my son’s drawing

Patrick made a drawing from the picture of him and Ariel. It’s pretty good! Here’s a scanned copy of the drawing, and a copy of the original picture the drawing was made from:

my kids’ blogs

Both of my sons now have their own blogs. It has been very interesting to read their writings. Sawyer is the newest blogger in the family ~ and he’s definitely the most liberal member of the family! He and Patrick have been going back and forth (in a friendly, civilized manner, amazingly enough) on Sawyer’s blog about Sawyer’s liberal, "hippy" ideas. I chuckle because, as Sawyer himself admits, he’s NOT a liberal. He just seems liberal compared to the rest of the conservatives he lives with.

Patrick’s grasp of and commitment to Reformed theology and doctrine continues to amaze me. His writing can be quite persuasive ~ he’s even more persuasive when stating his case and refuting other doctrine in person. Sawyer leans more to the, "Why can’t we all just get along?" camp, and isn’t afraid to express his opinions, either. How did we manage to raise two sons who can be so outspoken? <tongue in cheek>

Being an adult, I can see problems with both of my sons positions and expressions of those individual positions. But, to be honest, I’m quite pleased that both of my sons are able to think for themselves, and rationally discuss and/or debate their opinions and beliefs. I give Sawyer a bit more room regarding his thinking because he is only just 14. He’s just now getting to the age where he can even begin to think things through and really begin to understand things on an adult level. Not that he thinks like an adult yet ~ far from it. But there are things that 12 year olds just can’t seem to wrap their brains around that 14 year olds can begin to reason through.

I don’t agree with everything my children write on their blogs. But that’s ok; I don’t have to agree with everything they think. I’m pleased to see my younger son expressing his thoughts, regardless of whether they’re "hippy-ish" to the rest of the family! And I’m even more pleased to see that my older son is taking an interest in what his younger brother writes; Patrick’s far from agreeing with Sawyer on a lot of points, but again, that’s ok. Patrick has been very gracious and loving (so far!) in his comments and responses on Sawyer’s blog. I’m thrilled to see that besides Patrick there are others who are interested in Sawyer’s writings, and have taken a loving yet guiding stance with him. My thanks and appreciation go out especially to Paige, who has been a consistent commenter on Patrick’s blog, and has also been commenting on Sawyer’s blog. I really do appreciate your taking Sawyer "under your wing" as it were, helping him to really think through what he writes ~ stay the course, and continue to express your thoughts. Sawyer needs all the loving guidance he can get (as we all do)!)

It’s wonderful to know that while we may not see 100% eye to eye all of the time, within our family of 4 there’s more agreement and more things in common than not. Roger and I still have our jobs to do as parents, guiding our children and teaching them in the way they should go, so when they are old they will not depart from it. Discussion is highly encouraged in our home. As I read my sons’ blogs, I am beginning to see glimpses of the young men they are each becoming. Both of our sons are strong Christians, and it is important to each of them to know and understand God and the Bible. We’re on the path of the way they should go. There may be some rabbit trails we’ll have to chase before we reach our goal, but that’s just part of life. And sometimes the rabbit trails make things a little more interesting.

lazy day

Roger took my Suburban to work this morning so Patrick could drive the Accord to Hot Springs. He has a bowling tournament (he’s on the Hot Springs High School bowling team ~ ASMSA only has a few sports teams ~ baseball, golf, and tennis I think ~ so anyone who wants to play a sport not coached at ASMSA can play with the Hot Springs High School teams). I’m not sure why they scheduled a bowling tournament during the Christmas break, but that’s the way it is.

After the bowling tournament, Patrick’s going to follow one of his friends to Conway ~ he’s going to get his new bowling ball at one of the bowling alleys there. Roger and I gave Patrick a certificate for a new bowling ball for Christmas ~ he’s pretty excited about getting it.

