Patrick's Saturday Six

Ok, so it's Sunday, but that's ok I am still going to do Saturday! http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/PatricksPlace/entries/1341

Here are this week's "Saturday Six" questions.  Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal...but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit!  If you don't have an AOL journal, you can still play, but of course you'll at least need an AOL screen name, which you can get for free with AOL Instant Messenger, to be able to leave a comment here.  To be counted as "first to play," you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions.  A link to your journal in general cannot count.  (Again, if you're playing for the first time, please be sure to say so in the comment!)  Enjoy!

1. You are invited to spend a night, alone, in a large house that is believed to be haunted.  A close friend of yours whom you trust tells you of his or her own experience, and you have sufficient reason to believe that there may be a genuine haunting going on there.  Without promise of any kind of reward for staying the night, would you agree to do so?

No way!

2. What do you most enjoy about your job?
I'm a stay at home mom, so watching my children play together, growing, becoming the people they are turning into.
3. Who was the last person you had a conversation with?  What was the main topic of the conversation? Jacob and we talked about going to the park after naptime! Hey no one said it had to be a "deep" conversation! lol

4. Take this quiz:   What kind of "smart" are you? I'm all around smart! 40% applied intelligence 20% natural intelligence

5. What was the last food that you totally ruined -- to the point that it was inedible -- when trying to cook? I burnt some ground beef I was making the other night for a meal, so I had to turn to good ole tuna and noodles! It was worth it, I was chatting with Chad! :)

6. STRANGELY-OBSCURE QUESTION #1:  If you had to do over again, would you change anything? No, probably not

Finally!

  I finally learned how to put music on here!

Weekend Assignment #85

I don't do these often, but thought eh, this is easy enough! :)

John's question this week Weekend Assignment #85: Magazines, Anyone?

Weekend Assignment #85: What magazines do you subscribe to and why? This assumes you currently subscribe to a magazine or two, of course, but I'm reasonably confident most of us do. If you don't have any current subscriptions, however, you can list some of your most recent subscriptions or magazines you want to subscribe to.

Extra Credit: What was your first magazine subscription?

Chad gets Ranger Joe and a couple different computer magazines, I have no clue the names and he took the latest issue's with him.

I get Ladies Home Journal, Parents, and Parenting. I know! I'm a woman and mom...so I get ones that interest and relate to me! LOL

Jacob also gets one, I think it's called Turtle. It's a cute kids magazine.

For extra credit...hmmm thinking thinking thinking. I do remember getting highlights for a while, so I guess that would have to be it.

 

If you want to play go to JohnScalzi and link your entry in his journal.

Veteran's Day

I made an entry on this day on our other journal: TalesfromtheFrontandtheonesleftBehind

Thanking my wonderful husband for what he's doing and all our veteran's.

Go say Thank you to Kelly who's a vet from the AF. Love ya girl!

 

 

Jordyn

I've recieved some beautiful emails and ones that people are lovingly concerned that they might bring up hard memories because they mention cancer or death or funerals....so I thought I'd share my feelings and thoughts on this subject.

Jordyn's life was an amazing journey of ups and downs but through it all, she was this amazing and brave little girl, who had to be far stronger than most children her age. To this day, I'm still in awe of her strength and courage. God so blessed me with her. Looking at her pictures above I'm struck with these feelings of unworthiness. Knowing that for some reason GOD gave this beautiful child to me.

When I read about other's battles against cancer or the death, etc of course I think of Jordyn, but a good 95% of the time, my memory takes me to the happy days of Jordyn's life and there were so many MORE happy days than sad days. If Jordyn's story,which in turn is our story, can help someone else either giving them more knowledge on childhood cancer, AML leukemia, or give them compassion, or a glimpse of life through a family who's lost a child to cancer, for them to have more compassion when a family is having to say goodbye to their child (or loved one in general) then I'm doing good.

Whether we like it or not, life keeps going. That first year was AWFUL and the 2nd yr was really hard too. For me I had this new baby who I kept wondering what God was thinking giving to me, we sure didn't plan on creating him, yet there he was in our arms, and us loving him when we thought we'd never be able to feel that kind of love again (you know the love you have for your child). We struggled through the holidays and those "special" days her birthday and the anniversary's, etc. Every day brought something new for us learning to live without our daughter and learning to live again with our son.

