It's that time of year again

....Time when I start trying to get über-organized, decluttered and I make lists and lists of to-dos, will-dos, wanna-dos and someday-dos. The time when nothing satisfies me, 24 hours is NEVER enough, 7 days just won't cut it and I don't have enough hairs to pull out. Where I have a list soooo long of things I want to do, I get over-motivated and I burn out. (while I fry everyone near me as well) Or I get so overwhelmed I am forced into inactivity.

Hmmmmmmmmmm

Maybe it's actually TIME to rethink things.

Christmas medley

Oh my goodness!! I just finally had a chance to see/listen to this from my friend Comfy Denim's site. I absolutely loved it!! I was laughing so hard by the end! So I am stealing it from her, so you can see it too!!



Hope you all had a blessed Christmas!

Getting a face-lift

Face it, I'm addicted
I am making an about face
Facing the facts
More than just a pretty face
Jumping into a sea of faces
Facing up to it
a face could launch a thousand ships
doing an about face

I recently discovered facebook. A friend of mine invited me to join a few months ago. Since I had never seen a facebook page, I had no idea what it was all about. Then my neice got a page and was able to show it to me. It only slightly piqued my interest. Myspace had "prettier" pages and seemed like you could do more.

Late last week, my friend Heather IM'd me and told me to get one. I asked her why and she said they were "fun." Hmmmmmmm "Fun." Apparently I thought I needed more "fun" because I decided to try it out.

WOW. FUN!! I agree.... FUN! I love my facebook!



Facebook, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways....
1. I can add books, book clubs, tell what I am reading, what I have read and what I would like to read. I can take book quizzes, get recommendations for more books to read and share books and review with others.
2. All the above I can also do with movies.
3. And music.
4. You can communicate with your friends in meaningful ways (like throwing a chicken dressed like an elf at them)
5. You can give (cyber) gifts to friends, like snow globes with neat things inside that they can't see for two days.
6. You can give friends things that grow, like plants or trees.
7. And lots of other time wasters and seemingly un-important things.

Yes, I know it is not as pretty as myspace and it will never replace my blog (it isn't really conducive to blogging) but it is lots of fun. If you were ever interested in getting one, I highly recommend it! And you can look me up (so I can throw a sheep dressed like Santa at you)

Thawing...

Well, I am trying to think of some witty way to write about our recent events. Okay, maybe not witty, how about just informative.... I can't seem to wrap my mind around everything! LOL Here are the details:

• Monday morning at 2am we lost power
• We left our home on Monday about 10am to find electricity and heat
• We headed to Michael's mom (who had electricity)
• Once we were on the road, she called and said hers had gone out too
• Hotels were going fast. We could not find two adjacent rooms anywhere in Tulsa or Broken Arrow (we needed two rooms so Kaedy and her nurse could be in one, esp overnight) Could only find one hotel that had two rooms AT ALL and they were smoking rooms.
  
• We decided to look for a generator
• Generators sold out (closest ones in Arkansas)
• We went to mother in law's to decide what to do
• We ended up staying there. We had lots of oxygen for Kaedra and we could turn on her gas fireplace now and then to heat up her house (we just had to put Kaedra in another room with her oxygen)
• A friend found us a generator to borrow, now we could use Kaedra's equipment.
  
• One of our nurses, Tonja, had no electricity so she has been staying with us since Monday as well.
  
• Wednesday night my mother in law got power back, right before we went to church.
• Late Wednesday night, our electricity at home was restored.
• We came home Thursday morning.
  

Okay, that's the timeline.

Here are the little details to fill in:
In case you didn't know, Oklahoma had a severe ice storm.




It is very unusual for the Tulsa area to get the brunt of any weather, but this time we did, especially in Broken Arrow. There are were so many big, beautiful trees here. They got loaded down with ice and couldn't hold the weight. It was so eery being out outside on Monday/Tuesday. You would hear creaks and cracks and then crashes of limbs falling. Limbs were everywhere.


