Nose Hairs and Other Random Things

I take prescription antihistamines. Since I've started chemo, I've not been diligent about taking them in the morning and night both. When I was throwing up so violently after my first chemo, followed by four days of eating practically nothing, pills were not part of my thought pattern. Unless they were for nausea, of course.

For the last week or so my nose has been rather drippy, so I've been diligently taking my antihistamines morning and night. And I'm still pretty drippy. Which got me to thinking this morning.

Someone hubby works with mentioned that someone they knew lost their nose hairs along with all the other hairs that are unfortunately lost (although I won't mind not shaving my arms and legs, so that doesn't fall into the unfortunate category). And after their nose hairs fell out their nose ran all the time.

I checked in my mirror this morning. I don't know what I started with as far as nose hairs go. I can still see some, but I'm thinking that the nose hairs have significantly lessened enough in population that I am now in the 'nose run all the time' category, regardless of taking my antihistamine pills.

On another note, had you noticed that on my right sidebar I've put my upcoming treatment schedule? Betsy had that idea so people who wanted to specifically pray could find the dates without digging through old posts. You know, the ones about nose hairs and tongues and birds on pants.

I take a shot that helps my body produce more bone marrow the day following my chemotherapy. One potential side effect is bone pain. I didn't have any the first time, although I was already sicker than a dog. But after the second treatment two weeks ago and the shot, I did have some bone pain. It started in my ribs and then a couple of days later it hurt to take deep breaths. I had significant fatigue starting four days after chemo on Sunday which coincided with the bone pain. I had almost a full week of fatigue. We'll see what happens after the shot tomorrow (which we do at home and hubby gives me in the stomach!)

Switching gears, we lost a dear older friend at church a couple of weeks ago. This couple is part of the small group we host in our home. Bill was one of the most amazing Christian men I've ever met. Our kids love both he and his wife. After he passed away, Sparky said to her dad, "I think I'm going to quit being friends with old men. They keep dying on me." We had very special friends in Illinois, and Franklin died not too long after we moved to Virginia. We were family friends, but Sparky had a special relationship with him. He taught her how to use her natural artistic abilities to paint.

Chatty is away at horse camp as an assistant counselor for the next two weeks. It's harder for her to be away without one of us than for Sparky to just take off to other countries and continents. Our kids are all so different!

Sparky decided I needed to do an update on my 'Meet the Kids' posts since things have changed. I think I may take her up on it.

Oh, and in again totally unrelated but kind of big news, depending on which camp you're from, I'm on Facebook now. I was a serious hold-out, but I started to see some benefits and decided to take the plunge. Now I'm addicted to this Gardens of Time game. That wasn't the benefit I saw and probably won't ever be the benefit! If I know you from here and you want to friend me, just send me a request.

Sweet Surprise!

Today I got a sweet surprise in the mail. It was from Ria in Holland.

This little charm was so perfect! Ria wouldn't even know because I haven't posted about it yet, but I have a charm bracelet from my childhood, and I've been adding charms to it here and there. I just asked Hubby a couple of days ago if I could get a new charm to add to my bracelet for each treatment I receive.

Of course he said I could.

One of the charms I've been looking around for is a simple flower or daisy shape. And look what Ria sent! It's already on my bracelet. Thank you, Ria!

I'll take a picture of my bracelet soon and share it too.

It's A Baby Shower!

Not mine.

Our ladies' group that hosted the women at church two Saturday's ago hosted a baby shower this last Saturday. They said it's very rare to have two events this close together.

Good!

I was responsible for decorations. Nothing fancy though. I was supposed to try and use what they already had if I could.

A couple of the ladies had just cleaned out all of our items and considered throwing away a dozen ceramic booties. I found a way to re-use them after a trip to the dollar store.

I grabbed a couple of bunches of fake flowers, a couple of packages of the 'It's a Girl" signs, and a couple of packages of the plastic baby bottles with pink tops. My challenge was getting them to stay upright in the booties.

I also found a package of 24 little Styrofoam balls at the dollar store. I put the end of the flower stem that I cut off the bunch in one and the end of the "It's a Girl" sign in another one, then I put those in the bootie, stuck the baby bottle in, and then stuffed it with the shiny grass. That helped hold everything in place without gluing it down.

