For Just One Week

A decent week, all in all. I walked every day during the week but couldn't manage it on the weekend. You can see how great I did on posting (laughing really loudly) but I did better than I had been doing.

For this week: Another exercise goal - I'm changing it up a little this time though. I'm going to set a goal of exercising at least 15 minutes everyday and for 30 minutes on at least 4 days.

For my second goal - I'm going to take the time to pray every morning after I put the first round of kids on the bus. I pray all of the time but the majority of it is done on the run. This week I'm going to take time out for it each morning before anything else.

Walk to Cure Juvenile Diabetes

I can't imagine having to tell my kids that they could never have a milkshake again, or having to stick their fingers over and over again to test their blood. Some of the things that children with diabetes have to go through will break your heart. There is a young boy at our church that has Juvenile Diabetes and it makes me so thankful for the health of my children.


I'm walking with them on May 17th to support them and the effort to cure Juvenile Diabetes. Here is the link if you want to donate to my account.

101 in 1001 Updates

A few more updates on my 101 in 1001:

#4:Donate Blood - Completed. This weekend for the 5th time I went to try to donate blood. Our church does this on a regular basis (usually every 4 months) and I have been trying for awhile to donate. Saturday I was finally able to give. I found my perfect match, the person that can actually manage my veins and retrieve blood from them. I will be asking for him from now on. Miracle of all miracles- I don't even have a bruise and if you saw the pictures from last time you know that is a big deal. I must say I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to give and our appointment was at the very end of the day because Audrey works the Blood Drives and it's easier to come at the end of the day and just take her home with us. When we got there the woman who organizes the drives was all excited, If she could get 115 units that would put the church at having donated 1000 units since 2004 and she was getting close to that number. My stomach sank, I just had this feeling that if they couldn't get mine she would end up with 114. I was so pleased when they were able to get mine and sure enough on Sunday morning they told us that we got exactly 115 units. If they hadn't been able to get mine, she would have had 114.

#64: Crochet 6 things: Progress made. I have completed 1 crochet project. A baby blanket for our niece who is due soon. I actually finished it awhile ago but haven't been very faithful about posting progress so.....

Protection for our Children

We had an incident yesterday at Little League practice and it has left me with a question that I would love to have answered. Why are our Children not protected?

Our kids are practicing ball, Little League and T-ball had already started and some Minor Leaguers were showing up when a man pulls up right behind us and pulls out a video camera and sets it up. Our first reaction is not good, we've been through this before so immediately all of our defenses are up. He starts by filming the school and the Coal Mines behind it but then he turns his camera onto our kids. One of the Moms asks him "Why are you filming our kids?" We get the standard reply, that he is on public property and can film whatever he wants and that our kids will be blurred out and not recognizable. Then we see the Police drive down the road, then back up again and then he parks in front of the school. One of the Moms goes to talk to the cop but as soon as she leaves we realize, the police are never around here unless something is going on, it is obvious immediately that he is here to protect the guy that is filming. That is exactly what he told the parents that talked to him too. If we don't want our kids to be filmed then we should remove them from the ball field. A few of the Dads go and stand in front of his camera until he moves on and eventually he says that he is not there to support the protesters and that he is actually doing an investigation about them but it doesn't matter either way to me. Why are our children allowed to be hassled, why are their school buses allowed to be blocked, why are they allowed to be filmed while playing on the school playground or the ball field, and why can't our kids just be allowed to be kids? They don't care about Mountain Top Removal, they don't care about what these people are protesting about, they just want to go to school and practice ball. IN PEACE!! Yet the cop was there to protect the guy that was there to film and hassle them. The schools have to have written permission to take our kids pictures or to post them in the school or on the schools website. So how can this guy, all of these guys, just walk up and film them while they are on school property? Just because he is standing on public property? I just can't understand the way this world works. All of these people show up from other states to tell us that how we live is wrong and that we are abusive to our kids because we allow them to live in this environment, they harass the miners as they go to work, they make up things to make us look like we are horrible people, the call us Coal Whores because we can actually afford to stay home and raise our children and the GOVERNMENT pays them to do it. The POLICE protect them. It makes no sense at all to me.

For Just One Week

I'm getting back to this after a few weeks of not having time to even think, let along plan. So for this week I have 2 goals: One is a repeat that you have seen often - I'm going to try to walk everyday for at least 30 minutes. The second goal is going to be to post on here everyday this week. I need to get myself started going again on trying to achieve my 30 days to a new habit goal of walking everyday. I also want to get back to posting on a regular basis. Not because I want to be popular, I have no illusions of being famous, but because it makes me feel better. To be able to release some of the thoughts and feelings running around in this crazy mind of mine is always such a relief. So hopefully this week I can get myself headed in the right direction - FORWARD!!!

More Chaos

Another period of chaos around here. It's funny, I thought as my kids got older that would become less of an issue but that just doesn't seem to be the case. I guess when they were younger I had more control over the germs that they passed back and forth. Now when one of them gets something, it seems that they all do. Although Matt did get pink eye without passing it on to the others, even though they caught his cold. I went 6 days without having a moment to myself and it left me wondering how in the world I survived them all being little.

Matt's sinus infection cleared up but on the morning I had to take him back for the check-up he woke up with pink eye and a cold. So he was home for 5 days because of the pink eye, during that time Jo sprained his ankle and Audrey caught the cold. Then as soon as they got better Drew caught the cold. The week before they all started getting sick was the book fair at the younger kids school and the week after was the beginning of Little League baseball season. Drew had to go to the final day of Major League try-outs sick but he made the team. It seems things are calming down and Spring is trying to take hold, so I have hope.

I have all kinds of updates to give you and lots of things I want to blog about so I'm going to try to start posting more regularly.

All is Good

I took Matt to the doctor Friday and she is pretty sure that it was just a severe sinus infection. She gave him a shot of antibiotics plus a 5 day round of antibiotics and we are giving him Claritin. Everything else was fine and as long as all is good when we go back this Friday the worry is over. He already looks so much better, actually he looked better the next morning after getting the shot. So it seems that I was worried for nothing. It puzzles me that he had a sinus infection that bad and wasn't running a fever but she said that was because it was all impacted in his face.

Now on to other things: I completed my first 30 days to a New Habit. I read my Bible everyday for 30 days and have read it most days since. This week for my For Just One Week I am trying to stick to a morning schedule. I did it today but on the very first day, Monday, it didn't go so well. I didn't get out of bed until 6:30 and that is when my Middle Schoolers should be getting on the bus So...... that was a wash. I am trying to stick to it the rest of the week and I'm thinking I may make it my next 30 days to a New Habit. I put the older kids on the bus at 6:30 and don't have to get the other kids up until 7:40. So I am walking during that time. If I have something to do that day I'm walking 30 minutes and then showering before they get up. If I don't have anywhere to go before that evening I will walk for the full hour(or at least try to-I'm still working up to that again). I did very good this morning - got in a 30 minute walk and shower with 10 minutes to spare before I had to get them up. The kids elementary school is having a Book Fair this week plus I have to take Matt back to the doctor on Friday so the only day I won't have extra walking time is Thursday plus its a tough week to try to do this because I'm already exhausted but that's the point right - to push myself.