Lucky Dorito

Today my sweet friend Angie (Angela) is celebrating her birthday in heaven!

I still can’t believe she is gone from earth, after that tragic accident that killed her and her husband David on June 12th, 2010. She was a kind, sweet spirit that touched many, many lives. I pray for her kids all the time – I just hate that she had to leave them so soon. It seems just so….. wrong.

It is what it is though…. all things happen in God’s time – even when they don’t make sense to us. That seems to be the hardest lesson for me to learn, especially when it comes to things like losing a loved one.

I miss you Ang. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You will always hold a special place in my heart, filled with many memories of good times together. I can’t think of a better angel to have on my side. ♥

In an unprecedented event, Mr. Lucky was off from work today, a random Tuesday, while I worked. This practically NEVER happens. I mean, seriously… maybe one other time that I can think of during our 17+ years of marriage. So last night, I was saying, “Oh good! You can move all that junk back into place in the garage! {because we moved it over the weekend to free up the windows so our new windows could be installed} You can finish the laundry I didn’t get done! You can start dinner for me!” All these plans I was making – you know, so he didn’t get bored on his one and only day off.

Ha.

As if….

He said, “Oh no. Don’t be making plans for my day off – I have plenty to do already!” Yeah, yeah, whatever.

I said, “Gee. If I didn’t spend my day off doing laundry, you’d be naked most of the time. It’s not gonna kill you.” One of my pet peeves… why am I responsible for all most of the household chores when we BOTH work?

So when I came  home at lunch he was actually doing laundry! I was secretly surprised but ever so appreciative that he was doing it!  When I got home tonight, I avoided the laundry room – in hopes that he’d finish what he had started without me saying anything.

A few minutes ago, while I sat here looking around on Pinterest, he came through with a stack of folded clothes and said,” I just want to point out that you have something like FOUR THOUSAND PAIRS OF PANTIES! I don’t even know how or WHY that is possible.”

Haha.

Me either dude.

All I know is that I now  have 4,000 pairs of CLEAN and NEATLY FOLDED pairs of panties. And I didn’t do it!

How awesome is that???

P.S. It’s the little things, you know? They make me happy.

Someday I do hope to see Jesus – my Lord and Savior. But not anytime soon, I hope.

The Jesus I want to see soon is the young boy I met last year in Guatemala. You might remember the story I wrote about him here. I have thought of him and prayed for him so many times, too many to count over the past year.

There are many sweet faces I look forward to seeing again but I tell ya, the face of Jesus is one that I will be HUNTING for on every street corner.

All the Christmas decorations are put up for another year. The house is back to normal once again.  Today we ate a hearty meal of pork roast, cabbage and black eyed peas (blecht!).

December always rushes in, on the heels of Thanksgiving, so full of anticipation and excitement as the promise of family time approaches and it goes by ever so quickly.

January arrives and with it, comes reality. The reality that another long winter is to be survived before we will see days filled with sunshine and warmth. As you already know, I do NOT like winter.

At all.

Those heavy grey days make me so sad and weary.

But ……………

I can not complain much. When I look ahead – I realize that in just 14 short days, I will once again be traveling to Guatemala on a mission trip.

Guatemala, the land of many colors and LOTS of beautiful sunshine.

The place where last year I learned just how blessed I am to have a roof over my head, food on our table, and a bed to sleep in each night. My children have two parents in their home – a rarity for the Guatemalan children that I met. And my children have the privilege of attending school instead of working for mere dollars a day in order to eat. We have shoes on our feet and probably most importantly of all, we have our health.

Once again, I look forward to the challenge ahead of me and I praise God for allowing me to opportunity to once again serve others.

I wish each of you a very blessed celebration of the birth of Christ!

Merry merry Christmas friends!

I’ve been knitting, sewing, and reading a LOT lately…. and must confess that I have not read a single blog in weeks. (And you know I haven’t been writing on one either! ha) This time of year, I’ve got so much to do – I’m working on various projects for Christmas gifts and birthday presents.

Needless to say, when I found a package from the Stephen King Library on my front porch, I knew it contained the newest Stephen King book. I thought (for one fleeting moment) “I do NOT need to even open that right now,” because I know me….  and that I can’t start a book and expect to get much else done. But, of course, I opened it.

And I looked to the last page…… 849.

Yep, the new book, titled “11/22/63″ has 849 pages in it. (I am currently on page 119…..)

I’m not far enough into it to know what’s going to happen but I can see where it’s headed (even if I knew more,  I sure don’t want to spoil it for you).

It makes me wonder what I would “do over” in life if I had the chance to go back in time. Have you ever thought about it? What if there were major consequences involved with changing the past – would anything be worth that much risk?

