This is the 200th post I’ve made since I started blogging!

I noticed it right before I started to write something the other day and thought that I should write something poignant instead.  So, I waited for something to come to mind, but what I really wanted to write about was something else.  So I did nothing.  So…in order to be able to write about something else, I will just note that this is Post 200 and write something poignant another day!

Whew! Glad that’s over! 

In the days surrounding Thanksgiving some people start talking about what they are thankful for.  Others (mostly school kids) start talking about the Pilgrims.  The main topic is that the Pilgrims built the Mayflower and left England to escape religious persecution.  They arrived in the New World, stepped off onto Plymouth Rock and befriended the Indians with whom they had the first Thanksgiving.  A quick Google search can give you a much better idea what really went on.  (You didn’t really think I was going to do all that research and make a report did you?)

Anyways…when I was a kid, one of my relatives, I think it was my mom’s cousin, was into genealogy.  She was working on her own line, when she made the amazing discovery that we were descendants of one of the Mayflower passengers.  (Sadly, she wasn’t a descendent) I have known this and accepted it as true from a young age.  It’s never really been a big deal to me.  (Although sometimes it’s fun to have bragging rights) 

Then one Thanksgiving when our whole family was gathered (this was probably 15 years ago or so) my cousin and I were chatting about our heritage and the story of the Mayflower.  He was doubtful that it was really true.  He thought that it was something like all the people that claim to be reincarnated from Cleopatra or Plato or some such.  Nobody claims to be reincarnated from Leo the baker, it’s always someone famous.  My cousin figured our line came over to to the New World on some little no name dingy or some such and just thought it sounded better to say they arrived on the Mayflower.  

When I reminded him that everything was carefully documented he just brushed it off.  I was finally exasperated with him (Hey! My bragging rights were at stake here!) and came up with the perfect reason this had to be true.  (You know, other than all that research that proved it in the first place)

I suggested that if it was all made up, then our ancestor would be someone like the esteemed Myles Standish, Stephen Hopkins or William Bradford.  But our ancestor was none other than the indentured servant Edward Doty.  His main claim to fame seems to be that he was the first member of the new civilization to be thrown into the stocks for fighting.  Not exactly something everyone is proud of.  It was kinda hard for my cousin to argue with that. 

Sigh…I guess that might explain a few things…

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!! 
 

I had every intention of posting my Weekend Words as hosted by Oddmix, but my parents showed up earlier than expected.  They were supposed to slowly tool along in their RV, but instead, Dad persevered through the night and managed to overcome common sense.  Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal (I may have done something similar a time or two myself) but, Dad just got out of the hospital on Thursday.  He had been there sense Monday with pneumonia. 

Anyways, they are here, just in time for Mom’s birthday today.  (Happy Birthday Mama!!) She is demanding chocolate cake for dinner!  Apparently she’s gotten to the age where I have to step in, play Mom and make her eat her veggies first!

Anyways…I was originally going to write about the girls’ Black Belt testing  from a couple weeks ago.  (Sorry I didn’t write about it, I was a bit banged up and it was all I could do to attend the testing)

So…here are this weeks words Overcome and Persevere

The girls persevered through the grueling test.  Mimi sparing.

KT demonstrating her sword technique

Mimi was overcome with fatigue and took a quick well deserved rest

KT too!

Mimi sleepily shuffled down the hall around ten yesterday morning and asked me why she wasn’t in school.  I told her that I tried to wake her up but that I was feeling really sick and fell back to sleep before she crawled out of bed.  The power of suggestion was just as strong as ever because she immediately realized how sore her throat was and started coughing.  Poor little thing was just as sick as I was.

 Then KT realized that her baby sister was finally awake and started jumping up and down crying out in a panicked voice that we had all overslept and we had to hurry and get ready for school.  Mimi just looked at her in confusion. 

KT and I really should have gotten our story straight before Mimi woke up. Then maybe she would have believed us.   It never once occurred to either of us to just be straight with her.  It’s much more entertaining to make something up.  (Does this give you an idea of the silliness that goes on in our house?)

The truth was there simply was no school yesterday.  A little niggly feeling in the back of  my head caused me to check the school district website.  The girls’ school is out in the boonies a bit and because of the Wednesday’s nasty windstorm, there was no power. And because ours was the only school in the district that was closed, we don’t have to make it up at the end of the year.  What a rare treat!

We had a day to do anything that we wanted to do.  We proved that we were nothing but a bunch of bums when we stayed in our PJ’s all day long and just did whatever we wanted.  It was a wonderful day of just piddling and some sorely needed downtime. 

I’d like to say that when  I went in to wake the girls up this morning that they jumped out of bed and were eager to get back to school.  Instead, they mostly just  wanted to know if I was sure they had school today… 

I’m currently at Fort Worden on the Olympic Peninsula.  I’m supposed to be scrap booking, as this is technically a Scrapbook Retreat, but I really haven’t gotten much done in that department.  Instead, I have been chatting with my girlfriends, visiting with women that I haven’t seen in nearly a year and just hanging out.  This could be a version of heaven. 

I think that the Olympic Peninsula is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  (Granted I’m not exactly a world traveler, but that’s besides the point) The view from my room (which happens to be an officer barrack) is of a small grassy park leading directly to the water.

I’ll try to post photos tomorrow but I just thought I would give you a little update.  I was quite surprised to discover that the area now had wireless internet access.

Off to have more fun!

When KT was about two, she ran into something and got herself a doozy of a shiner.  It didn’t seem to hurt her much, but she was rather alarmed at her appearance. (Yes, even at that young age, she loved looking at herself in the mirror!)  We decided to convince her that all those lovely colors were beautiful.  It worked.  She loved nothing more than admiring all the gorgeous shades her bruise turned.  As I recall, she was sad to see it go. 

