When  I was a very little girl, we used to have little doughnuts for breakfast on Saturday morning.  They were tiny frozen bites of yumminess made by Morton’s and  were probably one of the seminal tastes of my childhood.  I can remember the taste of crunchy cinnamon every time I think of them.  Morton’s no longer makes them…although I found one site on the web somewhere that said you could order them from Canada or China or Taiwan or something, but I was a bit skeptical.  So, I can’t get them at the store anymore and nothing I’ve ever found comes close to tasting as good those little doughnuts.  Well, nothing before these….Apple Cider Doughnuts. 

 

I’ve made these a couple of times now and they are simply delicious.  The first time, I made regular doughnut shapes and went ahead and fried up the holes, too.  Abigail scarfed them up as fast as I could cook them.  “Mommy”, she said, “these smooshy balls are yummy!”  so, they are now known forever more as Abigail’s Smooshy Balls.  She did not like the full-size doughnuts, only the holes and the bite-sized stars that I made.  So, the next time I made them, I only made the balls and the stars.  And, I’m pretty sure I agree with her.  There’s something about the bite-sized versions that make them even yummier and in that tiny version, they taste almost exactly like the Morton mini doughnuts of my childhood, so from now on, there will be no full-sized Apple Cider doughnuts made at our house…only Abigail’s Smooshy Balls.

 

This recipe came from Our Best Bites.  This is one of my all-time favorite recipe sites…I love it…they are so creative and everything I’ve ever tried to cook from their recipes has turned out delicious.  So, be sure and check them out.

Abigail’s Smooshy Ball Recipe

1 cup apple cide

1 cup sugar

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp.  pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup butter-flavored shortening

2 eggs

1/2 cup  buttermilk

Canola or Peanut Oil

 

Spiced Sugar (to roll the Smooshy Ball)

3/4 cup white sugar

1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

(mix them up together)

 

In a medium saucepan over high heat, bring the apple cider to a boil. Continue to cook over high heat for about 7-10 minutes or until it's reduced to 1/4 cup. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

While the cider is cooking, combine shortening and sugar in a large bowl and mix  n high for 2-3 minutes or until it's light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating completely after each addition. Add reduced cider and buttermilk and beat until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Add flour mixture to the liquid mixture and beat until just blended.

Roll out the dough until it's about 1/2" thick.  Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for an hour (or 20 minutes in the freezer)

When the dough has chilled, remove from the freezer/refrigerator. Using a small, round biscuit cutter (or a small star cookie cutter), cut circles out of the dough. Place the cut pieces on a lightly floured baking sheet. When all the dough has been cut out, place the pan back in the refrigerator while you prepare the oil for frying.

In a large, deep saucepan or Dutch oven, heat 1 quart of oil over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, carefully place a few pieces of dough into the hot oil .  When the bottom side turns golden brown, flip the dough over.  The smooshy balls will cook really, really quickly...like in a less than a minute...it's a fine art, really, making these smooshy balls.

Remove doughnuts from hot oil with a slotted spoon and transfer to paper towels.

Place spiced sugar mix in a large Ziploc bag and then shake a few doughnuts at a time in the mixture.

 

Do you want proof that these are lip-smacking good?  Well, here it is:

When I was a little girl, my mother planted a bed of daffodils in the front yard.  It was underneath my bedroom window and the flowers always bloomed around my birthday, in early March.  To me, they were the first sign of spring.  Even though hyacinths generally bloom earlier, they always seem like more of a late-winter flower than an early-spring one…obviously I have no idea what I’m talking about .  Anyway, daffodils are my favorite flower – doesn’t that make sense?….my name is Daphne…just extrapolate it on out…Daphne, Daffy, Daff, Daffodil…I’ve been called Daffodil many, many time in my life.  But more than the name, I love the way they smell, I love the color, and I love that they are such a fleeting flower.  Since they’re not as popular as roses or carnations or daisies or lilies, you can’t find them year-round.  They only show up for a very short time in late winter and very early spring.  Steve’s dad had a bed of them at his house, too, and they were blooming the first time I met him, which I took as a sign that I was meant to marry Steve.  Of course, I took everything at that time as a sign that I was supposed to marry him.  Steve, on the other hand, wasn’t seeing signs anywhere….it took him a while to get with the program…but that’s another story for another time. 

So, it’s been a long winter for everyone I think.  And while I realize that we here in Florida have very little to complain about weather-wise in the winter, well, I’m still complaining.  It’s been colder than normal, rainier than normal, and we’re just not built to handle it here.  I’m ready for a good, hot Florida summer (remind of this in August when I’m complaining about the heat, will ya?).  So, I’m looking for anything that will server as a harbinger of spring.  And I found one in Winn Dixie on Friday – this tiny little bouquet of daffodils.  I brought them home and put them in a vase and I smile every time I look at them.

 

But, alas, the cold is still here.  It was blustery and chilly yesterday and here’s the proof that Old Man Winter is still hanging around…

 

Although, I’m not sure that this is a true reminder of winter.  I think Gracie is going to wear this hat and scarf no matter how hot it gets.  As much as I love spring and summer, Gracie loves winter.  She asked the other day if we could move somewhere that it snowed all the time and she could ice skate everyday.  No, sweet girl, we can not, unless it’s a place where daffodils bloom all the time….

Gracie is, for the most part ruled by her emotions; Abigail, is governed by her thoughts.  Gracie will sit and reflect on a problem, telling everyone within earshot how she feels; Abigail takes charge and figures out a way (usually a completely unacceptable way) to solve whatever problem she has.  Basically, Gracie is a mini-me and Abigail is a mini-Steve.  To use a literary reference…Gracie is from Mars; Abigail is from Venus (I didn’t say it was a great literary reference just a literary reference)

One afternoon last week, I was frazzled.  Okay, I’m generally frazzled every day, but this was worse than normal.  Gracie was home with strep throat; Abigail’s nap schedule was off (meaning, she didn’t take a nap all week), and let me tell you  - sisterly love and peace and harmony weren’t happening.  I’d tried time outs;  I’d tried idle threats and senseless bribes; I’d tried everything I can think of – so I used a last resort.  No, I didn’t put both of them on the driveway with a sign offering them to the first taker.  And, no, I didn’t outfit them with boxing gloves and tell them to have at it.  Although, both of those ideas did cross my mind.  Nope, what I did was put myself in time out.  This is something that one of my friends does when she needs to take a minute to compose herself before she says something to her children she might regret.  And I was so there that afternoon.  So, I told the girls I needed a minute to myself, and went into my bedroom and locked the door.  And here’s where the difference between my girls really became apparent.

Gracie sat outside the bedroom door and cried.  “Oh Mommy!  I miss you sooooo much!  Please, please  mommy, open the door and let me in!  pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!”  It was a performance worthy of an Oscar.  She was so pitiful and sad.

Abigail said, “Mommy!  Open this door or I’m going to knock it down!”  She was quiet for a minute.  Then, she hollered, “Gracie!  Wait – I have an idea!”  I heard her run to her bedroom and then come running back.  “Look Gracie!  I brought my Legos – now we can BUILD something to knock the door down.”  After that statement, I opened the door pretty quickly, choking back my laughter…I love both of these girls, as different as they are, so very much…

Here’s our Saturday morning in pictures….

 

Sleeping Beauty

 

Neither sleeping nor beautiful….this is wide awake, mad, and sick

 

still sleeping, even after I kiss her cheek and say, “Gracie?  Are you ready to wakey wakey?”  (yes, I still say babyishly idiotic things like that to her and I will until she leaves for college and I might not stop then…she is my baby)

 

Then, I said “Gracie – don’t you want to check under your pillow?”  Her eyes flew open and a grin spread across her face.  In all honestly, this is NOT how she wakes up every morning.  Most mornings, I pull her kicking and screaming from under the covers – she is not a morning person, this girl…..

 

but this morning, she’s excited…..this morning holds the promise of……

 

MONEY!