This is the first time Patrick has done this much driving by himself. Roger and I are a little nervous about it, especially since it’s supposed to rain today. Arkansans freak out when driving in the rain. Really, they do. But, since Patrick has been taught how to drive by a couple of "north westerners" he should be ok ~ so long as the "freaking out" Arkansans don’t freak him out!

All of that to say, I’m at home without a car today. And I’m planning on taking advantage of it. I’m going to start the border on Patrick’s afghan (hopefully I’ll finish the afghan before he goes back to school), and I’m going to get my laundry done. Since I don’t have a car, Sawyer won’t be bugging me to take him here, there and everywhere else. And that means I’ll be able to get some things done around here.

While it won’t be a completely "lazy day," it won’t be one of those days where I have to leave the house for anything. I’ll go outside to play with Jake, and maybe take a walk around the neighborhood; Sawyer can ride his bike if he feels like getting out of the house. It should be a good day.

tired?

I guess I was a bit tired yesterday. I went to bed last night around 10:30, and I actually slept until noon today! I probably won’t be able to go to bed until midnight tonight, but right now I feel pretty good. I’m definitely a lot more rested than I was yesterday!

I don’t remember the last time I slept until noon ~ I was probably a teenager. I guess I really needed the rest!

new spice jars

A while ago, we had a little accident at our house. My Thomas Kinkade Spice Jar set was knocked off the wall, and about half of them broke into smitherines (as my favorite characters from Looney Tunes would say). It was an accident, really and truly, so I wasn’t mad or upset when it happened.

To me, the spice jars were just things. I had, however, spent about a year and a half collecting those things while we were in Alaska, so it was a bit of a loss to me when they broke.

My sons knew how long it had taken me to collect all 24 of the spice jars; Sawyer did some research after the jars were broken, and found that the production of those jars was limited to 95 firing days. The jars all had a different Thomas Kinkade painting on them, they were produced by Lenox, and they were all hand-painted with gold leafing. So, needless to say, they were a bit expensive. I don’t "collect" things very often; when I do, it’s with an eye to what might someday mean something to my children, their spouses, and/or my grandchildren. The spice jars were part of what my family refers to as my "heirloom collection."

My sons felt bad that the jars had been broken; ironically, they had absolutely nothing to do with the jars and their display case being knocked off the wall. They weren’t even home when it happened. But, they felt bad for me anyway ~ my "heirloom collection" doesn’t mean a whole lot to them right now (hopefully it will someday), but they know it’s important to me.

Sawyer spent all summer looking for a replacement set of Thomas Kinkade spice jars for me. Sweet kid ~ it took him all summer to actually find a replacement set! They’re hard to find, since the production was limited, but Sawyer persisted and was finally successful. He and Patrick decided to buy the replacement set for me as a Christmas present.

The set Sawyer located was in immaculate shape. All of the jars were still in their original packaging, and they all came with their Certificate of Authentication from the Bradford Exchange. I was moved to tears when I opened the huge box under the Christmas tree and found the set of jars and the new display case.

Here’s a picture of my new Thomas Kinkade Spice Jar set, and a closeup of one of the jars:

I’m absolutely thrilled to have a full set of jars again ~ thank you, Sawyer and Patrick. You guys are wonderful! (I would say something about how sweet and sentimental it was for my sons to go to the trouble of hunting down those jars and purchasing them for me, but that would probably embarrass them.)

new photo album

I’ve added a new photo album ~ "christmas 2006". I have lots to write about, but I’ll have to do it later or another day. Right now, I just need some rest! Christmas was wonderful, and we were so glad to have Grammy, Grandpa Larry and Grandpa John here. Grammy and Grandpa Larry headed back to Colorado this morning (Grandpa John lives about 10 minutes away from our house, so we get to see him a lot more often than we do the rest of the family).

Patrick’s home for more than just a weekend ~ it’s nice to have him around. He and Sawyer went shopping this morning ~ they used their gift cards from Barnes & Noble and Best Buy. Patrick went to the bowling alley on base this afternoon to get in some practice ~ he has a bowling tournament in Hot Springs on Friday.

