It's over and America can go back to watching reruns of Friends. Taylor Hicks won. I am not happy but I didn't think Katherine deserved to win either.

I also wanted to update everyone on my mom. She is out of ICU, out of the hospital and back to work in record time. Now if I was her I would have milked it a little longer than a week. The BP seems to be down slightly since getting out and getting better with the new cocktail of medicines so thank you to all that prayed for her speedy recovery. WE LOVE YOU MOM!

I wasn't sure what to write about tonight so I read though my relative's blogs to get inspiration. I will start with my brother's blog. I am so shocked it has been a whole school year since you have been gone. I think time definitely speeds up each year. I am NOT looking forward to next May when I will be going though the same experience with Sam, it just doesn't seem right. I took him for his Kindergarten screening hoping that they would say he was a genius but at the same time hoping that they would say he needs another year of preschool. What I wasn't prepared for was that they thought he was as smart as I thought he was. I mean most people when I say he is smart they just nod their head and think to themselves...BOY she likes to brag. They are right, I mean doesn't everyone think they have the smartest and most wonderful kids. Since the screening I have had a few worries as to his listening skills but I am assured by my friends it is normal for a 4 year old. Here is a good example. We were getting ready to go out to lunch and he was completely ready to go except for his shoes. I told him to get his shoes out of the closet. He takes off and comes back with a pair of pants from his drawer. Confusion...when I asked what he was doing he said, I thought you told me to get pants from my room. I know you are thinking...they sound alot alike. Whatever. I will just pray that he can follow in his cousin's footsteps and be as happy and proud as she looked at her graduation. CONGRATS Kaitlyn. I am proud of you, John and Kristena, for being such awesome parents and for taking the time to make her day so special.
On to my cousin Kelley's site...Wow... I too have been putting a lot of thought into where I should be spiritually and seeking out what I should be doing. I have to praise God for answering prayers. Wayne is going to be on medical leave starting June 9th for what could be 6 weeks for hernia surgery and we were a bit worried about finances during that time but GOD will provide. This week we have gotten word we will at least have two weeks covered completely because of some money we didn't know we would be getting. It really does pay to pay God first. For the first time in my life I have been tithing faithfully for the last year and it has been coming back to us in so many ways. We love our church and our pastor. I mean anyone who has known me in the past would be shocked to hear me say that. I have always been a skeptic. I never liked church because I felt that people never lived what they preached. I feel like we have found a church and a group of believers that live the way they say they live and are bold enough to say it. I think too many times we are afraid to be bold in public with our beliefs for fear we might offend. (I personally have never had this issue, I just lacked the approach). We need to stand up and defend prayer in every spectrum and make sure that the word GOD is never removed from our money or anything else. I am working on my witness and trying to make sure that I change my life to reflect that of someone who wouldn't mind if Jesus himself were right there sitting next to me every moment. OK...I better stop for now because I might just preach a whole sermon, it runs in the family.
I will write more tomorrow about Holly's blog but I have to go to bed. I have about worn off the "ce" on my backspace button because I keep misspelling words. Have a good night. Here are some pictures of the kids...Sam is 4 and Josh is wild and 2.

What an interesting mother's day my mom and I have had. I have just returned home from spending the last 2 days sitting in ICU with my mom. She decided to make this mother's day one for the books. On Sunday when I sat down beside her after sunday school she told me she wasn't feeling good and I have to say she didn't look like it either. She was kind of grey. She kept assuring me that she thought she would be fine so we sat through the choir singing and the congregation singing and then I looked over and saw that she was looking worse. She said she felt like she was going to pass out or get sick right there. So during the prayer we snuck out and got in the car but not before they called for the nurse at the church. The nurse followed us out and checked her blood pressure before I took her home (which is where we would have went). Her blood pressure was 220/110 or so. The nurse looked horrified and suggested we take her to the ER. So I drove her there and the first reading the got was 238/126. Now those of you who are not up on what normal is, it is usually 120/80. They started pumping her full of drugs, I mean lots of drugs but nothing worked. It went up in fact. 250/111. YIKES...so they decided to admit her and put a nitroglycerin drip in. Now you would think that with all the medicine and the nitroglycerin it would drop but no...it went down for awhile but climbed back up. So they scheduled a heart cath this morning and the most unbelievable thing...they said her heart was completely heathly as well as the arteries running to her kidneys. So...what does that mean. She will be in there until they can get this under control. So far it looks like it may take awhile for her body to get used to the lower pressure, it seems to be fighting it. The doctor said that she has to reduce the stress, which if you know my mom, say a big prayer for her. It also means our whole family is going on a huge diet to lose weight and support my mom in her battle to get healthier. WE LOVE YOU MOM and we are SO glad that it is nothing major. So I tell you all of this to say thank you to all of you who prayed for my mom and our family. Sorry no funny stories...maybe later we can look back and laugh but today was a sobering day and a day of reflection of where we all could be if we don't take care of ourselves.

