In Memory of Harold

My bloggin' days have suffered any updates, but I'm moving past that guilt. Praise His merciful, faithful name, God was unsparing in His presence among us at Harold's funeral!

Harold died on Sept 21, following a 3-week struggle resulting from his stroke. Jesus saw he was getting tired and a cure was not to be. So He put His arms around him and whispered, "Come with Me."

Thus starts the funeral procession before the funeral procession. It only took me 3 hours to pack up Kevin's sister Jane (who suffers with Alzheimers). Jane did okay with the travel and funeral, etc. But even as we left Kentucky, she thought we were leaving the family reunion and wondered if that was Harold/Viv in the truck ahead of us!

Kevin did an AMAZING job at giving his brother's eulogy. Everyone was blessed. Everyone. It was like being at service, and then ... oh yeah, you remembered you were at a funeral. God covered him as he spoke. He tied in the good, the bad, and the ugly as only the touch of the Holy Spirit can do. Is it any wonder? It is such a privilege to live under God's faithfulness!

At the service end, I joined my Harley Hubby at the casket to greet the line of final goodbye's. It made me do what I HATE to do in public: the UGLY cry. Geez, I hate that! Nobody looks good doing that. But after Kevin delivered the absolute best message to document and celebrate a life lived, there was no hope of gettin' out of the UGLY cry.

Kevin has burned up the highways making 4 trips to KY to see his brother. His knee hasn't had any time at all to properly heal, and Kevin has certainly paid the price. But again, I'm reminded who paid the ultimate price!

I've learned that it is no coincidence that we were dealing with so much personal stuff lately. Isn't it wonderful that God is IN our lives, and not just there at the END of our lives? He is SO worthy of our trust in every stinkin' detail! In the end, it's BLISS. Forever BLISS. But until then, we can dang' well decide how we're gonna "deal with stuff" till we get there! Dealing with stuff is just a stepping stone to holy!

This past year I have said this 1000 times and I'll make it 1001. You will never meet another face on the planet that has been graced more than me! One thing I am taking home with me from Kentucky is loss. Harold will be missed. And for this season-of-time, I am going to shout to whomever will listen to my face, there is no such thing as serving in obscurity when you belong to Jesus. He is attentive to your labor. He is attentive to your CRY. It MATTERS.

Sweet peoples, there is NO ONE on earth God notices more than you. He knows that the situation you are in is not the easiest place on the planet to serve Him, but He sees you doing the thing day-in and day-out. Thank goodness we have an example of a man after God's own heart.

Good Bye Harold. Forever BLISS is yours!

SHOPshewana Trip

I've been meaning to post some pics from our August motorcycle trip to Shipshewana, which turned into SHOPshewana after ordering a new kitchen table and chairs from the Amish Furniture Shop! Still waiting on our order ... oh darn, we will have to go back with our trailer to pick it up! Mercy me, whatever shall we do except make the drive ... sigh!? (wink wink) Here, Lynn is talking to Mr. Ed .... I think.
A 3 hour trip took 5 hours (but who's counting)! This was a necessary stop - DQ! Smiling bikers! Lynn/Bear ... Rick/Karen ... where's K&K?

Mr. K ... checking into the hotel ...

Tired and hot biker babe ...

Refreshed after eating at the BlueGate. Did anyone say Beef Manhatten, Fried Chicken, and all the fixin's? Naw ... I just heard someone say AMEN!

Lynn had a chance to visit with her bro .. who lives a hop skip and jump away. Nice little family reunion!

God's green thumb ...

Happy biker Chic's ...

Me & my honey, walking thru the "tunnel of luvvvv"!

Wordy Words and Inspirational Words

It's Friday night, and I'm ready to snuggle with my foam pillow here in a little minute so I can start a 3-day weekend fresh as a daisy! I decided to blogaroonie a bit before I hit the hay, because I love ya and my head is full of Wordy Words.

