BOOKS TO THE CEILING, BOOKS TO THE FLOOR.....

I've been reading a lot of books since I got to Ireland. Sometimes I am reading 2 or 3 at a time. Mainly because I keep one upstairs and one downstairs. :0) Here's a list of the books I have read since I got here in December:

The Tales of Beadle the Bard
The Black Swan
The Pemberly Chronicles
Dracula
The Romantic Story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Book Thief
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Anna Karenina
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Alchemist - Nicholaus Flamel Series
The Magician - Nicholaus Flamel Series
The Sorceress - Nicholaus Flamel Series
The Devil Wears Prad
The House at Riverton
The Thief Lord
Dream of Orchids
Artemis Fowl Series #1-3
Mrs. Arris Goes to Paris
Angels and Demons
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Road
Journey to the River Sea
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Angela's Ashes
The 5 Children and It
The Enchanted Castle
The Star of Kazan
The Woman Without a Past
Light From Heaven
Listen for the Whisperer
O' Pioneers
The Woman in White
The Porter Rockwall Series #1&2
Breaking Dawn
A Countess Below Stairs
The Secret Life of Bees

I also finished the Old Testament and am half-way through The Book of Mormon, and half-way through The Doctrine and Covenants. :0)

I think I need to get a library card...

SHOPPING WITH KIDS

When I was a young mom, I would hear other young moms talk about how they would get babysitters to watch their kids while they went to the mall, or out to lunch, or even grocery shopping. I couldn't understand it. I loved my kids, and loved being with them. I took them everywhere with me and thought it was a great event to go to the mall or grocery shopping. I remember when my oldest was little and my only child at the time, we had to take our clothes to the laundromat because we didn't have a washer and dryer. There was a laundromat not far from our house that was right next-door to a McDonalds. We would put our laundry in the washers and go next door and eat lunch and then get back just in time to put the laundry in the dryer. Then she would play with a toy she had brought, or color or read a book and I would read my book while the clothes dried. We thought it was great fun!

Whenever I had to go to the grocery store, before I left I had to go through and pick out the coupons I would use that day. I would make my grocery list and then pick out the coupons I thought I needed and check all the expiration dates on them, then off to the store we would go. I saved a lot of money using grocery coupons - it was usually anywhere from $10-$20 per shopping trip. If I had a baby in a baby carrier, we would use two shopping carts - one for groceries and one for the baby carrier to go in. Back then the baby carriers really didn't fit the shopping carts and the slightest movement would cause them to slip and your baby and baby carrier might fall off of the shopping cart, so I would put the baby carrier down in the shopping cart. Sometimes I had an older child to push that cart for me while I pushed the groceries, but I can remember many times pushing the grocery cart and pulling the cart with the baby at the same time. Then the other kids would either ride on the front of one of the carts, or just walk behind. They weren't allowed to run free around the store either. We made quite a caravan!

My kids were usually well-behaved, but don't get me wrong - they weren't perfect. If they did act up and threatening didn't work, we left and went home. On the way home the "misbehaver" knew that the reason we ALL had to go home was because he or she misbehaved. Then they would also have to tell Dad the reason we ALL had to leave the grocery store and why we couldn't finish getting groceries. If that happened, I usually tried to go back at night alone, but many times just had to try it another day.

I can remember when Survival Knife was little. He was perfectly happy sitting in the seat of the shopping cart as long as he got to "hold" something. He didn't want to hold just anything, but something that interested him. His favorite things to hold were boxes of cereal, bags of chips, or sacks of cookies, but since we didn't always get to those things first, he also was content to hold bags of disposable diapers, tubes of toothpaste, or a bottle of lotion. As soon as I would go to put something else in the shopping cart that drew his attention, he would trade whatever he was holding for the new item.

I didn't always buy my kids a treat or toy when we went to the store. My kids didn't know this - or maybe they did - but I was always a sucker for books. If they ever asked for a new book, I usually bought it. Not an expensive book mind you, but ones like the Little Golden Books. If we ever did buy something, then Survival Knife would hold that thing until we left. Sometimes I even had to talk him into giving it to the lady so she could scan it.