 

and there it reason, the reason for the excitement…the reason for the money….that little gap in her sweet smile….her second lost tooth 

 

The empty pillow

And because she is her mama’s daughter, Gracie wanted to go shopping right then with her Tooth Fairy money.  By the end of the day, she’d spent it all…..on Girl Scout Cookies

 

The End!

For at least three years, Gracie has asked for a violin for Christmas.  Each time, though, she could be persuaded to put something else at the top of her wish list.  Steve & I felt she was just too young to start playing the violin.  What do we know?  I’m sure there are kids out there who start playing at 18 months, but the truth of it is, I wasn’t ready to deal with lessons and practice and everything that entails.  So, we managed to convince her that Santa would rather bring her something else.

 

Until this year.  Thanks to a special that we saw on The Duggars on TLC.  Okay, I think I’ve said this before, but I should never let my children watch television.  One Saturday in November, Gracie was talking about how she wanted a violin.  Steve & I were telling her that she might need to wait until she was in the first grade before she got an instrument.  Then, there on the TV were the Duggar kids, all 12 million of them, playing the violin.  Even the little ones…the ones that are easily years younger than Gracie.  And Gracie looked at Steve & I and said, “See?  I’m old enough to play.”  And I looked at Steve and Steve looked at me and we knew our goose was cooked.  So, this year, wrapped in beautiful red paper, Santa left Gracie a new 1/4 size violin.  And she was over the moon.

The first few weeks of this year have been a little crazy (yeah, that’s the understatement of the week), so it’s taken me a while to find a place for her to take lessons.  But, thanks to some wonderful recommendations from friends, we found Gracie’s teacher.  After two lessons, I can tell you that we both love Ms. Cori.  I think these lessons are just what Gracie needs.  Kindergarten has been a little difficult for Gracie lately – I think she’s a little overwhelmed by the chaos of twenty kids with cabin fever all trying to learn their letters and numbers.  The quiet peacefulness of violin lessons at Ms. Cori’s house is the perfect contrast to that.  I can see contentment wash over Gracie as soon as we walk in the house. 

Gracie doesn’t really want to play the violin….she wants to play the fiddle.  She loves, loves, loves fiddling.  I’m not sure if it’s from watching Celtic woman or Pa on Little House on the Prairie, but she definitely prefers fiddle music to orchestra violin.  And she’s already told Ms Cori that and Ms Cori has agreed to help her learn to fiddle.

My girl has been doing pretty good in the practice department, too.  She’s done it most days without too much prodding.  Our biggest problem is that she gets mad at me when I try and play her violin – it’s like a strange temptation to me – I’ve always wanted to play and having a real live violin so close is just too hard for me to resist!  Gracie admonishes me, telling me that I’m not to touch her violin because I might drop it.  (Maybe I’ll have to get my own one day ).  I hope that she’ll continue to be excited about playing and practicing.  At this point, I’m pretty glad that Santa came through this year and brought Gracie her very own little violin.

I’ve decided to post some of my favorite recipes on the blog…I have them saved all over my computer in files and favorites and can NEVER find them when I need them – yeah, I think you all know organization is not my strong suite…I figure if they’re all on the blog then I can find them quickly when I need them.  I’ve been wanting to take more food pictures anyway, so this will be a good incentive to do it.

My dad loved to cook and he loved all things related to cooking.  By the time I was 10, I could identify Julia Child and James Beard as easily as I could Shaun Cassidy or Parker Stevenson.  I  was as likely to read an article from Gourmet as I was from Tiger Beat.  Daddy made his own pasta and strong it across the kitchen to dry.  He grew mushrooms under the bed.  He amassed a collection of cookbooks that would make any library envious.  Cooking has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Here’s the thing though…my dad wasn’t much of a baker.  My mom was definitely the baker in our family.  Christmas cookies, birthday cakes – those were her dominion.  So, while I get my love of making interesting salsas and side dishes, my love of all things cookie and cupcake – well, that comes straight from my mother.  Baking with the girls is one of my favorite activities.  Although, to be honest, it’s become a lot harder now that there are two if them in the kitchen with me .  But, baking is still an easier thing to accomplish with them than any other type of cooking, simply because cookies & brownies & cakes rarely require sharp knives or hot stovetops and there usually aren’t a ton of steps that they have to follow.

These cookies always remind me of my sister- when we were growing up they were her cookie of choice and not that we’re grown up, she’s the master at making them.  Here’s the recipe I use (it’s slightly different than the one we used growing up – it has more brown sugar and more vanilla, two things I believe you can’t have too much of in your life).  My sister also includes a cup or so of semi-sweet chocolate chips when she makes them…they are delicious that way…the combo of the semi-sweet and milk chocolate is a match made in heaven.  We didn’t have any chocolate chips in the pantry when me made these, so I didn’t use them this time.

 

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter-flavored shortening

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

12 oz. bag of M&Ms

 

Cream together the shortening and the sugars until creamy.  Add in eggs and vanilla.  Mix well.  Combine flour, salt & baking soda in a large bowl.  Add gradually to butter mixture, mixing well after each addition.  Sit in the M&Ms

Drop by heaping tablespoon onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Press each cookie down to flatten it.  Bake at 375 degrees for about 14 minutes or until cookies are golden brown.

I’ve seen several recipes that call for adding the after the cookies come out of the oven – where they’re pressed in for decoration rather than added to the dough.  I’m sure they taste good that way, and they probably look prettier, but then you miss out on the phenomenon known as cracked M&Ms…..

 

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk….yummy!

 

 

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Yesterday afternoon, a winter storm warning was issued for the Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida Gulf coast lasting through 6:00 p.m. today.  Twenty minutes later, the school board made the decision to cancel school on Friday.  I don't know who was happier - me or the girls!   

Gracie has been asking every day for the last several weeks when she can see snow.  She's seen the pictures of Washington and wants to know when we'll get snow like that.  I tried to tell her that Florida is known for its beaches and sunshine, not so much for snow.  But, my baby girl had faith.  Last night before she went to bed, she asked to watch the news so she could hear the forecast again and again.  She made us promise to wake her up in the middle of the night if it started to snow.

As of right now, we haven't seen any of the white stuff.  It's raining steadily and it's definitely cold out there.  I went out to take a few pictures and it feels cold enough to start snowing any minute (at least to me ).  The hourly forecast says we can expect to see some snow early this afternoon and the northern parts of our county are already seeing some huge flakes and a bit of accumulation. 

We've got several movies to watch and a few Valentine's, Olympics, Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras crafts to work on.  There is a LOT going on this weekend...it's a strange year when Fat Tuesday, Valentine's Day, and Chinese New Year all fall within two days of each other!    It's enough to drive a crafting mama a little crazy!






Tonight was supposed Parents' Night Out at our church and Steve & I had a romantic dinner at home planned. 

I was going to make Pecan Crusted Snapper with a crabmeat relish and a really yummy-looking chocolate dessert.  But, I think we're going to be ordering pizza and watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.   I'm fairly certain that Parents' Night Out is going to be canceled.  And even if it isn't, the girls - at least Gracie - couldn't go anyway.  Because, on the most exciting day of the winter for her, Gracie woke up with a 102 degree temp.  My poor little girl!  She was so excited about the snow, but right now, she's asleep on the couch, her cheeks flushed with fever.  I hope with a dose or two of Tylenol, she'll feel good enough to go out and play in snow, at least for a few minutes.

Stay warm everyone and if we see any snow, I'll be back later with pictures !

