the long and winding road

had a scary dream about mom last night. i'm sure it's because i sat next to her at dinner and her altzheimer's is getting worse. she does repeat herself a lot and she gets belligerent over the silliest things. my sister was at the end of the table but sort of at another booth in the restaurant and my mother insisted she get a chair even though gail was perfectly happy...well, we got her a chair to make mom happy. that's the road we're traveling as a family now. whatever it is, if it makes her happy--just do that. my heart aches for my dad. he's with her all the time and so a night out with everyone is as much for him as anyone else. you should see him with her, though. he's so tender and sweet--i never saw him that way when we were little. he's perfect. i know daughters feel that way about their daddies but i'm speaking as objectively as i can...if you met him, you'd agree. by the end of dinner i had decided that it would be someone else's turn to sit next to mom next time we were all together....and then, after my dream woke me up, i decided i would endeavor to sit next to her every time we were together. if all i have to do is listen to someone repeat herself a dozen times and get a little cranky, i guess that's not too hard to bear. what kind of a selfish daughter am i, anyway? i know, of course, that there will be more to do and harder things to see as my family travels down this road but, for now, we are stopping to smell the roses along the way and love each other as best we can.

phew!

what a mess i just went through to find myself! ok--i'm just talking about my blog...not my soul or anything deep. speaking of souls, i just found a sweet pair of glasses to buy but etched into the side were the words "no soul to sell." this is a name of a company??? what's up with that? i can't buy those glasses! they lost my business due to their name. people are just not even thinking anymore...and don't get me started on that! if anybody takes the time to THINK about the proposed health care plan, surely he will see the trouble with it...heck, i'd be satisfied to hear that anybody had even READ the thing! if you want to be freaked out, read "that hideous strength" by c.s. lewis and compare it to the united states today. then read "the abolition of man" by him and watch your head explode. george orwell was clearly a prophet but c.s. lewis was, too! maybe they just knew the heart of man and knew how to read the writing on the wall. there is, after all, nothing new under the sun.

once more into the fray

well, another month has gone by with no blogging. i don't know that i have anything worth sharing...just an ordinary life. for all that, i can't go a day without checking in on facebook....

my son dylan got married last week to a wonderful girl from a wonderful family in charleston, sc. what a beautiful weekend we had there! and may i just say, i would be happy to live there! i wonder if the Lord will ever see fit to move us closer to our children and grands. it's certainly my heart's desire but i am content to be used of Him here while He would have it that way. sort of burger king theology...."have it your way. have it your way."

and now summer is here. i would like to stay on the beach (see last post) but already i feel myself pulled in several directions. i WILL read this summer. my short list: the abolition of man and that hideous strength by cs lewis, tears of the giraffe and morality for beautiful girls by alexander mc call smith, one of those murder mysteries by patterson from the series with numbers...i think it's the seventh one, and spurgeon's bio. and, of course, the perfect place to read is on the beach. i also need to totally revamp my history curriculum...it just needs help! too much social studies and not enough history.

and my question for the day is: what is the best candy? my answer is milk duds but my nephew says malted milk balls. my neice says reeses-no question. what say you?

it's may. my last blog? february! why? guess i have no real life to speak of...

anyway. taking a breath today now that my class play is over. we did anne of green gables and it went off without a hitch. i had to keep reminding myself they were only fourth graders so i shouldn't be looking for academy award quality. i just wanted them to be heard and understood. most of them rose to the occasion with a couple surpassing expectations and a couple never really meeting the mark. next, we do a mini-presentation of jonah and the whale and then our drama requirements will be fulfilled. the school year is winding down and, as it is with most teachers i think, i'm already planning on changes i'll be making next year. that being said, my ultimate goal for the summer is to sit by a pool or the ocean and close my eyes for three months. i'll let you know how that works out...

card club night results

here are my cards from last night's stamp club. we spend a great deal of time laughing, a good deal of time eating and-oh yeah-we stamp a bit, too. next month we are sharing designs. i only have to come with one which is a mercy. sometimes i stare at the stamps and can't think of a thing! oh- i didn't design the flower pot card. i got that idea from here: http://susiemccormick.blogspot.com/

just a card

made these for valentine's day stamp club. top to bottom: gift card cup. fill it w/ candy and a gift card. hey-it was for valentine's...candy had to be included! middle: treat boxes. bottom: um...cards! the one on the right has an acetate window. i had hoped it would look like you were looking out the window at a bird on a branch...use your imagination!