I was afraid for anyone to go outside without someone watching them from a window. We used the "buddy system" all day on Monday. A limb fell aobut 1 foot behind my nurse's car 10 minutes after she parked. A limb fell 3 yards in front of Brittany and I while we were driving. Here is what part of our street looked like one of the times we came home to check on our house:





I don't know if you can tell but we had to weave up and down through people's yards to be able to get home. It was an adventure. :-)

Almost ALL of Broken Arrow lost electricity, including stores, restaurants, etc. The falling limbs had taken out so many of the electric lines. There was hardly anyplace to go to find food, batteries, candles, etc. It was really a disaster. As of right now 73,000 people in the Tulsa area still don't have electricity, 197-thousand statewide. Our nurse Tonja and our friends, the Grahams, and Annie are some people we know personally that still don't have power. Please pray for them! (Sherria's family finally got it last night)

We have been looking at our blessings during this....here are some of them:

• Our insurance is covering most of our loss of food in refrigerator and outside freezer.
• We had a little bit of damage to our house (our gutters) and our fences so insurance is going to cover tree removal for us. (Without damage, insurance will not cover removal)

• Our trees are now pruned. ;-)
• Our frig is now completely clean (haven't worked on outside freezer at all, yet) and who knows when I would have taken EVERYTHING out of my frig to clean it. ;-)
• Friends lent us a generator
• People at church offered us a place to stay (their power went out about an hour later, but it was the thought that counts!) Our church also became a shelter to members w/o electricity.
  
• We didn't have to take Kaedra to the hospital! WOOHOO! (that was our last option, if we couldn't find any electricity)
• We had money in the bank to cover the extra expenses of eating out, extra clothing and supplies, etc.
• There are many more...but I need to go take care of my house and home. We are still trying to get everything back to normal! Hopefully we will be there by Monday.

Oh...and by the way...it's snowing now!!! (this might be the first time EVER I have not been excited about a snow)

Recent Pics

Here are some recent pics from around our house and at our Mark 10:14 party. To see more pics of the party, check out my homeschool blog.

Mark 10:14 Pajama Party

FAITH's Mark 10:14 Group (for 3rd grade and younger) recently had their Christmas Party at Bass Pro. It was a Pajama Party! The kids dressed in their jammies, brought pillows and blankets and cuddled up to hear stories. They also snacked on popcorn, cookies, hot cocoa and apple cider and had an ornament exchange. It was really a lot of fun. I hope all the kids enjoyed it as much as I did!

Here are the pictures from the event:

Singing The Blog Blues

update: I am now MUCH happier with my blog. I may even keep it this way for awhile. :-) At least until I recover some of the hours I spent working on it.....THANK GOODNESS the cookie exchange was put off for a week! LOL

I'm still working on my blog....as you can see.

I am not happy with it. Which is really no change since I wasn't happy with it before either. However, I don't know which "not happy with it" is worse or better. wow. I have talked myself into a circle there.

Anyway, why am I changing my blog look, you ask?

Well...I asked my darling hubby if I could have a new look for a Christmas present. A Professionally done template. (insert oohs and aaaahs here) But hubby said no. I sulked understood, so I decided to take matters in my own hands and try to change it around myself. That started the whole problem.


But why do I want a new look? Why do I care?

It's funny, I have been asking myself that question for the last week or so. I think I have come up with an answer. I am a stay at home mom. I really don't get out much. Some of my closest friends I see once or twice a month (if I am lucky) and one of them I have only seen once in 11 years! This is how they see me....my blog. This is the "me" that they see every day (or at least the days I write) and I want it to "look like me." I want it to exude Kahri-ness. And, on top of that, this is my introduction to people who don't know me. I want them to get a feel for me, too. And it isn't doing that. Yes, I guess you could call that vain. Yes, I am sure it doesn't matter in the grand scheme things of things. But it would make me happy. :-)

Why is it taking me so long? What is my problem?
Where do I start? I don't know CSS, so I am trying to figure that out. I don't know anything about XML but I want to keep my blogger in XML (because I like the widgets) and I don't know anything about widgets so changing templates is driving me crazy. I also want to keep 3 columns. Any professionals out there taking pity on me yet? HAHA.

Okay, so that's why I am singing the blog blues. I know it is silly and not important and trite, but it is me...laid bare. :-)

Strange Happenings

If you see strange things on my blog in the next few days, it is because I am messing with the design. Please excuse the construction mess. :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Comments?

Okay, I said I wasn't going to care if I had comments or not...but what is up with this??? I know people are reading my blog, but they aren't commenting! C'mon guys...just a comment or two? Please? Do I sound pathetic enough?? Please??? Even my OWN HUBBY doesn't comment (HINT HINT!!)

*****************************************************************************
Thank you to all who responded to my pathetic pleas for comments! :-) You are all awesome!