Yesterday morning, I was not in a good mood.  The turbine engine fans blowing in the kitchen and the girls' bedroom were really starting to get to me (thankfully, as of this afternoon, they are gone),  and living in two rooms of our house was becoming claustrophic.  Our house feels small when we can use all 1025 square feet of it - when we're reduced to living in 500 square feet, it's a bit smothering.  It didn't seem to bother Abigail too much, but Gracie, well Gracie has been a bitter pill all week.  The practical, loving side of me says, "Oh my poor baby..she hasn't had anywhere to do her homework and we can't find any of her clothes and she's just totally out of sorts."  The head-spinning part of me says, "WHY CAN'T SHE JUST GET READY FOR SCHOOL?  WHY CAN'T SHE JUST WRITE THE ONE SENTENCE (ONE, PEOPLE, ONE - THREE WORDS JUST THREE WORDS) TO FINISH HER HOMEWORK?  WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO WHINE AND COMPLAIN ALL THE TIME?"  Yesterday, head-spinning part of my personality was definitely winning out.  I was irritable and whiny and complaining (see where Gracie gets it?)


But, somehow, against the odds, I got Gracie to school on time.  I dropped her off in car line and pulled away from the curb to head out of the parking lot.  Can I tell you something about the driving in car line?  Well, sometimes it resembles a demolition derby, a demolition derby held in the middle of a blizzard hurricane (and yeah, I know you think that sounds like it can't happen, but that's what The Perfect Storm was...course they didn't call it a blizzard hurricane because weather forecasters are a lot cooler and smarter than me and have fancy names for things).  The morning car line is far worse than the afternoon car line.  There are a couple of reasons for this:  1)There are multiple drop-off spots in the line in the morning.  So, you've got people dropping off kids whose classes are on one wing of the school early in the line and people whose kids are in the other wing dropping off farther down the line and then everyone tries to merge at the far end of the line and as anyone who's ever driven in Atlanta where I-85, I-65, and I-how many stinking interstates can you merge at one spot knows that merging is never seamless and 2)People are in a hurry in the mornings.  Now, I don't know if they are in a hurry because they want to make the most of their time away from their kids (I've so been there...not judging at all) or if they're on their way to work or if, like me, they NEEEEEEEEEED to get to the closest Circle K and get their hands on a cold Diet Dr. Pepper so they don't completely lose their cool.  Whatever the reason, all the drivers seem a little more curt in the mornings.

Yesterday, as I was driving down the car line after I had dropped Gracie off, a guy in a pickup truck decided he was in a really big hurry and was going to merge, regardless of the fact that I was in the spot he was trying to occupy.  There wasn't anyone behind me yet, but apparently the two seconds that he gaind by cutting me off and causing me to slam on my brakes were worth it.  I grumbled under my breath, thinking "how rude!" 

The truck was plastered with all kinds of signs advertising his business.  There was a phone number and even a website in huge white decals.  As I followed him out of the parking lot on to the main road, I thought to myself, "I will NEVER, EVER use that company!"  I was thinking that people should really tell their employees that if they're going to drive around with all that advertising on their vehicle, they should be on their best behavior when they're in their vehicle so people don't form bad opionions about their company based on their driving.  Now, I know it's petty...the business advertised didn't have anything to do with driving or even automobiles, but why would I want to go to a business where the employees are rude.   When you're driving around with ads on your car, you and your car become representatives of the company being advertised - simple as that.  As I set behind him at the stop light, I was feeling really self-righteous about this....yeah, mister, you may have gotten your space in car line, but you've lost me as a customer for life.

And then, as I was sitting at that light waiting for it to turn green,  a soft voice whispered inside my head,

"You know, Daphne, you should heed your own advice....particularly when you're wearing your church t-shirt or wearing that beautiful silver cross...you should always remember who you represent..."

The girls are on the blow up mattress in the living room, watching Mary Poppins (for the second time in as many days).  They are surrounded by blankets and pillows, a treasured Barbie, and a couple of stuffed animals.  They are also surrounded by boxes and bags of clothes and toys and their larger things are stacked up in every available corner.  Our dog Ella Bella is locked up in the bathroom because there is no room for her in the kitchen and we're afraid to let her roam free tonight because there is so much stuff everywhere.  It is ridiculously loud in house, louder than it normally is with two active kids and one barky dog.  The noise is coming from four huge fans and a mammoth dehumidifier.   There is no longer any carpet in the girls' bedroom and the smell in there, while starting to get better after an anti-mold treatment, is still nauseating.   The wood flooring in the kitchen is completely gone, revealing the hideous linoleum that was there when I bought the house.  I had forgotten just how ugly it was.  It is absolute chaos here right now.

On Sunday, after church, we started the clean up from our dishwasher leak.  We quickly realized that is was a lot more extensive than we thought it was - almost all of the girls' carpet was wet and more of the boards in the kitchen were starting to rise.  So, I went ahead and made an insurance claim on-line.  Since it was the weekend, the system said they'd call me before noon on Monday.  And true to their word, they did.  And by 3:00 p.m. they had a Water Mitigation Specialist out here.  What she did was determine that the carpet is not salvageable and went ahead and pulled it up and threw it away.  She sprayed some kind of anti-something-or-other spray that smelled like 50 billion lemons just on the edge of turning bad and then set up some fans.  In the kitchen, she was initially going to just put up a fan.  She didn't want to pull up any of the boards because she didn't want to have to break the wood if it was salvageable.  I asked her if she wouldn't mind pulling up just one to check and see how much water was under there.  My concern (although it seemed unlikely) was that if there was water under there, that it might spread far enough to get into the living room and then we're in for having to replace the flooring in there, too.  So she went ahead and pulled up one board and found a puddle.  She said then that she had to remove the wood until she found a dry spot.  An hour and tons and tons of boards letter, the dry spot was found just a few inches shy of the living room.  Yikes!  So, she set up fans and the dehumidifier in the kitchen and told us she'll be back tomorrow to check on it.  She told us to expect it to take about 72 hours to dry thoroughly.  Once it's dry, a contractor will come out and we'll start the process of replacing the floor.  It's completely insane around here and my temper is unbelievably short.  But, I'm so thankful that we have insurance and that they seem to be doing everything they can to make this as painless as possible for us.  I'll just be glad when we have our house back

And, in true form, the whole ripping up the flooring in half the house thing wasn't the worst part of the day.  Yesterday, my grandfather (the one who lives a few streets down from me) was admitted to the hospital with a pretty nasty infection that's going to require some surgery.  I'm worried about him and particularly worried about my grandmother.  Any prayers that you can offer up for them would be greatly appreciated by my entire family.  The plan right now is to get the infection under control and then let him go home from the hospital and then do the surgery sometime later (although not much later).  I love my grandparents and I hate that they are suffering now.

So, I think right now I'm feeling stretched a little thin.  I was just starting to get back into the groove of things after my daddy's death and the girls and I felt like we were finally getting on a schedule.  I was starting to feel like I was making some headway in getting some organization in my life and now, I feel like I've been knocked down a little bit again.  But, I know that this will all pass and I'll appreciate even more the blessings in my life.  Right now, though, I could use a little break

Here's a scrapbook page I did earlier this year.  The girls call this game, appropriately enough, "The Stretchy Game"

When I walked in the girls' bedroom this morning, I stepped on something wet.  I grumbled under my breath about them spilling yet another sippy cup of juice or maybe they were having another one of their "not-so-imaginary" tea parties that involves mutliple vessels being filled and refilled and refilled from the kitchen sink.  It wasn't until Steve walked across the floor and said, "This is way too much water for any kind of spill" that I started to feel anxiety in the pit of my stomach.  He walked across their floor and as I did, I heard the swhooshy, swhooshy sound that only comes from water, lots and  lots of water.  Water that comes from underneath the carpet, not water that is spilled  on top of it.  The carpet in their room made that sound one time before - in the late, late summer of 2004, after Hurricane Ivan struck our town early on a September morning.  That sound is not a good way to start your Sunday morning.  Trust me.  We went and looked in the girls' closet and saw standing water.  This is not gonna be a good day....

Steve says the water is coming from somewhere in the kitchen.  My anxiety starts to escalate.  Because, the girls' floor isn't that huge of a deal to me - it's still carpeted and we plan on redoing it with wood flooring at some point in the next couple of years.  The kitchen, though, now that's a bigger deal to me.  So, I walk in there and immediately realize that at least some of the water that leaked into the girls' room has leaked into the kitchen as well. 

