Archive | November, 2010

Takin’ a Break

29 Nov

Hi All!

It’s been busy and exciting in my house.  My bathroom is “almost” done.  Insert Big Smiles here.  I have family in town visiting, and my oh-so-cute nephew is simply adorable.

So, I’m taking a little break this week.  No blogging for me, but I’ll have lots to talk about when things settle down a bit.

I also have a little prayer request.  I got to spend a lovely, sleepless night in the hospital this weekend, because my heart is oh-so-crazy.  Please pray that it settles down.  They have drugs for me, but they interfere with my asthma, so they are holding off.  I see the cardiologist on the 10th, but I’d like to stay out of the hospital between now and then.  You see, I’m bit of a germaphobe and hospitals are germy.

That’s all I have to say.

Well, not really.  I have a funny hospital story (of course), but I shall save it for later.

Love you all.  Hope you had a stuffing filled Thanksgiving (more people like it out, according to the unofficial poll).  Enjoy your week!  I plan to enjoy mine.

-FringeGirl

Enthusiastic Projects

24 Nov

The FringeFamily may lack many things, however, there is no shortage of enthusiasm among us.

I’ve given you a few visuals of our bathroom project, but you’re really missing out on the olfactory.  Since we, meaning FringeMan, is laying a new floor, the toilet has been removed.  No worries, because there is a brand, spanking new toiley sitting in a box right outside our back door.  Problem is without the bowl covering the poop pipe, our house is a wee bit odoriferous.

SMELLY!

Instead of focussing my hair-brained head on the work at hand, I decided to take yesterday afternoon and have a little art time with the kids.  It’s amazing how paint and a brush can sooth a soul, especially on a rainy day.

FringeMan says painting is my therapy.  He envisions me in a mental hospital, whiling away the hours painting farm animals.

I say, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

Now you remember our chickens, don’t you?

If not, go HERE, but come right back.

This time we attempted cows.  Cows are not nearly as easy as chickens to create.  This may be because I lack a passion for the moo.  I’m not sure.  I mean, I like dairy products as much as the next person.  I simply was not channeling chocolate milk yesterday afternoon.  I actually tore my first two attempts in half.  Then FringeKid began talking me off the ledge.

“Let yourself relax.” She said in a soothing voice.  “Don’t think about it, just let it flow.”

Perhaps a career in art therapy will be in her future.  She’s really quite good with the verbal encouragement.

What amazes me is that the three of us sat down with the same supplies and the same mission – To Draw A Cow.

Our creations are as different as our personalities.  Please don’t laugh until you show me your art work.

By FringeKid

By FringeBoy

By FringeGirl

I am afraid to even think of what these paintings could be saying about our personalities.

Have a Moo-Valous Thanksgiving!

Are You Dressed?

23 Nov

I’m over at Adding Zest to Your Nest today.  Come visit me please.  I’m feeling lonely.

I also have a question for you, but read my post at Adding Zest before you answer.  Here’s the question…

Do you think what you wear matters?

Something to think about.

The Bright Side & Stuffing

22 Nov

It’s Monday!

I know, it’s quite presumptuous of me to use an exclamation point after the word Monday.  What is the opposite of an exclamation point anyway?

I propose inverting the exclamation point and turning the dot into an evil-looking smiley face.  Don’t you think that would be appropriate?

This morning I could focus on the fact that I have gargantuan holes in my kitchen wall.  Or I could think about how my bathroom may not be finished by Christmas, much less Thanksgiving.  Or I could sit and watch my kitchen sink drip, because now that’s also leaking now.  Those old pipes must have been jarred when we tore at the wall it’s resting against.  However, today I’m looking on the bright side.

I am showered!

I am alive!!

I have buckets to catch my drips!!!

There’s always a bright side friends.

Do you like my tree?  It’s actually much cuter in person.  You can’t see all my bright ornaments in this photo because I’m a lousy photographer, but I have a whole gaggle of small vintage ornaments at the top, and I have these gold long hanging ornaments that are really old and glisten in the lights of my tree.  Thankfully it’s fire retardant!  You see, there are so many reasons to be thankful this Monday.

After all it is nearly Thanksgiving and not Christmas, so I should be dwelling on the ‘thanks’ and not the ‘giving’ just yet.  BUT, I love you, and so I’m going to give you something anyway.

