Life is beautiful

I found this on one of the blogs that I follow.  I can’t think of anything that celebrates life more than this little video. 

The only thing that tops this is to see the courage my parents use to fight my dad’s cancer, and the joy that radiates from them as they spend time with their granddaughters.

Splat

Wednesday JB’s school had a free skating party.  Not one to turn down a free family outing, we attended.  The thing that slipped my mind was the neither of the girls had been on roller skates, meaning that DH and I would have to accompany them out onto the hardwoods.  Somewhere along the line I don’t remember skates raising you so far off the ground!  On our first round EB was holding onto my hand for dear life while I was frantically trying to find my center of balance (Can someone please tell me where it went?  It is not where I left it when I was 18 years old!).  In my effort not to run over her my right leg went one way and my left leg went another way and I landed – splat.  Ever hear a wet bag of cement hit pavement?  Yep, that was me.  I don’t remember the ground being quite that far down last time I was on skates.  Nor do I remember the boards being quite so hard.   What I always remembered about skating was getting blisters on my feet.  No risk of that this time!  I was not on my feet in skates long enough to develop blisters.  After my ungainly   graceful surrender to gravity, JB tottered up beside me and said “It’s ok Mommy, I do that all the time”.    I was so grateful for the support.  Let us not forget that she only has about 6 inches to fall and I have a lot further.   We must also take into account the body mass difference between us – her 0% body mass and mine, well, let’s just say that mine is greater than hers!   I made it to the benches on the far side of the rink and looked back on the acre of so of space separating me from carpeting and my shoes and cringed.  My eagle eye spied that they were letting parents walk on the floor in their shoes.  I immediately untied my skates, handed them to DH with strict instructions a gentle request to bring back my shoes. Since he was already picking JB up off the ground frequently and he did not think his back was up to hoisting my girth up, he complied.  Once my KOC were safely back on my feet and I had traction again, EB and I spent the next hour walking round and round amid disco ball lights and a myriad of other dizzying strobes and pounding music.    EB did wonderful.  She stayed upright much better than I did.  JB, once her skates wheel were tightened up a bit never left the rink until the time was up.  Much too soon, according to the girls, it was time to head home.   As I gingerly unfolded my very sore and already stiffening body out of the car 2 sweet little voices piped up in the back – “That was fun!  When can we do that again!!!!!!”   They insist that it be next week during spring break.  I am thinking that when they take their own children would be a great time.  I will tag along and take pictures of them and stay safely in my shoes!

Just playing around

My dad instilled a love of B&W photos in me at an early age.  Unfortunately, doing the usual PSE stuff to make a color a B&W makes it very “muddy” looking – especially with EB’s and JB’s coloring.  I found this great tutorial on thedailydigi.com site for converting to B&W.  While this is not the greatest picture to do it on, I thought it came out really well!  Not only that, I needed to scrap a page with one of JB’s buddies because I miss her and her family so much!  We had a great time visiting them after Christmas.  I have not touched any of the photos since we got back.  I just grabbed this one and started playing.  So here is a picture of 3 of my American Girls!

Credits for this layout -

Supplies used in this layout available at Scrap Outside the Box:
Autumn Delight- Emily Farnworth
watercolor alpha - Emily Farnworth

How am I doing?

As most of you know, there has been some emotional upheaval in our family with the recurrence of my father’s cancer.  I have a webpage that I keep up to date with his and mom’s status.  I don’t post much there about myself, because it is about them.  But there have been some people who have been calling and asking how I am doing.  That is a really hard question to answer.

This is the time of year that is emotionally really rough on me anyway, since I am the lucky owner of a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (the winter blues).  As the sun comes out earlier and there is less grey dreariness my mood starts to turn around.  That process is honestly painful without anything else going on.  I tend to shut down emotionally in the winter and hide out.  When I start to crawl out of my cave, it is like all my nerves are raw and I start to feel things very acutely (emotionally speaking).  It is a very uncomfortable time normally, but then add all of this to the mix and I feel like I have emotionally been dipped in acid.  Not a very pleasant feeling.  Will I get though this – yep.  Will it hurt – it already does.  Do I need your prayers – absolutely.  Is there anything else you can do for me – just understand when I want to crawl back in my cave for awhile and become antisocial.  I will come back out, I promise.  I am just very focused on the things that I can control and honestly be productive with – my girls, my parents and DH.  DH is awesome – he knows when to push me and knows when to let me alone and he is great about picking up the slack when I have emotionally and physically disappeared into my hiding place.  God has blessed me with that man!

The never ending vacation pictures

I am back to trying to scrap our vacation pictures.  It is a form of therapy – creating layouts – as my dad continues his treatments.

This is a layout of the girls as they go on a hayride with Cindy Bear (Yogi Bear’s girlfriend) at our campsite.  They had such a fun time singing the songs and waving at DH, Mimi and Popaw. 

Credits for this layout -

Going Coconuts by Emily Farnworth at SOTB

Feistuff – Different Strokes brushes