1. A wife needs her husband around
2. Mice make a lot of noise, especially walking on a drop ceiling
3. A grown woman still needs her mommy and daddy
4. Facebook is a great way to keep up with old friends
5. Facebook doesn't replace hanging out with friends
6. Car problems come up with they are as absolutely inconvenient as possible
7. Road trips are more fun when you have someone with you
8. Faucets leak, lights blow out, tires go flat, and the world still turns
9. A phone call lets you say things that would never come out right over email
10. Housework can wait another day...and seems to double overnight
11. Knitting is fun, knitting with friends is better
12. Being available for your family is way more important than work
13. Work probably isn't as important as you think
14. Even when you've been away for years, you can still get homesick
15. Quilts made with love are warmer than anything you can buy.
16. Not everyone can do everything...even the things you think are simple.
17. Everyone has their strengths....sometimes it just takes a long time to discover them
18. Your fears really, truly, absolutely are worse than what you're afraid of
19. Medicine can make you act like someone completely different than you really are
20. People who tell you not worry mean well, they just don't know what else to say
21. Trying to stop trying for something you really want only makes you focus on it more
22. Cooking is great therapy
23. Teaching other people something is the best way to test your own skill
24. Taking time to do something you enjoy is not time wasted
25. Prayer time and Bible reading will recharge your batteries faster than whatever else you would be doing with that time
26. People really do want to help....often they are just waiting to be asked
27. Even when people tell you you're too busy, you are still the only one that can really decide that
28. Saying no takes guts but saying yes means a lot of work
29. If you're willing to do something, few people will turn you away
30. Some of us are talkers and some of us are doers, and sometimes the doers really do need the ideas that the talkers have to offer...but not always

That's the tip of the iceberg...but I would rather spend time talking with my grandparents than typing on my blog

OK -- so keeping up with a blog when I'm working full time and don't have internet at the house is really tough....Anyway - Things are going pretty well in our neck of the woods right now. I have a ton of pictures that I need to post...I'll get to that some day when I remember the camera.

Right now Brad's at (hopefully) his final physical therapy session for his shoulder. He goes back to the doctor next week for a final follow-up and then I think he's really done with Dr's this go-round. He did get a full work release from the doc 2 weeks ago...so he got laid off from work. Don't think for a second that this isn't all for the best because the following morning our house flooded (water seeped in from the 3 walls that are underground) and I can't begin to express how thankful I am that Brad was home. See -- I was out of the house for the day (up at 5 to hit a HUGE sale in town with a friend...more on that later....and then I was working till 9pm) and if Brad had been released from the Dr. earlier he would have been laid off sooner and probably would have been out of town for work by now - so no one would have known that our floors were sitting under 1-2 inches of water until late that night and who knows what we would have lost... With  Brad home I got a frantic phone call begging for help and an extra Shop-Vac...We were able to get a lot of water up off the floor, find a storage unit for a bunch of our stuff, and get all our carpet ripped up....

WARNING -- Do NOT believe someone that tells you carpet can be dried after it has been completely saturated with water....we removed the pad and got fans under the carpet as fast as we could, but the house still smelled terrible so it's all gone...we're walking on cement right now..the first few days were to make sure that we weren't going to have any more problems with water coming in, now we're just trying to wade through the options in flooring...talk about overwhelming!

Seriously...we are very fortunate that our carpet was all that was damaged. So many people near us have lost everything they own and trying to start over...so few had insurance to cover the damage...Pray for the people in this region as they try to rebuild, it's going to be a long process but the work has already started...

Onto lighter topics....We have a new litter of kittens..5, beautiful, healthy kittens. We had a litter that didn't make (3 kittens born to a mom who just wasn't ready). We also have chickens...They're still young so we don't have eggs yet, but Brad assures me that we will this fall. It's so fun to stand outside at our house right now and listen to the barn... the chickens make a little peep, peep, peep, and the sheep bahhh, bahhh, and our little rooster is finally finding his voice... he'll really sound "Cock-a-Doodle-do" some day, but for now we're settling for "Ca-ca-coo"

I really am going to try to be better about posting, but I can't make any promises....Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon....and with pictures.

I know it's been forever since I blogged so I thought I'd catch everyone up with the short version of my life over the past 5 or 6 months.

I started a new job last August...I LOVE IT!! Not all my clients, not every work day, but overall I love what I do. And I can't even begin to tell you how busy we are -- I think at least for the time being the tax refund checks are overriding the national recession.

Brad is still working in Cloverdale, building an ethanol plant, and is home every night  YAY! He's had 2 on the job injuries this year...He heard a loud pop in his shoulder and has been in pain ever since, they just gave him a steriod injection to hurry the healing along...2 weeks after that someone working above him dropped a piece of angle iron -- amazingly it hit his foot, just behind the steel toe of his boot...He just got a full doctor's release yesterday. He started to get the new roof on the house just before he got hurt - hopefully he'll be up to finishing it soon....we'll see.

The kittens that were so tiny in the last pics I posted are now as big as their mama. The sheep love to be petted and will eat as much grain as we'll let them. The dogs are funny as ever...I really hope Jax'n gets to the point that he stops running into walls, but I think that's a lost cause. Roxy reminds us every day that no matter how big she gets she really is still just a puppy...like she managed to get a box of RidX out and eat half of it....File this under things you might need someday...Hydrogen peroxide will make a dog empty its stomach ... just be prepared it's going to be a foamy mess. Don't worry, a few meals of boiled burger and rice and she's right back to chewing on anything she can get her mouth on.

Oh I started teaching a craft class (technically the Ladies Sewing Circle) at our church and we're in the process of making baby blankets for all the expectant moms in the church (there are 4 right now and one that just delivered).

 I know that doesn't sound like a lot going on - but that's our life in a nutshell. I'm sure I've missed a lot things, probably even some important events....but I'll have to catch you up on all that later.