Suzanne's Secret Hideaway - November 06 posts

Hello! I had such a pity party yesterday. I need to stop that. I need to always remember that sometimes there is a reason and it might not be anything to do wtih me. I always tell my kids to find out the fact first, and here I am whining about it.

Okay, first, thank you so much Susan for the wonderful award for my winter pages at http://holiday.graphicloverscafe.com/winterwonderland.htm and for this wonderful gift - which is so me. I love Christmas.

Next to Elizabeth of Country Thyme Graphics- I won the sig tag drawing. Isn't this little elf so cute!?!?!?!

You ladies made my day. Nancze, you did too. Thank you sweetie.

Today Ariana had her 15 month check-up. She had to get four shots - 2 in each leg. My poor baby. She hurt and was upset all day and night. I need to get my butt to bed in case she wakes up. She and I were up most of the night before. I don't know when I will get her back on schedule. I hope she feels better when we have to go to the nursing home for dinner with my Grandma. Hubby said if she doesn't, he will stay home with her. I want them to go with me. This Thanksgiving is screwed up enough, I don't want to be away from everyone!! I got my Grandma this neat little thing at Wal-Mart. A birthday cupcake and a tiny stuffed animal in a little plastic box. She will get a kick out of that for her birthday. When we have our Thanksgiving with my family, we will have a birthday for her, but I wanted something for her actual birthday.

My Dad went into surgery, and they ended up not doing the procedure. I guess there are three places that are messed up instead of the one they originally thought, so now he goes back on meds and they will go from there. The surgery to fix it all will be a more major heart surgery. I feel so bad for him. He absolutely hates hospitals and medication, and now he has to take more than his diabetes medication. He should be nice and grumpy when he gets home tomorrow sometime. At least they found the problem instead of saying they aren't sure or something. Okay, I am out of here. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving for those of you who celebrate it!! Take care.

Thank you Susan, Wanda Lucia, Annette, and Kia for the thanksgiving and winter goodies!! I have them all up in my Holiday getaway (in their appropriate season and holiday spots). I have gotten slammed by an awful lot of snowballs too - I am even caught up on putting all goodies up, including the snowball throwers.

Have you ever had someone stop talking to you and not even tell you why? Not reply to your emails without any expanation? Not even post gifts you sent, but posted many others? Maybe I am being paranoid, but two people have dones this recently and I am unsure why. They are two people I have been online friends with pretty much since I first got on the net. I feel really bad and am unsure what to do about it. One person doesn't even have me on their reads anymore and the other won't reply to my emails and I am unable to even enter her blog. I don't get it. I am not a mean person. I always try to help everyone, keep in touch, be a friend. I feel really bad and probably sound like a whiner but feel the need to do so I guess. There are probably only a few of you who will read this anyway, and I don't think you would be annoyed by my pity party, lol. I'm sorry. I will move onto something else.

The weather is supposed to be in the 70s today and tomorrow. Crazy!
Overnight and morning temps are somewhere between 20 and 30 degrees, and then that warm in the afternoon. The kids come home from school and say it's hot out mom...They don't think they need to wear winter coats in the morning. I think kids hate coats in general.

I am making my winter and christmas graphics and I am so please with how they are turning out. I keep thinking of more to draw. At this rate I might be done by next Christmas, lol. Okay, I am just going to go. I am not in the mood to blog and I guess I had better get something done around the house! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hello and Happy Monday!! I am getting ready to head into town. Been ready for 1 1/2 hours but Ariana is still asleep. It's funny because when I don't have to go anywhere, she's up early, doesn't let me sleep through the night. The night before I have to be somewhere, she sleeps all night and into the morning, lol. She must have radar. I got the most touching email forwarded to me and I want to share it with you all. I'm not sure who the author is, but it's wonderful. Here it is:

The Power Of Prayer
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.

And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell- O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of My life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....

THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives four answers to prayer:
1. "Yes!"
2. "No!"
3. "Not yet!"
4. "I have something better in mind!"

God still sits on the throne, and the devil is a liar. You maybe going through a tough time right now but
God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine. Let's continue to pray for one another. Heavenly Father, I ask You to bless my family, friends and e-mail buddies. Show them a revelation of Your love and power.
Amen.

That was such a touching story. I cried. I just wanted to share that with you. Have a wonderful day.

