Back to normal

Tomorrow we return to normal.  It has been a wonderful two weeks, and I wish I could do it all  over again, but I'd like to give myself a couple of months to recuperate.  We had a fantastic time with my side of the family at my brother's house.  Here are a couple of pictures, so you can see how many people were there.  The first is with none of us "kids."  The second is all of us, minus my mom and dad.

 It was a very fun [noisy] time.

My grandmother is in the hospital as of today.  Now this is not just any ordinary grandmother.  This is my grandmother, who has had now 5 stays in the hospital, this being the fifth.  The first four were for when she had each of her four children.  She'll be 83 in 13 days.  When I say someone is going to be 83 I instantly think of a decrepit old woman.  Granted she's having more pain, and therefore more shuffling, when she walks, but she and my grandpa just washed all the windows in their house a few months back, she put up quarts and pints of green beans, pints of strawberry jam, salsa, relish, pickles, froze peaches, strawberries, corn, and who knows what else.  This is not your every day, run of the mill, grandmother.  Here she is in September.

Anyway, she fell today trying to get a newspaper that fell behind her furniture.  She got dizzy, from some unknown, as of yet, ailment, and couldn't regain her balance.  She fell on a toy, which is because the toys are stored behind said furniture.  She has fractured two ribs, and has the unknown difficulty causing the dizziness, and hence has found an arrhythmia in her heart.  The worst case scenario is a pacemaker, so I think that's good.  While it's a pain, at least the problem is able to be fixed.  Hopefully they can figure out the dizziness problem soon.  It seems there are differing thoughts on what it could be.  Please pray that everything will be healed soon.

I'm so happy to be part of a sharing family. My kids were mildly ill when we went to my brother's house, and some of the other kids were sick too, so I think our viruses melded and we made a new one.  All of the other grand kids are sick except my two.  Hannah's got a runny nose, and Seth has a bit of snuffiness.  I have a sore throat and some snuffiness, and just general malaise [General Malaise *salute*].  I think Dusty's dealing with some snuffiness too.  So here we go with being normal. :)

On a positive note, I'm pretty sure all the mice (oh, yes, there were more than just that one apparently) that were in our house are now dead, and I've also almost rid our house of the ants that decided to invade while we were gone.  Fortunately they were aimless because my kitchen was so clean *pats self on back*, so they were easily disposed of, and have yet to return at full force.  Hopefully within the next day or two they'll be completely gone.  We are the house of infestations!  Come on over!!! :)  Seriously though, I'm pretty sure our house was built on a gigantic ant hill because we have WAY more than the average amounts of ants outside, and when Dusty created a compost pile this year he put it right by our house.  Evidently mice love that kind of environment.  He's decided to put it elsewhere next year.

I got a bike for Christmas from Dusty, and I went on my first ride today.  I had a bit of energy, and thought that getting out and exercising would aid in my progression toward wellness.  I'm still debating the value of that ride, but it was fun while it lasted.  BOY I'm out of shape though!  I went less than a mile and my legs were BURNING!!!  I can't believe when I was little how much I used to ride with absolutely no effort or out of breathness.  Dusty rode too, and when he got back, his body didn't respond quite as joyously as he did when he left for the ride.  I think we need to be exercising more.  Hopefully this bike will initiate that.  Hannah had a great time riding when I took her, and Seth is sort of learning to pedal, with help from Daddy.  He cracked me up (facebook redundancy warning) when we were going out.  He put on his snow hat, and I put on his coat.  I zipped him up, and he said, "I don't need my coat hat, Mommy."  Hood...coat hat...whatever. :) 

So, I'm going to take my sore throat and go to bed.  At least I don't have a horrible cold, or I'm not sleeping somewhere like South Dakota tonight.  I can rest easily in my bed, and the other three in my family can too.  So thankful.

OH.  I'm starting a Scripture memorization thing for 2011.  Memorizing 24 verses in this year, 2 a month.  My first verse, which is actually two verses, are James 1:19-20.  See if you can figure out why I might want to memorize this.  "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." NIV
Any ideas?