Another Blogthing - what the bumper sticker on my car should say...

Your Bumper Sticker Should Be

Even if the voices aren't real - they've got some great ideas

What Bumper Sticker Should Be On Your Car?

Oh, how true it is!!!!

Stubbornness

My husband and I are both stubborn. Now I know where he gets his from, and I've always known where mine comes from.

My dad is scheduled for his surgery on Monday morning. Jack and I found out a couple of days ago that he will get all of his time off for next week, which means that he can watch the campground while I go to my folks' for a few day. I called the parental units to let them know I was coming up on Sunday.

The maternal parental unit says "No, you need to stay there and take care of your business. It can't be without you for that long."

"But Mom, Jack will be here and he...."

"Does he know how to make a bed? Clean a toilet? Mop a floor???"

"Uh, yeah. He probably could show me how to make a bed faster.... Besides, if it were you, and your dad, and you had the opporunity to be there, where would you be??"

Complete silence, followed by a very small, "ok".

Hehehe, her own stubborness, used against her. Dad said that he was glad I was coming up if only to keep my mom distracted. She can be a bit of dramatist at times.

Jack gets his from his parents, too. They're in their mid 70's now, and still very active. They take care of about a 120 acre farm, raise cattle and horses, and go on hunts and trail rides regularly. They left this morning to go on a week long trail ride/wagon train up in the mountains. This evening, we get this call that they had to come off the mountain early because his mother had probably broken her wrist and was on the way to the hospital.

She arrives at the hospital, gets examined, and sure enough, she'd broken the two large bones in her wrist and cracked some of the smaller ones. The ER doctor told her to keep the wrist and hand immobilized and see her regular doctor on Monday for a referral to an orthopedist.

So, you'd think they would head home and take it easy, since she's not supposed to be doing anything with the wrist. Noooooo.... they went back up the mountain. She's going to ride in the wagon for a day, then come back to see the doctor. Stubborn, I say!

Close call...

Wow, had a really close call at work today. I hardly spend any time at the office, anyway, so it's kind of odd that this would happen on the day that I come in.

Somebody dropped off a kitten. Not just any kitten. He looks like he's a blue-point Hymalayan. He's about 5 or 6 weeks old, and he loves to snuggle up just under your chin and purr very loudly. And he's got the sweetest little mew. He reminds me so much of the fluffy grey cat when he was a baby.

I kept telling myself that I do *not* need another animal. I do *not* need another cat, specifically. My geriatric matriarch of a cat wouldn't tolerate him very well. My youngest cat is paranoid enough without upsetting the balance of power in the household, which introducing a new creature into it most certainly would do.

Still, he was hard to resist.




Gotta' love my camera phone!


In the end, the production manager took him home for his mother. He'd told her about him during lunch. She lives alone and wanted the company, and will spoil him mercilessly, just as he deserves. Still, it was a close call...

And while I'm sharing pictures of the fuzzy beasts, the fluffy grey one was helping me with my most recent crochet project last night.


He's working really hard, guarding this ball of yarn. It was the safest ball of yarn in the house last night. :o)

Yay for Dreamfields pasta!!

Yayyyy!!!!! A pasta that I can eat without spiking my sugar up!!!! :o)

Dreamfields has managed to make spaghetti, lasagna noodles, rotini, and penne pastas that have a lower glycemic index value than regular pasta. The box claims that it's glycemic index is 65% lower than regular pasta, it has twice the fiber, and only 5 grams of digestable carbs per serving, and their servings aren't all that small. You can find their products at Kroger's, but not WalMart. I have no clue about Meijers since I don't live anywhere near one anymore.

I don't know how they do it. I don't want to know. If anybody know of anything bad about this stuff, please don't tell me just yet. I can eat this pasta and my sugar does not spike at all, unless I pour a lot of tomato sauce on it.

I've been fixing the rotini noodles with fresh zuccini, squash, cauliflower, and broccoli lightly grilled or sauted in extra virgin olive oil, then sprinkle it all with some parmasan cheese and another great find - McCormick's Salt Free Garlic & Herb seasoning.... mmmmmm

Heaven.... I'm in heaven..... :oD

Healthy eating

The deal with my Dad's health has caused me to really study my own, and I'm not living so well. I have Type II Diabetes and high cholesterol. I haven't been watching my diet as closely as I should, and I haven't been doing enough research into what I should be eating to begin with.

I've known about the glycemic index for awhile, I just never paid attention to it until now. I found that quite a few "healthy" foods have a higher GI value, which means that they break down into sugar in the bloodstream faster and cause sugar spikes.

And I also found that foods I've been avoiding, like pinto beans, have a low GI. And some of the combinations of foods that I've been eating are bad - the pinto beans don't impact my sugar anywhere nearly as quickly as the cornbread I pour them over does.

