All The Day Long

  The Tale of the Traveling 00 Jersey   One Friday afternoon, T00J hugged the back of a Big Guy and hopped a school bus at CLHS. They rode for hours, crossing the mountains and going through the woods, until they got to their destination, Culver, Oregon! T00J had a great game with a bunch of other TJs, coming away with a big win. T00J hung out at McDonalds with Big Guy and some of his friends, then traveled on a couple hours, through the desert. T00J spent the night on a big ranch near Hampton, in a room with about half a dozen guys. Here the story gets a bit muddled, but at some point on Saturday, T00J was hurriedly snatched up and thrown into a strange backpack, and traveled more hours, over more mountains, farther to the northeast, where T00J may or may not have spent two nights in the backpack!! Meanwhile, Big Guy got home Sunday night and threw his basketball clothes in the washer. Monday morning, as Laundry Lady was folding clothes, ...

Normally, one would not plan a camping trip to Diamond Lake (elevation 5000 feet) in October!  However, if you happen to have cabinets to install in a new cabin there, it makes perfect sense!!  Since the goal was to get the job done before winter weather hit, we went camping the first weekend of the month.  Because of the back pain I've been having, I was hesitant to make the trip. Actually, even when  I'm not having back pain, I'm hesitant about camping! My dad was a wonderful person, but he wasn't a fishing, hunting or take-the-family-camping kind of man. So I never did any of those things growing up!!  I knew what a camper was, tho, because we borrowed one for a family trip from Nebraska to Oregon in 1968 or '69.  But we all know that pulling a camper across the country is nothing like camping in the woods out in the middle of nowhere! I  knew when I married Brian that he loved all of those things and did them ...

Several years ago, I took my teenage daughter to the doctor for something painful and annoying like an ingrown toenail.  The doctor walks into the exam room and says, "Hello! How are you today?"  She said, "Fine",  but she's thinking, Really, sir? obviously I'm not fine, or I wouldn't be here! To this day when I hear someone say they're fine I have to wonder, especially when it's my daughter!!  But I say it too.  I'm not sure if people are just being polite and making conversation, or if they genuinely want to know how I am doing.  I always want to give glory to God, and tell what great things He has done. I want everyone to know how blessed I am to be alive, how grateful I am that I'm not confined to a wheelchair.  But how many negative details do I include?  Do they want to know that the nerve pain is constantly crazy in my hands and feet? that I must walk very carefully bec...

January 12, 2013 The day my foot slipped on the first step of a pull down ladder while coming out of the attic, and I fell 17 feet, breaking my neck and damaging my spinal cord.  I spent 5 weeks recovering from surgery and going through rehab until they decided I was ready to come back home again.  My doctor called me the miracle woman, said it should have killed me, or at least paralyzed me. But it didn't, if for no other reason than to give Him glory!! I will say, it did change me ... in many ways!   A little over a year before the accident, I bought the book, "1000 Gifts".  It's all about giving thanks in and for all things. Pretty radical!! I had just started reading it when our oldest daughter, Brianna, and her husband, Peter, who were living in Virginia at the time, had their first baby.  They called to let us know that things didn't look good, Janae had inhaled meconium and her lungs were badly damaged....