More braces

I have a full set of tinsel teeth. They put the lower ones on today and three brackets have popped off already! The first one popped off while I was still at the office and it happened again at home, with another one, too. They are the ones glued to the crowns and apparently it's hard to keep brackets glued to crowns. My lower lip is all cut up inside. This is NOT FUN.

Okay so I'm a little grumpy. But we have a lovely new floor! Check out my "photo each day" blog to see a picture of the guy spreading grout on the new kitchen floor. It's pretty.

Not a bad week

While LAST week was the week from outer darkness, THIS week has been pretty good. I gave my talk on Sunday, Monday we had a good FHE with friends, Tuesday I went to a Red Cross meeting, Wednesday I did my caseworker volunteer job at the Red Cross and today I can't get my lazy body moving. Tonight is a stake meeting. Last night was supposed to be our book club discussion but since so many people hadn't finished reading it or just couldn't come, it is postponed. The book was pretty good. It's a YA book about a family in Germany at the time Hitler is taking over.

The weather has been glorious - sunny and in the 70's all week, PLUS a bonus thunderstorm yesterday that was very fun and scary. The lightning was crashing all over the place. I was at work with our huge floor to ceiling windows that gave us a terrific view! If I am home during a thunderstorm you can usually find me hanging out the upstairs bathroom window watching it all. The window faces south so sometimes I have to run back and forth between that window and the north windows, depending on where the storm is. I always pray that our neighborhood will be safe. I know how dangerous storms can be but I still appreciate the beauty of them!

Happy Monday

It's 5:30 AM. I am awake for some crazy reason, but there is a bird outside singing the most lovely song. I've never heard it before but it makes the morning so pleasant! It's too dark to see what kind of bird it is, but since it is warm out and the windows are open, I can enjoy it anyway! I think that hearing the birds is one of the nicest parts of warmer weather.

One morning in Sicily, I was up early enough to see the fishermen go out. There was the most beautiful sunrise so I grabbed the camera. Here are the sunrise pictures - you can see the fishing boat in the second one.

Mt. Etna and me

This is one of my favorite pictures from Sicily. It's in the town of Taormina, on the eastern coast of Sicily. That's Mt. Etna in the background. I was SO HAPPY to be there that I cried. Well, I cried (or laughed) most of the trip!

The funeral and all the family stuff that went with it was really stressful today. I need to think of happy things and my trip to Italy was most definitely a happy thing!

Sad days

Friday morning - my cousin Judi calls with the news that her 91 year old mother was headed to emergency in an ambulance. It looked like a massive stroke. We waited in emergency all day for a room. She was admitted that night. While waiting in the ER which was VERY crowded, I saw a friend from church wheeled in on a stretcher. I ran over to him to see what was wrong and while we were talking, I heard a voice call my name. I turned around and there was another friend from church - she had been in a car accident. So within 10 yards of each other are my aunt, and two friends. Then....I saw my mother for the first time in 10 years. She ignored me. This was in the waiting room.

Saturday - I had to get Larry ready for another trip to Madison and then meet my cousin Judi at the hospital. I couldn't let her sit there all alone. Both her siblings were out of town. In fact her sister's fiance had died Thursday.

Sunday (today) - My aunt died this morning. Larry left for Madison. I was with my cousin again all day. We went to the funeral parlor to arrange things and pick out the casket. We talked and talked. I was hyper woman with an appetite to match. But I STILL haven't had any dessert, sweets, pop, candy, anything like that. I just ate bread and pasta all day long. What's worse????

My aunt is at peace. She's with her family again. She had been "seeing" them for weeks as they were probably preparing her for her journey home.

I love the plan of salvation.

Here are some pansies in her memory. She loved pansies.

Attention readers........

Especially you Carol and you Katrina, both of you who love These is My Words (can't figure out how to underline)

ANYway, run don't walk to your nearest library or bookstore and pick up Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart. Then cancel all your appointments, get a babysitter and hole up for three days. You won't put it down.

Well THAT'S over

Okay I'm better. No hot fudge sundae. No banana split. But maybe a facial this week.

General Conference was just so good this weekend. How could I NOT feel better? Actually, I am speaking on the 20th about one of the Sunday talks so I listened extra carefully. I think I know which one I will speak on, but how do you paraphrase an apostle?? Can I say it any better than him?

It was such a pretty day today. The sky was so blue and the sun shone all day long. The birds were having fun at the bird feeders out back and it all made me happy.

Here, for your viewing pleasure is me up in the air in Key West. I LOVED parasailing!

