Happy New Year!

2009! May we all have a healthy, happy and prosperous 2009!

Whew!

Now that Christmas is behind me I can begin to breathe! We had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends! Though the build up to Christmas was hectic and crazy with finals, shopping, baking, and such, it has been one of the most enjoyable and peaceful years that I can recall.

I made it through the first semester of RN school! I've been blessed with the best instructors. I have a great bunch of classmates and I had the best clinical group I could have ever asked for. I've made some wonderful friends that I hope will be in my life for a very long time. Thanks to the recommendations of my instructors I will be working in the new year in a part time position working as a nursing assistant at a local hospital. This will provide me with a TON of experience. I am very excited about this new job. It will mean of course that it will be that much more difficult next semester to keep up with my studying but I am very determined and I know I can do it!

I hope each and everyone of you had a blessed Christmas! I'm looking forward to the new year and ending this year by forgiving all those that in my past I felt had wronged me in some way. I also ask that anyone that feels I may have wronged them would also forgive me. I am wiping the slate clean from this point forward! God bless you all and may 2009 bring us all peace, good health and prosperity!

7 year anniversary of 9/11

I can't believe we are fast approaching the 7th year anniversary of 9/11. I'm posting this a little early because I'll be in the middle of a HUGE nursing test that morning and may not have the time to post all the things I am feeling. I find it difficult to even use the word anniversary as I always think of that word as a celebration for a happy event. Celebration of course clashes with the events of 9/11. Seven years later and I still can recall the gut wrenching fear I felt that day. I didn't personally know any of those that lost their lives that fateful day and I know my losses don't compare to those that did lose a loved one. Like the rest of the Americans, true Americans I should say, I lost a sense of comfort, safety, and many other things that I can't begin to articulate.

Seven years have passed and like many other Americans I have gone about tending to the things in my life that needed to be tended to, caring for my family, working, schooling, and so on. The events of what happened on 9/11 though not in the forefront of my mind on a daily basis is still never far away. I just wanted to say that though on 9/11 I will be sure to take time to pray for all those that were involved that were injured or lost their lives that day, for those that were involved in taking down a plane or saving people from burning buildings, for those doctors, nurses, emergency personal, firefighters and all the countless others I'm not mentioning, remember them. I pray too that we will be able to soon find all those involved with that horrible act and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Please don't forget on that day of remembrance to also pray for the men and women risking their lives to find those evil men and women that were involved with the acts that culminated in the attack that day. They need our prayers each and everyday.

I MADE IT!

It's official! I've been accepted to the RN program at my community college! The next 2 years will be tough! I won't have much time for blogging, eh, I know I haven't blogged much anyway, I won't have much time for much else. I can use your well wishes and prayers. I'll try to post when I can. I'm off to enjoy the few weeks of free time I have between the end of summer classes and the start of the most rigorous time of my life! I'm off to the Lake!

After some long hard thought

And reading and answering so many emails from my readers I decided it was silly for me to abandon this blog. I never should have let a few unscrupulous people move me from my blogger home. I promise to blog in my "true to my heart style" as my long time loyal reader Victoria put it. If the truth stings then so be it. And that is all I have to say about that.

This has been a GLORIOUS summer thus far! We have spent days at the lake soaking up the sun and enjoying the cool water (in between my studies, of course!) I was taking a 5 week Microsoft class that I completed last week. I had a wonderful instructor that gave us tons of work but made the class interesting. I'd never worked in Excel before and though it was at times frustrating, I hope to use some of that knowledge in at home budgeting. I'm in the middle of my Sociology course, as a matter of fact I have to take 2 quizzes later today. This class has proven to be very enlightening though I won't bore you with any of the details. I'm hanging on to a 4.0 so far.

I must mention here about a young man that I had the privilege to meet, spc. Dean Schwartz. I had the opportunity to meet him on the day that Dean was being honored for his sacrifice for our great country. We can all take lessons from this young man. He has lost so very much and still has a wonderful outlook on life. It was a pleasure meeting him. I was so happy to present to him the Silver Star Banner and certificate on the 19th of June. He was completely surprised by the event as his mother and father had kept the night a surprise from him.
Above Dean is receiving the Golden Heart award.
Below Dean's father is presenting him with the Who's Who award. Finally here I am presenting Dean with the Silver Star Banner and Certificate.

I hope and pray the best for Dean in his future. He will be getting married next month so he has plenty of change in his near future. Below I have added some links on more about Dean.

Defense Link News
Soldier Ride (scroll down to July 3 to see Dean's picture)
America Supports You ( see Harrisonburg, VA)
Far From Virginia
It's a Long Road Back For Injured Soldier
Blogger post

The list goes on but here were just a few to give you a glimpse of the kind of man SPC Dean Schwartz is.