1. Today I'm reminded how much I enjoy my intimate friends. To qualify for intimate friendship you must care, for example, about very important things like whether or not she is using a new Bath & Body cream or if she wore almost the exact same shirt as you on a given day. It could just be my imagination that Karen & I showed up at work today in such a predicament. But in case you are wearing a shades-of-blue tie die shirt today, then I'm afraid we are indeed intimate friends. I'm hoping it's a two-way street here!

2. I’ll have you know that yours truly was FORCED to finish off the remaining Chocolate Zucchini Cake this week! A simple cake doesn’t even begin to say thank you for all the love we received throughout Kevin's surgery, but I offer it humbly! Mr. Stubborn continues to do too much, but we did get a good report from the doctor earlier this week. They took x-rays and showed us a before/after comparison and WOW, what a difference! I don’t let him off the hook though --- I tell him that just because his knee “mug shot” is good doesn’t mean he has free reign to tear it up again! God did not grace Kevin with a subtle wife. So the next day, he went to work. And yesterday morning, he drove himself to Bowling Green, Kentucky ….

3. I will list this one as part of the Wordy Words, but it is not light-hearted. Kevin's brother, Harold, is not doing well following the massive stroke he had a week ago. They were able to do surgery and remove the clot, but he is non-responsive and paralyzed on his right side. His heart rate and blood pressure is not stable and he is struggling to breath. Kevin wanted to get there. We had planned to leave Saturday and take Kevin’s sister (Jane has Alzheimer's and we take care of her). So Kevin went on by himself, and I will bring Jane down on Saturday. Not sure if we’ll be going to the hospital or to a funeral. Only our Heavenly Father knows. I’m glad Kevin made it.

Oh my heavenly mercy! It's almost time for me to say good-night to O'Malley the monster cat and snooze in preparation for my 3-day weekend. I know you prolly feel cheated that I can't go on, so how about a final word of the inspirational type.

1. My nose has been in the precious word of God, because me and my intimate friends (that means you too) have endured pain in our lives. In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah did this. She went through an excruciating personal journey in infertility and the relationships in her life were chaos! She prayed so hard, Eli thought she was drunk! That is sad because he judged her. Isn’t prayer the best way to react to situations in life? We should seek God’s face with passion and emotion! Well, Hannah poured out her heart – just like Kay is doing. It’s okay to ask for healing of the body against disease. It’s okay to plead with God to mend a crushed heart. Praise God that we can take our griefs to God – He can handle it! Well, God remembered Hannah and blessed her. I’m SO thankful that God included Hannah’s story, to bring us hope when we pray and cry out to Him. I have been praying and crying out for my own situations! We HAVE to remember to keep it real with our lives, just like Hannah did!

2. I am learning that worry is just another way of saying that God can't handle His job.

3. Our "Chaos" bible study begins next week and I can't wait to hang with the gang again. I'm sure God has big plans for "Finding Calm in Life's Chaos" by Becky Harling. Calm sounds good to me right now. Where on earth would we be without God and His word? Lord, have mercy! Honestly, I believe with all my beating heart that God wants us to talk about our fears, solutions, and taking chances for God. That, my intimate friends, will keep us busy and smack dab in the middle of each other’s business!!

Okay, I'm snoozing. I pray that our very big wonderful loving God of all the universe will do something very big wonderful in your 3-days of labor-rest, perhaps something with Wordy Words or perhaps something inspirational inside your sweet self!

Hubby Harley Goes To Surgery

This is my hubby on his Harley just 6 days after knee replacement surgery! And he is not just sitting pretty either ... Kevin zoomed off into the sunshine with his cane inside his saddlebag. I'm not sure if my sweet self is recovering from his surgery as well as he is!

We believe that you will never meet another set of faces on the planet that has been graced more than us! Throughout the time leading up to, during, and after surgery, a wonderful support system of family & friends showed us buckets of love. So many prayers, visits, calls, cards, emails, and help ... too numerous to count. Click here to see a little project that Nurse Kay put together for sharing with our church family this morning.