We reassembled these cardboard baby blocks and used them, then I also purchased the baby-themed coiled wire at the dollar store and just put it willy-nilly around the centerpiece on the round tables.

There was a basket that they wanted to throw out also when they were cleaning. The handle was loose and would fall out if you tried to use it. I just pulled it out on the other side and threw it away, then I used some ribbon and beaded fringe to cover up the blue-shaded splints on the basket. We used it to hold the prizes for the shower games.

This little bear was going to get thrown out too! I cut off his black bow, tied some "It's a Girl" curling ribbon around his neck, and we put some balloons coming out of his basket. Then I used three fake flowers from a bunch at the dollar store to cover up the inside of the basket.

I used three more of those flowers with the curling ribbon in a loose little bunch on the gift table next to one of the cardboard baby blocks.

Yummy punch with a floating ducky. I wasn't responsible for this, but it's cute and I had to share it.

We didn't have the standard baby shower cake. We had this most yummy strawberry cake, and as soon as I get the recipe I am sharing it with everyone I know and making it as often as I get an excuse. It was awesome!

I don't have to do anything this weekend. Whew!

I Don't Look Like The Dog I Don't Have, But I Do Think Like The Cat I Do Have Looks Like

Huh?

It will just take me a little bit to get there, plus some digressing along the way.

Yesterday Betsy did a post about people looking like their dogs, and apparently people who buy purebreds are more likely to look like them. There are studies that show that.

Of course my first thought after I got done looking at her post after I got done giggling was that the pictures reminded me of those Lipitor commercials where people and food look alike.

I don't have a dog, so I can't look like my dog, but I do have a cat. He's black and white. I don't look like him either. The cat I had the year before I left for college was black and white also. I didn't look like him either.

Here's our cat, Silly, that was adopted as a stray cat when I was 17 and a senior in high school. I took this because it was very E.T.-ish.

The story of how he came to be ours was this:

1. You first have to know that we lived in a subdivision that was at the bottom of a mountain, and our house was going up the side a little. We had large ditches for rain water, and large round concrete drain pipes under our driveways so the rain would keep going from the ditches on each side.
2. My sister heard a cat in the next-door neighbor's concrete drain pipe walking home from the school bus. He lived 'below' us, as in he got our rain water.
3. We got the cat to take bologna slices. He'd snatch them and take them back to the middle of the pipe.
4. We eventually got the cat to come up to the corner of the house behind the tree/bush.
5. We got the cat to come up to the porch.
6. At this point my mom said we weren't having a cat for a pet.
7. Then we weren't ever having a cat in the house.
8. The cat was never sleeping in the house.
9. The cat could only sleep in the laundry room, which was really an added-on finished room.
10. Eventually the cat became an only indoor cat. He got shot in the shoulder and was missing a few days.
11. When my mom had breast cancer and lost all her hair from her chemotherapy, the cat slept up on top of her head and kept it warm.

I just love how that all worked out!

When we decided to get a cat for our little family of six, I went to PetSmart first to check out what was available for adoption. The black and white cat caught my eye. They always do!

He had an awesome personality, so Hubby packed the kids up in the other vehicle, already bathed and in their summer pj's, and brought them up to see how he did. We took him home that night.

His name was Topeka, and since Caboose couldn't say it and I wasn't crazy about it, we shortened it to Peka.

He likes the vents in the winter in Michigan. He's a Southern cat.

I always tell people how much I loved algebra in school and despised geometry (with every fiber of my being). It's because algebra is black and white and geometry is very gray (those proofs were my demise).

That's why I'm an accountant. Definitely black and white. There is always a right answer. It always has to balance. If it doesn't, you figure out why.

Thus, I think like my cat's (cats') colors.

Silly had a pink nose, Peka has a black one, and when my mom visits she calls Peka, "Silly Peka." Unnecessary for my thought process, but the kids all think it's funny that she calls him that.

Now Hubby looking like our cat?