Well I really don't have anything exciting to report. SO I guess I will tell a few stories. Many of you have heard these before but here I go. John and I have worked for my mom over the years not just at home but she hired us as employees. (SILLY HER). Anyway we did job coaching for people with disabilities and these are a few of my more memorable days. I was working is a lady we will call "Rosemary". Well Rosemary had a Ph.D in something I can't remember. I guess all of the studying pushed her to crazy. I was asked by my boss mom to go to her house and take her out to fill out applications, I called Rosemary and told her that we were going out the next morning at 8:00. So I went to her apartment. When I arrived, she was ready alright, as ready as any crazy person could be, she opened the door in nothing but a bra and underwear. I remained calm and simply said...I don't think we can go looking like this. She was all frazzled. So I waited in her apartment with her "pycho"olgist who she had called early because she was having anxiety about going that day while Rosemary found something to wear. Now I would have thought the professional sitting on the couch would have made sure she had clothes on but it didn't seem to bother her. So we finally get on the road and we go around to fill out applications, NO BAGEL shops though, the police that are there are probably there to get her. So after a long day of hearing about her dreams of arguing with the angel of God and how Kurt Douglas was going to call her and ask her to be in a movie and her constant referral to "Jesus said I need to watch out for this or that or Jesus said you were nice" I didn't hear him talking but I think she was getting messages all the time from him, we pulled up to her apartment. I said I will see you next week and I could tell she was getting anxious again but I didn't expect her to do what she did. She looked down at her watch and said "Let's just sit here a minute" And so we proceeded to sit for a full timed minute. She opened the door and got out. Nothing more was said. I would like to say that was the last story of Rosemary but it wasn't. The next week I had to bring her to the office for my mom to have a meeting with her and discuss how things were going. Once again I picked her up (this time she was ready, clothes and all), I took her to the office. Once there my mom had me sit in the meeting with her. Rosemary was distraught over not having enough money to do anything or buy anything. She said "I don't have money for shampoo, soap, a brush, toilet paper, a douche, toothpaste....(wait did she just say what I think she said!!!) Yes... she decided that my mom and I were the perfect people to tell that she couldn't afford her feminine products. The rest of the meeting I kept my head down for fear we would start laughing out loud. You know these have to be true stories because who can make up stuff like this.

Now...on to Mother's day and in response to my brothers blog.
Thanks mom for putting me in the best coaching jobs ever. HA. You are the reason I have so many funny stories to tell. You are also the reason that I can look at every situation and have some sense of humor about it. Thank you for teaching us that if the kitchen goes up in flames...just shut the door and go out to eat. Thanks for teaching me that if you leave a curling iron on all day it will smell like someone died in the house. Thanks for teaching me to use paper and not the GOOD stuff all the time. Thanks for teaching me you can repeat anything as long as you use quotes. Thanks for teaching my kids to scream at the top of their lungs and laugh after each scream. Thanks for teaching my kids to fake cough so I can't tell when they are really sick. And finally thanks for teaching my kids that DONUTS MOP...go with every meal. THANKS...THANKS for being the best mom in the whole wor....state of Ohio. And thanks for always taking time with my kids even when you are tired from driving and working all day. Thanks for teaching me to be a good mom. I can only wish that my kids will want me around like we all want you around now. I am so proud of you for showing us that you can make it though tough times and come out semi-normal. (that is what you say about us all right, semi-normal). I really do love you and I hope that you have a wonderful mother's day, well I know you will because you are coming here. You are the best and I hope I can be as good of a mother as you have been. Thanks again. AND here is an extra Thank you that I forgot on my wedding day, I LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING ME IN ALL MY DECISIONS...(I know you didn't always like the decisions but you let me be my own person).

I will write more later. I have a baby who has learned how to take his diaper off and I have to go put a new one on with DUCT tape around the waist.