This picture was taken a day and a half after my incident.  The swelling and bruising had just begun.  It got much more colorful! While I don’t exactly think my two shiners are beautiful, it has been rather interesting to watch how my face changes daily.  I’m still really sore and have huge bruises on my shins, chest and wrist.  The discoloration and swelling on my face is almost gone.  The stitches have been removed from my nose and it looks as though the scarring will be minimal. 

People’s reactions are fun too.  I’ve pretty much stayed holed up a home, but sometimes you just have to go out.  Some people will ask with concern what happened all the time shooting murderous glances at poor Shaun.  (I don’t know why some people think the worst.  Shaun would never hurt anyone) When I tell them that I fell off the roof, most of my “friends” laugh! (I’m not really sure what that says about me or my friends.  I guess they just know me too well!) Some of them want to hug me and all I can do is frantically chant “don’t touch me, don’t touch me”

Other people, the ones that either don’t know me as well or are just trying to be polite, try hard to pretend that they don’t notice anything different.  Yet they keep glancing nervously at my face and back away at something…anything…different.  Is it bad that I don’t enlighten them? 

I think next time I want to look at pretty colors on my face, I will try make-up. After all, that’s what KT does and it’s been working pretty well for her…

(Thanks for everyone’s well wishes by the way!)

I’ve always been of the “Do it yourself” persuasion.  I grew up that way.  My parents were always fixing things by themselves.  If they didn’t exactly know how to do whatever it was, well, they simply faked it.  It didn’t always end up how they had planned, but that never stopped them. Shaun, on the other hand, is from the “oh just pay someone that knows how to do it” crowd.  These two very opposing viewpoints can make life interesting at times. 

We have always had someone come clean the moss (Washington’s state plant) and leaves off the roof.  It drives me nuts to pay someone to do what we (meaning Shaun) are perfectly capable of. All we would need to do is rent a pressure washer and have the guts to climb up there.

After years of being persuaded not to, I finally decided that yesterday was the day I was going to climb up on that roof.  I waited until the girls got home so that they could call 911 just in case something happened.  I didn’t really think anything would happen, but if I listened to Shaun, people fell off the roof and broke their necks all the time. 

I had all my gear gathered and climbed up the ladder from the deck in back just as most of the workmen have done.  Once I reached the top, I gingerly made my way back down the ladder.  It was just too steep and mossy.  There was no way I was going to step off onto that. 

So, we hauled everything to the front of the house.  I easily climbed to the first layer of roof.  Then I had to haul the ladder up there so I could climb the next eight feet or so to the higher section.  As I set the ladder down, I noted that the roof was a bit slippery from moss and dead leaves.  I wiggled the ladder around and it held just fine.  So I started climbing up.  Just as I shifted my leg to swing it onto the roof, the ladder slipped and we went sliding down.  Fortunately, it stopped at the first level instead of going all the way down to the ground. I shakily pulled myself up and tried to figure out where all the blood was coming from and what that screeching noise was.  The blood was from my nose and the noise was Mimi.  She was terrified of what had happened to me.

I managed to convince Mimi that we didn’t really need to call 911 or her dad and put her to work getting me towels and ice packs.  KT took it upon herself to put away the roof cleaning stuff, clean up the blood and try to calm her baby sister.  (I had no idea how good that girl would be in an emergency)  When the bleeding slowed down enough to let me look, I found that my nose now aimed to the left.  I thought that would be a good sign that I should seek medical care. 

I called my doctor and asked if I should come in to them or head the Urgent Care or the ER.  They told me to just come on in.  The shocked look on everyone’s face prompted me to ask the girls to call their dad.  I needed a bit of back up reassurance.  X-rays showed that the bone wasn’t broken but a close look revealed that I had a deviated septum.  I had nearly torn the end of my nose off…and they weren’t quite sure how to fix it.  After contacting a specialist they just put in three stitches to hold everything in place and I will be seeing that specialist in the next day or two. 

When I finally saw my darling husband, after reassuring himself that I was alright ,one of the first things he asked me was if I had learned anything from all this.  He naturally assumed that I would accept that some jobs are best left for the professionals.  He was flabbergasted when I simply told him that I had learned that I needed to make sure the bottom part of the roof wasn’t slippery before I put the ladder up next time. 
 
I do love messing with that man…

Apparently, now that Halloween is over, the poll is no longer haunted.   “Starry Starry Night”, carved by our very own Mimi won by a landslide! Second place was the cannibalistic “Peter Pumpkin Eater”, carved by a very smug Shaun. (Funny how you figured that one out)  Bringing up third place was my “Mr. Happy” and KT’s “Toothless Wonder”.   Thank you all for playing, we thought it was fun even if the poll was haunted! 

This was a very sad Halloween for me.  Our tradition has pretty much been that Shaun stays home and hands out the candy while I walk around the neighborhood with the girls.  This year, the girls really really wanted to go by themselves.  Knowing in my heart that they really didn’t need nor want me to go with them I reluctantly snipped another one of those thin little apron strings. 

Shaun and I sat on the steps together just chatting while we waited for Trick or Treaters to come by.  It was a slow night…there just didn’t seem to be many kids out and about.  It was good to take the time to just talk.  After all, in just a couple more years it will be just us.  Sigh…

After an hour or so KT and her friends came back to the house.  They poured their bags of candy on the floor and quickly sorted them and started trading.  When they were all happy, they poured a huge bag of money out.  They had collected $63.38 for UNICEF! Not too shabby. 

Soon it was time for parents to come get kids from our house and for us to go get our  Little Mimi.  Halloween is over for another year.  Well…except for those two bags of candy begging me to snag something….