Dis Dat an' De Udder Ding

I have lots of little things running through my head today! I have been blogging in my head all day.... I need some kind of mobile blogging device attached to my brain. Anyone want to help me patent that? I am SURE that would be a pretty device, attached with nodes to my head. Maybe they could be in designer colors. :-)



What's in a name?
Ethan has learned to say "mama" and mean it! Last week he was holding my cell phone and I thought I'd be funny so I called it from the home phone. He jumped very high, threw the phone and yelled "MOM." We didn't know if it was a fluke or not. That evening, Brittany was holding him on my bed. When I came in the room he bounced up and down and said "mama, mama!!" And since then he has said it quite a few times every day. Especially when he first sees me or when he wants me to lift him up! WOW! A child that actually said "mama" before "dada"....That's pretty awesome!!! I just love hearing it. (And I will love hearing it until he is about 3 and he will keep saying it over and over like Kaedra, who usually does it while trying to get my attention for her 100th knock knock joke of the day!)

Chicken Dance
My dad sent me this link in an email. The girls just love it. Emily's is the Italian Chicken and Brittany's is the French chicken. Kaedra loves them all. I am a little disturbed by the Irish one! LOL

Thank goodness I didn't have the camera
We were running errands today and I Kaedra was yelling "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" (not very unusual, see above post, however this time she wasn't yelling "Knock, Knock" too) I looked back in my mini rear view mirror to see what she wanted. Ethan was reaching out from his seat and holding Kaedra's hand who was reaching out from hers. It was so adorable!!! Thank goodness I didn't have the camera or I am sure I would have done whatever I could to take that pic while driving!

Tech geekiness shining through
I FINALLY got Firefox. I know lots of people are Firefox afficianados, but I had not had time to look into it and get it yet. Well, I finally did and I love it! I was so thrilled. Michael was like, "it's just a browser." NO! It's F*I*R*E*F*O*X! All the cool tech geeks use it. Not only that, but I made igoogle my start up page. (actually one of my start up pages, you can have multiple pages with firefox!) Now I have an ultra cool start up page on my ultra cool new browser with my ultra cool blue Christian icons. WOOHOO! I am stylin'! Now I just have to get used to the tabbed pages and stop looking for my other window!


Happy Valentine's Day to me!
Michael bought me a ugly watch for Valentine's Day. I hated didn't like it and we returned it. I have been looking for a watch that I like since then. I finally found it today! And Michael said I could get it! And I don't have to consider it a Christmas present!! Another WOOHOO!! I finally realized my style. That helped a lot! I thought I liked the "dressy" style but it turns out I like the "rugged" style. I know it may look a little "manly" but I really really like it. AND it's got an alarm that I can use to help me with remembering all the Kaedra stuff. :-)


I am thinking this is NOT the time to say "ROFLPIMP"
Denise wrote about me in her blog today. She has a VERY mistaken impression of me, but I am honored to have somehow created this, this, this fairy tale version of myself. Perhaps I should video tape my whole cookie exchange experience for Denise's peace of mind. Or maybe I will just continue the charade........(evil laugh) Anyway, I find her opinion of me quite amusing and I will softly chuckle behind my very refined closed fist. (Especially since she is forgetting the time my dog ate all my dough, not once, but twice!!! And I have made take home containers out of lunch bags several years in a row. I have no idea how I keep getting Martha. It is a fluke!) Here I am with my "Martha" prize from 2005.

For some reason I could just keep going and going and going.

I have sooo much to say. I will stop here. I want you to come back. I need to write something for you to come back. I need to stop now so you will come back. Now. No...now. Did I tell you about.....? Oops. NOW.

Feliz Navi-tossmas

This video was pretty funny. Not so much in a "ha-ha" way, but more in a "makes you think" way.

Picture Meme

Got this from My Life as Annie and it looked like fun! I have gotten some others from her site lately, too, which I will do as time permits!!

Here's the deal. Type the answer to each question into a Google image search, and then pick an image from the first page of results.

1. Age at next birthday...



2. place I'd like to travel...


3. favorite place...


4. favorite objects...




5. favorite food...


6. favorite color...


7. nickname...


8. place you were born...


That was fun....now it's your turn!

Simply Absurd Video

Mike Turk, my best friend from High School has made quite a name for himself since school. He is a bigwig in the ecampaign circles and the Republican circles. However, I like him for his blog.