GASP!!!! I just heard those American Idol fans gasp as Chris was voted off. I actually think I heard my cousin Kelley in Indiana yell "WHAT!". I guess you must not have called in enough to keep your favorites. I personally am not that big of a fan of American Idol. I have continued to watch so I can see Taylor Hicks fall off of the stage because he is watching the camera more than where he is stepping. I mean if the camera moves he follows it so bad that I am afraid that next week we may see him with a neck brace. I am a much bigger fan of the Amazing Race. GO Tyler and BJ. I like them because they are total goofballs and they are not trying as hard to win like the other people who have stooped to yelling at their partners or cursing at them.
BUT before I go any farther in my blog I must pause to say: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN! My brother is I think 39 this year. Ok he is only 34 but with the grey in his hair he looks closer to 40 or 50. He was blessed with my dad's grey hair. Don't worry I got "blessed" with a few things too. Thanks to those of you who passed down the "COBB butt" and the unintentional and almost always embarrassing gasping for air for no reason. I think we forget to breathe. I will not go any farther with what I got "blessed" with for fear I will offend someone.

So today was the last day of preschool for Samuel. Next year he starts kindergarten, this has been a little hard for me. He seems old enough but at the same time not. (Does that make any sense?). Today has been partically hard for him, for some reason he has been sad all day, he is sad that he doesn't have any more school and that he will "never" get to see his friends again. Tonight as I was tucking him in for the night he broke out bawling and telling me that he really misses his great great grammy. (she died in 2004). This is not the first time I have had to explain that everyone dies and then they get to go to heaven and play checkers with Jesus. He is much better now but boy that is a hard one to tell to a four year old.

Last night was his first T-ball game and I was going to include pictures of this glorious event but I have misplaced my USB cord. It is so interesting watching T-ball. It is totally chaos. I can't really watch because I can't stand to watch my kid play first base and either sit on the base (which according to Kelley's blog, it is OK to sit) or turn his back every time to see what the coach is saying "CATCH THE BALL" as it hits him. And you would think it easy to hit a ball off a T but no I think there quite a few that swung 3 or 4 times before actually making contact. Samuel will be a great bunter. They don't expect the ball to just trickle off the T. I don't really know why he performs like that in front of the other team because at home on our T he can hit it at least 50 feet. I think their T must be broke.

I know you are thinking...SHUT UP. But I can't I mean I don't get much adult conversation and even though not everyone who reads comments on my blog, I feel like I am making contact with adults (well some of you). Thanks for listening to me ramble on. More tomorrow and I promise that I will write about those 2 things I promised to write about in my first blog. Talk to you soon, have a good night.
BTW...Spell checker does not work on this site. And the prayers reached Brenda's dad who was in a car wreck, he is doing well but will be in recovery for awhile with a broken pelvis.

On a serious note...(B flat). I was talking to a few of you at church yesterday about including in my blog the sermon and the sunday school lesson so we could have an open discussion. So here it is. (Disclaimer: this is what I took away from both)
The sermon as always gets me thinking and yesterday was no exception. The pastor spoke on reaching the poor and giving to the poor what we can give. We all make the mistake of complaining about being "poor" in our standards but when we look at ourselves and what we have we have so much we don't even know what to do. I look at my kids room as an example of having more than we need. I thought a lot about what could I be doing. I was shocked to hear the pastor last night say that he would like to open the Outreach Center on Sunday mornings for breakfast during the services for the "less fortunate" because that was what I was thinking of approaching the pastor about. Well my idea was a soup kitchen but his idea was bigger than mine. I know we all struggle though life with this or that debt but as the pastor has said, "It could be worse" and "It all goes back in the box". The "It all goes back in the box" sermon, for those of you who don't attend our church, was talking about how we should be playing our life as if it were the monopoly board game. We work during that game and in our lives to obtain more money, more power, more property and things but at the end of the game it all goes back in the box and then someone else gets to play the game. The only thing that we need is to live our lives as God would have us live it. I have personally used that saying a few times since that sermon. Our Sunday school class has been studying the book of John. We were talking this week about how Jesus was talking to Jews (Children of Abraham) about believing in His truth and that they were living for their earthly father and not Him. We talked alot about how the devil disquises himself in everyone we meet. The cool guy with the sunglasses and the seemly nice personality that has a few bad habits and he tries to sway you to believe that those things are OK and "Are you sure that your church really believes "That"? It has been really interesting for me personally to hear everyone talk about it and I look forward to more.

PS. Say a prayer for Brenda and her family. Her dad was involved in a serious car accident this morning and was life flighted to Columbus.