Hello! Yes, I am posting again, don't faint in shock!! I am grumpy. My mom called me today and said that we can't have Thanksgiving. Remember when I told you my Dad was having heart troubles? Well he's been getting worse and now they are going to do surgery. I guess it's pretty simple and they only keep you in one day. They have to cauterize (sure I spelled that wrong) something and he should be okay and not have to take the medicine anymore. Still, messing with your heart is scary. The surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, November 22 - the day before Thanksgiving. He will get out on Thanksgiving sometime. The hospital that they are doing the surgery at is 3+ hours away from here :( Mom wants me to go, but I can't. I feel so bad about it. My brothers are both in Colorado now and we don't have any other family here. They are leaving Tuesday night and staying until Thursday. I have the four kids and they get out of school on Tuesday for Thanksgiving holiday. The three older ones aren't going to their Dad's until Thanksgiving afternoon, and I don't have anyone to watch them for 2 days. Hubby will be working and their Dad will be working. Mom hates to drive on the interstates and in big cities. My Dad or I usually drive when we go to larger cities. I hate to have her all alone while this is going on, but I can't see any way around it. She feels bad because Grandma's birthday falls on Thanksgiving and since she's in the nursing home - we always pick her up on holidays and bring her home. I told Mom that I would go and eat dinner with her there. I guess they will set up a table for a resident and their family. Hopefully hubby can go with the baby and I. Not sure if he's working yet. I am going to let the other three go with their Dad early if he wants. We won't have a thanksgiving dinner until later with my family. I suppose I could make a dinner, but I think that it would be better to spend time with my Grandma. She will be feeling bad and I want to make her happy if possible. She loves to see us, especially the baby, so it will be good. My brother was going to come out, now he's not sure if he will. My baby brother can't come out.

On a happier note, the nursing home birthday party today was nice. My mom, baby Ariana and I went. Grandma was so happy. One of the employees gets up and speaks into a microphone telling whose birthdays they are celebrating, tells some history about them, then a piano player play happy birthday and everyone sings, they have cake, iced tea and coffee, and they have a drawing for the birthday people - Grandma won. It's a crocheted lap blanket. I guess some ladies make them and donate them to the nursing home. It's nice. She was all happy. They lady came up to Grandma with the microphone and asked her if she had any words of wisdom for us or a secret to living long and happy, since she's 84, lol. Grandmas sat there thinking and then said, lots of friends. Mom told her she should have said the secret is keeping your hair died, LOLOL. Grandma still has her hair colored at the nursing home by a hair dresser that comes in. She has never been grey that I can remember. Grandma thought that was hilarious.

Okay, now for my Friday Fun:

Okay, I better get going. I want to make a few blog visits and I suppose. I want to get to ind ofhas , but a bab. Have a great weekend.

15TH, @ 12:30 pm Central Time
This week is half over already. Time flies! I have been doing a lot of visiting sites I haven't been to in a while, working on some Winter and Christmas graphics, and working on my Winter Wonderland pages. It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is next week. Then, I will have to pull out the Christmas decorations. I always start the day after Thanksgivinsg. My tradition I guess. It's starting to get pretty cold now. I think the warm weather is gone. BRR. The kids are grumpy they have to wear winter coats now, lol. Poor babies. I have to go to the nursing home tomorrow. My Grandma's birthday is on Thanksgiving and each month, they celebrate the patient's whose birthdays are that month. They get a birthday party, complete with cake. My Grandma looks forward to it. She will be 84. She sure doesn't look like it. If she hadn't had that stroke, she'd be in her own home I think. She looks fantastic and is still all there, or at least it seems to me. She can't talk good sometimes, and she gets irritated easily now. Just slow and has a hard time with some things. I still get so sad that she is like that. I miss her - the way she was before. Okay, I better go. So much laundry to do. Have a super day.

9th,

@ 10:20 pm central time

The weather has been so strange! Yesterday, it was 85 degrees here in Nebraska!! IN NOVEMBER?!?!?! Tuesday it was 75. It's crazy. Today it's in the 60s. I have been working on pages, adding graphics to my members area of my graphic site, adding adoptions to my adoption site. In between doing good old housework, corraling kids, calling for calgon to take me away, lol. I am determined within the next week to be about done with my winter and christmas pages so I can focus on the graphics for the holidays I need to make and real life preparing for the holidays. Time is just flying! I can't believe Christmas is almost here!!!