I just learned about the glycemic load, which takes the glycemic index of a food and combines it with the number of carbs per serving, so that's something else I should be paying attention to. I found a chart at http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm that lays it all out there you. The author of the website, David Mendosa, has done a huge amount of research about foods and diabetes and how different things effect it. He's diabetic himelf. I haven't been through the whole website yet, but I suspect there will be a lot of useful information there. The sidebar lists a directory, food, exercise, medication, meters, basics, complications, people, and a newsletter to subscribe to.

So... I guess I have to retrain myself how to eat. Lower GI, lower GL, and lower fat. The fats I do eat should be healthy fats if possible. And I need to really start paying attention to the portions.

In my meanderings, I found a list compiled by MSNBC of the staple foods you should keep on hand that are considered healthy. It's called Eat Healthy on $7.00 a Day. Those foods are:

1. Whole grain pasta
2. The Incredible, Edible Egg
3. Nuts
4. Potatoes
5. Canned tomato sauce
6. Organic brown rice
7. Beans & tofu
8. Organic bulk oatmeal
9. Bulk cornmeal
10. Fresh green veggies

I find it interesting that out of all of these foods, only 4 of them are considered low glycemic - eggs, nuts, beans, and green veggies. If I chose to eat any of the rest of the stuff on the list, I really need to watch how much I eat, when, and what with.

Now I guess I really need to find something other than a sausage biscuit for breakfast, eh?

See, on old dog can remember old tricks!

Just about scared myself this evening. I was fooling around with the flute I bought a while back tonight. I found some easy hymns and stuff for the flute and was practicing, wishing I'd had the foresight to buy the piano parts at the same time (duh!), when I rememberd the first few notes of my high school alma mater. I also remembered one of my best friends from high school comparing it to a C scale. Next thing I know, I'd picked out the entire melody and played it from start to finish.

I hadn't even thought of that music in almost 20 years. Yes, I realize I'm telling my age, but we're all friends here, right? :o) Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that I could remember it after all this time.

Now, if I could just find the piano parts and get up the guts......

blogthings.com

I found this way cool website that has all kinds of quizes and stuff to put on your blogs. It's called blogthings and offers the answers to the questions burning mightily in our minds... questions like "What kind of pizza personality are you?", and "What does your peanut butter and jelly sandwich say about you?" I just took the PB&J questionnaire. It is scarily close....

What Your Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Means

Your eating style is reserved. You are a bit of a fussy eater, and you have very specific ways you like your food prepared. You have a total sweet tooth. When you can get away with it, you like to have dessert before dinner! Your taste in food tends to be quite eclectic and wide. You are an adventurous eater, and you like many types of cuisines. You are probably a fairly normal, upper middle class person. You don't rock the boat too often. You are a tough person who isn't afraid to live life fully. There isn't a lot that scares you. You are laid back and extremely easygoing. You never make a fuss, and you try to enjoy every moment.

What Does Your Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Say About You?

Father News

Well, it's official. My father has a completely blocked artery in his left leg, and a significantly blocked artery in his right leg. The good news is that doctors have caught it before any damage can happen. The so-so news is that unless something changes drastically, he won't go in for surgery to correct any of it for another 2 weeks.

He's still getting some blood flow to his feet, just not nearly enough. He's been relegated to complete rest, which is about like telling him not to breathe. Anybody who knows my dad knows that he doesn't sit still very well. He's always doing something. He says he's been working on his model kits quite a bit lately, which is good. He used to work on them all the time when I was little, then got away from them as he got busy with one thing and then another. I'm glad he's still got them to do right now.

I'm also very thankful that the doctors feel they can treat this as more of a routine thing instead of an emergency. I would probably be very panicked if they decided he had to have surgery right away. I'd take that as a sign that serious damage had already happened. Since they're not rushing him into the OR, I feel a little bit better about what's going on. Dad says it was caught early, he paid attention and reported odd things immediately instead of waiting months, which is good. The doctor told him what to look out for and to call if anything changed.

If they need to, they'll go in earlier, but if nothing changes, dad goes in for surgery on July 2nd. He & mom both say that I should stay down here because that will probably be a busy week for the campground. I think that's about as effective as telling my mother to stay home when my grandfather had any one of his surgeries, which was basically useless. I'll find somebody to run the cash register at the campground for a couple of days and go up on July 1st, probably come back a couple days after the surgery when I'm sure that dad's OK and mom is too.

Newest project...

The afghan, not the baby. I'm not sure I could handle starting a family at this point in life. I'm too used to being able to do what we want to, when we want to. We have grandbaby Jenna to spoil, so we get our baby fix whenever we want it. :o)

Jack says I have way more patience than he does. I'm doing this afghan to replace one that I'd already finished and destroyed for a girl at church. The first one was a yellow and white octagonal baby afghan. When I washed it, some of the threads in the center worked loose and it sort of disintegrated from the center out. Not good. Not fixable, either.

