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Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year's

With less than 6 hours left in the year, I realize that although I may not have accomplished everything that I wanted this year, I did make a dent.  This year has been a roller coaster of ups and downs.

Our youngest daughters have moved out to live with their birth mom (our 2nd daughter) and then moved back.  Sometimes, teens have no idea how good they have it.  Bridgett (our 2nd daughter) moved to San Antonio to be with Anthony and it looks like they will be getting married this new year.  What their life has in store for them will be exciting, as they start on a new journey together.

Our oldest daughter, Mandy has had a lot of hard roads to travel, but she is coming out the winner.  She is strong and her faith in God is strong.  She has a wonderful husband, that we are proud to call our own.  Two vivacious girls that keep them busy and young.

Our two youngest, Alexis and Gabrielle, have had to make a lot of choices.  I am sure that they have learnt that some of their choices have not been for the best.  But we are very proud to call them our own, even though they always may not want to call us their own.  Both could be doing better in school, but I have faith in both of them that they will pull ahead.

Payton is still with us (a ex-boyfriend of our 17 year old)  He is now renting the little apartment that my mother-in-law lived in.  He will be finishing high school this May and then going into the service.  He has become like a family member and we will miss him when he leaves.  Oh, well, no sense thinking about it.  His mother raised a great son.

The mother-in-law has moved into the main house.  Enough said about that!

Hubby, Tommy is still on his exercise routine and low- carb diet.  Looks good for almost 59.  He has decided that he enjoys collecting steam engines, along with his farm equipment.  All these are models.  But he does have his share of equipment for the place we live on.

For myself, I have tried to keep the house in order and keep my sanity. Sanity, what is that, exactly?
Above all, I hope that I have learnt some of the lessons that the Lord had for me.  I know that He will continue teaching me new things in the coming year.  Will I be able to handle them all or will they hurt as much as some of the lessons for 2010 were.  I sure hope not.

I am so thankful for the presence of the Lord in my life.  Without Him, each day would be a struggle.  Looking back, I realize that like the poem, "Footprints in the Sand", He has had to carry me so much of the time.  I am looking forward to the new year and what the Lord has for me.  Have you been satisfied with your past 12 months?  If not, just plunge ahead, tomorrow is a new day and a new year.

Sherree

Murder is Binding

Tricia Miles has moved to the quite town of Stoneham, New Hampshire to open up a book store that features mysteries.

Moving from a bustling city life to a quite country life, Tricia is excited to finally achieve a dream.  The street is lined with other book stores that feature history and next door a cookbook store.  Life is great, until she finds Doris Gleason, the owner of the cookbook store dead.

With the sheriff is determined that Tricia is the killer, it is up to her to find the real killer.  When pamphlets are constantly found in books about a nudist camp, her sister, Angelica decides to come for a visit and the Mike Harris, the man that is running for selectman is calling her, "his girl", will Tricia find herself living one of the many mystery books that she has in her store?

My daughter and I both love a good, clean mystery.  She sent me the first three books in the series, "A Booktown Mystery", and I am hooked.  The author, Lorna Barrett, knows how to take the reader and plop you right down in the middle of Stoneham,New Hampshire.  She has given each of the characters such color, that you are almost sure that they are real.  I love when an author can write a book and as you read, you feel that you are a part of the story.  This is one of those authors.
I found that I could not put the book down.  I finished it in one day and looking forward to the next.  If you enjoy a good mystery that you can cuddle up with, then this is one for you.

Bundles of Trouble

What more does a new mother need, aside of a new born daughter to take care of?

Just as Kate is on the way to the hospital with labor pains, the phone rings.  It is the medical examiner, calling about her brother-in-law, George.  His bags have been found at the pier, where a dead body has been found.  Is it George, or perhaps he is the one responsible for the dead body?

Once the body has been identified, Kate finds herself searching for George.  Deciding that she would like to become a private detective, Kate launches out to find who is responsible for not only one, but three deaths.  Can she do this with a new baby in tow, before she becomes a target herself?



My daughter and I found this at Half Price Books in San Antonio, over the summer and the author, Diana Orgain was a new author for us both.  Diana Orgain will take you on a ride that will have you laughing one minute and almost crying the next.  I have already ordered the second in the series.    I highly recommend this book and would rate it with a 5.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Apothecary Jars

I found these on www. uncommondesigns.blogspot.com.  The first time I saw them, they were decorated for Halloween, with the words BOO.  I love the way they look for Christmas.  Taking something so simple, but looking so elegant.  Wanted to share them.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Christmas Tree & Succulents

Well, I just thought that I was only going to do the lights.  I turned out, that I had to do the whole tree.  I kept telling myself, "Only the Tree, Sherree".  But as you can see from the pictures, I did not listen to myself.

Once I get started on something, I just seem to not be able to stop.  So from the tree, I went to the mantel.  Tommy came in after work and he was surprised that the mantel was done.  He commented that, "You have never decorated the mantel since we redone it."  That is true.  I really just hate to take my things down, just to replace with something that will only stay out a few weeks.  Plus, where am I suppose to put all the stuff that I have taken down?

The night before, Tommy once again mentioned that I should take some of the branches from the holly tree out front.  We planted it the year my mother passed  in memory of her.  She loved playing the piano, so now when I look at the holly on the piano top, I think of her and how much she is missed.

Had an open space that was just begging to be filled with this little stuffed dog

Perfect place for my snowmen collection from Hallmark







Perfect place for my 4ft. snowman.  I just have to remember that it is not a real person.









A birthday present from My Aunt Arvina and I did not want to put them up.

On the bar in the kitchen and no, the apples are not real.  They are wooden.