It’s getting dark now, and I think we’re all completely exhausted. I’ll write more about our Christmas visit with Grammy and Grandpa Larry another day.

traditions

Our Christmas traditions include opening presents on Christmas Eve. All of the presents. When the boys were little, it was next to impossible for us to get them to go to bed Christmas Eve. We didn’t "do" Santa, so it wasn’t the anticipation of waiting to see what Santa brought them that kept them awake. It was simply the excitement of knowing that the next morning they were going to FINALLY get to open all of those presents under the tree. Sawyer would go to sleep around 11pm (which is extremely late for a 3 year old!), and Patrick would somehow manage to stay awake until 3 or 4am (he has always had a lot more stubborn willpower than Sawyer). As soon as the first ray of sunlight would peek over the horizon Christmas morning, Sawyer would be up, insisting the rest of us get up so we could open presents.

I’m not an early morning type of person. 8am wake-up is just fine with me. I definitely don’t like 6am. So, in order to be able to sleep until a decent time on Christmas morning, Roger and I decided to try letting the boys choose one present to open Christmas Eve. This worked fairly well ~ the first year we tried it. The next year the constant requests to be allowed to open more than one present got to be too much. We gave in (something Roger and I don’t do very often ~ we have always tried to not use child-centered parenting). The thing was, letting the boys open all of their presents at 8 or 9pm Christmas Eve actually worked well for us. The boys got to play with all of their new toys for several hours before bedtime, and they would sleep in the next morning! Roger and I decided it worked so well, we have continued to open presents on Christmas Eve.

Tonight we will continue our tradition of opening Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. Roger’s mom and step-dad are staying with us, and my dad will drive over from his apartment in town to join us. Tomorrow we’ll all sleep in and eat a light (late) breakfast. Then we’ll have our traditional reading of the story of Christmas from Luke 2. After that will come the feast of turkey with all the fixin’s and several different desserts for Christmas dinner (which I keep trying to explain to my children means eating around 3pm, but they don’t seem to understand that concept).

I’m looking forward to watching the kids open their presents. I hope they never get too old or too stuffy to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I wonder, did Mary enjoy watching Jesus and his half-brothers and sister open their Hanukkah presents as much as I enjoy watching my kids with their Christmas presents? I think that’s one of the joys of being a parent. There’s still something wonderful about sitting down with our kids to read from the Bible, reminding them why we celebrate Christmas. And despite all of its commercialization, Christmas remains such a beautiful celebration of God’s love ~ after all, Jesus is the reason for the season!

sawyer’s 14

Happy birthday, Sawyer!

There are more pictures in the new photo album "sawyer’s 14th birthday" in the right-hand sidebar (contact me if you don’t already have the user name and password). We’re all going out for dinner; I’ll post pictures from dinner after we get home tonight.

interesting

I received this info in an email today ~ I’m not sure how accurate some of the "facts" are, but they’re fun to read:

In the 1400’s a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"

Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden"…and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green (eeewwww!).

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

eragon

Sawyer and I went to see Eragon yesterday afternoon. Sawyer has read Eragon and Eldest about 10 times each, so he was very anxious to see the first movie.

I thought Eragon (the movie) was a mix of Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and other sci-fi types of movies. It was very obviously aimed at young males who enjoy those types of books and movies (considering the book was begun when the author was 15 years old, the intended audience is not surprising). Not that I didn’t enjoy Eragon ~ I just thought perhaps it could have been a little better done.

Given my penchant for fresh popcorn and frozen Coke (see i love movies), I could hardly complain about the opportunity to go to a movie! Just about any movie that comes along that has no drugs, no nudity, no sex, and no profanity is probably going to have a good chance of being on my "ok to see" list.