So.... I'm making another one. This one will be mint green and white to follow her colors better. With this pattern, you attach the squares as you work, so there isn't a whole lot of finish work to do once you get done with the squares. I'll probably have enough of it to get a recognizable pattern before too much longer.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to. When I finish this one, there's two sisters at church who are both pregnant, too, and I don't think either of them has anybody in their family that makes stuff like this either, so I might as well buy a bunch of baby yarn and get settled in, huh? :o)

Oh, BTW, hi Ann! Congrats to Jess for graduating!

Another VBS in the books...

For the second year running, my husband and I have been asked to organize our church's Vacation Bible School. Last year was a huge step of faith for me, especially since we were following on the heels of a woman who had been taking care of it for close to 30 years. She could organize a VBS in her sleep, I'm sure of it. Very big shoes to fill, and more than a little intimidating. We made it through last year without a hitch, did a few things differently but not too many.

Jack told me right off the bat the he'd do whatever I asked him to do, but that he couldn't organize a dogfight, which left a lot of the administrative stuff to me. We're blessed with a relationship that compliments each other's strengths and weaknesses without huge egos in the way. I'm great at organizing and administration, he's wonderful with construction and problem solving. I'll see something that needs to be done, he'll figure out how to make it happen. It's great to be able to work together like that.

I really struggled this year with doubts - did I do everything I could to help out the teachers, the crafts leaders, the activities? I didn't spend nearly as much time this year as I did last year. Maybe I didn't spend enough? Maybe I put the campground startup too far in front of VBS, and if it falls flat on it's face, it will be all my fault? I didn't get the word out as well this year, maybe nobody will come? It was horrible. Looking back, I am my own worst enemy.

Setting up Saturday and Sunday was a treat. Half of the people who had said "Yeah, I'll do XXXX for you" didn't. We ended up improvising a lot of the decorations, including the backdrop for all of the skits that would be performed at the beginning of each night. A handful of people were great, though, and helped pull it all together better than if we'd planned it that way.

All of the worry and fret was for nothing. Granted, our attendance was down this year. We held our VBS a little later this year and ended up doing it the same time as at least 4 or 5 other ones. We had great weather, and wonderful teaching materials. We used a curriculum from Lifeway Christian bookstores called Game Day Central. It has a sports theme and teaches children about being heroes on God's team. Pretty neat stuff.

Our youth pastor opened up the services every night, and he managed to get the kids really stirred up and excited about being there. We had an evangelism service on Wednesday night for the kids older than 5 0r 6. A total of 14 kids ended up professing their faith in Jesus that night and asking Him for salvation. Sure made every bit of work worth it.

One of the kids was our pastor's grandson. He was sitting next to his papaw when he prayed. Another child's mother was teaching one of the other classes. She brought a group of children out to speak to the pastor and saw her son kneeling. She hit the floor on her knees, hands raised, and squealed. It was awesome.

So we finished up tonight. Parents came in for a family night, we invited anyone who wasn't already in church to come worship with us, then we all had pizza in the fellowship hall. Great ending for a great week.

Now I'm off to sleep some before the weekend starts up... g'nite all.

Just plain pretty...

These pictures were taken after some pretty rough rainstorms had passed through. The sun had just set under the horizon.

Who needs masterpiece painters when you've got this?

One month down...

"So, Mrs. Hunt, after being open for business for the first month, what do you think of it?"

Oh wow, this has been a very interesting month indeed! I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed it, too. We figured we'd be pretty slow the first few months. After all, nobody really knows we're here yet, lots of folks have plans to stay other places already, that kind of thing. We were actually thinking that a somewhat slow start would be a good thing - it would give us a chance to figure out the best way to do things.

All of this was true until Memorial Day Weekend. Then our cabin rentals exploded on us. :o) If this is an indication of things to come, I'll be looking for part-time help in the not-so-distant future. This is a good thing.

We've really enjoyed meeting some pretty interesting people. All of our guests have been very nice, some of them with great stories to share about places they've been and people they've known. This is the fun part - meeting so many great folks. I'm anxious to see who comes through the door next.

We have a United States map up that people can pin their hometowns if they'd like. I need to get the world map up, though. We've already had one guest who calls Australia home, and a couple of people from Canada so far. This weekend, we should have a gentleman from Norway here, and another from Hungary next month. Yup, it appears that we're going to meet interesting people from all over the world. Cool!

A few folks have stopped in on their way to other places to check us out and see what we have to offer. It's nice to take the time to visit with them and show them around. We're trying our best to make everyone feel welcome, and so far, it appears that we're succeeding. We've had some very positive comments from our guests and visitors, which only encourages us to keep on keepin' on.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported us, who has been our guest to date, and those who will be our guests in the future. We're having a blast living out our dream, and we're happy to share it with such a wonderful group of people!

Take care, ride safe, see ya' soon!

Lori