cannot believe they're predicting snow for tomorrow! wait. of COURSE i can believe it! i know better but hope springs up every groundhog day. well, perhaps it will result in no school on monday thus prolonging our precious vacation just one more day. speaking of vacation, mine certainly didn't go according to plan. MY plan was for a two day getaway with hubby at the beginning and a two day getaway with my sisters at the end...yeah--nada getaways. well, maybe for spring break. did manage to see a couple of movies with hubby and go shopping with one sister...all was not bad. saw slumdog millionaire, gran torino, and taken. my ratings: *****,****,*** respectively. had a swell time cruising around wrentham and decided on new china from villeroy and boch. don't tell. i think i'll just slip it into the house one plate at a time! what do you think? cute or what?

sheesh! where have i been???? well, school keeps me busy and i do facebook a lot cuz i can keep in touch w/ my chil'ns that way. and yes, i do like to play scrabble and packrat there. what can i say? more than that, i guess i don't have much to say, although my last rant-i mean entry-belies that somewhat. now i have a twitter account, too. have you heard of this? it's just a status reporter. i like to think of it as a mini-blog. you have to limit yourself to 140 or so characters and it's very big w/ the i-phone crowd. of course, i don't have an i-phone and i can only imagine how much MORE procrastinating i could do if i DID have one so i'm probably better off w/o it...yet i soooo want one! anyway, here's my twitter addy: https://twitter.com/uptonannie it's school vacation now and so i can check in here. it's been a busier week than i had thought but so far pretty relaxing. i'll try to be better about stopping by. sorry to any of you who have been wondering.

i know how job's wife felt. not that i've lost my children or any of my stuff...indeed, i have way too much stuff!
but sometimes i think about mrs. job and wonder about her motivation. just what made her say those awful words and seal her reputation forever? i think i know. (this is completely speculative and extra-biblical so don't take it as theology.) i think job's wife saw her husband devastated, afflicted, financially ruined, and all because of what? from all she could see, he'd lived his life as a Godly man, tried his best, and had set a good earthly example of a "Christian" in how he lived before her and his family. and not only did it all go terribly wrong, but to top it all off, he received NO solace from his friends and brothers in the Lord! no, instead, he received rebukes and accusations. i think THIS is what made job's wife despair. when her husband cried out to his own, they stabbed him in the back. why do i understand this to be the case? because i've seen it happen. and though she should have chosen her words FAR more carefully, i think she was just paralyzed because she had no words to comfort him when the men who should have bound his wounds and given him hope did neither. woe to those who do not bring comfort and kind words when it is within their power to do so! thank God for the few, the happy few, who are a blessing to their brothers and sisters in Christ and not a curse! it is hardest for a helpmate to see her spouse struggle with all the "shoulda-coulda-wouldas" and question himself to distraction when all along a kind word could be as gold in a setting of silver.
sometimes...i just want to go very far away from the ministry and wrap myself around a deserted isle.

raccoon with a phd

what's this, you ask? this is what we came home from vacation to. it is a suet feeder that had a lovely no-melt cake of suet in it one week ago. while we were away, some clever raccoon (i think) managed not only to open the latch, but was clever enough to hook the door onto the hook so that he (or she) might better enjoy the suet at its leisure! can you see the wire that it hangs from? it's on the hook beside the one the feeder is now connected to. it's going to be a long winter...
a pigeon. so what, you might remark. well, this is the first pigeon i've seen in our whole town since moving here five years ago! and it's all alone! he's been strutting around the back yard like he owns the joint and he is BIG !! i usually have to drive to worcester to see pigeons...i just don't get it! where did he come from? why is he here? i want answers and he's not even cooing!!! are there any pigeon behavior analysts out there?

instant vacation

i call this instant vacation b/c we decided on the spur of the moment to go...and off we went!this is where we tried to kiss the children. can you tell it's nap time?
jenn, jack, and zak
kaedra, kelsie, and don
jack all ready for church
kelsie when her hair has been tamed.

i have been out of town this week. drove south to see the children and grands b/c who knows when we'd get another chance? ate way too much while there but it's so rude to say no to kahlua trifle when you're the guest! we drove to friends' house in tennessee and next day headed to atlanta area to see kaedra, don, and kelsie. jenn, zak, and jack drove up from valdosta so we got to see as much family as possible. (dylan is still in england.) the trip sure made me wish i lived back in the good ol' south! ah me! maybe someday!

