she has decided to get her feet wet by applying to Pellissippi State Community College where I attend. They have a culinary department and I think it will be great for her to get her first college experience and decide if culinary is the true path she wants to take. If she makes the decision to go with culinary all of her credits are transferable and they will also prepare her for a four year school. Basically she can get her prerequisites out of the way at PSCC and the best part is there is a campus located less than ten minutes from our home.

Tonight Bethany and I finished up all of her forms and whatnot and tomorrow she will be applying at PSCC. I am so excited and proud but at the same time I am a little teary eyed because I can't believe that it is time for another one of my children to head to college. These days it seems life is literally speeding by me. Ty, my youngest child, has grown so much in the last year and a half. He went from looking like a younger boy to looking like a young man in a matter of months and on top of that he grew about 8 inches taller in the last year and a half. I have to look up at my son now..hahaha.

This post may seem silly but I needed somewhere to unload a little because of the jittery feelings over my kids growing up. I thank God each and every day for allowing me the blessing of being their mother!

checking in

I just started my third semester of college yesterday and since I have my ENG comp class I thought I would start blogging again to help me loosen up a bit for that class. I had ENG comp last semester, but ended up dropping it the first week to complete my prerequisites for my major and because I had way too much on my plate. This semester I have classes that are less stressful than a couple of classes last semester and I feel that I can focus better on writing. Math is probably my biggest enemy and even though I love numbers, I do not like them in an organized math class. I am very proud of myself because I took Probability & Statistics last semester and I not only passed that class with a B+, but I also over came my math anxiety (thanks to a wonderful instructor). Anyway, you all will be seeing me on here more just to get my brain juice flowing and my fingers ready to write.

Almost that time of year again

I cannot believe it is almost Thanksgiving and then in a few short weeks we will celebrate Christmas. Where does time go? I am glad I could make it back here because it has been a while and who knows when I will come back again. These days my time is too consumed with studying and homework to have the extra time to blog. I post random posts on Facebook when I have time, but that is not a constant either.
Speaking of school.....there were two classes that I was not sure about when I started this semester, Medical Terminology I and Probability & Statistics. I planned my schedule around those two classes and made sure that any other classes I took along with these two would be something I am comfortable with so that my main focus landed on Med. Term and Prob & Stats. Med. Term has been a lot easier than I imagined or had been told and  my current grade in there is 99.6. I absolutely love that class and I find it very interesting. I am also doing very well in Prob & Stats and I give that credit to my instructor. I went from having major math test anxiety to not even sighing hard during my math tests now. The first P&S test we had I could not even complete because my anxiety was growing with every second and so was my frustration. I knew the material and how to work each problem, but my anxiety took over and that was the end of it. I had warned my instructor about the anxiety so he was very understanding and let me re-take the test. A couple of weeks ago we took our third big test and I did not even sigh hard while taking it and I made a 90 it. I think I will frame that test because I never thought I would ever pull in a 90 as a test grade in P&S. Mr. D told me to view the test as just another classroom assignment and if I started feeling anxious to come to him and he would help me move past whatever was ruffling my feathers. I will certainly miss Mr. D once the semester is over.
Next semester will be somewhat different for me because all of my classes are available at the main campus in Knoxville and none are offered at the campus I am currently attending (my current campus is literally 7 minutes from my house). I will be driving to the main campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays for my Excel class, but I have chosen to take the others online to save gas and wear and tear on my car. I am looking forward to being home more even if I am doing my schooling. I will not be working as a writing tutor next semester either because this semester it has been difficult at times to get my study hours in and work.
Well, this post was all over the place and very random. I need to sign off and get to bed. I hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving day with your families.

just an update

Of course I didn't make it back here as I thought I would, but only because since being on summer break from school I am having too much fun doing other things outside instead of being in front of my computer all day. I finished my first semester at school up a lot better than I ever would have thought. I will be working at my school in the fall as a writing tutor and a student mentor and I am all kinds of excited about that. I find it funny that writing was the one class I was a little iffy about in the beginning, but it turned out to be my favorite class. Our last essay was an argumentative essay and I wrote mine on teen pregnancy and how the media influences our teens to be sexually active which can ultimately lead them to become  pregnant. I had less revisions on that essay than I did on any of my others so I guess my mother has always been right, I know how to argue! hahaha. Not only did we have to write the essay, but we also had to stand in front of the class and have a visual presentation and argue our point and we only had five minutes to do that in. Only five of us done the presentation and argument and I am proud to say that I aced the entire assignment.

Anyway, I have really been enjoying my time off from school because when I go back in the fall I will have a busy schedule with five classes and two paying positions, but I am so ready for the challenge. I feel like I am finally finding myself after years of not remembering who the real me is. That may sound silly, but it is very true.