A little bit of rambling:

• Dr. VanMeter prays with his patients before surgery, and we had to hold hands "or it won't take" he says!
• Kevin tried to convince the young nurse to marry our son, but I think she's scared of being his daughter-in-law.
• Although I was technically on vacation for 3 days, suffice it to say billable hands are happy hands.
• I've been meaning to blog about attending the Women of Faith conference, it's on my radar. It was wonderful and overwhelming and full of grace.
• 3-year old birthday girl Rosalie called me on the telephone and said clear as a bell "Thank You for the gift Aunt Kay!" Can anyone say precious? I loved it!
• I'm a little bit tired, but don't plan to be 10 minutes from now.
• There are more angels carrying me than I will ever understand.
• Some of my friends in blogaroonie land will never know how much I appreciate them.
• Football season is starting - YAY! The Hood is prepared for a little thing called Super Bowl. Go Blue!
• Kevin's Sarah Palin glasses broke. So much for Alaska.
• I broke out the pots & pans recently, and remembered how to use them!
• Keaton, Math Teacher Extraordinaire', is back in full swing, only this year he's working on his Masters and tutoring kids on the side. The gift of youth!
• Good friend Debbie P. sent a singing get-well-soon card that made us laugh.
• Kevin is smokin' hot! I want to send a paper plane to my Harley Hubby and say "I Love You"!

The Man Cave

This is the new "Man Cave" in my living room, appropriately named in preparation for hubby's upcoming knee replacement. We shopped and we shopped (like we huffed and we puffed) and we blew the budget with this oversized, overstuffed, overpriced piece of fluff, more commonly known as a recliner. I call it a sleeping pill, but Kevin calls it Clifford, the Big Brown Chair. The shopping part was easy (funny, that's never been a problem for me) but the getting it in the house part was the real story!

First you must understand that I plan to ask the hospital to label his wristband "Mr. Stubborn" which might be worth more than a 20% tip. So when this massive piece of fluff arrived at the warehouse and Mr. Stubborn went to load it in his trailer, the nice people at the furniture store loaded it. Fast forward to when it was sitting in our driveway. Mr. Stubborn hobbled inside after a long day at work, and first sat down to eat a couple of chicken salad sandwiches, compliments of my famous cooking (and Sams Club). That's when the doorbell rang. Very good friends & neighbors Bear & Lynn had that huge recliner ON our porch and said "Furniture movers here! Where would you like it?" Thanks seems trite, but I offer it humbly.

Thus, the Man Cave! The Miracle of the Man Cave!

Ohhhhh'Malley

He's a monster! O'Malley used to be tiny and cute and he used to be sweet and innocent and he used to make me dash home and purr with him. That was then. This is now! Look at those devient eyes! Arrest the cat! And don't post bail!

One morning last week, we came downstairs to find that O'Malley had simply helped himself to my ribbon/yarn drawer and had a ball with a ball of yarn! It is wrapped around and around and about the dinning room table and all six chairs, six ways to Sunday! He should sleep for a week! There's no getting this mess untangled without scissors!

Right at this moment, O'Mally is sweetly curled up in his sheepskin bed right in front the computer monitor telling what to type. Sigh. He's SO darn cute. That was then, and this is now!

Happy 29th Birthday!

Oh my heck, I love being 29! But for the life of me, I don't know WHY I waited 52 years (figure that one out yourself) to take a day off work and just do w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r! It was the best day! It started with a drop-in visit from very good friend and neighbor Lynn, with a super duper cute magnetic board she made me with pictures of all 3 grandkids! I'm tellin' ya -- toooo cute! Then I stopped at a way cool gift shop near my house and browsed like there was no tomorrow. Then my sweet darlin' daughter, Andrea, and I went to the movies and saw "The Proposal" and we laughed and danced our way right outa that theater, singing "It's takes two to make a thing go right"! We had popcorn for lunch. Then it was time to meet Princess Rhegan and King Clayton at the bus stop after school. Clayton rocks! He took these pics of us so we could remember every stinkin' moment of me being 29! Then my hero husband took me out to eat and we went to another movie - Julia & Julia. TWO movies in ONE day because I'm 29! Does is get any better than this? It was the BEST day!