I love Christmas. I think it's my favorite time of the year. I have been picking up little gifts, stocking stuffers off and on for a while now. It gets harder as the kids get older though. It's kind of sad now, the boys don't want toys anymore. They want video games and expensive items. The girls are easy. Piece of cake. I could buy and buy and buy, lol. I am trying to budget it all, but I think I am failing miserably. When they are younger and like toys it's so easy to make it look like a huge christmas. Now, well I tell them with what they are asking for, they won't get many gifts. It's too expensive. Most kids I see anymore are all about getting, getting, getting. I keep trying to make the point that they are very luck and need to be thankful for all that they have and not be greedy. Being a parent is so hard. I want them to know that giving is wonderful - not to be selfish, but I don't know how to make it sink in. I am thinking about trying to find a way to wake them up. I am pretty guilty though - It's hard with their Dad and I giving them seperate Christmas'. They have so much family, they always get too much - no matter how much I ask people to not do it, as they don't appreciate it. Their Dad buys them big ticket items and I feel bad, but I know that's childish - it doesn't matter how much you buy. I just wish I could do more, then I know that they don't deserve more. I try to get them as much as I can of what they ask for, but need to stop being that way. I want to buy everyone gifts - I love giving gifts, lol. I love the lights, the music, the decorations, the food, the tree. All of it. Oh, here I go - going on and on and on. Sorry. I have christmas on the brain. Money goes so fast.

I am trying to find a good countdown clock code for Christmas. I can't remember where I used to get it from. If anyone has a link, please pass it on!

Hubby is going deer hunting this weekend. We should have a deer in the freezer very soon. I found some great recipes for venison and can't wait to try them. I love when he makes me jerky - I love jerky. Can't wait. I plan on hanging out at home with the baby. The older three will be at their Dad's house. I think kicking back, working on my site, doing laundry, watching a movie, being lazy - that sounds like heaven. I ran all my errands so I am good to go not having to leave the house. Woohooo. I am sure I will not get to sit and play on the pc all weekend, but I plan to try to do a lot. In between baby stuff and housework. Oh, sleeping and eating too I guess, lol. Okay, now for my Friday Fun:

:: Friday Freedom ::
In honor of veterans everywhere,…!

1. What does Veteran’s Day mean to you? It's a day to be thankful and appreciative to vets everywhere that have served for our country. They should be proud! So many have suffered greatly defending our country and I don't think they are treated as well as they should be. Many vets suffer from mental and physical ailments due to serving in wars for our country. They deserve so much for protecting us!!! They deserve our support.
2. Do you have a friend or family member that is a veteran? Yes, my hubby, 2 brothers-in-law, friend's hubby, my deceased Grandfather....
3. What does freedom mean to you? Everything!! We are so fortunate - to see how people live in other parts of the world, every American should be thankful everyday for the freedom we have. Simple little things that we take for granted, some people would die for the privelage.

4th, @ 2:30 pm ct
Hello! Look at this, posting twice in one week. Must be a record. After writing the post the other day, well I thought maybe I shouldn't have or maybe I shouldn't have been so graphic. I just needed to write it. I feel so bad and I feel bad for the boys, but I sure hope they learned something. They frustrate me so much. I will have a whole head of grey hair before I turn 35 I swear. That's 2 years and 2 1/2 months away. We haven't even hit teenage years yet. That's another scary subject. My son who is 12, told me that a girl he liked at school - well he found out she had an abortion! OMG!!! 12 years old. I would freak out! I couldn't imagine that even a little bit. At 12 years old, I know my friends and I didn't think about that sort of thing. The kids these days are way to advanced. They know too much and I think they need to all be turned into kids - just kids. Not knowing all this kind of stuff - ignorant to the adult world until it's their time to be one!! I don't even know how I will handle it when the girls are teenagers. The boys will be bad enough. My mom said that the schools and a lot of people expect kids to grow up too soon now - I agree. I realize that things are very different and they learn much more now than we may have in school, but what happened to letting kids be kids? Ughhhhh....I better stop - I could go on for days on this soapbox. Anyway, I am trying to get all caught up here. Yeah right,lol. My site may be down tonight or tomorrow night. The host is moving us to a new server. I hope it's tomorrow night. Hubby is working this weekend, nights and the three older kids are at their dad's for the weekend. This is my time to do whatever I want, that is if the baby monster will let me, lol. I have been doing a lot of work on my site and doing some surfing through the graphic community. I never have time for that anymore. I finally got this all redecorated and am trying something a little different in the posting format. I get bored with the same thing. I am almost done with my Thanksgiving Cottage. Then on to Christmas and New Years and I will have all of my holiday getaway finished. Woohoo!!!! Okay, I am out of here! Time to put baby down for a nap and finish my pages!! Hopefully do some blog hopping!! Take care!