I am a doodler from way back. If I have a pen in hand, I’m drawing with it. When I was a kid – and even later in college – all of my school notebooks had doodles in the margins. At staff meetings, I draw while the boss is talking. At church, I draw on the weekly bulletin during the sermon. Usually I draw flowers or hearts or crosses, or just random swirly lines. Occasionally I draw rabbits or dogs but believe me, I’d have to tell you which one it was if you were looking at my doodles.

That being said, it shouldn’t surprise me that both of my daughters have inherited my doodling habit. There is never a safe piece of paper in this house…. if it’s laying around, it WILL be drawn on.

When I went into the bathroom the other night to get ready for bed, something caught my eye. I did a double take at the toilet paper because something dark was on it……

Seriously? Who draws on the TOILET PAPER??

Needless to say, I cracked up. (And then ran to get my camera!)

I just LOVE my funny daughters. They keep me laughing all the time.

My sister C has shared the past 9 years of her life with this sweet little guy, Murphy. He came into her life shortly after a divorce, when she was sad and stressed. He showered her with that wonderful unconditional love that only dogs can offer so selflessly. If you are a dog-lover, you know what I mean.

Murphy got sick a few days ago – with a high fever and chills. He was very very sick, with huge swollen lymph nodes and constant whimpers of discomfort. The vet did a biopsy, suspecting lymphoma but while they waited for the test results, Murphy went rapidly downhill. My poor sister had to make the gut-wrenching decision to put him to sleep because she couldn’t let him suffer any longer. She loved him too much for that….. but it was so so hard.

As we talked tonight, she told me that she had asked the Lord to allow him to stay with her a little longer but He evidently had other plans. Once he had passed away, she said she asked Daddy to look after him for her.

Our Dad (who passed away Sept. 19th, 2008) was always so good with little dogs. They just took up with him like he was the only person in a room! Just thinking of Murphy and Daddy together in Heaven makes me smile a little, although I sure wish it hadn’t have happened so soon.

I’ve hugged my stinky dogs more times tonight than usual. I know we are lucky to have relatively healthy dogs to share our lives with even though they are getting old. Some day I will have to face saying “Goodbye” to them as well. That’s a thought that makes a giant lump form in my throat.

When a dog offers you his heart
Accept it with a smile
For his love will last a lifetime -
Which is such a little while.

When a dog offers you his heart
Take it gladly and with pride
For he will be a faithful friend
Ever by your side.

A dog loves you because you’re you -
Not for how you speak or what job you do
You could be short, tall, thin or fat
Or ugly as sin, he doesn’t care about that.

A dog knows if you’re good or bad
He can see inside your soul
When he decides you’re okay
To earn your love is his main goal.

When you’re sad, he’ll comfort you
And kiss away each tear
You may even wake up in the morning
With a cold nose in your ear.

When eventually the time comes
And the lights in his eyes dim
A new star will shine in Heaven
In remembrance of him.

You’ll gaze up at the midnight sky
And you will hear him say -
“I’m so glad you were my human
We’ll meet again some day!”

So, if this poem has caused a tear to fall
That’s because you love the dog who’s giving you his all
Go travel on together, happily paw in glove
He’s the only one who’ll ever give you unconditional love.

When a dog offers you his heart
Accept it with a smile
For his love will last a lifetime -
Which is such a little while.

By Hazel Harris-Lane

I’ve been sewing quite a bit lately. Unfortunately, we keep our ironing board and iron upstairs in the master bedroom (because Mr. Lucky uses it DAILY) while my sewing machine is downstairs in the guest room. This means I am forever dragging the iron downstairs and laying a piece of cardboard with a folded sheet over it on the guest bed to use as a makeshift ironing board.

One day recently while doing this I remembered yet another project I saw on Pinterest to assist in this dilemma and immediately set about completing this project.

I found an old folding tv tray for $2 at my favorite antique store (although it’s not quite that old to be considered an antique) and bought some fabric and batting at Hobby Lobby.

I used a piece of cardboard under the batting to keep steam from the iron from ruining the finish on the table top and possibly bleeding through the batting and fabric over time. I don’t really know if that can happen or not but I figured I might as well be safe than sorry.

I originally cut the batting and the fabric the same size but after I tried to fold it over the edge, I realized it would be much simpler to trim the batting to where it only wrapped around the edge of the table, but not all the way to the edge of the fabric.

Then I folded the edge of the fabric over just before I pulled it tight to the back of the table top for stapling.

I began stapling in the center of the short side of the table and then flipped it around and did the other short side, pulling the fabric tight along the way.

On the long sides, I made sure to not staple just at the edge where the folding bar attaches – in case I ever need to detach the  legs for something (like painting).

I kept pulling the fabric tight and stapling it all the way around, leaving the corners to do last.

I trimmed the excess fabric and tucked it under until it was smooth.

When all the stapling was finished, the underside looks like this:

It’s coming in handy in my sewing room.

And the best part is, when I’m NOT sewing, I can just fold it out of the way! Voila!!