Check out his newest entry and be sure to watch the video:
Kung Fu Quip

Oh, by they way. I suggest not to watch this with your children around. They may, like my Emily, take to singing it endlessly and dancing around like the people in the video.....

Mike Huckabee on Homeschooling

Check out this video:



Another reason to support Huckabee!

An upside-down Christmas

Check this out.....



The girls and I saw it in a catalog yesterday. I was floored. (Maybe, considering the picture, I should say I was ceilinged)

I realize that a lot of people consider Christmas trees themselves sacreligious. I have never been one of those people. However, seeing this Christmas tree upside down hit me that way. Isn't that odd? I mean, it is not the cross. It isn't anything to do with Jesus. But I have always seen it that way. I have always seen our Christmas tree as "pointing to God." Maybe it was a Sunday School lesson or something.

So let me tell you the reason they sell this lovely tree
"...this unique 7' pre-lit fir is inverted to ensure a smaller footprint for less-spacious areas, and allowing more room for the accumulation of presents underneath. "

WOW

"More room for the accumulation of presents underneath."

I think more than the tree is upside down.

Arghity argh argh

Just switched to a new template and in the process of saving my old info, explorer crashed. I basically have to start from scratch. Sooooo if my page looks a little "light" that is the reason.... I will work on it as I have time!

Meanwhile, check out this new blog I found...I love it! It should keep you busy for quite awhile!

http://thinkaware.blogspot.com/

I need a thesaurus for "Update"

abridge, advise, apprise, edify, enlighten, epitomize, explain, fill in, inform, initiate, instruct, orient, prepare, prime, recapitulate, summarize, tip off, update....for the week

Well we have had a good week. Brittany had a friend spend the night, we got a lot of errands done on Wednesday, we had a very nice Thanksgiving at home with just Sherria, we stayed clear of any and all stores on Friday, we decorated our house and tree on Saturday and we started today off with a great church service.

That's the good news....

We did have a little bad news:

1. One of our nurses quit. We have no idea why, but if you are reading this Lonnie -- thanks for everything! We will miss you!!

2. Michael is being sent out of state for 2 weeks. One week he will be in Joplin, Mo; one week in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He is leaving tomorrow. We are REALLY not excited about it. But we are blessed that he has a good job so we will concentrate on that. I thought about going to Albuquerque to visit my parents, but, unfortunately, it will not work out well for several reasons. I hoped maybe they could come out here, but they are busy and this was awful last minute. (Michael just found out at noon on Wednesday)

Anyway, the girls and I are trying to make the best of it. We are going to rent girly movies and eat food that Michael doesn't like. We are going to have sleep-overs every night in my room and maybe even have pillow fights. LOL.

Although Denise and her family saw snow the other night, we didn't get to see it. We are hoping to see some today! But then we'd like it to go away for awhile, so Michael isn't having to deal with driving long distances through snow. :-)

We moved our whole den around yesterday. We love the way it looks now. It gives the house a whole new "feel" if'n ya know what I mean. :-)

I collect nativities: This is my nativity Sherria brought me from Alaska! Isn't it precious? (It's REALLY small too..the baby Jesus is just about the size of a couple grains of rice!)

Okay, everyone have a great week and I will talk to y'all later!

Happy Birthday to Sherria

I would put a nice, long, Happy Birthday post here about Sherria but since she hardly ever reads my blog anymore (hint, hint) I will just say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RIA!!!!



And hope she someday sees it.... LOL

And introducing......

The Daily Take

Michael has a blog now! Go check it out and tell him what you think.

Have a wonderful week!!!

I hope you all have a blessed and wonderful week! I am so thankful to all my friends and your prayers and support. I am so thankful to have people I can call when I am lonely, fearful, happy, celebrating or a myriad of other emotions! I am so thankful you all give me the Word and speak life over me. I just want to thank you all for your wonderful-ness and for filling my life with your love.



Again, have a wonderful week. I thank God for the blessing of each and every one of you that I call my friends. God Bless You all!

(A special thank you to Brandi who has been my friend for almost 12 years, even though we have only met once, for a couple of days. You are awesome, Brandi, in fact, you are the BEST!!)

testing blogging from my pda

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

WOOHOO!!! IT WORKED!!! Now I can blog from my pda!! WOOHOO!!!