Have you ever had a day you wish you could rewind and start over? I did - the 30th of October. The boys were messing around - they just wouldn't stop and I had to keep yelling at them to get their butts in bed and stop screwing off. Well, after nearly an hour of it, I was sitting here at the computer, trying to accomplish something while the baby was sleeping. I hear the boys yelling and what I thought was horsing around. I started to get up and ground there naughty behinds. My oldest, Giuseppe's room is in the basement. Montana's room is upstairs and he was told not to go downstairs. Apparently he did. I met them halfway to the stairs and they were screaming "The cat is getting squished under the bed." I yelled "Why in the hell didn't you get it out?" They said they did, but he's bleeding and they were crying and so upset. I couldn't get them to calm down and I ran downstairs. It was so horrible. The poor thing was bleeding all over and I freaked. I said how in the hell did he get squished. They said the bedframe gave way. It was slightly moving it's body - it's hard to explain, but it was horrible. Before I could do anything, it died. It was only a kitten - we got him and his sister a few months ago and the four kids were so attached - especially Ariana, my 14 month old. The kittens love her so much. I have been fortunate enough that I never have seen a gruesome site before, until now. I was sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe it. I finally got it out of them that they were both sitting on one site of the bed and it fell. I was so upset - I had just helped him move the bed earlier in the day. I think they are full of baloney and were jumping around or something. The bedframe was halfway acrossed the room and the mattress was on the floor. They have a habit of screwing around too much, especially when their step-dad isn't home. For some reason, they think they have to ignore me when I tell them to stop. They get grounded so much it isn't funny. Boys will be boys I know, but there is a limit to that. I felt guilty - I should have gotten up and checked to be sure they were both in their rooms again. If I had, the kitten would be alive. They felt so bad - that is was their fault. I told them if they would be more careful and listen, no one would get hurt and in trouble. I wanted to kick some butt for sure. I didn't know what to do - I am not a person who can pick up any dead animal - bugs, fine, but no mice, or other creatures. Hubby was working - nights and I called him to see what he wanted me to do - cause I didn't even know where to begin. I have been calm under pressure - once I can remember, my brother's girlfriend had gotten her finger stuck between the ball of my brothers jeep and the hitch to a trailer and I got a towel, stopped the bleeding and the doc said I saved her finger. This time however, I felt like I couldn't think one rational thought. Hubby said to put it in a bag and set outside till he got home in the morning. There was no way in hell I could do that. I made my oldest put it in the garbage bag I held for him. It was just horrible. I then had to clean up all the blood -which was mostly on the concrete floor, but some on the rug - I am going to have to steam clean it. Giuseppe refuses to sleep down there and it's been a fight for two nights. UGHHHH!! He said he had to wait three days becuase it was bad luck. I couldn't sleep for anything - I had a whole two hours. Here I am still awake going on those two hours. I am stupid -should be in bed cause I have to get the kids up in 5 hours. I just can't get the site out of my mind. I hope that I don't have to see anything so gruesome again in my life.

Baby is finally starting to sleep all night again. Still won't walk - took three steps and that's it. My other three walked way, way before this. She just won't do it. She's very lean - so it's not because she's chubby. Anyway, the older three went trick or treating last night with their Dad. It was so cold - in the 30s. Crazy because the previous two days were in the high 60s and 70s. The weather has fluctuated so much. I wonder what our winter holds. I was a room mom for Adelina's first grade fall party and Montana's 4th grade Halloween party. The elementary school wouldn't let the kids wear costumes and call it a halloween party. I guess it was due to some kids who couldn't participate due to being Jahova witnesses. I am sure I spelled that wrong. Adelina was so mad - her brother got to have a halloween party and she didn't. We played a mummy game at Montana's party - they had to wrap a person in their group up with toilet paper. We also had GHOST bingo. It was fun. Adelina's party was last week and we played musical chairs and they wrapped the teacher up as a mummy - the teacher let us have Halloween stuff in her class, just no costumes. They also painted pumpkins.

Okay, I better go. Sorry to have such a terrible post -just had to get it out. Hope to visit soon. Thanks for all the wonderful fall and halloween gifts my friends. They are in my holiday getaway.