Captain Knuckles and Nola






My baby Donkey Ears, that are having babies themselves.  
From there, you would think that I would be worn out.  Remember, how I said that I hated to remove things?  Well, the place that the tree stands now is were my coffee table was with some of my succulents.  So, on to the sunroom.  Not only did I have to move them, I had to get the sunroom clean.  I made my shelves using paint cans and extra shelves I had laying around.  My Mandy, made a great place for hers with cement blocks.  But at 9:00 at night, Lowe's is closed.  So the next best thing I had, were my many cans of paint (left over from my many projects)

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fill in the Blank

1. I Wish  - That I lived in San Antonio, Tx, where my two oldest daughters live.

2. Yesterday I - Finished putting the lights and the decorations on the tree, dressed up the mantel and the piano for Christmas.  Also, I re-arranged all my succulents on new shelves in the sunroom,


3.  Today I will - Get the house clean and get the laundry done.

4.  Tomorrow I will - Get my hair washed, go out to lunch with my hubby and then at 4:00 I will leave for church. ( We have 1 service on Saturday nights and then 3 on Sunday)

I think that this a real person, but it is a snowman.
5.  May - I need to go by the phone store and take back a holder for my car.  I dropped my Droid Incredible and have to wait until the 22nd to get a new one.  And at that time, I am going to upgrade, so the holder I got will not work.

6.  Someday - All my children will have grown up and I will be able to keep my house clean and have time to sit back and read.





7.  I love - Jesus, my family, a clean and orderly house, to be with my Mandy at the bookstore (actually anywhere would be fine),Diet Dr. Pepper, and of course, BOOKS!

This post is part of, little things we do, that Lauren puts out every Friday.  Anyone is welcome to join in.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Real Tree, Again and Birthday gift

Normally, I just want to put up a fake tree.  Why?  Because, I am the one that has to clean up the needles and make sure that it is watered if we have the real McCoy.

This year, the girls wanted to have a real one, with all the needles and of course lest we forget, the wonderful smell.  That is the only good redeeming part of the real thing.  So on Monday, I forked out some of my birthday money and got a 8 ft tree.  I did have to give it a hair cut.  I will admit, the tree really is nice and the needles are not so bad, since I have hardwood floors.

After 2 trips for lights, I finally got them all on and now the girls will put on the ornaments.  I wanted to go with just gold and red balls, but oh, no.  The girls would have nothing to do with that.  I will be so glad when it comes time to be able to make my own decisions.

Christmas is so hard for me to get into.  I suppose if I had all my children close and I knew that on Christmas, we would have a house full with laughter, children, food, puzzles and games to be played, it might not be so hard.  But I really don't mean to complain.  The Lord has been so good to us, that I really should be thankful that I still have some family around.  I do plan on doing some more decorating, but my hours of daylight are being spent painting and redoing a trailer.  I tell myself every year, that come December, I am going to be relaxed and have my house in order so that each day in December can be filled  with having family and friends over.  So with that thought in mind, I would like to share two of my favorite ornaments.


My Mandy gave this to me one year.
One that I made when I had time years ago.













I wanted to share a special birthday gift.  My sister, Tammy had a young man make a wooden basketball.  He did an awesome job and he even painted it.  Now wouldn't the serious San Antonio Spurs fans love to have one of these.  It is a one of a kind.  The basketball that has my name on it, was given to me by my Mandy.  I love these reminders of my favorite sport's team.


How Read am I

My most favorite place to be

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:
Copy this list. 
Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety. 
Italicise the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt. 
Tag other book nerds. 

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen*
The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The King James Bible
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) – George Orwell
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Little Women – Louisa M Alcott *
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell*
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
Emma -Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Dune – Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold*
Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
On The Road – Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Inferno – Dante
Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Germinal – Emile Zola
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession – AS Byatt
Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Watership Down – Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Bolded titles, I have read.  The * books are the ones I hope to get to sometime. According to this list, I'm barely eligible to be considered well read.  I've only read 9 of them.  What do they know!  How about you?



I suppose that I would not be considered a well rounded reader.  But, I know that I have always loved to read.  My favorite times as a child, was sitting on the floor in the Library with books surrounding me.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Fill in the Blank

1.  Holiday Spirit:  Spending time with your friends, watching Christmas movies, and remembering Jesus' birth.

2.  The holidays are incomplete without: cold weather, hot chocolate, family, fire in the fireplace and good     food.

3.  My favorite thing to do around the holiday is:  to bake sweets, decorate my home, be with my children.

4.  A holiday tradition my family and I have:  I wish that I had one.  If I did, I think that it would be that we   would play games and have snacks and just enjoy staying together the whole day.

5.  Holiday music:  My husband loves Christmas music.  I enjoy listening to it, but I can't take a full menu of it.

6.  This year, I will be spending the holidays:  At home with my youngest daughters, husband, Payton (young man that is totally in love with Alexis) and my mother-in-law.

7.  Holiday wish list:  A Kindle or Nook, a quiet day to enjoy the fire and a good book.

I found this series on, the little things we do.  Be sure to check her site out.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

My Interpretation of God's Fingerprint

In Isaiah 49:16, it says"I have tattooed your name upon my palm"(Living Bible).  I get so excited when I think of this verse.  Just to know that God has my name in His palm gives me peace.

When my daughters were born, each one had characteristics from each of their parents.  As they grew up to be adults, it became more evident.  Not only can people tell that they are our daughters, but they have taken on some of our values, personalities, and gestures.  This is how I want to be with God.  As I walk with the Lord, I hope that people will be able to tell that I belong to God.  Not only because of the way I dress, but by my conversation, the places I go, the friends that I keep company with and above all , my willingness to serve others and put them first.

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