Rhegan Goes to Kindergarten

It's a very l-o-n-g way down off that big bus step! I give her a 10 for landing with both feet on the ground, and because she is THE cutest dressed little girl in bus-land. (That's what happens when Grammy goes shoppy!) Hmm, what's missing on the cutest dressed little girl in bus-land? Well, I'd say it's her snazzy princess backpack which is conveniently sitting on Rhegan's front row bus seat! Hero Bro' Clayton saved the day!

First order of business after de-busing ... hug mommy! As it should be, my sweet child!

Next order of business, flop on the couch and demonstrate the effect of the first day of Kindergarten! I can relate girlfriend, only I don't look quite that cute when I flop on the couch after work.

Next order of business, time for a treat! Ice cream is a GOOD reason to come home after a hard day of kindergarten. So - to recap in the words of my talky talky granddaughter, the top 5 reasons to come home after school are as follows:

1. To see mommy

2. See grandma's new pictures

3. Eat ice cream

4. Change into play clothes

5. Finally .... to see talky talky gram gram

At least I made the list. Praise Dee Lord! It was, after all, my 29th birthday!

Ramblings

• I'm going to the Women of Faith conference tomorrow and Saturday and I'm just darn tootin' excited about it!
• Favorite new smell: new car! You know that "cash for clunkers" program all over the news lately that is running out of $$? I got $4500 of it. Yay for Kay! Silver Mercury Mariner with black leather seats with the coolest white stitching! Bells and whistles galore. It almost drives itself. My scripture memory cards look good near by gearshift!
• Jane recently told us that when she goes over to the main building for dinner, she stays a long time because all the ladies get to gassing. Yep, you read that right! Not sure what they eat (beans?) but I'd go gassing with my girlfriends too! Beano optional.
• Kevin's knee hurts. Bad. Riding the Harley still makes it feel better though (!?!).
• Sister Joyce is still in Greece & Turkey. I wonder if they have scrapbook stores there?
• Dear sweet friend Debbie P. had a 29th b-day again. Dear sweet friend Eleanor will have a 29th b-day again in a few weeks. Dear sweet friend Karen will have a 29th b-day again next week. And dear sweet self will be 29 on the 12th! 29 rocks!
• Our summer bible study ended tonight. Humble pie! With ice cream!
• I'm drinking Diet Coke again - Sprite had it's day in the sun. And I've fallen for Margarita Jelly Beans - closest thing I've ever had to the real thing! Well - Diet Coke IS the real thing, now isn't it?!
• Someday I'll figure out why I'm so blessed! Until then, I'll just remain astonished.

You Had Me At Hello

Remember that rag doll you or your sister used to carry around when you were a kid? I bet it was named O'Malley! Rhegan had a sleepover with us and she got to meet the newest member of our family (who just happens to be sitting directly in front of the computer screen and watching each and every single letter as it appears!). It was love at first sight! Rhegan knew she loved O'Malley the moment she set eyes on him! He hippity hopped in his cute little crooked fashion right to her and she scooped him up into her arms and never let him down (except to go to the bathroom and eat and get our nails done).

O'Malley Duty:

• We slept on the couch so we could be near O'Malley (until Grandma carried us upstairs to our beds).
• We made a "duty list" which included practicing our music, getting our nails done, McDonald's and loving O'Malley.
• We had to come home after our nail salon visit and check on O'Malley.
• We sang songs O'Malley liked, like "Rhegan Had a Little Lamb".
• We gave O'Malley his medicine with an eye dropper and then fed him treats.

Love puts the fun in together. It was the bestest sleepover!