Lee Joe's birthday

Well.... Lee Joe had a birthday. He is getting old and crusty. Haha. I get to live the old part up for 3 months until I am right there with him. Sunday birthdays are tough. They wind up being uneventful but this one didn't have potential at this moment to be eventful. So for his birthday I made Jell-o. I don't make it very often, it's not hard just I don't know why so it really is a treat. And that was his birthday. The girls made tacos. He made homemade tortillas for them and there you have it. Not my usual birthday celebration at all. He left to go to Burley for a job. Leaving for a job here is a good thing. Just for Monday though.

So these migraines are taking a complete toll on my mental capacities. It is that or extreme stress-the stress can cause migraines so maybe it is both. I mentioned the pancake almost fiasco ordeal. I have had a hard time following simple instructions for recipes lately. I have done it several times in the past few weeks. I have never been like this. I messed up Jell-o. But not in a bad way. I forgot to add 2 more cups of cold water so it was almost jiggler consistency. It was still good so not the end of the world. I am having a hard time keeping my train of thought straight. I will say things totally messed up from what I was saying and have no clue what I just said. The kids are always wondering what I am talking about. I hate it. I read a about a study that was done and it said that it is possible that migraines cause some damage to the brain. If I could remember what I read I could explain it better and now I can't find it. That might explain some of this, I don't know. I am not old enough to be having this much trouble.

Some fun is in store. Lee Joe has worked all this past week. The little girls all earned free tickets to the water park here. We need to use them by tomorrow and it is finally in the 90's so we are going to play in the water tomorrow. I enjoy going there a ton even if I don't go on all the slides.

I am sewing and writing on the laptop and trying to do what I enjoy at home and I like the fact that June took it's time even with all the added yuck. Amber's been renting movies since she is 18 and can have her own account and has the money to do it. So we are enjoying those bennies from her. I hope things will keep a slow pace for the rest of the summer. But it might not. I applied for a job that would be temporary until I start back at the school. I am pretty indifferent about it. If it happens it is helpful. If not I can still do my at home projects.

Oh and one more thing. Kelsea was asked on 2 dates this weekend. She is so funny. She doesn't enjoy it much. She is totally like super excited for the new Harry Potter movie.

My girls have planned their first road trip. They are headed to Utah for the 4th of July still. I think I already mentioned that. Oh well. Got keep my brain working.

Yeah, Ok, that is life up here in my neck of the woods.

Dolls

I suppose this is about to be a doll making summer. This is my latest and many more are to come. I would like to try and sell a couple on Etsy. It was suggested to me from some friends on Facebook. I am working on an assembly line now that I have refreshed my memory. We will see how ambitious I get and how this turns out. But my girls are about to get theirs. 3 really want one. One may help me with hers. Amber is completely indifferent about it so I will wait and see if she has girls and make some for them.

What a change

Yep, life has changed. Some of it right now could be better. And some things I think are nice, like teenagers with licenses and spending money. I couldn't do much for Lee Joe for Father's Day but since two of the girls have been earning money, they all went shopping for their dad. Too Cute. And someone special helped too..(SHHH my mom helped with the coolest most enormous balloon, some flowers in a baseball looking vase and watermelon) Amber made her dad jell-o and the girls got him some WWII DVDs and cowboy hat he wanted. Why a cowboy hat, I don't know. I think a fedora would be much better. But I prefer to see him in baseball caps.

I still had a gift card to Cafe Ole so we went to dinner Sat night. I suppose that could be a pre-anniverssary dinner since our anniversary is Tuesday. And his birthday is next Sunday. Busy week but then not really because there is nothing we can do about any of it. So there you go.

I have been busy doing projects I have been meaning to finish and other ones I have been meaning to start. So maybe this is the summer to get things done. And the weather is nuts, but it isn't bothering me much because the temp is perfectly pleasant and cool. I haven't missed the pool because it hasn't been hot enough to swim anyway. I don't mind driving in this pleasant weather at all. It is still raining a little more than usual but not as bad as it was a couple weeks ago.

Kelsea had summer basketball and that just finished. It wasn't as hard as last summer and she still needed help getting to the Nampa tournament and to the one in Pocatello. This weekend's tournament was here at her school. I got to go to a few games and watch her play. She was playing Point Guard and was making 13 or more points on a few games but man, 3 games in one day!! Holy Cow. She played in 2 on Saturday. Now it's over so it was about right. She got a lot of experience. Much more confidence.