Wandering Eyes

Why are all six of my perfect purses sitting in the top of my closet?

When I was at Marshall's for pillowcases the other day, my eyes actually didn't just wander on the way to the check-out when I found the fancy shirt.

My eyes wandered before I ever got to the pillowcases.

My wandering eyes saw this.

The style is very similar to the ones I have now yet still different. It has snap pockets on each end. I use one for my Altoids and one for my little Kleenex packet.

I actually passed it and went back to it.

It was such a great price I just couldn't resist it. Maybe it was that orange and fuchsia in the plaid. Maybe because it was the same yet different as my perfect purse. Maybe because I could justify it with Mother's Day coming up.

The good news is, I don't have a gap on my shelf anymore for the purse I'm using. When I switch out, this one will take it's place.

The bad news is, if my eyes wander and I see another one someday, there's no more space on that shelf.

A First

Today I went to my first homeschool conference.

I'm tired.

Pillowcases and a Fancy Shirt

Yesterday I popped into Marshall's to pick up a pair of white pillowcases for my pillows. I need to put my flannel ones away, and I love to get the high quality pillowcases at a really good price.

While I was on my way back to the front to check out, I couldn't help my eye from wandering to the sides. There was a shirt hanging on the end of a rack where it didn't really belong. It stuck out. It was pretty. It caught my eye. It spoke to me. It appeared to be my size.

I did not have time to try it on, but I was willing to get it and take it back if I had to. But I did not want to have to.

Isn't it pretty?

I'm saving it for Mother's Day. I'm going to have to go buy a skirt though.

I've showed it to every member of my family at different times since last night. The most fun was showing it to Sparky. I prepped her on the way with, "What's the one thing that makes this shirt not fancy?" All because of her issues with fancy shirts. And dresses and any other item of clothing really.

She said exactly what I thought she would. "It's white."

Then as she left my room she said, "Except that wedding dresses are white, and those are the fanciest dresses you can get, and a wedding is the fanciest day of them all."

ROY G BIV is my friend

I don't even remember what grade I was in when I learned it, but I've never forgotten it.

The mnemonic for remembering the colors of the rainbow:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

It's an obsessive-compulsive person's dream...in the closet.

For me, pink is a light shade of red, I don't wear yellow, and I don't wear purple. I don't wear many light colors at all. Neutrals border the edges of the rainbow.

After white I have beige (since I have long-sleeved beige shirts - see above) and brown. Then after the Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, of which there was no Yellow or Violet, I have gray and black.

But then with my short sleeves below, since I don't have any beige, I have the white, the rainbow, then brown and black. Since I don't have the beige to transition to brown, the brown has to go at the other end with black.

If I get any beige short-sleeved shirts, the brown would have to move.

Don't ask me why. I don't even know. It's just the way it has to be.

If I have identical colors, v-necks come before crew necks, and crew necks before mock necks before turtlenecks.

Do you organize your clothes by color and/or style?

My shirts always look like this. I didn't make them special for this post.

The end.

Humph!

Last night Hubby did the unthinkable.

He realized Buddy was taller than me.

None of us had realized it before that.

Of course, it could have been the illusion of the fluffy hair I have (that's why I had to use my finger and show you where my head really is).

He's a full inch taller than me now.

I had Hubby secretly follow Buddy up the stairs to see if he ran off to tell the other kids.

He did.

Buddy said to Sparky (our resident shorty at 4'11" who will always be my favorite child!), "Sparky, I just accomplished something that you'll never be able to say you accomplished."

Of course the plan was to tell her he was taller than me knowing that she never would be.

But before he had the chance, Caboose chimed in with his two cents.

"What, you kissed a girl?"

Buddy says over everyone's laughter, "No, I'm taller than Mom!"

Of course it lost some of it's impact by then.

2010

I have never been one to make resolutions. I think it probably goes back to my dislike for journaling and writing things down. I'm getting out of my box and writing down some goals for 2010. Sharing them no less. That's a biggie for me. I don't usually share important written down stuff with people.

Just stuff that would embarrass the daylights out of me.