We're now 5 yrs 6 months 1 day down this journey of living without our girl. It's not always easy, there are days that it feels like those horrible days after she died, that rawness comes rushing back, and the intensity is so strong.Yet most days it's a softer heart ache, it's always there, but it's not the focus of my days.

God's given me so much to be thankful for. He's given me peace that Jordyn's in heaven and that one day I'll be with her again. He's given me an amazing husband, who's strong and tender all at the same time and so brave! He's given me 2 beautiful sons. God has provided for our family time and time again. He's blessed me beyond my worth. I look at my life and it's definately not what I thought it would be when I was that wide eyed 18 yr old graduating from high school, and I'm so happy it's not what I thought it'd be...it's so much more!

Don't be afraid to talk about death, cancer, or funerals. It's part of life. Sure it's not what we want to talk about all the time and it can't be our focus 100% of the time, although for some it is a major focus of their life because of where they are, and that's how it's supposed to be for them at this point. Don't forget to look at what you do have though. Look at the blessings. Look at the beautiful things in life. Realize that with joy there's sadness. With anger this happiness. With sorrow there's tomorrow.

God Bless

November Challenge: Being Thankful

I wanted to give a shout out to Penny and want to encourage everyone to do her NOVEMBER CHALLENGE

Everyday you sign her guestbook and leave a comment of what you're greatful for, on that particular day. A few days before Thanksgiving she'll compile the list YOU sent and email you all the things you're personally greatful for and then you can read them outloud at your thanksgiving table. Isn't that an awesome idea? I'm doing and it will become a tradition that I'm going to have my immediate family do every year, so we keep the focus. I think I'll do it for December to, but have us list how we're greatful to God! I think we all get caught up in the hussle and bussle of everyday life and we focus so much on the negatives in our lives, that we REALLY need to focus on the good things. Maybe you don't have your health, but you might have an amazing family surrounding you and holding you up, etc. We ALL have trials, but I think the biggest trial is remember that we also all have joy and things we can be greatful for in our lives.

 

God Bless

 

Book name and our day

Ok the book and author that we used for our retreat is: Boundaries with Kids by Dr. Hendry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. They also have a Boundaries with Marriage. It's a great book and also is centered around God, which is the utmost importance to me. I want to grow strong, well adjusted, GODLY men.

Now for today. Jackson woke up hot, so I cancelled hourly care and didn't make it to the gym. :( Being home with my sweetie was far more important and the fact that later in the day I started feeling bad too. Jack took a very early nap in my arms and most of the day wouldn't get out of my lap, so we spent a lazy day primarily on the couch. He didn't nap, although he did stay in his bed most of the time and playing with Pounce. He wasn't so loud that he kept Jacob up, so I was fine, knowing he'd slept for such a long time this morning.

Jacob is thankfully still feeling good, so hopefully he'll stay that way. I decided that we all needed some fresh air and took the boys to the park for about a half hour. It was rather chilly, the boys both had very heavy sweatshirts on, I just had a long sleeve tshirt on so I was a little chilly but lasted for the 30 minutes. We came in because it got dark so quickly and Jacob was dancing around needing to use the restroom! LOL We came in and had dinner and Jack fell asleep on my lap by 7! I read Jacob a story (we're reading Chronicles of Narnia and are the 3rd book: The Boy and His Horse). We read a chapter a night and then off to bed by a little after 8. I hope both boys are able to sleep well tonight. I have laundry to do tomorrow, fun! It's bedding day for sure, I didn't get it done last week so it's really needed, especially now that we have Pounce and he enjoys sleeping in the boys bed and has slept part of the night with me a few times as well! The cat sheds insanely! I was able to strip Jack's bedding and get clean stuff on his bed tonight, and I'll get Jacob and my bed tomorrow stripped and made with nice clean sheets. I LOVE the smell of clean sheets and that first few nights of sleeping in them you can smell that wonderful fresh smell. Tomorrow evening we're going over to a friend's house for dinner. I'm excited! Her hubby is out of town for the week and she has 2 kids. A daughter who's 2 weeks older than Jacob and a little boy who's 1 1/2 yrs old. Our kids play great together and my boys will love the "new/different" toys to play with! She scrapbooks and she's going to give me pointers and teach mehow to make great pages! I'm so excited!!! She's also a Christian and one of the few people that will keep me accountable, it truly takes a special friendship for that. I have that with a few others, but they're not HERE and it's nice to have that kind of friendship here! :)

Well, hope everyone else's Monday was healthier than ours and if not hope you're feeling better! :)