A recipe! :~)

Now you’re excited.  Aren’t you?

This one is fully edible.  I promise!

Thanksgiving Stuffing torn from the pages of an unknown magazine, and brought to you by Jimmy Dean himself.

Ok, well not really by Jimmy Dean himself.  More like me, but it’s his recipe.

Here goes…

Ingredients:  2 pkgs. regular flavor Jimmy Dean sausage; 8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced; 1 1/2 c. diced onions; 3/4 c. diced carrots; 1 1/2 c. diced celery; 3 garlic cloves, minced; 1 pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained; 2 tsp dried rosemary; 2 tsp poultry seasoning; 1 tsp black pepper; 1 pkg (15 oz) herbed dry bread cubes (the kind you buy in a bag); 2 c. chicken broth; 1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Cook sausage.  Drain fat.  Add mushroom, onions, carrots, celery, and garlic.  Cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.  Transfer to a large bowl and add remaining ingredients.  Stir well.  Pour into a buttered 4-quart casserole dish, and bake covered for 60 minutes.  Remove from oven and serve.

FringeMan loves it.  I’ve been making for about 7 years worth of Thanksgivings.

Here’s the big question of the season…DO YOU LIKE YOUR STUFFING IN THE BIRD OR OUT OF THE BIRD?

Me, I like it out and crispy, but I have an affinity for slightly burned food.

D.I.Y Translates C.R.Y.

21 Nov

We decided to tear up our bathroom since Thursday is Thanksgiving and we are expecting my sister-in-law and her family right after the turkey glut.  I mean, why not begin a major renovation just prior to a major holiday and out-of-town guests?

Doesn’t everyone do that?

Sometimes there is no motivation equal to a house-guest, or two, or three, or four.

Things were actually going so smoothly this week that I began to fear the impending doom of home renovation.  Please understand, I am accustomed to great pits opening in the floor and swallowing you one misplaced shoe at a time.  We have renovated three homes in our short marriage.

We should be institutionalized.

After midnight last night, I attempted to make FringeMan take the oath of “Buy New” from this remodel forth, no matter the economic situation in our country or our wallet.

I saw in our future a nice condo on the beach with a maintenance man at our disposal.

Then I woke up and saw a hot mess.

Each night after work, FringeMan has been closing himself in the bathroom and removing lathe and plaster one little section at time.  One night he jack-hammered a chimney (yes, in our very tiny bathroom) for hours.  I thought his face would have a permanent shake.  The neatness ended last night.

We got stuck!  Actually the top half of the shower got stuck and no matter how we tried, we could not get it into the bathroom and in place.  It was a nightmare, literally, considering it was after midnight.  We had no choice, but to tear the better part of our kitchen wall down.

Thankfully we never finished this side of the kitchen.  If you’ll notice, I even stopped painting half of the door frame.

Those home reno shows on television lie.  It’s not neat, and it’s definitely not easy.  Well, if you have an army of contractors, it may be easy, but not if you are an electrician and me, armed with nothing but determination and a shop vac.

No the nasty mirror will NOT stay above my sink; however, considering the state of the bathroom, it’s all we’ve got at the moment.

I know you are delighted not to be living in my house right now.

We quit sometime after 1 am, as soon as we shoe-horned both pieces of the shower into its’ space.  I was so thankful I waited to strip the bed and wash the sheets, because…well…we smell.

Hopefully by Christmas the end of the week, I’ll have some ‘after’ photos.  Prayerfully by tonight, I will be able to shower.

Your smelly friend,

 

Fa, La, La, La, La…Oh, I mean Gobble, Gobble, Burp!

19 Nov

I may or may not have fallen prey to cheap commercialism.

Wait!

Are those sleigh bells I hear in the distance?

The Unsympathic Therapist

16 Nov

FringeMan is just like this drill sergeant therapist.

I get NO sympathy!

It’s a good thing I never give him my co-pay.

The good doc told me I have an irritable heart, and here I just thought I had an irritable personality.  I guess it all really does begin in the heart!

They put a heart monitor on me for the next twenty-four hours, and wouldn’t you know, it’s quiet as a mouse.  No PVC’s, skipped beats, extra beats, or any other thing-a-ma-gi-gies.  For the last two weeks my heart has been breakdancing in my chest, and now it’s suddenly on good behavior.

