National MS Awareness Week

I just wanted to let everyone know that March 10-17 is National MS Awareness Week. Today, March 7, also marks the eighth anniversary of Dad’s death. I am sending the MS Society a contribution. Just think of something you can do during MS Week for someone who needs help. I know we do not all know someone with MS but we can be on the lookout for someone in a wheelchair, an elderly person, etc. who can use a helping hand. Dad will be smiling down on you.

WalMart, we love you

Need a rug? Well, today I hit a big sale (the mother lode) at the Beach/Belknap WalMart. I got seven Crayola Spinner deals regularly $19.95 for $2, several cute night lights (Cars, Spiderman, etc.) for $1, and several throw rugs, valued up to $23.00 for only $1. Anyone who wants a rug should e-mail me or call me to reserve theirs. They are all really nice.
Wipes for all! Also, at Town Talk, I got a box of 1,000 individually wrapped wipes (a week’s supply for Monk) for only $3.00. Let me know how many you want to keep those little hands clean (big ones, too)! The rugs and spinner are pictured above. Let me know what you want.

Tidbits from Family History - Grandma Carter

Mandie has insisted that I post some little tidbits about family history so everyone can be better informed. Grandma Carter is Melinda’s special ancestor because she died the day before Melinda was born. We always said she had to go get Melinda. I am not sure how many of you know that my Grandma and Grandpa were married to each other twice. When Maw and Uncle Jess were young (eight or so) Ina Dement and Nick Carter, who got married in 1921, were divorced. He had a terrible temper, I have been told by other family members, and would do things like throw dishes at the wall. He went away and never returned until I was about 11 years old. I came home from school one day and Mother said, “My Dad came home today,” They had tried to find him many times, but never did. Apparently he went off and married several times and did many other things. We know there are other children because of a call I received about a year ago. My Grandma (Ina - the sweetest little lady in the world, wouldn’t hurt a fly) had married Mack Jenkins who was very interesting - but that is for another day. He died when I was about seven, right before Gary was born. Anyway, my Grandpa Carter started writing to Grandma and told her he had loved her all those years, yada, yada, yada. He lived in Washington State and eventually, he got out of the marriage he was in and came back an they remarried when I was about 12. Not too long after that, they moved away. He managed to spend Grandma’s money that she got from her house and it still was not a marriage made in heaven. The second time is not always a charm! but we did get to know Grandpa - for better or worse!

Is she immortal?

Sunday when Melinda looked at the pictures in my camera, she asked “Is she immortal?” when she saw Miss Yarbrough (sp?), the art and drama teacher at the high school. I sneaked a picture of her at the dedication of the new Ninth Grade Building for which she designed the color palette. She has not changed a bit. I am also putting in a picture of the old HS principal who is now an assistant superintendent - Mr. Melton.

Pictures of Luke

Suzy showed me these pictures of Luke today so I figured many of you would want to see them, too! He really is starting to look like a little boy instead of a baby! Tiffany, I think we need to have a playdate with all the little ones sometime!

Jeremiah Demontae Hoffman

Quisha and James are the proud parents of little Jeremiah, born Sunday, Feb. 10, weighing 7 pounds, 11 ounces. He has beautiful black hair which seems pretty straight. He likes to eat and to be held. Seems like a normal kid to me. Quisha is doing well - especially after we took her some chocolate bars and other goodies. Connie is learning to be a Grandma! Maybe Jeremiah can hunt eggs on Easter!

Birthdays and Sizes

Why don’t we update our birthday list, not necessarily on the Blog for all to see, and get the kids’ sizes. There are so many of us that it is hard to keep up with sizes and remember all those birthdays. A new rule should be to only birth children on holidays so we can remember the date. Will that work? It sure would help!

Diamond Refunds are a Girl’s Best Friend

BIG NEWS! I had heard this but had not done any investigation. There is a class action suit against diamond wholesalers which has to do with price fixing and some other illegal activities, so there will be a rebate to persons who purchased diamonds between Jan. 1, 1994, and Mar. 31, 2006. That should include most of you. Now, Gary has already done his paperwork so he says don’t spread the word too good because that will mean less money if more people file. Missy is going to look for details and will update this posting. The website is www.diamondsclassaction.com. Phone is 1-800-760-5431. Good luck!

We are FAMILY!

You have all heard that song and I am proud to say that WE ARE FAMILY! We stick together and help each other. Oh, we may grumble, but as our slogan says, we really do care. Thanks, everyone, for pitching in to make Quisha’s shower a great success! There were presents from Ginny and Jared von Bose and family, Mandie, Melinda, Missy, Gary and Romanda, Suzy and Paul, Tiffer, Connie and Mitch, Shirley, and Randi and C.J. A total of 17 joined the festivities including Gideon with his broken arm. This will definitely be a well-dressed little Jeremiah! And...Ben and Mary had a good time, too!