Spiritual

• Read the Bible in 90 Days. I started yesterday.
• Pray my daughter to and from Togo, West Africa, in February.
• Do the purity study with the girls.
• Work with all the kids on integrity and character training from Proverbs.

Personal

• Get to bed earlier so I can get up earlier without being so tired.
• Remember to take my vitamins regularly for my health.
• Exercise for my health, with the side benefit being weight loss.

School

• Be more regular about our daily start time.

Home

• Incorporate a successful plan for keeping the house neat and picked up where the kids are helping regularly.
• Incorporate more new meals into the meal planning.
• Get all my recipes organized into one recipe binder system, including computerizing.
• Organize pantry better, especially for stockpiled items.
• Contact friends that we've neglected for the past few years of moving.

Well, that's it. It'll be a year before we know the results, at least for most of the things on my list, but I'm curious. Do you make resolutions or goals?

Acronyms

My cousin Jennifer, who is really a nice girl even if she did throw sharp-pointed scissors at me once when we were teenagers, brought up the nickname she used to call me in the comments of my birthday post. It wasn't really a flattering nickname, it was identified by an acronym, but she's still a really nice girl. I promise.

And it's really no wonder that I have had hair issues my entire life.

If I could digress for just a minute though, right after this acronym comment, Hubby and I were out driving, picking up my Dairy Queen birthday cake and the Little Caeser's pizza, and a lady didn't pull out quite appropriately. This is what transpired in our vehicle next.

Hubby: "Sometimes I think people are just trying to make me mad. She's a BDC."

Me: "A Bad Driving Chick?"

Hubby: "Yes."

Me: "That's what you thought I was the other day."

Hubby: "No, I thought you were an SDC."

A few seconds of thought.

Me: "A Slow Driving Chick?"

Hubby: "Pretty soon you're going to be a GDC."

A few more seconds of thought.

Me: "A Granny Driving Chick?"

Hubby: "A Granny Driving Chick!"

Hubby couldn't remember what the acronym CBFH stood for that Jennifer used to call me either, and I reminded him a year or two ago when it came up between us the last time. I'm not so sure I want to put it here for posterity, but I'm also pretty sure I've embarrassed myself worse.

Cotton Ball Frizz Head.

It's My Birthday — The Big Hair Edition

Last year when I posted about my birthday, I promised I'd post a big hair edition this year. Well, embarrassing as it may be, I'm keeping my word.

Get your giggle on!

It all started innocently enough. I was about 18 months old in the summer of 1967.


The biggest hair didn't start until college in 1984. That's when I also discovered the joy of the perm. It helped to "control the natural curl in my hair." Uh-huh. Whatever. I also went through an inhuman number of cans of hair spray. For years.

This is my freshman year in college:

This is my sophomore or junior year in college:

After graduation from college in 1988, Hubby was commissioned into the Army and went to Virginia for his Basic Course. My grandparents and I went over Thanksgiving to see him and visit the East Coast.

The wind never made it look any better. This was on the Virginia Beach boardwalk.

We also went to D.C. We were standing by the JFK Eternal Flame here, thus the serious faces. My grandma always had a smile on her face though. I wish I looked like that. Notice the hair doesn't move or change.

The hair even looked big from the back. What I wouldn't give to be able to wear white pants again though. If I had those, they wouldn't even go up to my knees. Gosh, they probably wouldn't even go on one leg.

This was in October, 1990. Still under the idea that bigger was better.

Even if I trimmed off length, I still kept big, and bangs.

This was the Christmas before I had the girls, so a little less than one year before I had them. I'm in the middle back, or I could say look for the biggest hair.

Today, there are no perms. I haven't had one in over 10 years. I have finally come to grips with my naturally curly hair. Unfortunately, it's still big on it's own.

And I'm actually happy to have a birthday. I'm weird about numbers. I don't like the prime number 43, so I'm happy to be 44. Who's weird enough to like to get old?

No need to answer.

Nancy Drew Postcards

I'm not even sure when I bought my first package of Nancy Drew postcards (although I can narrow it down to when I lived in Illinois). They are super thick, much thicker than your typical postcard, and attached in a flip-book style format where they are bound at the top with adhesive gum. There are (now were) 12 included.