I can read blogs from my pda now, too! And I get mobile bloglines. The only things I can't do are comment and watch people's videos. I could get a plug in for the videos, I think, but I can't comment yet. I will have to wait for that fix. Anyway, I am getting more and more mobile!! Which is good. With Michael's new schedule, he is going to bed fairly early. He likes me to be in there with him, and, since Ethan agrees, I usually am. However, Michael doesn't so much like the reading light I have. With my PDA, I can try to get a few things done before I fall asleep. WOOHOO!!

Keepers of the Home Meeting

This month we were learning baking and cake decorating. Here are the pictures from today:

Kaedra update

Well Kaedra has had a couple of hard weeks.

I want to say that I believe that Kaedra is healed from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. I believe that her healing happened when Jesus died on the cross over 2000 years ago. She is healed in all aspects -- full ribs, perfect spine and lungs as well as healed from colds, infections and anything else that tries to come up against her and the Word of God.

That being said, Kaedra was attacked by a "little" cold. It was just a runny nose and cough. However, with the cough, she was having more trouble breathing and her oxygen was increased so she could breathe comfortably. Through problems with equipment, problems with Kaedra turning her own oxygen up, and our trying to make her comfortable she ended up being on about 4-5 liters of oxygen. (she is usually on about 1/8-1/4 liter oxygen)

Last week she started to bleed a lot out of her trach. It is not uncommon when she is coughing a lot, so we did not worry about it. However, the blood increased and Kaedra was not able to catch her breath. By Thursday night she was in pretty major distress. Michael and I prayed over her and within minutes Michael was given insight by the Holy Spirit that she was on too much oxygen.

Now this was something we would NEVER have thought about. We have never been warned about giving her too much oxygen and we don't know anything about the affects or anything. It was completely a "God thing."

So we immediately turned her down and she was doing much better within 20 minutes! She is continally getting better everyday. We are praying against any long term damage that the extra oxygen might have done. (I don't want to speak anything negative over her, just join us in agreeing that there are no long term affects! HALLELUJAH!)

Isn't God awesome??

Pictures from Kaedra's Birthday

Kaedra had three friends over for her birthday. Natalie from FAITH and our co-op and Braden and Colton, brothers from our church. They are almost all about the same age. It was so funny watching them try to figure out pin the tail on the donkey (even when they had no mask on, they didn't know where the tail was supposed to go!), musical chairs, they just wanted to dance on their own squares, and who exactly was supposed to get the presents. Here are pictures from the fun afternoon!

Big Happenings in our little world

Well, first of all, for all of those who have been praying, Michael got a new job!!
He was hired by Sam's Club and will be starting out as a developmental store manager. Basically he is a manager apprentice for up to 12 months. It is a program for people who already have lots of management experience but have not managed a Sam's Club before. He will probably start Tuesday.


Second of all, Kaedra turned 3 this week!! Yes, the child they said would never make it, never walk, never talk, never have any "quality of life" ran around and played musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey and helped three of her friends sing "Happy Birthday."


Brittany had an all-nighter at church this Friday night. They went to a concert of Thousand Foot Crutch, Toby Mac and Barlow Girl. Then they went to glo-bowl and afterwards headed back to the church to play games and watch movies.


On Saturday, we went to our homeschool group's Thanksgiving Feast. It was a lot of fun and we had some delicious food! Here is a pic of most of the kids there. (I had to take two pics to get them all in!)



Ethan is learning to walk around holding onto furniture. It seems like he went straight from crawling to cruising! He is getting so big. We are about to transition him to his crib for at least part of the night.


Our Mark 10:14 group went to the firestation this week and had a great fieldtrip there.


I am starting a Thanksgiving/Pilgrim unit study with Emily. We are both really excited about it! I have a bunch of things for the walls that I bought from a retiring teacher. I am going to decorate tonight while she is at church, to surprise her.


Today would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday. We lost her last year and she never did get her letter from the president. However, we know she is enjoying herself in heaven and would much rather be there. :-)


Michael and I are huge X-Files fans. In fact, it is about the only thing we agree about as far as TV. :-) A few years ago I bought him the entire boxed collection for some holiday. Unfortunately I bought it from some Hong Kong operation and the DVDs aren't all good quality. (Be careful what you buy on Ebay!! LOL) Anyway, for the past few months we have been watching through all 9 seasons of X-Files. We should be finishing it up this week. We also heard there will soon be a new movie out. WOOHOO!


I will write a separate post updating about Kaedra as soon as I can. (Ethan is screaming for some mommy time at the moment..)