the ladies who lunch

here is a happy day indeed. jo-anna and jessica were here for a family reunion but i got to play innkeeper for their visit. they blessed me by sharing lunch with me instead of running wild with the rest of their family. what sweet fellowship! there's nothing so nice as cheese and wine and crackers and fruit and yummy butternut squash-crab bisque when eaten among friends! and chocolate for dessert of course!

good-bye lardo days

i have been a complete slug since the end of may but those days are just about over. i just accepted a position as 4th grade teacher in a small classical school called imago located in maynard, ma. i'm pretty excited about it. my brain has begun functioning again after what feels like a 2 year hibernation. mmmm-mmmm good!

dogggone dog gone

well, it's been a pretty rough couple of weeks. things between molly and zeke were getting worse instead of better and when zeke tried to bite mark and later me (twice!) we had to be realistic and conclude that this might not be the dog for us. you guessed it. we returned zeke to the russell rescue refuge and will probably never have a second dog. the good news is that, since we were supposed to dog-sit digger but opted out b/c of the doggy stress around here, this freed us up to do so. we brought digger home the next day and it's been peaceful doggy heaven around here! this tells me it wasn't all molly's fault. above is a picture of mark, digger and molly. a pose which would've been impossible w/ zeke! poor zeke! he really was a nice dog--just stressed to the max!

our flowers this year

the rhodos and irises are gone now but they were lovely for a while. the lilacs were terrible! maybe i should feed them something...

puppy treadmill

525,600 minutes

how do you measure a year? how do you measure a life? by moments? or milestones? you might could make a case that there is a creation mandate to measure it by both. after all, when we look at creation, it is measured by the infinitesimal and the infinite. when we gaze upon the heavens, the stars in their courses, considering that each one may hold an entire universe, does it not bewilder you? can there be that much stuff beyond our sphere of influence? and looking inward, at the cellular level, is it not more astounding to contemplate the workings of the human body? cells divide TO multiply!!! that goes against everything they teach us in math class! and a life? can one predict or plan the moments or the milestones? anticipate maybe, but predict? not so much. i'm not even sure one can look back and pinpoint them all. it may even be that you might THINK something was a milestone when something else, seemingly insignificant, turned out to be so. i mean, it's easy to consider weddings, birth-days, promotions, etc. as milestone days but it's possible that some off-the-cuff remark about life or faith had a lasting impact on you...or, better still, your comment had a lasting impact on others! so moments ARE milestones and milestones are moments. would that we could all have a george bailey experience! but alas, that is not ours to expect or demand of the Lord. we must remember that all things are of Him and come from Him and are for our good. that every moment is a milestone embryo. that we should fill our moments with prayer that we will be clay in the potter's hands ready to be milestone vessels. i've been struggling with that today. how have i used my minutes? they do not roll over in real life as they might for your cell phone. what potential milestones have i let slip by me because i was caught up in the moment? we are given 525,600 minutes each year. that's 31,536,000 seconds; 31,536,000 moments. how will you measure this year? this life?

poker on the fourth!

in this picture: my brother jay, my dad, my mom. this is a typical picture at our poker games. it's where mom is asking if it's her turn and how much should she bet.
in this picture: sil kris, sirl karen and niece katie.
in this picture: mark and bil jim. i think mark has a swedish fish in his mouth. how do you like the twizzler tree?
in this picture: the loser's lounge. karen was the first out and then jim, katie and i all went out in one hand. we all bet holding one queen. if the fourth queen had come up, we would have split the pot but it didn't so my mother won w/ a pair of threes!!!
zeke after molly attacked him. the dogs were a little stressed w/ all the people and excitement. they got into it a couple of times and molly actually drew blood!!
molly in time-out. they were clearly not ready for company since they were not even used to each other yet. they've just taken turns on the treadmill to try and get rid of pent up energy and anxiety. i'll take pictures of that tomorrow.

a rare moment of peace and quiet

molly

zeek

can't we all just get along?

AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! can you sense the frustration in my voice? i thought the dogs would be sweet companions by now but everyone tells me it will take time. Yikes! what have i gotten us into? poor mark, i'm always coming up with some hair-brained scheme that i assure him will be wonderful....molly and zeek (that's how i'm spelling it. i like it better that way. just like i wish my name had an "e" on the end like anne of green gables) are jockeying for position and molly is relentless in her pursuit. although, i believe zeek will win the day. i'm rooting for him anyway. that girl needs to be put in her place and i'm just as happy to have zeek do it as anyone else! the fam is coming by tomorrow. let's see what a house full of peeps does to the dogs!

(sorry this is blurry. i'm not so good at motion and, to my credit, it was foggy that morning)