The second set of Nancy Drew postcards came in a boxed set of 30 and are your typical style postcard. These postcards, as well as the thicker ones, are all reproductions of different Nancy Drew book covers.

I love Nancy Drew. I have the complete yellow matte collection. I had over half of them from when I was growing up and completed the rest thanks to ebay several years ago. I still want to be Nancy Drew when I grow up.

But this is about my postcards and what I did with them.

I purchased three ready-made frames from Wal-Mart.

Figuring out which ones I wanted to include was probably the hardest thing I did.

The pictures on identical titles changed over the decades, so some of the postcard pictures were a little more antiquated than others (think hairstyles and clothing).

I tried to be sort of consistent in the style I was picking, and they were the ones that would usually be found on the yellow matte covers like I have. Many of the older ones were from when the books had dust jackets.

It's hard to take a picture of something with a glass front and not get a glare!

They are hanging up in my personal scrapbooking/crafting area. Yes, which is still builder beige along with the rest of the house.

Maybe someday I'll have a little detective office up there, too!

This post is linked to Show and Tell Friday hosted by Cindy at My Romantic Home.

Give Me Five

Ronnica from Ignorant Historian, who is anything but, gifted out five words especially for me. I asked for them though, so maybe they weren't really a gift, because that would be rude to ask for a gift.

Okay, so here's how this works: she got five words from someone, she blogged on each of the five words, offered to provide five words to anyone who wanted them, I took her up on the offer, I received my five words, and now I will blog about them. Get it?

You'll be able to tell they were thought up especially for me though. If you're not too scared by all of this craziness, I'll gift you five words specifically for you. Just ask.

1. Daisy
I could just say, "The daisy makes me happy," but in all fairness a little more narrative is expected, at least from Ronnica.

You might be surprised to know that for years I discouraged my husband from getting me fresh flowers for our anniversary or any other occasion. I thought it was such a waste. The thing was, I usually got roses, and I don't like roses (my father-in-law is going to cringe when he reads that).

As many things today are less expensive to buy than they were five or ten years ago, and also easier to find in common stores (grocery, discount), so are fresh flowers. Several years ago I realized there was more out there than just the rose, and that you don't have to get a bouquet of something to have fresh flowers. The gerbera daisy is the one that caught my eye from the beginning and is easily my favorite flower. I love their large size and the color choices available. I also like to put them in planter pots outside and not just in vases in my house.

In a nutshell, the daisy makes me happy.

2. Children
I have a lot of them.

Hubby and I talked about not ever having any, by choice, many, many years ago when we were first married.

We said if we ever had any, we wanted two. Twin girls.

We decided we wanted to have children, and had difficulty conceiving.

We had two miscarriages before I got pregnant with the girls. Twin girls!

Our girls are truly miracles, being born at 27 weeks.

Even though our boys weren't born that early (three days and 13 days doesn't really qualify), they are still miracles when you think about all the things that have to go right.

Our children are gifts from God.

3. Holiday
Now this one is interesting. Which one? All of them? This is the word Ronnica gave me which sort of stuck out a little from the rest and seemed a little difficult for me to pinpoint.

My first thoughts went to Christmas. It's easily my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving, too, but it's sort of the warm-up act. The day following Thanksgiving is when we used to put up our Christmas tree, so it's like that was the marker for the season to begin.

Every year when I was growing up Christmas was the same. I never wondered what I would be doing. I would find a flashlight before I went to bed on Christmas eve, hide it under my pillow, sneak out during the night to take a peek at the goodies, and then the next morning we would get to open our gifts and get ready to go to my Grandpa and Grandma's house. Since I didn't grow up knowing my natural father or his family, I only had the one side of the family.

We always had homemade chicken pie for lunch. It's kind of like chicken pot pie with no vegetables, which of course is right up my alley of no food in my food. It dates back to at least when my mom was a child, and she was born during WWII. I'm guessing that maybe they didn't put vegetables in it originally because of food shortages during the Depression or WWII, but that's just a guess. I'm just glad there aren't any vegetables.

