I keep waiting for a period of time when I can write a long “catch-up” post and post a bunch of pictures.

That time has never come around.  

Soooooo, I’ll try for a short catch-up post with NO pictures!!!

1.  Jesse has recovered from his hernia surgery.  He’s still having problems lifting heavy things (like his lawnmowers) but he has had someone helping.

2.   Rissy had a birthday on February 27th.  She turned 11 and has begun looking more preteen than little girl.  She’s taken an interest in skin care and make up.  She’s not allowed to wear anything, but she has sneaked in a little lip gloss and blush and we’ve turned our heads.  She looks very natural and it’s not worth the fighting over WHEN she is “old enough” to wear those things. She has also taken an interest in perfume.  She’s begun to make jewelry as a hobby.  N.I.C.E jewelery.  Sterling necklaces with charms or tiny beads with crystals, etc. They are nice enough to give as gifts and I’m hoping she makes something for my birthday (April 12th).  

3.  (The biggest change)   Jesse’s half brother and his family have moved here from Virginia.  By “moved here” I mean, they have moved into our house with us.  They have 3 children, so that makes a grand total of ten people living under our roof.  They have two dogs & a hamster, which upped the animal number living under our roof.

It’s been easy to accommodate them.  They are very much like us and we move easily in out of our daily routines with no problems.  Actually, their living here has been more of a help.  The children get along well, too. 

4.  Can’t remember if I posted that we gave our Yorkie (Little Bit) to a friend’s family.  He’s happy and we get reports on him every so often.

5.  AND . . .  (sadly, I must say) I had to have Chirper put to sleep about 2 weeks ago.       He wasn’t able to recover from the last illness (a sore throat) and he had developed a chronic kidney disease sometime before Christmas.   He was so sick those last few days.  I felt more comfort putting him out of his misery than I felt sad to lose his company.  He was one of those one in a million pets.  I’m so thankful for the time God allowed me to keep him.  Now, I’m praying for another small kitten (a boy).

6.  Annamarie had a birthday last week.  She turned 12 and HASN’T shown signs of being pre-teen, like Rissy.  She’s content with Barbie dolls and Zhu Zhu (spelling???) pets.  She DID ask me if she could start painting her toe nails and we said, “Yes.” That was a big deal to her and a small deal to us, in the grand theme of “little girls growing up and gaining privileges.”  

7.  About 4 weeks ago, we made the decision to put Adrienne (Luci) in public school.  She had become too difficult for me to manage and her school grades were plummeting.  She spent more time in her room throwing fits of epic proportion than she did at the kitchen table learning.  Unfortunately, that distraction carried over into the ability of Annamarie and Rissy being able to concentrate on their school work.       Everyone was failing in school and my patience was nosediving, too! 

She likes school and, so far, she hasn’t had a meltdown.  The teachers are aware of her issues and said she might be able to hold it together for the rest of the school year.  Something about the “honeymoon period” where children behave really well until they are comfortable.  THEN the bad behavior begins to surface.  At any rate, things are running smoothly here, as far as homeschool.

8.  Got my MRI results back last month and most everything was continuing to improve (the scars from the tumors in my back are even shrinking).   There is one area in my lower back that is very small and may need to be radiated.  I admit, I am having some pain there.  The last radiation I had to my lower back removed the horrible pain when I was about 3 or 4 days into the 2 weeks of radiation treatments. 

9.  It looks like we are skipping from one of the mildest winters on record and heading into summer.   We have had lots of rain (a VERY good thing) but high temps.  Yesterday was in the low 90s.  I just hope the rain plans to continue to fall, so grass will continue to grow, and my husband will continue to have an income to support our family.    His brother, Richard, has been helping him with his lawn work, making it easier for Jesse to not lift too many heavy things by himself.

10.  Me?  I’m trying to cram the rest of the school work, we have to finish, into a small capsule of time.  I don’t want to be teaching all summer long.  I’m giving accelerated new work assignments and not giving as much review work to them.  Most likely, I’ll order the Bob Jones Summer Workbooks, again.  Two pages each day of four different topics.  VERY doable.  I think the two pages take 15 – 30 minutes each day.

11.  I’ve kept busy putting winter clothing away and hunting in the attic for boxes of summer clothes.  The 3 girls are having to share one walk-in closet (for the time being) and we have seriously discussed limiting the things we bring down from the attic.  We’ll let them pick their favorite colors and send the remainder of things back to the attic.  

The rest of the colors (browns, yellows, pinks, corals, fuchsias, and pastels) will be left in the attic this year.  They can be used another summer.  Since we no longer have our wonderful seamstress to make dresses, we have switched to skirts and tops.  It’s easier to find things on Ebay and in thrift stores, and we are still able to dress modestly.  Ebay and thrift stores have supplied us girls with an abundance of clothing! 

12.  I have let my time slot for letter-writing disappear and have missed sending letters.  I want to  start that again.  I truly enjoy writing my friends and family “old-fashioned letters” using pretty stationary.

I’ve also stopped reading as much as I used to.  Another think I want to resurrect.  I ordered a few used books from Amazon.com but haven’t read them.  It’s all a matter of finding a block of time.

KIND OF LIKE FINDING TIME TO BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!l    

That was the story of my past couple of months in the shortest version I could present!    

I would love to hear what all of you are doing and what has happened in your lives.  I haven’t had time to READ blogs, either!  So, please write and let me know! 

Be Blessed  ~

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P.S.  Since I  write less frequently than I have in the past few years, I’ve decided to start adding my Xanga blogs to my Facebook page.  If anyone is reading this from Facebook, I wrote this a week (or so) ago and that was all the news.

Nothing has changed since then – except . . .  Easter has come and gone and we had our Passover/Easter Sunday dinner, yesterday, which included a glorious lamb and ham dinner for the twelve of us.  Lamb was new to some and that’s the reason for the back up ham.   From rolls to the 3 different desserts, it was a contented group! 

Company and food were outstanding! 

Such happiness in our large, expanded family!