I used to wonder why other moms didn't want to be with their kids? Did they not like their kids? Did they not like being a mom? Were they just lazy? I can remember one lady telling me that she would watch my kids for me when I went shopping if I would watch hers while she went shopping. I said, "Well...I take my kids with me." She asked me why and I said, "Because I like to take them. I like being with my kids." She never asked me to tend her kids again.

NIGHT AT THE GRAVEYARD

I was filling out one of those email surveys everyone sends you and this memory came to my mind, so I thought I'd blog about it.

One night when I was a teenager some friends and I started talking about Buddy Holly. For those of you that don't know him, he was a singer back in the 60's. Some people think he was the most influential person to affect rock n' roll, because his music inspired groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, etc. His career only lasted about a year and a half, because he was killed in an airplane crash. People have referred to that day as "The Day the Music Died." Buddy Holly lived, and was buried, in a town that I grew up in as a teenager - Lubbock, Texas.

This night that we were talking about him, my friends mentioned that he was buried in the graveyard across town. We decided that we would go there and see his grave. So my friends Nece, Danny, Billy, Randy and I all took off for the graveyard. Just to mention, these guys were not our boyfriends, just boys that were our friends. Now according to these friends, Buddy Holly's grave was at the curve of the graveyard road, under a tree. We drove past it and we all looked at it, but by then they had all been talking about some other things in the graveyard.

One of these things was The Tomb of the Triplet Sisters. We went into the tomb, and since it was dark, Randy flicked his lighter so we could see the pictures on the side of the tomb. There were the pictures of the Three Triplet Sisters. They all had dark hair, and must have been dead for a while, because their picture was old fashioned - like they had taken the picture in the 1930's or 40's and were pretty freaky looking. I thought it especially strange that all three sisters were buried in that tomb. My friends even said that the tomb went underground and there was some kind of elevator that took you down, but I never saw anything like that. Of course, staying in the tomb and looking for the elevator was not on my top priority. Getting out of that tomb was my top priority.

We went from The Tomb of the Triplet Sisters to The Statue of the Walking Angel. This was a great big lifesize white statue of an angel in the center of the graveyard. My friends said that if you kissed his feet he would walk. Nece, and I decided to stand up on his statue base and put our arms around his shoulders. When we did, that is when Billy, leaned over and kissed his feet. We didn't stay around to see if he walked or not. We jumped down and started running for the car. We all piled in and drove off, not even looking back. We had scared ourselves silly and a graveyard near midnight was just not the place to be. This is an actual picture of The Walking Angel in the Lubbock Cemetary, although the website calls the angel "Umlauf Angel". In the email survey I was filling out, I had thought it was a statue of Jesus. After going to the Lubbock Cemetery website, I found this picture of the Angel. It's funny how years later my mind melded that angel into Jesus. :0)

TO CHRIS AT BOOT CAMP IN KENTUCKY

On my flight to Atlanta, before changing planes for Ireland, I sat next to a guy going to Kentucky to Boot Camp. He was joining the Army to be a Trumpet player in the Army Band. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Chris and talking about music, boot camp and even a little bit of Mormon religion. I was pleased to find out that Chris had dated a Mormon girl and in his words, "loved Mormons".

Chris, thanks for a truly enjoyable conversation. I hope you survive boot camp without too many aches and pains, and I'll be watching everytime I see an Army band. Remember when you said you didn't want to marry a Mormon girl and mess up her chances to be in the Celestial Kingdom? I told you there was an easy solution to that. :0) Just wanted to add that even though you broke up with the girl, feel free to "check out" the Mormon religion at any time. Hope to run into you again sometime!

COMPUTER LAB - STORY ABOUT DAD

Amber asked us all to tell a story about Dad last night while we were playing Spinner. We heard lots of stories, but I thought of this one this morning:

When my husband was going to school for his Bachelor's Degree, it was before home computers. That didn't mean the school didn't require you to need a computer to do your homework, so in order to do so he had to go to the university's computer lab. It was a first come, first serve basis and sometimes when you got there, you might have to wait several hours before a computer would be free.

