The turkey was stuffed, but I wasn’t!

Ok so I lied. I was a little stuffed. But I did better than years past eating-wise on Thanksgiving. I only had one piece of pie the whole three days we were at Grandma’s house. Even turned it down for leftover lunch the next day. Although apparently my sister-in-law thought it freakin’ hilarious in a “you’re delusional” way when I said I’d stick with my healthier (than pie) spinach dip and tomatoes for my dessert. The nerve. But hey, overall I didn’t stuff myself to oblivion like I’ve done in the past and for that I’m patting myself on the back. I am pretty sure my BG levels remained pretty consistent. (I say “pretty sure” because I forgot my glucose meter).

We came home Friday night in time to unpack, clean up the house, and start some Christmas decorating. The rest of the weekend was spent decorating outside. What a CHORE! Thankfully we have wonderful friends that help us every year that makes it so much more fun and enjoyable.

My only gripe is I can never get a decent picture of our efforts. Our camera sucks at taking night pictures. The iPhone camera pretty much sucks too as you can see from the pictures taken with it of our decorated house below:

By the way, in my previous post there were two pictures. I edited them out just now because I was testing the Wordpress iPhone application and didn’t think about the fact that someone else’s child (my nephew) was in the pictures and I forgot to get permission from his parents before I posted them. They’ll be back once/if I get permission.

Happy Holidays!

After we survived the windiest trip up the gorge that I can remember, we had a great Thanksgiving (I’ll get some pictures posted up soon!) at Grandma Thompson’s. It’s always nice to be able to see the aunts and uncles and dad’s and grandmas. The kids all had fun taking turns holding little cousin Spencer, Sam’s newest baby boy. Hailey was a popular little girl as well, and everybody was impressed with what a well behaved little lady she was.

After we got home and cleaned up inside a little we decorated the inside of our house for Christmas. It’s looking quite festive in here! (I’ll get some pictures posted up soon!)

We got a good nights rest and started working on the outside yesterday. Jack Jr. went to Thornton’s tree farm with us again and picked out the perfect tree again. This year we picked out a “Fraser” tree instead of a Noble. The underside of the pine needles have a white coat on them, making them somewhat reflective in the light.

Our front yard looks gorgeous, but the outside of the house itself is only half done. We’ll finish the rest of the outside today while it’s light out.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are here in The Dalles celebrating Thanksgiving with Jack’s grandma and many of the Thompson Clan. I’m so thankful for such a wonderful loving family.

I hope everyone has an awesome Turkey Day!

(photos edited out.)

Holidays and Stress

The year 2006 was a rough one for my family. My mother was in a horrible car accident. My step father died. Some friends of ours lost their pet and much of their belongings in a house fire that my oldest son was witness to. I remember distinctly thinking that was one of the hardest years of our life and that things couldn’t get much worse, stress-wise.

What a stupid thing to think.

Granted, that year WAS a difficult year. But it’s crazy to think that’s the worst life could throw at you. Or that was our “share” of stress so we shouldn’t have more. It’s taken me almost two full years to realize that life in general is always going to be stressful to a degree and I need to quit dwelling on the fact that we had our “fill” in 2006. It’s like for the last two years, every time something has come up that’s stressed us out, I’ve felt like it wasn’t fair because, we had our fair share already!

I find myself looking towards the holiday season with a bid of dread. For me the holidays are always fun, enjoyable, and I absolutely love everything about this time of year. But there’s also always some stress and this year I discovered that I’m stressing about the fact that there might be stress. FFS! I used to be so easy going about stuff like this and take things in stride. Even the holidays.

There were holidays we hardly had a penny to put food on the table, let alone come up with presents for seven children. But we always managed and I don’t recall thinking everything had to be perfect nor stressing myself out like this.

I don’t know if it’s the state of our country and the economy, the new child in our lives, the family issues, or all of the above but it’s wreaking havok on my blood sugars and I really want to get back to the “take things in stride” kinda person I used to be.

We’re still alive

Quickie update: Some sort of bug is making its rounds through our household. It’s a sinusy headachy eye-watery cold bug of some sort. It kept Sissa home last week a few days, and now Cody and I are feeling it. Sucktacular.

Things are moving alone nicely with the transition of our foster daughter. There’s been a few ups and downs and the two youngest are struggling a bit to figure out their new places in our family but for the most part it’s been a very smooth transition for all of us. (If you don’t count the red tape that I’ve been tangled up in here and there.)

We had a court trial yesterday to determine the child’s future. I’ve never been to anything like that and it was pretty uneventful and quick. There will be more of these in the future I’m told.

Health wise I’ve lost a few pounds. I haven’t done anything to lose it though. I think it’s just been the flurry of constant activity going on in our lives and barely having time to eat some days. Other than this weird bug I’ve got now I’ve been feeling pretty good, though.

Diabetes sucks. But we already knew that. I’m just coasting along as usual in that department.

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