My poor oldest girls are having a little trouble adjusting. Amber is, I think, suppose to attend the singles branch that meets right in our church. Her friend wasn't there and her boyfriend is officially at BYU now so she came home early today. Kelsea has lost Amber and isn't adjusting well to the new YW president and that is a bumpy ride for her. This is interesting. Those two are pretty dependent on each other whether they admit it or not. I am just glad Amber will be here when she starts school. I don't think anyone is ready for that change to happen--the one where she moves out. Amber and Kelsea are planning a trip to Utah together with Amber's friend. Amber wants to see the BF and Kelsea wants to check out hot LDS college guys at BYU(not sure how I feel about that) She talks the boy crazy talk but doesn't act it when the guys like her so it's OK. The friend is a lot like Kelsea so it should be one nutty trip.

Autumn had a way awesome dream. I wish it was my dream or maybe it just being real would such the coolest thing. But she dreamed that I (me) got a check in the mail for a half million dollars..... EWWWEEEEE, yep, that would be super duper awesome!!!

Bummed

This stupid recession thing can go away now. I am sick of it. Lee Joe was so close to getting a job. Went through 2 interviews and a driving test, got his hazmat on his CDL and cleared the backround check and they decided he didn't have enough experience driving hazardous materials--well Duh, he just jumped through all the hoops and they knew what he was doing so several weeks of it looking like he was in and he's not and there has been nothing here for months. His work has dried up along with all the other people in town. He is getting stuff here and there. So anyways, I have been positive and hopeful for a turn around for months and months and months now and I feel like- well- just miserable. So there you have it, we have joined half of america in the misery of nothing. You look for work and even in all the states around us there is very little and this is when Lee Joe's work is always hopping. So along with half of the Lay family we are in need of prayers. Amber and Kelsea are making more than Lee Joe it seems like with their little jobs they have. I am still getting a check but if he can't figure it out I will be calling people around here and looking for something for the next 2 months.

One crazy lady

That's me. Lee Joe, Kelsea, Kylee and Hannah went to Pocatello this weekend for Kelsea's summer basketball tournament. She played 3 games on Friday and 2 on Saturday. They stayed at Kim and Gwen's and visited Grandma Leavitt on her birthday on Saturday with Jared and his family. I was home with 2 kids and Autumn spent the night at her friends house on Friday and Amber went to babysit. So I was home ALONE for awhile. I decided it was a great opportunity to tackle Autumn and Hannah's room while they were gone. I bagged up 3 bags of trash. Washed all their sheets and made thier beds. As a result of that cleaning frenzy that also involved the kitchen too, I was until 4AM. I can't remember when I did that last, It has been a long time. But since Autumn was back home at 10am the next day I didn't get enough sleep and it was gloomy and rainy so I got nothing done on Saturday. It wasn't a big deal though. I got some time with Amber and then some time Autumn on Saturday evening. It was pleasant. Everyone is home today back to all their squabbles.

Good news on migraines- the weather has been toying with me and I have successfully headed off 2 migraines this weekend with my new meds and knowledge. That is progress. I am ready for my favorite dry Idaho air. I really don't care if it warms up. We have been having Texas like weather lately.

I am sure everyone else out there hasn't felt the pain from the DTV transition. But we have. We do have a ridiculous amount of TVs in this house but we don't have cable and only one of the TVs we have was ready for it. We were able to get two converter boxes with the coupons but we still need two more boxes at least. I like to watch TV in my office and we get one spanish channel on it now. Amber's TV doesn't have any thing she can watch either. The other obnoxious thing is the remotes we need for the TV and the converter box. The stupid box doesn't have any buttons you can push on it so you have use a remote to watch TV. I don't mind the manual way of doing things--unlike men. The cool thing is we have 13 channels we can watch without paying for it so we feel a little more like we have cable. I am kind of silly because I like the company I guess of a TV even if I am not watching it, I have it on.

So I am rambling about nothing now...

Pancakes

Lets see. I thought I was going to have something fun for dinner. We had for dinner. I have this great, usually simple recipe for pancakes. First batch I mixed turned out OK. It was taking forever for the electric skillet to warm up. It took so long for the first side to cook. I flipped them and suddenly they were cooking so hot. I burned half the pancakes. SO I needed to make more batter, and Amber was bringing a friend. So I mixed up a new batch. So I thought. Then I put too much baking powder in it so I thought I would double it. As I went through the rest of the ingredients I added 4 eggs. I only needed 2. Ugh. So I tripled the recipe even though we are short on both flour and sugar. Still too much egg and slightly thin. I cooked many many more pancakes. And to finish the fiasco I dropped one nicely cooked pancake on the floor. So there were 5 burned ones, 4 really runny cooked pancakes, and one dropped one all made it to the garbage. I wanted to make cookies and it was delayed several days because I needed eggs, once I got them I was too busy or tired to make them. And then while making the mess of pancakes I discovered our lack of brown sugar and then the lack of regular white sugar and flour was low. I have some food storage that was given to us recently but I don't dare try using it yet because it is 11 years old. We will sample on something smaller and after tonight's very messy pancake making disaster--and the kitchen is a complete disaster, I dare not make cookies today. Maybe I will stick to scrapbooking tonight.