Grrrr....look out world

I am in a VERY bad mood. Just call me Crabby Appleton. This is what I want to do:

-Throw something

-Swear

-Take a few Excedrin for a killer headache but then I'll be wired

-Eat a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream and really HOT hot fudge

-Then eat a banana split

-Sleep for two days and magically be 20 lbs thinner when I wake up

-Get a massage, a facial and then a pedicure

-Go to Key West and eat a key lime pie ALL BY MYSELF

-Go to a spa and be pampered

-Go to a warm, lovely beach somewhere FAR away and float in water that is 90 degrees

What I will really do is go to bed and feel better tomorrow. We can only hope.

Introducing.....

.........a new baby in the house!  We bought a MAC!  Oh my. This computer is sweeeet. And oh so pretty.  Ours is more grey than white. Thank you Carol and George for giving us the little extra "push" we needed to take the plunge!

A big thank you to my little friend Adam and his mom who came for a visit today. We had fun playing, finding the ball, reading and chasing the red bus! What a great little kiddo. WOW!

Sugar withdrawal or "hand over the pie" blues

Okay so it's been well over a month since I've eaten sweets. No cookies, candy, dessert, cake, pie, no chocolate Easter bunny .

No bunny cake

No chocolate cake

No key lime pie

Actually, it hasn't been that hard. I figure that it's a good thing for my body to not have refined sugar. My psyche is another thing. My anxiety level had skyrocketed (!) and I wonder if it was from sugar withdrawal.

On another subject, these braces are driving me crazy. I was using my finger to apply some anti-sensitive paste to my teeth , and sliced my finger open on one of the wires! It was a pretty deep cut, too. Bled like crazy. And I thought, "this is in my MOUTH?" On the brighter side, my teeth are shifting already. I can see a definite difference. So my smile will be lovely but the insides of my cheeks will be in shreds!

Home Again

Hooray! Larry made it home safe and sound Easter Sunday by 3:30 or so. We had a lovely dinner here with good friends and their two little girls, who were just so excited to come over. I asked the six year old what her favorite food was and she said, "ham and steak." But ham was first on her list. Good thing I made ham!!

My computer is giving me fits, so I'm using Larry's. Any advice about which computer out there is a good buy? I'm ready to throw mine out the window.

Stuck in Madison

Poor Larry. He was supposed to come home last night from his latest trip to Wisconsin. But there he sits in his hotel room because of that dang weather yesterday in Detroit and Chicago and who knows where else. There were so many flights cancelled that he can't even get out today. He has to wait until Sunday to get a flight home . So tomorrow is Easter and no Larry until later in the afternoon. Add that to my list of things that make me sad.

One more thing that makes me sad - bad dreams. I have had a few this week. And Thursday morning at 5:45 I woke up out of deep, deep sleep hearing my mother-in-law calling my name. If she needs us, she will go to the bottom of our stairs and call up to the bedroom. But she wasn't there. So I went downstairs to see if she was all right and sure enough, she was just fine. She was in the bathroom and all was well. So I wandered around the house looking for some reason that I was woken up and nothing. I said a prayer to please let me know if there was something wrong and nothing. So I flopped on the couch and fell back to sleep almost immediately and slept for two more hours. What the heck.

I am in a blue funk today. But the sun is shining and that's a good thing when it's 25 degrees out!

Brother Love

This is a picture taken in Wilkes-Barre PA in 2005, of the man that has held my heart even longer than Larry. I first saw Neil Diamond in 1971 (most of you weren't even BORN then!)
Since then, Pam (who is my best and eternal friend in all the world) and I, have been to I don't know how many concerts. 20 maybe? We last saw him in Wilkes-Barre in Dec 2005. We were pretty close to the stage that time, although we have been as close as third or fourth row. That's when it's hard to even breathe because he is right there! He hasn't toured in a couple of years so we are anxiously awaiting word of new U.S. tour. Then we get on our traveling shoes and try to hit at least a couple of concerts here in the east. In the meantime I sit here in the office surrounded by pictures of family, doula babies and a poster of Neil himself. I guess we never get too old for music to thrill our hearts.

More trivia

Things that make me happy:

Larry coming home
new shoes
white pizza
a great birth
homegrown, fresh tomatoes
when the plane lands safely
watching American Idol
e-mail
a great haircut
finding an ancestor
clothes that fit
people that love me!