There’s a good review of the movie on PluggedInOnline ~ click the pink words to read their review (or go to www.pluggedinonline.com and find the review from there).

new pics

Patrick has (finally) sent me some pictures ~ I had to threaten to start calling his friends myself and asking for pictures they’d taken. The pictures he sent aren’t from the Winter Semi-Formal, but they are of Patrick and his friends dressed up to go dancing.

One of the nice hotels in town has a band come in every Friday and Saturday night ~ not a rock band, but the kind of band you’d hire for a nice event; a swing and ballroom dancing kind of band. I was surprised a few months ago when Patrick told me he had been going dancing on the weekends. Apparently his friend Ariel has talked him into learning to dance ballroom style. That took a LOT of effort on Ariel’s part ~ before now Patrick has refused to dance. But Ariel persisted and was eventually successful in convincing Patrick to go dancing with her on the weekends.

Here’s a picture of Patrick and Ariel taken last night before they headed out dancing:

I’ve added the photo album "at school" in the right-hand sidebar; there are more pictures there. The photo albums are password protected, but I’ll be glad to give you the user name and password if you don’t have them. Just send me an email (use the "Email Me" link at the top of the left-hand sidebar), let me know who you are, and ask for the user name and password. I’ll send them to you as soon as I’ve read your email.

Patrick has promised more pictures to come. When I’ve received them, I’ll post those as well.

this week, capsulized

I had 2 doctor’s visits this week ~ one to the pain management doc, and the other to my "general practitioner" (he’s a Physician’s Assistant, but just about the most caring person I’ve ever seen in the medical field). My PA actually cares how I’m doing, which is a nice change from most of the military docs I’ve seen.

Anyway, the pain management doc had to give me some new meds because I’m experiencing another small fibro-flare (my fibromyalgia symptoms are increasing in intensity). I thought at first that the rainy weather was bothering me, but it’s looking now like it’s really the cold that’s bothering me. We had some rainy weather accompanied by a significant drop in temperature a week or so ago, and my pain level increased ~ I wrote it off as being a reaction to the rain. But this week we haven’t had the rain, just the cold, and my pain levels are still elevated. That leads me (and the doc) to believe the flare is a result of the cold, not the rain. And that’s weird, because the cold in Alaska didn’t bother me like this. Of course, I suffered with that back injury in February that sent me into a major flare, so perhaps this reaction to the cold is a result of the injury that caused my fibromyalgia to worsen. Follow me on that?

The visit to the PA was a follow-up from a previous visit. Bless his heart, he knows when he sees my name on the schedule it’s not going to be a quick, routine 15 minute visit, and he might as well resign himself that my visit will take a while. He’s always very gracious, and gives me as much time as I need. It’s nice to not feel rushed. I know he has other people waiting, so I don’t purposefully take up a lot of his time. He asks me questions about my fibro symptoms, makes notes, and even prescribes every day stuff like Zyrtec and FloNase for my allergies which I don’t get from my pain doc. It takes a while, but by the time I leave he’s usually up to full speed with all of my health care.

Roger had a visit this morning with the hand surgeon ~ they have decided his wrist is going to have to be operated on. I haven’t talked to Roger about the details yet ~ Rog said he was going to try to put the surgery off until January.

no pictures?!

Patrick told his dad, "Mom’s going to kill me." And he may be right!

Patrick’s digital camera uses regular old batteries. Not fancy batteries that cost an arm and a leg to replace; not even rechargable batteries ~ plain old "AA" batteries, available at every gas station, convenience store, grocery store and Wal-Mart across the country. So then how is it that my son, my 16 year old son who lives and handles well the responsibilities of a college freshman ~ how is it that this son of mine could manage to forget to replace the batteries in his digital camera before a major event?! He went to Wal-Mart the night before the winter semi-formal, and forgot to buy extra batteries for his camera!

I’m a little peeved, incase you weren’t able to figure that out from all of the emphasis in the above paragraph. How, how could he possibly forget?

