2 Days with Earth's Angels

Buddy Walk 2007

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Furman University

What could be better than free ice-cream, soda-pop, hot dogs, and Furman cheerleaders??? How about around $10,000 to support Down Syndrome Family Alliance of Greenville? I had a great time walking w/ the Blackstone family! Rodney is featured in the middle of the passle of cheerleaders! He is one of "my boys". I get paid to play with, watch movies with, and feed this awesome young man. He is constantly moving and bending into the weirdest positions. The never ending string of Veggie Tales and Sesame Street movies will give you crazy nightmares. And the belly of this boy is a deep dark pit...it holds every food imaginable in generous amounts...except CHOCOLATE!!! Weirdo! ;)

Special Olympics 2007

Challenge Day

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Bob Jones University

Ben worked with his volunteers, John and Cole, to earn 2 gold medals and the pretty rose (that I'm guessing was given to mom and sissy!). For this day, I got paid to follow around these 2 strong college guys while they pushed and pulled Ben, his Red Racer, and all his equipment around the field! All I had to do was make sure he wore his sunglasses outside and kept from losing his Passy Muir Valve...we wouldn't want him to be quiet (?) Not really! He loved talking to all the volunteers there and even amazed the Speech Pathology Professor! We are really looking forward to our next Olympics this spring at Furman University. Meanwhile, we'll keep painting, learning to talk and walk, and having all around fun!!!

"It's alright to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you. It's alright to cry. It might make you feel better." Free to be you and me.

I have to admit that I've been doing this quite a bit lately. It might be hormonal, frustration, or just because I need to get the sad out!

As you have seen in my intro...I'm a nurse. This is the only area of my life right now that always makes me happy. I love, love, love "my boys". My older (by 7 weeks) is linked to the left. My younger, I will introduce after getting permission from his folks. Let me just say that every night before I go to bed, I look forward to seeing one or the other, or both the next day! They always make me laugh...at least once each shift ;) In one house we are learning to poopy on the potty, the other, that some colors of paint taste bad.

A wife. What wife doesn't cry on occassion??? I work full-time, take kickboxing 3 days a week, pay the bills and balance the budget, cook dinner, clean the house, arrange for the "house from hades" to be fixed, that house and this house to be sold including the extra cleanings that showing w/ an hours notice requires, laundry, trash, arrange for the yards to be cut, and "scratch". I literally scratch the body part that O.B. points to...with his perfectly healthy finger! He works. For the P.D. that shares too much love if you were born with the right body parts....O.B. obviously (thankfully) was not born with said parts. And he works out. He wants to be a (geriatric) body builder. Good for him. During the 3 hours a day he is gone, I'll wipe his dribbles from the toilet rim, scrub the grease stains from the carpet that he left with his duty boots, and try to figure out how we are going to pay the power bill now that he bought:

But, I Love Him! Somedays, I really don't know why, but others he shows the strength to not strangle me, and he has a big shoulder to cry on!

A wanna-be mommy. In other words, "I WANT TO BE A MOMMY!" So, go...do the deed (DTD), baby dance (BD). Done that! Now what? Do it again...is 5-8 times a month for 3 years enough? Not yet. Because there still isn't a Baby Boop! Go to the doc. Been there so much the nurse recognizes my voice and I don't have to show my face to get fertility meds called in to the pharmacy. Actually...she has said that she doesn't want to see my face anymore. She has referred our case to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE). The beautiful state of SC does NOT require insurance companies to cover infertility treatments. It looks to me like Yoda needs to find a new home! I think I can get enough out of him to pay for the first 5 shots that will help us achieve the dream of parenthood, hehehehehahahaha ;-) I have alot of Star Wars for sale...what piece do you want? I need to invest in a turkey baster!

It's gettin' HOT in here!

The "stufff" is hitting the fan at Officer Boop's PD! One of the guys quit and had a revealing exit interview that was attended by the chief, city mayor, and city administrator. He let them know about all the inter-office affairs, property theft, and time theft! The chief was told "Find out what's going on and fix it, or else! You can either do it in-house, or I'll bring in an outside agency to do it for you!" So far there has been 1 sergeant poly-graphed...he's expecting his 3rd child w/ his corporal. He's married (obviously to someone other than the corporal), she's just a baby machine! She often is running personal errands, picking up her kids from daycare, or just "gone" while on the clock (even leaving a crime scene in the middle of an ongoing investigation)! All of these things were reported by 2 officers last summer...they were then black-balled, one has been fired and the other sent back to street patrol! There were alot of people that covered up the issues that were brought up. All of those people are now being investigated and most will probably go through polygraphs also. All the way up to lieutenant! With everything going on there be anywhere from 1-20 people w/o jobs in the near future!!!

So glad O.B. minds his own business!

"The Money Pit"

Welcome to the Boop's money pit, more commonly known as The House from Hades! This was all Officer Boop's brilliant idea..."we need to get this house and flip it! We could make an easy $20,000." That was almost 4 years ago. The stupid thing won't even sommersault, but I believe it does back-flips! 3 years ago we petitioned our county council to rezone the house as office-commercial so we could open a business in it (another of O.B.'s brilliant ideas). After sitting unoccupied for over a year we allowed 2 brothers to "rent-to-own". They started a small hispanic based real-estate company in our house, built up their business and decided that they couldn't get the money to complete the purchase, hmmmmmmm, convenient! So they tell us all this on Wednesday and are out by Friday! Back to empty :(

Last fall a (now former) friend decided to move back into our area. We offered to allow him to live in our rental for 2 months w/o requiring rent payments while he got a job and got settled in. Yeah, we're suckers! We also put the electricity in our names..."Here's your sign!" $6,000 in missing payments later, it's July '07 and "N.B. and O.B., I don't think I can continue to make these rent payments and pay the utilities (WHAT???????). I'm going to move back in with my mom."