I love, love, love the floor in my kitchen.  It is wood laminate flooring that we installed in the living room, the kitchen and the laundry almost three years ago.  It is the color of honey and when the morning sun streams through the bay windows in my kitchen, I feel warm and happy and well, sunshiney.  The problem with wood laminate flooring is that it's laminate, which means it's particle board, which means when it gets wet...well, let's just say bad things start to happen (Now, for full disclosure here, even if the floor was true hardwood, getting it wet wouldn't be a great idea either....so just because the laminate is less expensive I don't think means it's any more prone to death by water).  As I walked across the kitchen floor, I heard squishing (which sounded different than the swooshy sound in the girls' room, but equally - or maybe more so - disturbing).  Some of the boards were already starting to lift.  Two sure signs that there was water.

Steve quickly determined that the leak was coming from a dishwasher hose.  He told me the name of it, but I promptly forgot it, preferring to call it instead, the stinking stupid hose that messed up my mouse.  He fixed the leak with some kind of magic McGyver stuff and then came in the living room and asked if I would go ahead and get the girls ready for church.

Hello?  I looked at him like he was from mars.  Literally 30% of the rooms in our house have standing water in them.  Church?  That was the last thing on my mind.  He said, in his usually practical manner, "Well there's no point in sitting around here.  There's nothing we can do."

So, I put the girls in their blue velvet dresses, dug something out of the closet for me and went somewhat grudingly with my family to our 9:00 a.m. church service, feeling ridiculously sorry for myself and our run of plain old bad luck.  Where my grumpy attitude was quickly and abruptly put into place.

I dropped a crying Abigail off in the nursery (she LOVES church, I think she was just picking up on my stress from the morning) and then went to sit with Gracie and Steve in the gym that serves as our sanctuary.  Within minutes of sitting down, our pastor made a request of the congregation.  One of the teachers at Abigail's preschool (which is also our church) is pregnant, due with her little boy sometime in early March.  She is a sweet, kind woman and both Abigail and Gracie love her.  On Wednesday night, the father of her baby was murdered, shot during an armed robbery.  The thing is, I knew this already.  I found out on Thursday morning through the grapevine that is mothers of preschoolers.  And while I certainly hadn't forgotten about this devastating event, it certainly wasn't in the forefront of my mind this morning.  At least it wasn't until our pastor stood before our congregation and told people about it and after the collective gasp from my church family, he asked to use the pastor's discrectionary fund to help her and her soon-to-be-born son.  And I turned and looked at Steve, sitting with his arm around our oldest daughter, and suddenly the water in the kitchen and the water in the bedroom seemed like nothing more than water under the bridge.  I went from feeling sorry for myself to realizing how incredibly blessed I am in a matter of seconds.  It's all a matter of perspective.....

On Saturday morning, the girls and I headed a few blocks down the street for a new adventure.  Actually, the adventure was trying to get all of us dressed and out the door, ready to walk, by 10:45 a.m.  Yeah, I know, we're out the door way earlier than that during the week and on Sundays, too, but something about Saturday puts us in some kind of time warp where we're completely unable to do anything on any kind of schedule.  But, I tried hard because I really wanted to take the girls to the Pirates of Lost Treasure Mardi Gras Flotilla.  Yeah, I know that's a mouthful.  Basically it's a Mardi Gras parades on boats.  And, I'd been telling the girls about it for several days so my name would have been total mud if I'd made us late.  So, we loaded Abigail up in the hot pink stroller and walked down to the boat landing. 




I thought the parade was supposed to start at 11:15.  We got there around 11:05 which I thought would give us plenty of time to see all the boats in the parade.  I'm not sure what I was expecting....some kind of Boston-like regatta or maybe the World Cup?  As we walked up, there were four boats and they were all heading away from us.    I was a bit disappointed but the girls didn't seem to mind at all.



They played on the shore and the dock and it wasn't long before Abigail had removed her socks and her shoes and Gracie had pulled off her jacket. There was a small crowd still hanging around, so I figured that the four boats that we saw earlier would be headed back our direction. I thought maybe the girls could each catch a strand of beads and we could call it a day.  After about fifteen minutes a big boat came by with tons and tons of beads and a bucketful of Moon Pies.  The girls were standing on the shore with some other people all waving.  The man on the boat threw some beads and they all landed in the water, well off shore, far from the reach of the kids.  Now, the man probably didn't possess the strength of Popeye, but he probably wasn't any kind of Wimpy either.  He had a lot working against him - a strong current, a pretty heavy wind, and the fact that since it was a big boat and couldn't get too close to shore without running the risk of grounding all made getting the booty to shore a Herculean task.  The people who were standing on the dock faired better - they were a good ten feet farther out and were standing higher up so it was easier for the beads and pies to reach them.  I told the girls that we needed to head to the dock for the next boats.  So, we went up there and waited a few minutes...no more boats came.  I started to think maybe no more were coming.  Again, the girls didn't really seem to care.  They had fun running up and down the stretch of beach and jumping off the dock.  Gracie even tried to build a little sand castle.  I think they were just glad to be out in the fresh air!









Don't you love my girls' fashion sense?  Who says you can't mix mutiple patterns.  Look, we've got stripes, diamonds, polka dots, more stripes, and even more stripes.  Gotta love 'em!







And this is my favorite picture of the day....proof that they do love each other (even if they won't always admit it)


A few minutes after I took that picture, the boats started coming back.  And they came back in force.  Evidently, we'd missed more than half of them at the beginning of the parade.  The girls were tickled.  The first boat that came by left us beadless.  Let me tell you something about myself...I stink at catching Mardi Gras beads....for some reason, I always put up my hands to protect myself and my eyes and end up missing out on the catching action.  Luckily, there was a couple next to us who realized that my catching skills were lacking and they came to the rescue.  Every time they caught beads, they handed them to the girls.  Then, more and more people did the same.  It was so much fun to see how excited the girls were!

And, the boats were awesome!










After the last boat passed, we said our thank yous to all the kind people who shared their beads.  The girls were so loaded down they could barely walk





I asked Gracie if she wanted to go back next year and she said, "Absolutely!"  I agree!

Oh, my baby girl makes us laugh.  Her antics send me into a puddle of giggles at least once a day.  Last night, we put her down to bed and about 20 minutes later went to check on her.  She had the lights on and was sitting in the corner, stuffing a backpack full of doll clothes, books and whatever other random stuff she could find at 9:00 p.m.  When Steve put her back in bed, she was crushed and sobbing.  She choked out "But, but, but, I NEED my backpack."  and then fell promptly asleep.  Her fashion sense is ummmm, unique.  Let's just say she has the layering look developed to a fine art.  It's like Bag Lady Haute Couture.  Her prayers at the dinner table are heartfelt and hilarious.  "Thank you God for all the cousins in the world and for our fridgerator and all the things in my heart!"  But, the thing that sends both Steve & I over the edge is when she mixes up words, replacing words that she hears that are a bit out of her vocabulary range with words that sound like the misunderstood word, but make absolutely no sense.  When she does that, Steve & I usually resort to laughing so hard that we snort.  Do you snort when you laugh? No?  Well, we're snorters in this house...it's like when you giggle and laugh and chuckle all at the same time and there's so much laughter bubbling up inside of you that it can't all come out of your mouth...some just eruprts through your nose and since your nose doesn't exactly have vocal cords and can only make limited sounds, the nose laughter sounds like a snort.  Hey, do you remember that song about laughing from Mary Poppins.....I love to laugh, long and loud and clear...Some people laugh through their noses,Sounding something like this "Mmm...", Some people laugh through their teeth goodness sake, Hissing and fizzing like snakes.....I love that song (and the movie)

Anyway, Steve and Abigail went to run a few errands yesterday afternoon and when they got back, Steve was laughing so hard he was snorting.  I asked him what happened.  He said she was singing and messed the lyrics up  in a hysterical way. 

Let me give you a little bit of a background story (and it will help me fill in one of the gaps in my blogging from the fall). 