For his sake, I hope he’s able to find pictures of himself and his date from his friends. The possibility of me having absolutely no pictures of Patrick the night of his first official high school semi-formal is simply unacceptable. He’ll never be able to live it down. I sure hope his friends got some pictures of him ~ otherwise I will make an appearance at every dance and/or event from now on and take my own pictures. I’m pretty sure he won’t be thrilled about that, but that’s how it will be if he can’t come up with some pictures for me!

a long day inside

Poor Jake ~ when I don’t feel well, and don’t feel like going outside, he really suffers. Sawyer will take him out and play with him when I can’t, but he still feels neglected. He sits at the window and wishfully gazes out for hours. When Roger gets home, Jake will be relentless in bugging him to go outside ~ it doesn’t matter to Jake how cold it is, he just wants Mom or Dad to throw the ball for him. Poor puppy.

trish’s glasses

There they are: proof that I am now officially "getting old." Those are my reading glasses. To me, those reading glasses represent true adulthood ~ I’m no longer a kid or even a young adult. I have officially entered the world of the "older" people.

It’s funny; you would think I would be more bothered by the fact that I have lots of gray hairs (found my first gray hair when I was 21 ~ it’s genetic), or even by the wrinkles that are starting to form in the corners of my eyes. But I’m not ~ it’s those reading glasses that really bug me. I can’t explain why they bother me so much. They just do.

The consolation prize for me is that if I have to wear reading glasses, at least I can look good doing so!

death-warmed-over

Today is a "death-warmed-over" day. That’s how I feel; like death-warmed-over. Have you ever had one of those days?

I didn’t even want to get out of bed this morning. I woke up at 7am to call the appointment line and make an appointment with my PCM. But, Lt. Beadle (my Primary Care Manager) isn’t in today. I don’t have the energy (physical or emotional) to go through the explanation of my FMS/CMP and the outline of my meds, their side effects, and their possible drug interactions, with another doctor. In fibromyalgia-speak, I don’t have the energy to "teach a course in FMS/CMP." So, I’ll have to wait until Monday and call again. Hopefully Lt. Beadle will be in on Monday and I’ll be able to see him.

On a lighter note ~ tomorrow the Winter Semi-Formal will be held at Patrick’s school. The school is also hosting an open house for parents, but I doubt that Roger and I will be able to attend. I wanted to chaperone the dance and after-party, but Roger said no. He’s right ~ I’m trying to be a smother-mother, and none of us want that. It’s probably a good thing he said no anyway, considering how I feel today. I would love to have a miraculous recovery by tomorrow, but I’ll continue to plan around feeling poorly.

It has finally turned truly cold here. Roger went outside with Jake last night and came back inside shivering! I haven’t been outside today yet, but I checked the weather report, and the current temp is 39 degrees. The high today is supposed to be around 47 degrees. When we lived in Alaska, we would have laughed if someone said 47 degrees was "truly cold" ~ 47 degrees in Anchorage is usually a pretty nice temp. But for some reason 47 degrees feels a lot colder here. I haven’t figured it out yet. The humidity is actually higher in Anchorage (88% compared to 56% here) ~ I always thought the humidity here was the reason 47 degrees usually feels bone-biting cold. The reason it feel different in Anchorage probably has something to do with Anchorage being at sea level, surrounded by mountains and an inlet, the warm fronts that come in from Hawaii occasionally, etc.etc. Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t. I just know that when it’s 47 degrees here, Jake has to be satisfied with chasing his ball around the house most of the time instead of being able to run and chase the ball outside. It’s too cold! LOL

I’m looking forward to having pictures of Patrick and his date, Jane,from the Winter Semi-Formal. Both Patrick and Jane have digital cameras, so hopefully between the two of them they’ll get some good pictures. I’ll post them ~ Patrick is going to look fantastic in his black suit and red tie (the theme is Phantom of the Opera ~ red and black are the theme colors). Last I heard, Patrick’s roommate, Ethan, was planning on wearing a red shirt with a black tie ~ the opposite of Patrick. I know both boys are going to be quite handsome.