Wizard of Creativity

The following light hearted story had a frightening turn about an hour after I posted it. Tarzan began to complain that his leg hurt and when I looked at it, I found it was swollen and had two small puncture wounds which were difficult to see because his skin is so dark. When he agreed to go to the emergency room to have it looked at, I began to worry that it really was a snake bite even though he doesn't remember the snake actually making contact with his leg. Tarzan is now in the hospital for overnight observation. I have been in critical care with him since 7:00 p.m. and it is now 4:00 a.m. We count our blessing though, he is resting fine and healing well. While we were in critical care, one man had a broken neck and pulled the tube out of his neck that was helping him breath, one was found unconscious by the canal -- he was either on drugs or someone had beat the heck out of him or both, one came in with blood pressure so high they were afraid she would go into cardiac arrest b

I have to write this or I will burst. We have 2 rental properties. One of them is a 4 bedroom 2 bath house with a new kitchen, new floor tile, fresh paint, and new stucco on the outside and it has an Arizona Room and a sprinkling system in the back yard, oh yes, and a new air conditioner and carpet and on and on and on. Here is a picture. We rented it less than a year ago, to tenants who were so excited to rent this house that they demanded a 3-year lease. We had to evict them this month. In February, they said they lost the rent check, so we waited for it and never got it. In April, their son stole the rent check so we told them they could make it up in May, they did not. In May they paid one month rent. In June they said they did not get their government check and his father died. In July they said they did not get their government check and their car was repossessed. We demanded rent anyway. In August, they did not pay rent but they were driving a brand new Cadillac--we had to evict

I haven't knitted for a long time. I am a crocheter. However, I saw this pattern and went crazy for it. I bought the book and some hand painted silk yarn and started knitting. It is probably the hardest pattern I have ever knit. I had to restart about six times. We were on our way to Germany when I first started and after several failed attempts, I finally went out on the patio at our friend's house in Ramstein, told everyone to leave me alone and tried it once again. After about an hour with Hans tanning, Lee napping, Rachel at school and everyone else off doing their own thing, I was able to get it going. It took me over a month to finish, and I really planned on solid blocks of color, not stripes, but the yarn was self striping and I ended up loving it. It is a shawl or neck scarf. This picture shows the color quite well. Sorry I couldn't get the fringe to hang right. It is really beautiful. I'm crocheting a really cute pattern right now. I am using a different kind

Two ladies in my Ward were kind enough to let me have their children for about 3 hours. We loaded children, car seats and giggles into my car and I took everyone to Sonic for a Blizzard. We bought just one and shared it. Along with a red slurpee for me. The little boys were busy eating their ice cream when one of them asked for a drink of my slurpee. I said, "I don't share my drink with anyone, not even my own grandchildren." He looked me right in the eye and said "Sister Grandberry, you should share." I promptly got straws for everyone and they shared the rest of my slurpee. All three little boys were perfect gentlemen. They shared nicely, they cleaned up their mess. The oldest one showed the younger boys how to move the straw up and down in the slurpee to get more juice in it. What a joy. It was probably 105 degrees outside, but we were in the shade and we didn't care.

Tori called me and said, "Hi Mom, I called to tell you about my week." I settled down on the bed to listen. By the time she was through, I was standing up with every muscle in my body tense. Let me see if I can capture what happened. First, she went in to get her hair colored and cut. In the middle of the color, her beautician got sick and someone else had to finish the job. She colored it the wrong color and gave her an awful haircut. They said they would fix it. She said she needed a couple of days to calm down and decide if she wanted them to work on it again. She went back and they fixed the color and sort of fixed the cut. Second, she was taking her daughter to piano lessons. There was a lot of construction and had been several storms. There was a large rock in the middle of the road. She could not go left or right, so she drove right over it and it tore the transmission pan off her car. Her husband came to her rescue and they had the car towed and fixed. Th

I guess by some standards I do. But, little do they know what troubles are in my life. It made me think about the things we don't know about each other. So many times things happen to people over which they have not control and they don't show on the surface. We never know if the person we are sitting right next to: is suffering a deep heartache for something over which they have no control is recovering from a serious illness or injury is in serious debt trouble doesn't know how to read is homeless was an abused child is being abused by a spouse has a child in jail just lost a loved one has no food in the house is about to lose their home can't afford a birthday cake for their child's birthday is new in town and doesn't know anyone is in a great deal of physical or emotional pain is suffering from depression has a serious chemical imbalance has no family can't count change Bet you didn't know I have gone through the awful treatment for hepatitis C , did

Sometimes... This time IT DID. We have suffered in this 115 degree, humid, weather for 2 weeks with our air conditioner running day and night, only to cool off the house to a meazly 85 degrees. We called the air conditioning guy (Rafael) and he has been out here twice. New duct work $1,200 New Air conditioner $4,000 Not in the budget, we decided to just have new duct work. We are fully aware that we need that done. Rafael was supposed to come yesterday, but Lee had to work and it is a two man job (somehow there is something wrong with that picture--we are paying $1,200 and Lee has to be the helper--shouldn't he get paid for that with something besides cold air?). But I digress. Lee called Rafael and asked him what he wanted to do and he said put it off until next weekend. AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH. This was our plan in the meantime.......We would make only one room at a time receive air conditioning and we would stay in that room (or spend the whole day in the movie theater where