In November, the Children's Choir at our church performed for the first time.  Both of our girls were up there, pleased as punch to be singing their hearts out.  I thought Abigail might be a little nervous, but once she realized that her big sister was there with her, she sang and sang and sang.  Loudly!  The song had hand motions and she did those, too.  Emphatically!  I was so proud of both of them!  The whole choir did a wonderful job...I'm so excited to see them sing again at Easter.  The song that they sang is called Every Move I Make and the lyrics go like this:


Every move I make, I make in You
You make me move Jesus

Every breath I take, I breathe in You

Every step I take, I take in You

You are my way Jesus

Every breath I take, I breathe in You

Waves of mercy, waves of grace

Everywhere I look, I see your face

Your love has captured me

Oh my God, this love

How can it be?


Since November, Abigail has been known to break out in this song at the most random times.  She just loves to sing it.  Mostly, she just repeats the words, Waves of Mercy, waves of grace and the refrain part that goes "na, na, na, na na na, na na, na, na na na"  Yesterday, though, she sang more of the words and that was what had Steve laughing so hard.

Sitting in the back seat of Steve's car, she belted out, "Waves of mercy, waves of grace, Everywhere I look, I see your face, Your love has SCRATCHED MY KNEE!  na, na, na, na na na!  na, na, na, na na na!"

When Steve told me what she'd done, I laughed with him and then I went and found my baby, gave her kiss, and told her that she fills our world with joy (and scratched knees!  )

Gracie has had a rough week at school.  Last Friday, she started crying before we left home, saying she didn't want to go.  She cried in car line at drop-off and wouldn't get out of the van.  I pulled into a parking space and convinced her to walk in and at least turn in her homework.  She did that but absolutely refused to stay.  Tears were just pouring down her cheeks.  She said she just wanted to stay with me and begged me to take her home.  It was pitiful.  We were leaving that afternoon to go to Louisiana for my father's memorial service, and I'd planned to check her out early anyway, so I just let her come home with me.  I probably should not have given in to her, but I can't stand for her to cry like that .

Steve took her to school on Monday; she was a bit reluctant to go but did get out of the car and walk in.  Tuesday, though, was a different story.  We had a rough morning and were all running late, so she was really upset before she and Steve even pulled out of the driveway.  Once she got to school, she wouldn't get out of the car.  So, Steve parked and walked her in.  She refused to stay in the classroom.  She was so upset that Steve had to bring her back home.  I sat down with her and explained that she didn't really have a choice - she had to go to school.  Luckily, I had a meeting that I HAD to go to that morning or I might have been a little more lenient with her (which I don't think would have been good for her).  After we talked for a few minutes, I convinced her to go and Abigail & I took her back to school and walked her in.  She clung to me for a few minutes, but finally her teacher came to the door and Gracie walked in, looking oh so little and sad.  My heart broke in a zillion pieces.  I wanted to scoop her up and run far far away.  I've entertained the idea of homeschooling her before, but that morning, I'd have gladly taken on that challenge.

On Wednesday, I instituted a few changes in our morning routine (no TV before school, a few minutes of talking time with Mommy before we get dressed, etc.) to see if it will help.  I've also given her the choice each morning to either go through car line or to have me walk her straight to her class.  So far, she's willingly gone to school each morning.  I hope that it continues, because I don't know if I can bear too many more days like Tuesday!

Yesterday, her class celebrated the 100th day of school.  I think Gracie totally enjoyed this.  They made the crowns that she's wearing in the top picture (which she pulled down to wear as non-functioning glasses ).  And they got to do a drawing of what they remembered about their first 100 days.  Here's Gracie's:




I asked her to explain all the drawings.  She said the first one was her first day of school when she got to play in the little kitchen and slide on the playground.  The middle one is going to art class and her giving me the candlestick she made me (this is a little bit of a creative memory, because she didn't actually give me the candlestick that she supposedly made for me at Christmas; she decided at the last minute to keep it for herself ).  And the final picture is when she rode on a school bus to go to the Children's hospital and deliver presents to the little patients.  There were no pictures of her sobbing because she missed me or didn't want to go to school, so apparently, this week doesn't seem to be hanging a dark cloud over her first year of school.  I think she really has enjoyed her first 100 days and I'm hopeful that she'll enjoy the rest of the year, too!

This week, our schedule is a little off.  Abigail normally goes to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Thursday we have mom's bible study, so Tuesday is the only day that we spend just the two of us.  This week, though, I had a morning meeting downtown on Tuesday, so Abigail went to preschool on Monday and Tuesday (I just LOVE her preschool and appreciate that on the rare occasion that I need to move her to another day, they are more than willing to work with me).  So, Wednesday became our day together.  And Wednesday was an extra special day.  We got to pick up Abigail's best friend, Addi, from preschool and have a very fun, very messy cookie-decorating play date.

Abigail and I made up the dough shortly after Gracie went to school and stuck it in the freezer to chill.  Then, just before we left to pick up Addi, we cut the cookies out with several different heart-shaped cookie cutters.  Abigail had an absolute blast with the dough and the cookie cutting.  She doesn't often get to do things like with without her big sister's "help", so this was a special treat for her.

I used my mom's sugar cookie recipe for the cookies and decided to make up some of Our Best Bites' glace frosting recipe to decorate them.  I left most of it white, but tinted some pink and put it in two decorating bottles for the little girls to use.  Just before we left, I put out the cookies, the frosting, and a new bottle of sprinkles.  It was one of those big bottles that Wilton puts out for every holiday...the kind that is actually 5 or 6 little bottles of sprinkles in one little bottle.  I thought they might enjoy sprinkling a little on their cookies.  Ummmm, yeah.....toddlers and sprinkles.  Of course, they'd only use a little.  yeah, that sounds right.


When we brought Addi back, they were both so excited to "paint" cookies. Let m tell about Addi.  She and Abigail are best friends for a good reason....they share a lot of the same personality traits.  They're both very, very vocal and both of them are spirited little girls who like to do things the way they want to do them.  I think spitfires would be a good way to describe the two of them.  I love watching them play togther! 

Anyway, they saw the cookies and the frosting and we so excited.  I took the picture to the right just as they started to decorate.  You can see how clean the plate is and how full the sprinkle bottle is.

Of course, the mess factor quickly escalated from this point.  It wasn't long before sprinkles were coming out of the container like water through a sieve.  The cookies they were decorated began to look like they would break from the weight of all the colored sugar on them.    But, you've never seen two little girls giggle more!

Addi and Abigail have been friends for almost two years now and it's been funny to watch the way they play together change.  When they first met, they weren't even two years old and they spent much of their time playing beside each other instead of with each other.  Then, they went through a stage where they mostly fought when they played.  Now, they're doing great together, sharing more
often than they're fighting and trying to work things out with each other by talking.  I heard Abigail say yesterday, "Addi, let's just play nice together today, okay!  Then, we'll have fun!"  and later, Addi said, "Abigail, you're 'posed to share.  Miss Sharon (their teacher) says we're 'posed to share!"  Oh, they make me giggle these girls.  After about twenty minutes, they had gone through the entire bucket of sprinkles and between the three of us, we'd decorated about a dozen cookies.  And the plates and the table looked more like this:  (Notice the empty bottle of sprinkles


After they finished the cookies, they wanted to eat some strawberries.  Yeah, there were a 1/2  dozen frosted cookies within arm's reach,
but they wanted strawberries.





After that, we went outside and as Abigail says, "played and played and played"  It was such a fun play date!  It feels good to get back into doing things like this.  It's been a bit crazy the last few months, and while the girls have both had play dates, it's been a while since they've had one where I actually put together a cool activity for them to do with their friends.  So, really, this playdate was a fun for me as it was for Abigail and Addi!  I'll leave you with a few more pictures from the day....

Saturday was my father's memorial service.  It was, simply put, beautiful.  My sister, my mother, my brother, my sister-in-law, Steve and my three oldest nieces as well as two people that worked with my father all spoke.  At some point,  I want to write down a bit of what everyone said, because a lot of wonderful things were said.  I think that my father would have been very proud.