Grandchildren - God’s Reward!

“Grandchildren are God’s reward for not killing your kids,” states the sign once given to me by Jared’s friend, Mark, and for once, he knew what he was talking about. How are these for fun at Grandma’s Park on Sunday?

Dallas Cowboys - It was fun while it lasted

This poem keeps coming to mind tonight after the Cowboys lost the big one. Maybe I am the only one who studied it in school but the last lines tell it all - there is no joy in Mudville - the Mighty Cowboys have struck out!

Casey at the Bat
by Ernest Lawrence Thayer ©

Published: The Examiner (06-03-1888)

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

My 5.5 hours in the hospital

Yesterday, everything was going fine until I was feeding Eddie on the couch. I was doing nothing strenuous and I was watching cartoons with Tommy when I started to feel dizzy and realized that my heart had begun to race. I quickly put Eddie to bed and began trying to get my heart rate to go down by doing deep breathing and relaxation techniques but NOTHING helped. My heart would race, then slow down and skip a beat or two, then begin to race again. I realized that something was really wrong, so I hopped into the shower and quickly got ready to go. I drove to the hospital with Eddie and Tommy and called Danny when I got there. He quickly left school (it was 1:45) and came and got the kids. When I was called into triage my heart rate was still elevated and my BP was way high. 3 hours later I was able to get a bed in the ER and they did lots of blood work, an EKG, chest X-Ray and had me hooked up to a heart monitor. My blood work was great, my chest X-Ray was perfect, my heart rate had stabilized and my BP was great, but my EKG showed a suspicious dip that shouldn't be there. They were able to rule out A-fib, but they couldn't diagnose the problem in the ER so I am being sent to a Cardiologist. I will see him at the beginning of next week, and most likely I will be put on a 24-hour heart monitor to try to catch what's going on. My heart has occasionally skipped a beat, but it was nothing regular until after I had Eddie, and it got more persistent. Stress and lack of a good night's rest have probably not helped me at all. I will keep everyone posted on my condition, and let you know as soon as there's a diagnosis.

Broken elbow

I'm going to get mine in quick before Melinda's dramatic news. I took Gideon to the orthopedic surgeon today. He cracked a chunk off the end of his elbow, which is in 3 small pieces. Surgery to put it all back together would be complicated and run the risk of damaging the nerve that controls hand movement. We chose the option of putting on a soft cast to see if the damaged pieces would knit back together, which will leave an ugly x-ray but potentially give him more range of motion and protect the nerve. If after 12 days it isn't healing well, surgery remains an option. His arm is splinted in a weird position, palm up and fingers bent toward the palm, in order to keep pressure off the elbow joint. He also has a spectacular bruise that is a very deep burgundy and runs from wrist to mid-bicep. Other than, the prognosis looks good. I am sooooo grateful to live in a place where medical care is so easy to get. Thank you Blue Cross!

Crazy Day

On Saturday, the lights at our home were out for about 5 hours. Gideon & his friend Hayden were at a loss as to what to do, so I threw them outside to do something on such a gorgeous day. They were helping me clean the garage and decided to ride bikes. While coming down the hill (about 5:30 p.m.), they got into a spectacular wipeout. Gideon came into the house mumbling "hospital, hospital." Our paramedic neighbor saw the crash and came over to check it out and said it was probably just a bad sprain. We decided to wait and see how he was in the morning.

In the meantime, our Bishop called from the Mansfield chapel to see if we could bring over some flashlights and lanterns for a baptism scheduled for 6:30. Bishop Kokenes said he thought about postponing it, but then the mission president showed up. I was still dressed in grubby clothes from cleaning the garage and was wandering around the house with a candle trying to find stuff. By the way, it's really hard to match clothes by candlelight I got to the church about 6:20 to find someone parked on the sidewalk with the headlights shining into the relief society room. We had the baptism by flashlight/lantern light. It was a man and his 2 kids that were baptized, and when the daughter, Madison, arose out of the water, the lights dramatically came back on! It was very cool. The not cool part was when we went back to the RS room and as I was leading the singing discovered that it had picked out an olive green shirt to go with my purple and khaki skirt. Oh well.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, CJ & Jared had arrived from their campout in Taos, New Mexico (60 inches of snow and a low of -6). My budding physician diagnosed a broken arm, so we went to a Doc-in-the-box and waited for 2 hours for an x-ray to confirm it. Then we went to CiCi's at 9:30 so our poor starving family could eat.

Today, Gideon's not feeling great b/c he didn't sleep well, but is otherwise okay. We'll go see an orthopedic guy asap for a cast.

I suppose the moral of the story is that maybe virtual reality isn't so bad after all--real reality is dangerous!