2 days after former friend moved out, the A/C unit was stolen from the outside of the house. You know what I'm talking about....the big box looking thing outside!?! Yep, the whole thing! Gone!!! Funny thing is, the trashcans were moved over to block the view of that side of the house, the unit was turned off from the inside (yes, all the doors and windows were locked), f.f. used a panel van to move all his stuff out in the middle of the night and then payed us 3 $100 dollar bills the next day! I tried to call the recycling company down the street, but they gave me the runaround about checking for his and his friends name on their list.

"Two weeks" later the water heater blew up!!! That's the start of the current crisis with "The Money Pit/House from Hades".

"2 weeks" From start to finish it'll be 2 weeks. That's what the dude said on August 11th. It still looks like this! Only they added this hole :

And threw the trash into the tub and sinks...destroying them.

They also moved both toilets off the sewer holes. Wonderful! THANKS!!! And they are the Preferred Service Providers! Due to the extra damages The Paul Davis Co. caused, our check from State Farm Insurance is just enought to require us to send it to our mortgage company. They will then send us 1/3 to complete 1/2 the work. After inspection #1 they will send us another 1/3 of OUR money to complete the job. After inspection #2 they will disperse the final 1/3 of the money so we can pay the contractor. Fun!

BTW-the house has been For Sale since February when f.f. let us know his credit would not allow him to purchase the house. Original price $72,000. Current price $55,000 "AS-IS"! Anyone????

Sarah's angels!

Sister, Sarah, is from Ohio....no mountains! So she wanted to go for a hike today, but we had an Orange Ozone Alert. DH, Sarah, and I went driving instead. We stopped at Ceasar's Head State Park and walked along the edge so we could get good pics of the mountains. We came up to this:

So we get down inside and she wants to strike a pose:

Look closely at the top of the picture, where the exit meets the wood fence...do you see anything? Keep reading...

I decided to get a close up (unfortunately did not use the red-eye)

Nothing there!!! I know, these pics were all taken just a few seconds from each other! As she is walking out of Devil's Kitchen look what the camera catches:

It isn't dust! It's not on the picture before or the pics after! There isn't anything to reflect! On the original pic you can zoom in really closely and see a figure resembling an angel...with wings and a robe. There is also a noticable shadow on Sarah's back!!! There is a second lighter one at the bottom left side of the pic. I don't believe in ghosts, orb's, supernatural activites except angels!!!

The history is this: We were visiting my friend Tony on Sunday, and I asked him to tell Sarah his angel stories. He has many from his lifetime! He is actually in the process of publishing the book he has written containing his and other angel siting stories. He is a phenominal Christian man, and is always in the Word. He lives and breathes Christ!!! So, he was telling us and Sarah asked why she had never seen her angel? He said you haven't asked! So she stated that she would like to see her angel(s)!

4 days later!!!

Goals

In no particular order of importance or time-frame

1) Have a baby (or adopt) by summer of 2009

2) Loose 70 pounds and not the same ones over and over again!

3) Pay off the timeshare within 12 months (again...this is the 3rd time we have upgraded) Anybody need to rent a week somewhere????????

4) Pay off my car within 18 months

5) Pay off my school loan within 24 months (unless it is on hold due to continued schooling)

6) Sell this house yesterday (yeah right!)

7) Sell the rental house tomorrow (double yeah right!)

8) Read at least 1 chapter in my Bible everyday

9) Join a church

10) Figure out how to use Blogger

Football Virgin!!!

My 15 year old sister has never been to a football game. Not a pro game, not a college game, not a high school game, not even a pee-wee game!!! I asked her around 2 this afternoon if she wanted to drive through the mountains to take pics or go to a football game.

"Are the mountains going to be there tomorrow?"

Uhhhhhh, yeah!

"I've never been to a football game. Let's go!"

So, away we go! We arrive early to hit up a tail-gate party, but we only knew one person there (the author of a great blog http://www.benandbenniewaddell.blogspot.com/ )! Bennie is a great guy, dad, artist, and friend! His son is my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday patient, stay tuned and you will learn alot more about him... and you'll fall in love with this family the same way I did!

OK! Back to my sister, she's 15. She is #4 of 6 kids and is the most mature so far!

Really!! She is! She is an accomplished pianist (I will post a link soon so you can listen to a true talent) that's only been playing for 6 years, but is working on a repertoire for The Juilliard School of Music. She was in Brazil this July helping to paint a school with her church. She is basically self-taught as my mom homeschools her, my 10 year old sister, and my 11 year old sister. She has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up, except that she wants to get married and have as many babies as she can, and adopt even more. She's even offered to be a surrogate for me, if we don't produce Baby Boop before she turns 20 or so!!!! I LOVE MY YOUNGER SISTER !!!

BTW: Even though she doesn't look all that excited in the first pic...we did win the game!

GO FURMAN PALADINS!!!!!!