As I was going through the pictures from the weekend, I realized that there were a lot of smiles and laughter, even in the middle of a sad occasion.  I think my father would have wanted that way.

Here's a collage of some of the pictures that I took before and after the service.

You know what?  I can distinctly remember the first time I read Great Expectations.  I was in high school and somehow the copy of the book that I got from school was very old and musty and I think probably a little bit moldy.  (I guess they didn't care about posioning public school kids when I was in school).  Now, you might think that that is a bit of a gross thing...a moldy book.  But, in this case, I think it added to my reading experience.  Now, even twenty-some years later, when I think about Great Expecations, and particularly Miss Havisham, I can instantly smell the mustiness of that book.  That seems appropriate, don't you think?

Okay, I'm done with that walk down memory lane....this post has nothing to do with Dickens or Miss Havisham or even moldy books.  No, this post is about my little kindergartener and more specifically her mommy who has serious, serious control issues.

Gracie is smart.  I don't really think anyone would dispute that issue.  And I don't say that with any kind of bloated pride.  It's just a simple fact...like the fact that she has green eyes or brown hair or a horrible temper.  She didn't do anything to aquire any of those traits...she was just born that way. 

Gracie started reading right at a year ago, just after her fifth birthday.  She is a great reader - her voabulary and her inborn sense of drama allow her to really get into the characters of the books that she's reading.  She's very animated when she reads and uses the proper inflection when she reaches a question mark or an exclamation point.  And she seems to have really good comprehension, too. 

Here's the thing, though.....Gracie has no initiative.  And by no, I mean none, zilch, nada.  She would be perfectly happy never to pick up a book again and read it.  She was the third kid in her class to get on the Wall of Fame (a board in the school hallway that you can have your picture put on when you've read twenty books and passed tests on them).  She could care less.  I don't think it would have bothered her one bit if she'd never made it to the wall.  Nor would it have mattered to her if she'd been the first one on the wall.  She's the same with her homework, with math, with just about everything.  She's not exactly what I'd call goal-oriented.  If there was something called goal-disoriented, that's what she'd be.

And, here's the rub with that.  I am extremely competitve goal-oriented.  I want to be the first to do something; I want to be the best; in kindergarten, I would have stayed up all night reading so I could have been the first kid on the Wall of Fame.  Heck, I'd have wanted to been not only the first one on the wall, but the kid who got on it faster than anyone in the history of kindergarten.  I think my competitiveness has mellowed some as I've gotten older.  I no longer feel the need to be the best or the brightest or the fastest.  But, I still, at least most of the time, want to do my personal best.   Which is where I run into trouble with Gracie.  Many times, I sit down to read with her at night and I feel my blood pressure shooting through the roof and I find myself wanting to hurl the book we're reading at the nearest wall.  It frustrates me to no end when I sit with her and she mumbles along with her reading, intentionally not doing her best.  It frustrates me beyond end because I KNOW that she is capable of flying through her reading with the greatest of ease.  But, she won't.  For whatever reason, she just won't try.  And I swear, sometimes, I want to strangle her.

But here's the thing:  in reality, this is MY PROBLEM, NOT hers!   I am the one with the great expectations.  I am the one who thinks because she is smart, she should breeze through her work.  I can't shake that feeling of "to whom much is given, much is expected"  But, I think I need to turn that saying around on myself.  Because I have been given much.  I have been blessed with a darling daughter, with a personality and a spirit that is amazying.  I should be expected to be patient with her and nurture her.  I should be expected to love her unconditionally and guide her down the path of life, even if her path is different from the one I think she should take.  I need to take my own expectations and leave them at the door.  I need to simply love her for who she is, even if (and maybe especially if) she isn't like me.

I'm proud of the child that she is....and I'm proud to be her mommy.  
 

Ummm....let's just say that this week isn't going to win my vote for favorite week of 2010.  It's not going to even make it into the nomination process.  And don't think it's one of those gem of a weeks that gets overlooked in the nomination process and that there will be a bunch of 4th week of January, 2010 lovers out there lamenting the fact that this week wasn't nominated.  Because, folks, overall, this week stinks.

Because I'm weird like I am, I'm saying this week started last Friday.  I don't know why - I can't think of any calendar where the week starts on Friday.  Let's just say that on the calendar according to Daphne, the week starts on Friday.  But, only for this week.  Normally, I align with the rest of this country about the first day of the week.  Which is to say, I have no idea whether the first day of the week is Sunday or Monday . 





Friday was Gracie's birthday and the start of the day was really wonderful.  Abigail went to school and I drove downtown to pick up the little cakes that my big girl had requested for her classmates.  Since she was a little bitty thing, Grace has had a fondness for the petit fours from a local bakery.  My personal preference and Gracie's too, would have been to make homemade cupcakes and take in to her friends.  But because of some fear that homemade food might posion children in public school, we aren't allowed to bring in anything homemade .  I am not a big fan of cupcakes from Walmart or the grocery store.  They're too big, too expensive, and well, they just taste yuck to me.  So, I asked Gracie if she wanted me to get "little cakes" from Jay's Bakery for her school party.  She readily agreed.  I had no trouble picking them up (unlike the time at Walmart where I'd ordered a cake and went to pick it up and they looked at me like I was from the Planet Idiot...are you sensing a theme here?) and even had time to swing by and pick up a bagel from my favorite bagel shop, make a quick run in Target, and field a few questions on a conference call.  The sun was shining and I remember thinking, "Wow!  I really love my life right now!"  (and even though it's been a rough week, I still feel that way).  I met Gracie at school and had lunch with her in the cafeteria.  She'd asked me earlier in the week if I'd come eat with her and she was so cute when I got there, jumping up out of her seat and running toward me.  I'm sure I don't have too many more years of the highlight of her birthday being her mama coming to have lunch with here, so I'm taking advantage of it whenever I can!  Here's a couple of pictures I took of her in the cafeteria and back in her classroom.

everything on the page is from the January BYOC at The-Lilypad

It was Friday night that everything started to go downhill.  I cooked Gracie her birthday dinner and my grandparents came down to celebrate with us.  About halfway through dinner, Gracie said she didn't feel well and wanted to go and sit on the couch.  Within an hour or so, she was curled up and crying because her ear hurt.  My poor baby...sick on her birthday!  We gave her some Motrin and some ear-numbing drops and finally she fell into a very restless sleep.  On Saturday morning, she woke up feeling a lot better.  I started to think maybe she'd just gotten water in her ears and that she didn't have an infection (I'm nothing if not hopeful!).  Steve headed to work and I went ahead and took the girls down the my grandparents and went to my scheduled photo session.  Steve thought I should go ahead and get Gracie an appointment just in case her ear was infected, so I called the pediatrician as soon as they opened to try and get her in.  Their appointment times are limited on Saturday and there was no way that I could get all the way down there at the time they needed me.  Their suggestion was to take Gracie to the Emergicare clinic if we felt like she needed to be seen before Monday.  Lovely, just lovely.  Have I mentioned that we don't have health insurance right now?  We're in the middle of a 90 day waiting period before the insurance at Steve's new job kicks in and the cost of COBRA from his last employer would have cost more than the car payment, the van payment, and our mortgage combined.  Sheer insanity!  So, we decided that we'd just ride it out and hoped no one would get sick.  Hey, Murphy!  Are you and your law laughing at us?