Well that about sums up the update for now. I hope all of you are doing well and I will be back, but I don't know when. Take care!

gotta love a good challenge

My writing class is working on a Cause and Effect essay which has to be done in MLA format. I know MLA so that doesn't bother me, the hard part comes in on our subject. We had to choose a song and tell either why and how it relates to us (Cause) or why or how it moves us emotionally (Effect). It took me forever to choose a song, but finally I picked it out. I knew this would be hard essay, however, I didn't realize that it would be this hard. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to write, but now that I have just finished my outline it has been hard work. I began to write my outline and I would get almost done then things would start flying through my head so I would go back over it. This happened time and time again until I finally turned it today (on the due date). Monday my rough draft is due and I am not worried about that part because normally I free write then continue revising until I have my words like I want them. Our next essay will be an argumentative essay and I am all kinds of excited about that one. I will have my fingers wore down to nubs by the time that one is finished, but I am going to have a lot of fun with it. You all take care and I will be back soon!

settling in

I cannot believe that my first semester of school is almost over. Time has flown by so quickly and now I only have five weeks of school left. I have learned so much in such a short amount of time and unlike my high school days, I am really enjoying school. The most surprising thing to me is how much I love my writing class. I am now wishing that I had enough confidence several years ago to go back to school, but I do think that things happen for a reason so I believe I am exactly where I should be.

The weather here in East Tennessee has been beautiful the past couple of weeks. We have had highs in the lower to mid 80's and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. When the temps reach that high in March everybody starts waiting on a huge snowstorm or deep freeze or we try to prepare for a extremely hot summer.

Chesney, my oldest offspring, turned 20 Sunday and I am so proud of her. She will be graduating in November as a pharmacy tech. She has just applied to a nursing program through a great school in Knoxville and she currently works at a local Knoxville hospital as a CNA and has been employed there for over a year. She also has over a year of medical assistant classes under her belt which was the direction she originally planned to go until she decided that she didn't want to go half way, so she is going to be a registered nurse when all is said and done.

Bethany, my middle offspring, is 16 and she is researching some culinary schools. At this point she is preparing to apply to the Art Institute of Atlanta. She is a junior in high school now and doing awesome in school. I cannot believe that we will be getting ready for her high school graduation in a year.

Ty, my youngest offspring and only son, is 14 now and has hit a growth spurt the past year that has shot him up several inches. He use to be this skinny kid that has always been in the 5 percentile in height and weight, however, now he is playing catch up. This time last year he weighed 93 pounds and stood about 4 ft 8, but now he weighs 124 (all muscle) and he is two inches taller than my 5 ft and 1/2 inch, he was so happy last month when his dr. told him he was in the 25 percentile in height and weight. His new love is football and he is getting ready to graduate from eighth grade. He is excited about me going back to school and he likes the fact that my school is literally right over the hill from his. When I leave school on Mondays and Wednesdays it takes me about 2 minutes to get to his school and pick him up.

I probably need to sign off for now because I have a huge math test tomorrow and I need to a little more studying.

a good day..indeed

I had a great day at school today, I got a lot done. It was so beautiful here with a high of 78 and that is how it is supposed to be for the next five or six days, but that kind of scares me because it is never this warm here this early in the year, when it is normally bad weather shows up just when you think winter is gone. My sister and I are going to get busy on some flower gardens around my house in a week or two and I am so excited. In the five years we have lived here I have never planted one flower because every plant I touch I kill, my thumb is beyond black. I am going to convince myself and the flowers that I am a wonderful gardener and maybe I will have a pretty yard. I'm thinking about posting some of my writings here just the paragraphs we wrote at the first of the semester. I am currently working on my first big essay now, I have to pick a song that moves me and tell why/how it relates to me and what affect it has on me and believe it or not I have not had an easy time picking a song because I am a huge music lover and there are so many great tunes that move me. Okay I am going to sign off for now, I will be back soon!

thoughtful times...

I have said this many times since I first took leave of blogger, but I am seriously considering making a come back. I want to join in some of the weekly writing games that certain bloggers host. What brought all of this on? In the months since my mother-in-laws passing I have put some major thinking into life, my life particularly. I thought about what I would like to change, what I want to remain the same, and what I never want to feel or think about again. With all that being said, I came to the conclusion that my life would not change if I were sitting at home on the couch waiting for God to drop a miracle in my lap so I got off the couch and quit wondering what the point of life is and took steps to start making my own point. I decided it was time for me to step out of my comfort zone and take some real chances so I got online and applied for a local community college.

I started class on January 12th and I am loving it! The biggest surprise for me so far has been finding out that I am actually a really good student. I am never absent, my grades are great, I always do my assignments and participate in class. I have kicked myself for not having the confidence to further my education earlier than now. I have made so many new friends and I enjoy having a place to be because I chose to be there, not because I have an appointment or because I told someone I would be there.