I went to the neurologist today. He gave some more ideas on medications to use with my headaches and variations of meds to try so I feel a little better prepared. I hope it will help with the next one and I hope it won't last 3 days. Other than 3 dr visits in 3 days there has not been much going on and I need some motivation to get busy on something. Well I say not much, it is AMAZING what freedom having 2 licensed drivers brings to me. And I was able to call them and tell them to get sugar, brown sugar, and flour at the store. Yippee!!!

Adjective Alley

The middle of the night title was about to be Frustrated but there was too much of a theme with my last title. Here I am in the middle of the night for the 2nd night in a row. I woke up with this torturous headache 2 days in a row. I had more success Friday kicking it with some migraine meds but they left me weak, thoughtless and listless--but pain free. Today was not so good. I took one pain medicine in the morning. I guess it took the edge off. I didn't have any more of the migraine meds I had yesterday so I had to wait until 24 hours had passed to try some new stuff. I was really bad by then, shaking and sick to my stomach and trying to get back to bed after eating for the first time at 1pm. I took the meds and waited 2 hours to take the next. They didn't work and my tolerance for these headaches is getting very low so I have been getting very distressed. This one if I had to gauge the pain was about a 9 when up and 7-8 while lieing completely still. I was slurring and my left side was a little weaker than the right. I took a different pill. It eased up with that and a hot pad after everyone hunted high and low for it. Then I woke up to stomach cramps so I took ibuprofren and at 8 I was pain free. And now it is 1:30am I still have some pain but now I am awake. So what the heck!!!! I really hope that 2days of headache is all I get. I was really close to going to the ER today. I think I will try to go to bed now. Hopefully, if I have a pain free day here soon, I will post some pictures of Amber's graduation.

Bewildered

That is a fun word. And that describes how I feel at this moment. Bewildered... At having a daughter that no longer attends public school. To have a full time job that I get to spend my summer home with the kids and it starts tomorrow--after lunch at McGrath's fish house with the staff at the school. And very bewildered about something else......Not that Amber's graduation should be over shadowed too much. She was one in 27 students with over a 4.0 for at least 7 semesters out of 450 kids. Ok, that is an accomplishment with the classes she took.

I am bewildered by something today and this whole story is weird. I came back from my lunch on the last day of school with seeing something that looked like and emergency. A man was laying on the ground. They had an umbrella shading this guys face from the sun and my doctor and the principal were standing there over this guy with the school nurse leaning on the ground talking to him. They had called 911 so an ambulance was on the way---2nd time in the past month. He was a dad that had an issue with medication and he was diabetic I guess. I am saying hello to our doctor-Amber's boyfriend's dad. He asks me if someone has called me and I say no. And he tells me that he was wondering if I would be interested in being a patient representative to a committee that the governor is forming for health care reform. I was like Ok... Lee Joe has been on about his rational national party so I was confused. But our daughter's boyfriend's father/friend/doctor said they wanted someone on the committee that had experience with no insurance and he felt I was very articulate. I say much more in writing than what comes out of my mouth. And sometimes what comes out of my mouth is inarticulate. I have to call someone at my doctor's office tomorrow to find out more. So, yes, I am bewildered. I was asked out of the blue to have a voice in a committee on health care reform formed by the governor for the state of Idaho. We will see where this goes. Yep, bewildered.....Oh and by the way, the ambulance showed up, the guy was OK but got in the ambulance to be taken to the hospital. It was all very strange. I am still bewildered...

Graduating child of mine

I seem to always fall short when it comes to getting information out and trying to think ahead. It happens when the kids are baptised and all other grand events in their little lives. I get a little wrapped up in a thousand other things and details and then later I realize what I should have or could have done. There is so much worry involved it overrides the creativity it takes to something right. So I am trying to get word out-yes it is a little late, about a little plan I have. I can't really afford to throw a party right now. I didn't get enough invitations to send to everyone I know. Then it was too late to do something economical. So I have an idea. For one was to use Facebook to announce this. And now my blog.

I want to throw a sort of "Snail Mail celebration" for Amber and just ask everyone to mail Amber something-a little card or whatever to congratulate her for accomplishing so much.

She is graduating with a class of 450. I thought was more like 600 but I guess that was couple years ago. She has been in the top 10% of her class. She has worked hard so I hope that everyone might want give her a well deserved pat on the back.

She will be attending Boise State University in the fall. She wants to major in chemical engineering and is being awarded over $5000.00 in scholarships her first semester.

To snail mail Amber: our address is 7109 Northview St. You should know what city and state. 83704. She will be required to reply to anything sent to her.

Amber's graduation is Thursday June 4. 7pm at the Taco Bell arena. Anyone who can or wants to come can.

She just graduated from seminary on Sunday. I want to say more but I have to work just 1 1/2 more days!!! So I still need some sleep I guess.