So, we debated back and forth about taking her.  Okay, that's not true.  I debated back and forth.  Steve was determined that we needed to take her.  I, because I'm a sucky mom, kept trying to convince myself that she really didn't need to go.  (In the for what it's worth department, Gracie was convinced she didn't need to go).  Finally, though, reason won out (and the fact that I don't generally let my six year old make medical decisions for herself) and the girls and I loaded up and headed to Emergicare.  I was afraid Gracie was going to totally flip out.  She flips out at her regular doctor's office and she's not a big fan of change either, so I thought we were heading into the perfect storm of fit-pitching.  Of course, she was a perfect angel and did everything that the doctor and nurse asked her to.  She explained all her symptoms and also her belief that she did not have an ear infection but simply had water in her ear from her bath the night before.  Fortunately, the doctor didn't just take her word for it and actually examined her.  He discovered that her ear was fire engine red behind her ear drum, a clear indication of infection.  So, an hour later, armed with a perscription for antibiotics (free from Publix, thank you very much) we left.  All in all, I felt like we'd dodged a bullet...the doctor's appointment was fairly cheap at $95.00 and after her first dose of antibiotics Saturday afternoon,  Gracie really seemed to be feeling better.  I breathed a sigh of relief....

Saturday night Abigail started acting like she wasn't feeling well.  She was more tired than usual and just seemed really run down.  By 11:00 her temp was over 104 degrees and she threw up.  Here we go again, I thought.   Even though ear infections aren't generally contagious, my girls tend to both get them at the same time.  Abigail said her ear wasn't hurting, though.  When we asked her what hurt, she'd just point to her tummy.  On Sunday, Steve took Gracie to visit with our family in Mobile.  I sat beside Abigail on the couch and took her temperature 27,000 times.  She was pitiful.  I called the doctor who said to just alternate Tylenol and Motrin and as long as she was still take liquids and acting alert to wait and bring her on Monday morning (Abigail has a history of running high fevers, so the fever in and of itself didn't concern the doctor).    Even with both Motrin and Tylenol, her fever was staying above 102, so at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, Abigail and I were sitting in the parking lot of her pediatrician waiting for them to open the doors to walk-ins.   (Did I mention we still don't have insurance?  Murphy, are you still there?)

Within two minutes of seeing Abigail, the doctor had diagnosed her.  Not an ear infection like I thought.  Not strep like I mildy wondered if she might have.  Nope, she has PNEUMONIA!  PNEUMONIA!  They gave her a breathing treatment in the office (that was fun, let me tell you) and an antibiotic to bring home.  Finally, today, four days later, she's starting to act a little bit like herself.  Her fever is much much lower (hanging around 100 degrees) and she has a little more energy.  On Monday and Tuesday, she barely left the couch.  Her cough, which didn't really even show up until Monday morning, is still pretty ugly.  It's deep and a little bit scary when she has a coughing fit and seems like she can't catch her breath.  Watching her be this sick has been pretty draining.  Worry can sure take it out of you!

And if I didn't have enough going on this week, when I woke up Monday morning, I realized that the second hard drive in my computer was dead.  As in it went to sleep Sunday night and never work up.  The drive with all my old pictures and my photography session final pictures and all of my scrapbooking supplies.  The one that I idiotically didn't back up.  I did a lot of research and it turns out the drive has a bug in it that causes this to happen.  The good news is that the data is still on drive.  The bad news is I can't access it.  The really good news is that the company that manufactured the drive can usually fix it.  For free.  The bad news is that I had to send it back to them.  So, on Monday I had to drive around town with a sick baby and find a place that knew what I was talking about when I said I needed to find an anti-static bag to mail it back in.  (I had no luck...apparently no one here's ever heard of one.  Luckily, I found another drive in the back of my closet hanging out in one, so I was able to package up the bad one).  The really nerve-wracking news is that I don't know yet if they can fix it.  They have an on-line status page and I've been refreshing it every 1.1 milliseconds for the last three days, hoping for some news.  It just keeps saying it's in the evaluation phase.  I have my fingers crossed that it is salvagable and that in a few days I'll have it back in my PC, where it will be backed up to multiple locations immediately. 

So, the picture at the top is Abigail on Tuesday.  She was sobbing because she couldn't write her A's correctly.  A sure sign that she's sick...she's rarely so melodramatic about things (she leaves that to her older sister).  We're trying to keep her from crying or getting upset because that makes her coughing so much worse!    I'll leave you with a picture of her from earlier in the month when she felt a whole lot better and a whole lot happier!   I love this picture....it just makes me happy!

I don't like to be in the middle of things...really, I don't.  I'm much happier being firmly on one side or the other.  Lately, though, I find my heart smack dab in the middle of two conflicting emotions.  Have you heard of the Sandwich Generation?  Well, for the last several months, I've pretty much been the bolonga on the sandwich, hanging out with tomato, the lettuce and the tomato between the bread that is my parents and my babies.  Before my father died, he was here in Pensacola for two months.  My mother stayed with my grandparents and I tried to help as best I could with meals and transportation.  Sometimes, sheduling was difficult between trying to be there for appointments with my dad and picking up Gracie for school or watching Abigail's preschool programs or getting both of them to ballet (and don't forget tyring to schedule photo sessions).  But, honestly, I think we all handled it fairly well...I guess as well as could be expected.  It was a very difficult time, but I don't think there was ever a time during that month that I really felt like I had to choose between what my parents needed and what my girls needed.

Since my father died, though, I've felt a lot more, well.....sandwiched.  My father died on Wednesday, December 30th.  That Friday, my sister and her family drove my mother back to Louisiana.  They left, headed back to their home in Tennessee, late Saturday afternoon.  Everything seemed okay....my mom was doing all right, glad to be back home in her own house and to be reunited with her dogs. 

By Monday night, my mother was in the ICU with double pneumonia.  I have never felt so conflicted in my life.  The 200 miles between my house and my mother's felt like the distance between the sun and the former planet Pluto.  I felt like I needed to go and be with my mother, but I needed to be here, too.  There's one disadvantage to being a stay-at-home mama at times like these...I don't really have anything to do with the girls when I need to leave.  If I was working, we could take advantage of extended day-care hours and Steve would have been able to handle getting them where they need to be.  Of course, if I was working, then I'd have to worry about taking off from work.  So really, there's no winning in that type of situation.  If Gracie were still in preschool, I would have just taken them both with me.  But, kindergarten is not preschool as I've learned the hard way.  She is already on probation for truancy (yeah, that's right, my KINDERGARTENER is a truant...I promise I'll share the details of that story in a later post )  so I have to be really (really, really, really) careful about why she misses school.  So, my heart was split, right down the middle....I couldn't leave my responsibilities here, but I felt like I needed to be with my mother.  Luckily, she was doing fine in the hospital and told both my sister (who's suffering from the same bologna-sandwich syndrome) and I that she was fine and we didn't need to come.

After more than two weeks in the hospital, my mother was finally released last week and I was worried about her being at home alone and still being so weak from the pneumonia.  Luckily, my aunt flew down to stay with her.  I've slept a lot better knowing that some who loves her is with her.

So, yeah, I'm part of sandwich, but I'm very thankful that I am.  I mean really, what would a piece of bologna be without the bread?  And luckily, my sandiwch comes with a lot of sides like soda and chips and potato salad in the form of my friends and my church and my husband and my sister and my brother and extended family that help make my sandwich feel not so lonely.  So, my plate is fulll...in more ways than one



And, a note from me:  I've struggled the last few weeks with how to continue writing my blog.  It seemed somewhat disrespectful to jump right from writing about my father's illness and death to the antics and craziness of my girls and my life.  I searched for a way to seque back into the normal state of this blog, but I just don't think there's a graceful way to do it. So, I'm  just going to do it.  I love my father very much and I miss him, probably more than I ever expected.  But, I think he, more than just about anyone, would appreciate me continuing to write and finding the humor in the world around me. 

One of the many things my father instilled in me was a deep and abiding love of Emily Dickinson poetry.  For that I am thankful...in her words I often find solace that I can't find elsewhere.  And, on more than one occasion, I've used Emily Dickinson poems to convey to my daddy things that were to hard to say in a simple conversation.  When I got married, I gave him a picture frame that was inscribed with the phrase "I'm nobody, who are you?"  Language that probably seems odd on a father/daughter gift, but I know spoke volumes to my father when he opened it.  When I searched for a title for this post, the opening line of "I could not stop for death" instantly came to mind...it seems so appropriate.