My husband went to school at night and had classes that ran up to 10pm at night. Since I had at least 3 kids at that time and maybe more (can't remember exactly when this happened), I was always tired when 10pm came and often times would go to bed, planning on "just laying there awake until he got home" but then would fall asleep within just a few minutes. I must have done this that night, but I woke up about 2am and realized that he hadn't come home yet. I started to worry and as time went by worried even more. I have a very active imagination and it didn't fail me that night as I thought of all the horrible things that might have happened to him. I worried, prayed and fretted and finally decided that maybe I should call the police to see if he was dead, broke down somewhere, or maybe in jail. :0) Just as my hand reached the phone, I heard the front door open. By the time he walked in the bedroom, I was already in tears from relief that he was okay. Puzzled, he not only asked me why I was in tears, but why I was awake. When I told him, he said, "Didn't you remember me telling you I had to stay late after class for a computer lab?" Oh right, now I remembered, although I didn't think it would take that long. Come to find out he had to wait 2 hours before he could even get a computer. Think about that as you click off of this blog and on to your next website. :0)

Overheard this morning:

My granddaughter talking to Amber -
(Pointing at Babs) I like to call him Fred.
(Granddaughters mother) Why do you call him Fred?
(Granddaughter) Because I like that name.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

It's really been great to be in the States! I've been so busy going from one thing to the next. I kept telling my husband that I felt so "pumped up" to be in the States that I felt like I had tons of energy! I guess it was a good thing, because it seems like I've gone non-stop from sun-up to sun-down.

I've had lots of fun with my grandkids but still feel like I needed to spend more time with them. Problem is, my time hasn't been well-planned out, just going from one thing to another. I just get up and look at my list of things to do that day and then do them. But I have enjoyed every minute of being with them and hope to do some more fun things when I get back from visiting my parents.
Here's some things I've been able to do while I've been here so far:
Tend grandkids while my daughter went to multiple doctor appointments, Kept grandkids overnight and a couple of days while she had her baby, cleaned house, pulled weeds, brought our dead back lawn back to life, had my mother-in-law here for 3 days, helped arrange to get new windows for my house and have it painted, got the Bee Man to come out and kill the bees by our patio, Had a birthday dinner for my son-in-law, a Father's Day dinner for my husband, had a family dinner for my mother-in-law, took several of my kids out to dinner several times, took my mother-in-law out to dinner, cooked a meal for my daughter's family after she had a baby, Went to 4 YaYa Lunches, got a US cell phone, got parts from Lowe's so my husband could fix the broken hot water heater, gone to many garage sales,went shopping for clothes and shoes, Went to Sam's twice, Took take-out in to my daughter's family and went to see her husband's new office, went to see Star Trek with my husband, son and his wife, went to church once with my daughter, went to our ward the rest of the time, had an MRI, had my teeth cleaned and 4 cavities filled (yes, FOUR!!!) (YIKES!). Now I'm off to go visit my parents. My mom just had surgery on her colon to remove a cancerous tumor.

My husband has: installed an exhaust fan in our downstairs bathroom, called the roof company to come put the roof flashing around the exhaust fan vent, fixed the hot water heater, trimmed all the bushes and trees around the house and put the clippings in the chipper, fixed several sprinkler heads, went fishing, hooked up Babs dvd player in the room we're staying in, fixed the globe back on his ceiling fan, fixed the weather stripping on the front door, changed burglar alarm batteries, installed a new switch for the bathroom light, played in his woodshop, went to see Star Trek, had multiple family dinners, visited with his mom...I'm sure there's more but I can't think of what.

The best part of this whole trip has been to be with family - visiting, going places, talking and laughing together. It's going to be pretty hard to get back on that plane to Ireland at the end of this month. We find out soon how much longer we will be there. Can you believe that in July my husband will have been there a year? He moved there permanently in October, but up until that time he was going back and forth every two weeks.

Even though I am having a wonderful time here, I feel the pull from Ireland pulling me back. I wonder what's going on there, is our house okay, how my friends are doing, and I'm already missing my husband even though I just took him to the airport this morning. Of course the pull to the States is much stronger. I just wish Intel would hurry up and makeup their mind as to how much longer we're going to be doing this so I can quit living in limbo.