I debated on whether to write my blogs so close together since people expect what you give them and they usually expect more. I used to feel that way with my grades. If I got an A the first semester then there was really no room for improvement. I mean how would my mom know that I could get better or do better, if I gave my all the first time. Sorry to all of you teachers out there who have students like me. I really didn't like school. I mean who needs 45 minutes of government. I can barely watch CNN for 10 minutes. I know my mom is thinking..."Your time will come" I know my kids are going to be just like me. I actually wished for that. WELL SORT OF. I mean I wanted them to have a free spirit and a sense of humor but I don't remember me having this attitude. My mom says I did, my brothers say I did but I just didn't see it. I mean I was perfect and with perfection comes some attitude. HA...I make myself laugh. I know that I have my work cut out for me but I am trying to teach my kids that life will go better if they laugh more and whine less. (I am still learning this myself). BRAGGING NOW, quit reading if you hate when people brag about their kids. I mean my kids are hillarious. Not just funny, they make me laugh when I feel like yelling. Joshua will get in trouble for something and bow his head and then look at you and stick his tongue out with a big grin on his face. Or he will hold both hands up by his face and growl to scare you. Samuel is funny in a different way. He will talk his way out of it. I mean he can talk and talk and talk (not sure where he got that from Wayne) He talks and negotiates his punishment and the reason that he hit his brother that I send him to his room so he will quit talking. I think they are the greatest....DONE BRAGGING! Well that is it for now. I am posting two today because one is serious and this was the "funny" one for the day.

So I was thinking I couldn't let my brother have all the glory or the jokes....so I decided to start my blog. This week I have been giving alot of thought about a new career. I thought maybe I could be a mechanic but I don't like anything on my hands. Then I thought maybe I could be a chef but I wouldn't be able to serve chicken (the thought of it on my hands, some of you understand). So I am thinking maybe I should try my hand at comedy and boy did the ideas start flowing. I decided to name my book "Seafoam pants and gray shirts". This idea came to me as I was sitting in the doctors office and looked over and saw a lady with that exact outfit on. It wasn't any gray shirt either...it was one that had been worn since about 1985 (New Kids on the Block to be exact). It had holes where there shouldn't be holes. Her seafoam green pants not only were ugly based on the color but THEY WERE VELVELTY. AGH! And if that were not enough, I think she had enough grease in her hair that on a hot day you could fry an egg on her head. It would have been so bad if I hadn't seen her sister later in the day going in the library wearing blue and black checkered shorts, a tan shirt and bright neon pink tennis shoes. I say they are sisters based on the fact that they both had a mullett. MAYBE I shouldn't assume but come on...
I came to the obvious conclusion that they have no friends. I mean if you had friends and people who loved you and want you to be the best that you could be, you would think they would tell you when you are getting ready to step out into public looking that way. I would hope that my friends would tell me if they ever see me in white jeans and my "I LIKE HIS MONEY" cut off T-shirt and flip flops...maybe this not appropriate for you.
My second chapter for my book would be called...NO, I AM SURE...
this is to all of you well meaning parents and grandparents who ask the same question 10 times but in different ways. Maybe you are even this way sometimes...STOP. I talking about when you go to someone's house and they ask you if you would like something to drink. You politely say no thank you. A couple of minutes later it is followed up with..."Are you sure, I have tea, water, pop, milk...ETC". Once again you are polite. Then that same person that you have told them no twice, gets up and goes to their kitchen. You wonder what could they be doing, so you peek, they are making tea. When you question them, they reply "I thought I had tea and I know you like tea so I thought I would just make some real quick". You say..."that is nice but I am really not that thirsty". Before long they have poured themselves a glass of tea and you suddenly feel that they are getting ready to ask again. You brace yourself...they don't ask, they just pour and slide it over to you with the quiet comment..."you don't have to drink it". You say thanks but you are really thinking something else. So you take the glass and start to drink and they slide in one more comment..."NOW wasn't that refreshing". I have a wonderful and I mean wonderful grandmother that I used to stay with a lot when I was younger. And let me say really quick, she has already heard me tell this story this way. Anyway, I was about 15 or 16 and knowledgable enough to set the alarm clock for school the next day, so I set it for 7:00 am, just enough time to get ready and out the door. My grandmother asked as I was preparing what time I thought I would get up the next morning, I told her, I set the alarm for 7:00 and she said OK. I went off into dreamland and was enjoying my sleep until I heard a little voice...Kim...Kim....KIM. I awoke to find my grandmother standing at the side of the bed. (I looked for the FIRE...but nothing) I looked at the clock it was 6:00. Then she said..."What time did you say you wanted to get up?" "NOW is good." was my not so polite reply. For which she followed up with "Oh...well then go back to sleep".

So these are a few of my stories...more to come. Look for "Let's sit here a minute" and "I am ready to work"