Go figure!

So here’s my question of the day and it has nothing to do with therapists or hearts…

When do you put up your Christmas tree?

I’m itching to go buy a new tree, a big one, bigger than me!  I’m done with all trees skinnier than my behind or wearing Phyllis Diller hair.

I think I’ll spend this evening convincing FringeMan of our need for a new tree.

Wish me luck!

Living in The Shadows

15 Nov

Do you ever feel like you’re living as a mere shadow of yourself, of the life God intended and created you to live?

That thought has been working itself around in my head for the last couple of weeks.  I’m thick as a brick most of the time, and if God wants to get an idea or truth in deep, it takes time.  My “ah-ha” moments are usually slow in coming, requiring lesson after endless teaching lesson.

I know God wants us to live victoriously.  His Word says that “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  (Jn. 10:10)  Abundant means plentiful, fully sufficient, in great quantity, overflowing with.  I know that far too often I live in the shadows of circumstances, relationships, feelings, and especially hormones, and let me tell you something.  Living in the shadow of female hormones is not abundant living.

FringeMan would certainly agree.

This weekend I had several hours alone, and of course my mind went back to the idea of abundant living.  You see, I was laying in a hospital bed for several hours watching my heart do strange things on the monitor, while feeling the flip-flops in my chest.  The bell on the heart monitor rang out in an incessant alert, and as I looked up to the screen, I thought of how strange it would be to watch yourself die on the monitor.  I looked up at the nurse who was watching me intently from behind her desk, and with the slightest of nods, she confirmed what I already knew.  I was still alive.

Being alive isn’t enough.  I long to be abundantly alive.  I don’t want to ever doubt that my heart is pumping or that blood is coursing through my veins.  I want to be filled to the over-flowing with life, because I really think that is the way God intended for us to live.  Existence is not enough.

When I quit living abundantly, it’s usually because my focus is in the wrong the place.  I’m spending more time looking at myself and my little corner of the world, than I am looking in His Word or toward the cross.  There’s never a reason for me not to be so full of life that it’s pouring from my being.  After all, it is my Father in heaven who hung the stars in the sky, placed the fish in the sea, and made the flowers to bloom.  It is He who defeated death on the cross, and gave me air to breathe.  He cares about the details of my life.

It’s ironic that I have no problem trusting God with my eternity, but sometimes it’s a fierce battle to trust Him with my Monday morning.

Psalms 57:7-11  My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.  Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

I don’t know about you, but I’m fixing my heart on the Lord and living the abundant life.  Life is too short to live any other way

Happy Monday!

PS. Thank you to each of you who have prayed for baby Jayda. She is home and doing well.

Veteran’s Day 2011

11 Nov

Pages taken from my grandfather’s WWII Red Cross journal.

Happy Veteran’s Day to all those who have given their lives to serve, both now and then.  Thank You.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you always.

Artsy Chics

10 Nov

In my house art projects trump science projects any day of the week.  We’ve made Mercury from flour and salt, toothpick people; we’ve created lava, and we’ve failed at demonstrating sonar.  The kids love doing hands-on science.  Me, not so much, but I do love art projects.

If we’re going to make a mess, we may as well have a blast doing it!  That’s my philosophy.  I’m so glad that we work on a well-used table.  I don’t really worry about ruining it, since our messes simply add to its’ character.

If you have kids, and especially if you homeschool, I found a great online art resource.  It called Deep Space Sparkle Art Lessons for Kids.  She’s an art teacher who has all kinds of wonderful ideas for projects.  You can even purchase some of her lessons!

I ordered a lesson on making chickens for $5 and was able to download the entire step-by-step plan and print it out.  The lesson also included making cows and giraffes, so guess what we’re doing next!

I even made a chicken of my own.  I heart chickens…pecking in the yard and on my plate.

Mamma Hen

Native War Rooster

 

Bandito Rooster

Ok, so we’re not going to make it into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I think I am going to throw them in a frame and hang them above my kitchen sink.  It was tons of fun.   You should try it!

Can you guess who created which chic?

PS. BABY JAYDA MADE IT THROUGH HEART SURGERY.  PRAISE GOD!  THE DOCTORS SAY TO TAKE IT ONE DAY AT TIME, SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY.  Thank you all!!!

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