The Christmas holiday was never complete without reading the Christmas story from Luke before the four of us grandkids got to open our 'socks' from Grandpa and Grandma. Then everyone opened their presents.

The holiday in our house has maintained much of this tradition. We've never lived closer than five hours away from our families since we've had children. Hubby and I decided early on that we would build a tradition in our own home rather than transporting them all over the place every year. With the exception of two years when the children were very small we've always spent the holiday in our own home, wherever that has happened to be.

By the way, I've only had artificial trees, I love excessive lights, and I don't do a themed tree. I probably won't ever do anything but artificial now because I know I'm allergic. I'm using that excuse to get past the one about the messy needles on my carpet.

4. Organization
Now I'm supposed to keep this short, right?

I can tell people in my house where to find obscure items because of organization.

I look at things and try to figure out ways to better organize them. It doesn't matter if it's in someone else's home.

I've helped several friends with organization projects. Some were small projects in their homes, some were with their scrapbooking supplies, etc. I jump at the chance.

I think just as we do a spring cleaning, we should do a spring organization at least once a year of every space. Things need cleared out, cleaned out, rearranged, tidied, etc. I can tell it's time for me to do this when I start getting frustrated with an area. If I'm having trouble finding something in its normal place, things are messier than usual, I've added additional things to an area and it seems to be overflowing, or something along these lines, I know it's time for an organization intervention. I don't wait around.

I'm addicted to organization shows on television. I could care less if they are re-runs and I've seen them before.

Some of my kids think I'm a freak. Just wait until they are out on their own and can't find stuff. Boy, are they going to appreciate me then!

5. Home
We've had many.

There's the saying, "It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home." I think when you move often, in our case as a military family, you find this to be true. We had apartments, military quarters, two of our own small homes, rental homes. They were all home when we were together as a family.

Our new home is really a dream come true for us. We never imagined we'd be fortunate enough for all our kids to have their own rooms. We are so thankful to have room to walk around and not shimmy around the furniture. It's nice just to have space.

But for us, it is just another home on the way to our eternal home, heaven. That's the one that matters.

Let me know if you'd like five words specially picked just for you!

FINISHED!

Last week I told you I was working on an afghan that I started when my mom gave me a crochet refresher course in July.

It's a fairly simple afghan with single crochet stitches, each row done individually so you always start on the same end and finish on the same end. It has 17 sets of 10 rows of the cream color and 16 rows of the variegated blue in between, for a total of 186 rows.

I squeak in at 5'1" and I'm holding my arms not quite straight up and it's still pooling a little at my feet. It's going to wrap around me nicely in the cold winter months.

Which I must say I am looking forward to immensely, because in the last couple of months I have a new symptom I get along with my migraines. Hot flashes! I don't get them any other time, thank goodness! But many of my migraines are tied in with my hormone fluctuations, so it's possible that the hot flashes are not too far behind. Technically I am old enough.

So I'm looking forward to the cold weather, using my afghan, and already planning the next one, with pretty colors but no fluffy yarn to mess with.

Crochet

When my parents came for a visit several weeks ago, one of the things on our agenda was for Chatty to get crochet lessons and for me to get crochet refreshers from my mom.

First off, here is the final product of Chatty's lessons:

Her grandma made the yellowish one, and she made the bluish one.

Here she was getting started with her lessons.


I can personally vouch that sticking out your tongue helps during pressure-filled moments.

And they're still smiling!

That's a good thing, because Chatty's a leftie, and we're all righties. She tried to do it with her left hand and decided she liked it better with her right hand. She crocheted that whole purse with her right hand!

I'm still working on the product of my lessons (except I did do some scarflets). Here's my big project in process:

You can tell it's an afghan, right?

Every 10 rows I put in a row of the fluffy variegated blue. I'm about 30 rows from being done.



That blue is my worst nightmare. My mom told me how to sort of fluff it after I stitch it in, and my OCD gets the best of me when I'm doing it. I really don't like using that fluffy yarn anymore, even if I do love how it looks.

Next one I make will get pretty colors, but not fluff.

This post is linked to Show and Tell Friday hosted by Kelli at There is no place like home.