Happy Halloween!

From our family to yours,

We hope you're having

a safe & wonderful Halloween!

Falls is Finally Here!

Cool nights...

Bonfires...

S'mores...

Sweet smell of autum leaves....

Colors all around...

Football time in Tennessee again...

Harvest festivals...

Little ghosts, goblins, and daredevils invade...

Yup, it's FALL!!!!! :o)

First attempt at digital scapbooking

I know several people who are into traditional scrapbooking, but I never seem to have the time, or the space, or the energy, or the... whatever else you need to do it. I have a kit to start with, but just can't seem to get motivated to trying it out.

Then a friend of mine mentioned digital scrapbooking on her blog. Then another friend (who reads the same blog), got interested in it. So I decided to check it out. I downloaded a pretty nifty program from http://www.scrapbookflair.com/ to do the deed with (free, I might add), and a bunch of free templates and stuff.

For my first subject, I chose what any decent grandma would - the grandbaby, of course!

These were all taken the night she was born. I set it up to print on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet so I could print it at home if I wanted to.

This is fun. I could be in lots of trouble here. Ruth, the one who started this, said "I feel as though I've started a cult....", and she just may have... :o)

Relaxed kinda' day...

Okay, it's official - I now have my "=+" and my "/?" keys back. Jenna tried to eat them the other day. Ripped those puppies right off the keyboard and into her mouth they went. She's a quick little critter, too. Fortunately, I got them back from her before any harm was done. No choking on my watch, thank you very much.

It took me a while to figure out how to pop them back onto the keyboard. Of course they wouldn't just snap back on, they have to have their little support frames put back together, then I had to hold the key in front of it down while I slid the lose key just so and pressed down on that key in just the right way at just the right time... If I didn't do so much with Excel, I'd have been tempted to just leave the keys off. :o)

It was kind of hard to get motivated today. It rained all day long, off and on, and made it a good day to just snuggle in bed with the cats and a book. I didn't do that, but it sure was considered. The rain was good to see - we need it badly. It's too late to do this year's crops much good, but it might get the rivers back up where they need to be. We've seen a lot of the Tellico River bed that's never been seen before. I've been joking that the fish caught in the river are parboiled for you already.

Jack is off until Friday, so we've been doing a lot of running around for the campground and other stuff. Yesterday, we drove to Knoxville to go to the Map Store. It's a neat place - exactly what it sounds like, too. We were looking for some large maps of the good riding roads in this area that we could post in a central location at the campground. It will make ride planning much easier for groups. They didn't have exactly what we wanted, but we figured out something that would work. After that, we started on our Christmas shopping. There was a Toys-R-Us there - we had to look. :o)

Today, we went the opposite direction, to Chattanooga, in the rain. The mission today was to pick up a dishwasher I won on eBay this morning. It's an old Sears Kenmore portable, just right for use at the campground. We got it back and found out that there is a part of the adapter that fits to the kitchen faucet that was missing. The previous owner had kept the owner's manual (over 30 years old, I'm sure!) and it listed the part numbers to every little piece in it. Even better fortune was smiling on us - I looked up Sears replacement parts and a new adapter is on the way.

G'nite all!

Cat Cartoon

I found this on MySpace. It makes me soooo thankful that my cats haven't mastered handling large objects without thumbs...

Bad Kitty

What is this wet stuff falling from the sky?

I seem to have a vague memory of it deep in my past...

Catching up...

Yeah, it's been awhile since my last real update on life. It's been a wee bit busy at the campground, which is a good thing.

In "Dad News", he's up and walking around on his new leg pretty well using a walker. My sister says she'll come home in the evenings to the sight of him out on the sidewalk, moving along quite well. In his therapy sessions, he's working with a cane, so I imagine that will be the next step. He says that once he gets pretty good with a cane, he'll probably consider going back to work. In his words, things are not progressing as quickly as he'd like them to, but much faster than his therapist thought they would. He's completely off the pain meds now, which means he can drive. He's been taking himself to his therapy sessions and pretty much wherever else he wants to go.

He and mom came down for Columbus Day weekend. They brought their trailer and stayed at the campground. They went to church with me that Sunday morning, and it really drove home just how much we have to be thankful for. The pastor's message that morning was about how our bodies are just clay pots, and sometimes the pots get broken. But sometimes, the reason the pot gets broken is so that the light inside it can shine out all the better. Yeah, God knows who's going to be there for a particular message...

In "Grandbaby News", Jenna is walking now. You can't keep that child still. It's wonderful! :o)

Spook, the new furry child, is adapting quite well. He's adopted Jack and I as his parents, but he's still not so sure about his new siblings. Harry wants to play with him, but I don't think Spook quite knows how. It's funny to watch.

My newest culinary discovery - almond flour. Yup, flour made from ground almonds. It can be used almost like white flour, has a boatload of fat, but very few carbohydrates. I've made pancakes and a spice cake with it. You need to use a little more egg to hold it together, but it makes some pretty yummy desserts that don't spike your glucose levels. Mmmmm....

I've been watching my statcounter stuff, and it appears that I've got a few regular readers who check this thing every day. I don't know who all of you are anymore, but thanks for hanging in there. Drop me a line if you ever get the urge. I know about Ruth, Heather, Ann, and Jack. Everyone else, I'm in the dark about who you are, but the speculating is most entertaining. :o)

Take care, and I'll try to write more often in the future...

The Price of Children..

I love the stuff I get in my email! This is just too good not to pass on to all. Something absolutely positive for a change. I have repeatedly seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time I have seen the rewards listed this way. It's nice.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.


But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

• $8,896.66 a year
• $741.38 a month
• $171.08 a week
• That's a mere $24.24 a day!
• Just over a dollar an hour!

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

• Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
• Glimpses of God every day
• Giggles under the covers every night
• More love than your heart can hold
• Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs
• Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies
• A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate
• A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites
• Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

• finger-paint
• carve pumpkins
• play hide-and-seek
• catch lightning bugs
• never stop believing in Santa Claus

You have an excuse to:

• keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh
• watching Saturday morning cartoons
• going to Disney movies
• wishing on stars

You get to

• frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets
• collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas
• hand prints set in clay or Mother's Day
• cards with backward letters for Father's Day

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

• retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof
• taking the training wheels off a bike
• removing a splinter
• filling a wading pool
• coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs
• coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

• first step
• first word
• first bra
• first date
• first time behind the wheel

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.



In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to

• heal a boo-boo
• scare away the monsters under the bed
• patch a broken heart
• police a slumber party
• ground them forever, and
• love them without limits

So, one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!


Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!