Anyway, I no longer keep a personal journal so I thought I would use this blog to have a practice place and get back into writing on a regular basis. I hope to see all of my old blogger friends reappearing as I start another part of my journey through life.

pit stop

Hello everybody in blog world! I think I might be making a return to blogger very soon, especially now that I changed internet providers.

Happy Veteran's Day!

I'm thankful for all of the men and women who have served, are serving or are preparing to serve our country one day. Without these men and women we wouldn't have the freedom we enjoy every day.

ok...here we go again..maybe?

Things never go as I plan them so I am going to quit saying I will be on more often because the more I say that the less I am available to get online. Anymawhoooo....

Today God gave us a special little blessing, it was supposed to be ugly, cool, and rainy but around 11 am the sun came out and we had a nice warm day. Another blessing we received today was 6 tiny new kittens from our beloved cat Snooki. Actually she is my youngest daughters cat but the rest of us claim her too. I haven't been around kittens in so long I forgot how precious they are, I can't stand the thought of separating them.

So did anyone see Good Morning America last week where they were talking about Greenback, Tennessee getting hit by a F3 tornado? That is about 25 minutes from where I live. The area hit is about half a mile wide and 3 to 4 miles long, the damage is terrible and we knew a few of the people who lost homes and or businesses. No one around here could believe that it was on GMA. You can click here if you would like to see some of the coverage from our local news station.

Up until a few days ago we have had temps in the mid to upper 70's which would have been a great time for some major Spring cleaning but I was too busy so today I got in gear and done about half of my cleaning, I will finish the rest tomorrow.

I think I will go for now, my eyes are getting heavy. Y'all have a beautiful day tomorrow.

my my how time flies

Once again it has been months since I have been on here. I rarely get online these days except to check email and of course Facebook so that I can stay in touch with my family and friends that I don't get to see regularly. Anyway....

A lot has changed in my life since I last posted on August 9, 2010. Chesney, my eldest, surprised all of us during the summer when she announced that she wanted to pursue a career in nursing. I was very pleased with this announcement because previously all she talked about was going into Criminal Justice which meant a lot of worrying for her dad and I due to the fact that the path she wanted to take was straight into the action of things. I am pleased she has chosen to give shots instead of shoot bullets. It seems she has chosen wisely because she has such a special way with the sick, especially those that are experiencing problems in the brain like dementia, brain cancer, and or alzheimer's . Bethany is just enjoying life at age 15 and looking forward to her drivers license in a few months, she is talking about interior design and photography for a career. Ty is getting ready to play his first year of Middle School football and he is very excited about it. He has grown so much that he is about a half inch shorter than me and his feet are bigger than mine, he literally seems to grow out of clothes monthly. In October, at his yearly well check-up, his dr informed us that he will probably never have to take medication for ADHD again, that was a blessing to hear. As for Shawn and I, we try to keep up with the chaos and go with the flow where ever it might lead.

This is just a quick, catch-up post but I will be back later with more, right now I have to get to my eye appointment. I didn't realize the time until my phone alarmed a reminder that I have to be somewhere in a few minutes. Y'all take care and I will return later.

and life goes on....

A lot has went on since last I posted. The last time I was here Chesney had just graduated high school and my father-in-law spent a rocky two weeks in the hospital, the vein surgery was a success, he is now getting around without a walker and preparing to have the right leg done which will be easier due to less blockage. Since then....

June 17th we spent a day in the mountains swimming and picnicking then on the way back we were hit by another car and my Chevy Equinox that I had only had for 5 months and 28 days was totaled. Exactly one week later we found out that my mother-in-law has cancer all over her body, it is in her blood stream. This week she will finish up her three week radiation treatments on the spots on her brain and the huge spot in her left lung. She will then get a two week break then do seven weeks of chemotherapy to get the rest of it, please keep her in your prayers.

We took our yearly beach vacation and the day before returning we found out that our beloved dog, Bentley, had been killed when my neighbors garbage man ran over him. Coming home was very hard because his death brought our emotions and a good dose of reality to the front of our minds and made us face the "what if's" concerning Shawn's mother. Since then....

Bethany and Ty started back to school last Monday (August 2nd) which in my mind is way too early. Bethany hates being at the big high school after attending the 9th grade academy last year, she is like me..she doesn't like to be in big crowds of people. Ty loves 7th grade and daily he is chattering on about trying out for basketball at his school. This is the first time he has wanted to play sports through his school, normally we play through our local Parks & Recreation. Ty also started football a couple weeks ago, this is his last year through Parks & Rec.