Need Feed back

OK, I know I said I wouldn't post here and that I'd found another home for my blog and the latter is true. I'm only posting this cause I want some feed back. Please leave comments as I'm confused as to why the blog is continuing to get so many hits each week when I'm not even posting anymore. Can someone enlighten me? I can see from my site meter that some of the hits are from the same people that drove me to find a new home for my blog and I'm wondering why they would continue to come here at all. It is OVER people. As to the rest of you... care to enlighten me? You can leave your comments, they will remain private as I'm not posting them to the site but I'd love to hear what you have to say.

OH! One more thing tonight is the airing of the Extreme Makeover Home Edition that features the Lucas Family. Check it out! Check your local listings for time.

Christmas memories 200

Santa was sneaky! He was quiet and he stuffed things so far under the tree that when Brandon and I came down it was apparent he had visited but we couldn't tell the extent of the items. There were so many items back behind the tree that we couldn't see when we came down. It wasn't till Brandon was sitting down on the floor reaching for what he thought was the last item that he caught a glimpse of the packages still in hiding. It was like a treasure hunt! The kids were so happy and that was the biggest gift I could get! In what seemed like minutes but was more lie an hour and a half later all the gifts were opened and the only thing was to try it all out and clean up the mess. I hope you all had a wonderfully blessed Christmas!

Beautiful Christmas love story

Below is a beautiful Christmas love story that I recently received
in email. Its a tearful but beautiful story, have a tissue ready.



One beautiful December evening Pedro and his
girlfriend Rosita were sitting by the side of the ocean.
It was a romantic full moon, when Pedro said,
"Hey, mamacita, let's do Weeweechu."

Oh no, not now, let's look at the moon!" said Rosita.

Oh, c'mon baby, let's you and I do Weeweechu.
I love you and it's the perfect time," Pedro begged.
"But I wanna just hold your hand and watch the
moon." replied Rosita.

Please, corazoncito, just once, do Weeweechu with me."


Rosita looked at Pedro and said, "OK, one time,
we'll do Weeweechu."

Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang.....






"Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry
Christmas,
Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year."


OK, so I needed the tissue cause I laughed so hard that I cried...I just thought I'd share!

Merry Christmas to all!

Its been a hectic month here in our neck of the woods. I am sure you all know how that is. We are done with the shopping and wrapping of gifts and looking forard to Christmas eve dinner and all the excitement of Christmas day. I think we were able to find all the right gifts for those on our list. Last Saturday we went to the local tree farm and cut down a tree, all of us: Bob, Shaun, Jackie(and her nurse, Linda), Nickie, Brandon and I piled into 2 vehicles. It didn't take us long to find the perfect tree. Nickie and Brandon lined up for the required photo.

Jackie and Brandon decorated the tree this year with Nickie's supervision! They did a fine job!

Brandon decorated the Christmas village all by himself!

Bob and I presented the kids with an early Christmas gift for the entire family. I'd like to present Rikki, the newest member of our family.



Many years ago we had a ferret and I'd been saying for sometime that I wanted to get another one when we had the space. If you've never had one of these guys for a pet you have no idea how much fun they can be. They love their people and the mischief they get into is tons of fun! Rikki is showing a little more personality each day. He already seems to have a routine. Each morning either Bob or I goes down to see if he is awake and he is usually up early each morning. If I get him then I place him in the bed with Bob to wake him up. If Bob gets him he does the same to me. After a few minutes of play I take him to Brandon's room to wake him up. Rikki seems to enjoy his job and its a much nicer way to be woken up then say a buzzing alarm!

I can't wait to celebrate with my whole gang in one house. I wish you all the happiest Christmas! May the spirit of God be with you all and may you stay safe!
Love to you all!

Silver Star Families Organization

Some months ago I was asked to help my friend Trish in contacting our Governor Tim Kaine to sign a proclamation to make May 1st Silver Star day in VA. I believed in what the organization was standing behind and felt compelled to help out. I was more than a little excited when I received the signed proclamation in the mail from Gov. Kaine's office. You can find a copy of the proclamation here. I have to admit I was very pleased with myself for having accomplished the goal. I promptly made a copy of the proclamation for myself and along with a beautiful thank you card I received from Trish and one from the Silver Star families I have set them aside to properly have them displayed. I was reminded last night when I received an email from Trish asking me to join the Silver Star Families organization. It seems they still need a representative for Virginia. I'm in the process of reading the rep requirements and by laws. I would love to be involved with this! I'll let ya know what happens.