Some things that make me sad:

broccoli
a slow computer
the cat waking me up too early
bad smells
mean people
stuck up people
arrogant people
worms on the driveway
the end of a great vacation
feeling too tired
feeling too hungry
feeling too full

New callings

Now that we are back in the ward, Larry has been called as the ward employment specialist which he really likes. He's good at helping people with resumes and goals and interviewing, as well as learning about new job opportunities. AND he's been called to be the executive secretary for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. So he's just a busy beaver.

Me? Nothing yet. It is VERY weird not having a calling but I know it is coming someday. In the meantime, I am enjoying Relief Society and Gospel Doctrine classes for the first time in seven years! I had been having fun in the young women and primary presidencies and the nursery for all those years. The RS presidency asked me to substitute teach one of the Joseph Smith lessons and I LOVE doing that. Teaching in RS is one of my favorite things to do.

Spring is coming, the snow is melting, the birds are singing and I am SO ready for lovely weather!

Sicilian cannolis and old friends

My friend (Mary G.) and I were having lunch and relaxing by the sea in the northern Sicilian town of Cefalu. Cannolis have been a favorite sweet since I was a kid, so I had been anticipating trying a real Sicilian one. Here it is. Mary snapped this as I was taking my first bite. It was so good that my innards were bouncing with joy.

This was taken in the vital records office in a town called Termini Imerese, where my great-grandmother was born. The officials were looking up the family information in the original books that I have only dreamed of seeing. They showed me where it says the street on which she was born and we went there. It is called Via Stenio. Here it is. Can you imagine how I felt seeing the street where she grew up?!!

On a different subject, last week featured a happy reunion with old friends! We reconnected with the Blair family which was just the nicest and happiest thing that has happened in a long time. Rob had been a missionary here in the early 90's and his mother let us kind of "adopt" him! So we had a grand reunion on the phone after his mom tracked us down. HI GUYS!! I am waving to all of you!! ^^^^^^^^^

Sicily

Oops, I promised Sicily pictures last time and posted Rome. HERE are some from that beautiful island - bella Sicilia!!






These are from an ancient town called Segesta - it was founded around 400 B.C., destroyed by the Vandals and features an outstanding Doric temple ruin. In the picture above, you can just barely see the temple. This place was our first stop in Sicily and I could not believe how absolutely gorgeous the land is. My grandmother who was born in Sicily used to tell me about the beauty there, but seeing it for myself just about knocked me out.

This is what remains of an ampitheater in Segesta. That's me, pretending to be non-chalant while inside I was just bouncing.

Italy

Here are some more pictures of Italy -

This one is of the Tiber River and the oldest bridge in Rome



And there is me in front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, just absolutely thrilled to be there!

Sunday evening

What a nice day. Read the Ensign this morning, good meetings at church, lovely choir practice, home the rest of the day........chilly, but the sun was out, it's feeling a little like spring, but no crocuses yet, Carol!

Off to the orthodontist tomorrow to get these braces tightened for the first time. Yikes!

I cut out refined sugar and sweets the past few days. My body is telling me it's happier. I'm not achy in the morning when I don't eat the white stuff. I made an outstanding shake today, made with frozen bananas, a few frozen blueberries, some soy yogurt, a little cashew butter, flax seed and a coconut covered date. It was so yummy good! I made one for Larry too, although his consisted of frozen bananas, fresh pineapple, protein powder and milk. That was VERY delicious, too. (I took a sip.)

Lately, I've been thinking of my trip to Italy two years ago. This is Mt. Vesuvius from our hotel in Sorrento. I'll post more pictures from time to time. It was a dream trip. I'll post some beautiful pictures from Sicily next time.

Dessert, fires and braces

1. Dessert - went to Phillip's European with doula friends last night. Oh my. I had a half slice of the Viennese Strawberry Torte and a half slice of the Austrian Chocolate Torte. The half slices are the way to go. That way you get to taste TWO luscious desserts for the price of one! Such a deal.

2. Fires - had to do a damage assessment yesterday for an apartment fire. Once again, it's the candles that can do you in. It's true when they say NEVER leave a candle unattended. Anyway, the leader filled out an evaluation on me and wrote that I kept the fire client "calm and focused." That's exactly what we do as doulas - we help keep the mom in labor calm and focused!!!! It is so amazing to me to see how sometimes the skills we learn can be beneficial in other areas of life. Very cool.

3. Braces - good grief these things are poking holes in my cheeks. I went back to the orthodontist so they could use the wire cutters to save me. But on the bright side, after only one month I see how my teeth are shifting already. I should quit complaining though. They really aren't THAT bad. Just a little bad.