That is all I have time for right now. Y'all have a great day and I will be back tomorrow.

my usual update

Of course I haven't been here in a month but it has been a very busy month. Where to begin....I guess at the beginning. I mentioned in my previous post that my sister was getting married on May 1st and that happened. Shawn and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on that day as well. What is even cooler about the entire thing is that Shawn was the Minister who performed the ceremony, it was the second couple my husband has married. On the same day of my sisters wedding and my anniversary was Chesney's (my oldest daughter) senior prom. Chesney was not able to attend the wedding because she was getting ready for prom, the sad thing is that we didn't get to see her after she was all done up for prom.

Six days after that my father-in-law had a procedure scheduled to find out about blockage in the veins of his left leg. Want to talk about a shocker, we found out that my FIL has an artery disease that has been ignored by his previous doctor for too long and is now going to take his life. His new doctor told us they could do a vein bypass in the left leg but that would only buy him some time, they said with a successful bypass he would have 3 to 5 years to live. First they had to make sure that my FIL was physically fit enough to survive the bypass surgery. It took five days but finally he was ready for the bypass. It went well, he was in surgery for a little over four hours but the bypass was successful. The next morning things started going downhill. You would think it was my FIL's leg that was not doing well but it was everything else that went crazy. His kidney function decreased big time, his blood sugar level was all out of whack, and his blood pressure was either too high or too low, then on top of all that his oxygen level dropped. It has been a rough couple of weeks but Dr. S told us that my FIL might get to home tomorrow. In the morning the are going to put my FIL under lightly to check the incision in his groin area due to some drainage. If everything looks good then he goes home and if not then they have to put him under a bit deeper and repair the problem. Of course we are praying for everything to be fine and for him to return home. Please keep him in your prayers.

Last night Chesney graduated high school..sniffle..sniffle. I am so proud of her and I can't wait to see what she does with her life, at the same time I am sad that my baby girl has grown up on me. There really hasn't been anything else going on because we haven't had time for anything since we have been at the hospital each day and most nights since my FIL was admitted. I have put my resignation in at work and next Thursday will be it for me there then I will come home and work on building my skin care/wellness business. I can't wait to be home again because I can keep in touch more often than I do now.

I need to go now and sleep awhile because after dropping the kids at school tomorrow I am headed back to the hospital.

Y'all have a great day!

Still alive....

Hey all! Wow, I have seriously got to come here more often. Actually in the next few weeks I will be able to come here more often because I will soon be working from home again however, this time I won't be working for/with my husbands business but my own and I will have to tell you all about that sometime this week. I miss you all so much but my time is stretched right now and when I have free time I have to use it to clean house and do laundry...all that non-fun stuff. My sister is getting married on my anniversary (May 1) so things will be busy until then. My daughter, Chesney, is graduating from high school in May also and somewhere in there Mr. B and I have to find some time to take a few days away for our anniversary. Anyway this was just a quick catch-up post and this time I will be returning soon. You all take care and I will see you soon!

peeking in quickly

Well here I am for another update. I am seriously going to have to make time to come here to post even though I only get online a couple times a week now and that is to check my email. Most people say that the internet is bad for you but I need to get back to my blogging, I miss it and I miss you all.

First of all I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! In my last post I talked about Bethany getting her braces off on December 16th which was a year and four months earlier than expected and she did get them off, her teeth are absolutely beautiful. December was kind of a bum month for us because we all ended up with some horrible flu/stomach virus sickness that goes on for weeks,you might have the cold part or the stomach thing and God help you if you ended up with both at the same time. Around here everyone was calling it the Tennessee Crud, I don't know what it was but we all had it and it was rough. My husband, Shawn, had the stomach part first and dropped 10lbs in 3 days then of course the cold part started. I had the cold thing first then half way through ended up with the stomach part. The kids had both at various times so we are all now getting back to good health.

Last week the meteorologists had me all excited about the big winter storm coming through, I seriously thought we might actually see more than two inches of snow on the ground this time and we did see more than two inches, we ended up with about 3 inches in my yard and that is counting the two layers of ice underneath. I was very disappointed because I am a lover of snow and I like 6 plus inches when it snows. This weekend we stayed in the house because the roads were icy in spots and I was thinking that my kids have never saw a big snow, I have never got to go sledding with them either. That train of thought lead me to thinking that if it doesn't snow big between now and April then next winter we need to go somewhere that has big snow so that we can enjoy all the fun of snow with our kids. When I was a kid a big snow around here meant two feet or more of snow because at least 3 times a winter we would get a foot or more, I really miss that. They have snow in the forecast for next Friday and I am ignoring it. When I see snow on the ground then I will know my big snow has arrived.

I know this has been short but I need to go, my dryer is buzzing and if I don't fold those clothes now then I will have to do them when I get home from work tomorrow. With that I bid you good night!