My father died this morning, just before sunrise.  How like him to wake up early and go.  He was always an early to bed, early to rise kind of man.  I feel peace this morning mixed with waves of sorrow, much like the Gulf of Mexico early in the morning.  I am unbelievbly thankful for the time I had to spend with him over the last few months, both the good times and the bad.  I am thankful for the gifts he gave me...the ones I'll carry with me the rest of my life.  I have stories and stories swirling in my head that need to find their way to paper sometime, but now I'll just say this.  Today, Heaven gained a beautiful mind, a rapier wit, and a wicked sense of humor (and yes, he gave that to me, too).  I miss him.

It's December 17th and I have done almost nothing to prepare for Christmas....no tree is up, Christmas cards are non-existent, and I've done very, very little shopping.  Luckily, Santa is taking care of Gracie & Abigail...thank goodness for that jolly old man.  I know that there are tons of people out there who don't even begin shopping, wrapping, baking or decorating until the week before Christmas.  At least I think there are people like that...I've heard about them, but I've yet to meet any one who actually does it.  I could say that I'm one of those people and shrug off my procrastination as some kind of planned exercise.  "Nope!  I have done anything yet - it's on purpose!  I like all the stress  excitement of waiting until the last minute!"  I've been ridiculously busy with work for the last six weeks...I had seven photo sessions the week of Thanksgiving.  SEVEN!  I am thrilled that people actually want me to take their Christmas pictures.  And, oh yeah, on top of that, I did the fall preschool pictures the week before Thanksgiving....so that would be 60 mini-sessions the week before Thanksgiving.  Ummm, yeah, I'd say I was a bit busy.  So, I could say that my work is the reason for my lack of Christmas progress.  But, that wouldn't be true either.   Well, at least not completely...I'm sure that my work schedule and my normal state of procrastination are contributing at least partly, but the main reason is this....

My father is dying.  It pains me more than I can say to type those words...but honestly, watching the cursor flash as I type each letter doesn't change it or make it any more or less hurtful, because nothing is going to change it.  On Monday, my mother signed the paperwork to put daddy on hospice.  And, really, I don't think I've ever had more of a love/hate relationship with anything in my life like the one I have with hospice.  Simply put, the people are amazing.  They are compassionate and kind and every other syrupy word that you've heard about them.   But the whole concept of hospice...I'm not too fond of it.  It's gut-wrenching and let me tell you, my gut is usually not a wrencher.  Remember, I'm the mom of a preschooler and a kindergartner - my stomach is made of steel. 

When I last blogged, we were moving my dad here to Pensacola for some physical therapy.  The plan was he would have a few weeks of pretty intense therapy and then hopefully return home to Louisiana to live...maybe not an active life, but the hope was he would regain some of his strength so he could at least do basic things like walk from his chair to his bed and read and surf the internet.  And the big hope was that he would improve enough to be eligible and strong enough for a liver transplant.  Well, the first week he was here, he made progress...not a whole lot but enough that we were hopeful.  But, it was apparent that it was going to take longer than a couple of weeks.  His physical therapist told me it would be at least a month (and I could tell from her tone that she was being generous when she said that).  By the next week, Daddy was getting weaker and weaker.  Therapy became difficult, if not impossible for him.  We met with the doctor at the nursing home.  He is a soft-spoken man, but he doesn't mince words.  He told my mother and me that Daddy would be beating the odds if he survived a year.  My mom choked out, "He told me today that he doesn't want to live like this."  And the doctor nodded and said that he would imagine that he, too, would come to that conclusion if it was him.  And, I looked at the doctor and realized that he is probably about my daddy's age.  And it struck me that all this time when we thought dad was doing great, he wasn't -  he was simply getting better.  This doctor standing in front of me was the picture of health for a man in his sixties.  My dad didn't look anything like a healthy 66 year old man.  That was eye-opening for me. 

The next week, my dad's sodium level plummeted and he was sent from the nursing home to the hospital.  There, they got his sodium back up and stabilized his platelet count.  Back he went to the nursing home.  To everyone's surprise, well maybe not everyone's, but at least mine, Dad had lost very little strength during his hospital stay.  He jumped right back into therapy and felt strong enough to check out of the home to spend Thanksgiving Day with us.  But, the next week, he started get weaker and weaker.  The cycle was starting over.  By that Friday, he was back in the hospital with low sodium and even lower platelets.  He stayed for a week this time and last Saturday afternoon was released to the nursing home.  Saturday evening the nursing home sent him back to the hospital.  The hospital checked his bloodwork in the emergency room and sent him back to the home again.  Yep, three ambulance rides in one day.  My dad chuckled about that.  This time was different though...the hospital released him to palliative care, meaning they recommended nothing more than comfort measures...no more aggressive treatment.

So, Monday morning my mom, Steve, my sister via conference call, and I had the meeting with hospice.  They answered all of our questions and told us we didn't need to make a decision that day, but I could tell that they felt the sooner we made the decision the better.  My mom planned to talk to my brother and my sister and me and make a decision by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

On Monday afternoon at 3:55 p.m., it was cold and raining.  I was driving toward the bank to make a deposit.  Gracie and her friend were in the far back seat of the van (after the bank, I was headed to drop off Gracie's friend after a play date...one that involved putting on every dress up outfit we own...those girls sure know how to have fun).  Abigail was buckled into her car seat, wearing nothing but her panties.  Yeah, I know, I know...but sometimes that girl just wears me out.  The phone rang.  It was my mom.  There was trouble with my dad's bloodwork and he had fever and chills.  The nursing home wanted to send him to the hospital.  My mother didn't know what to do.  I told her to ask them if they'd send him to the hospital for this if he was on hospice.  No was the response.  Then, I had her ask them if they were legally required to send him to the hospital since he wasn't on hospice.  Yes was the response, but they could call hospice right then and mom could sign the papers.  My mom asked, "What do I do?"  And everything in me cried out, "Send him to the hospital...do everything you can to make him better!"  But I stopped and looked up.  I remembered that the emergency room at the hospital was freezing and that daddy said the ride over in the ambulance was cold if there weren't enough blankets. That would be miserable for him if has already shaking.  And the answer came, falling like the cold rain, from above.  "Tell them, " I said with a voice that I know was choking, "tell them to call hospice and have them bring the paperwork."   And I was never more thankful to have God in my life than I was at that moment.  Because, the decision wasn't mine...it was His.

On Monday evening, my daddy looked bad.  He was incoherent and shaking from the chills caused by the fever.  I couldn't believe that just a few hours earlier, we'd been talking about Joe Patti's (a local seafood shop) and different recipes and restaurants.  I called my brother and sister and told them that they might want to come soon.  My sister is here...she arrived yesterday afternoon and spent hours visiting with my daddy.  Right now, she's tucked into the bed with Abigail.  She is salve for my hurting spirit and I imagine for Abigail's too.  I have not been the kindest Mommy of late and nothing makes Abigail smile like my sister.    My brother is trying to arrange his work schedule so he can come sooner rather than later. 

Right now, my dad is stable.  He's eating and was able to talk a bit coherently yesterday.  But, they're giving him morphine to help with his systemic pain and I know without aggressive treatment, his body can't function long without a liver.  And that makes me sad beyond words, but I'm thankful that our family decided to give him comfort in his final days.  Sometimes, going down fighting is just not the way to go.....

Now, you know my big long story that explains why I haven't started Christmas cards or cookies and why our tree isn't up.  I imagine that I will get to those things next week.  I have to....I have two little girls who need to know the magic that is Christmas and I need to do it for myself.  If Daddy is stable enough on Saturday, Steve & I have a very special treat planned for the girls.  It will require spending the night a few hours away from home, but if there's any way we can do it, we are going to.  Some people might say this is a terrible time our family to be going through this.  I think there couldn't be a better time...Christmas is one of the holiest times of the year and the whole reason behind the holiday is the one that makes it possible for me to even imagine saying goodbye to my daddy...