Swartwood reunion

So, everybody save the dates of June 16-23 or 4 for the great reunion. we found a house with 7 bedrooms for all grandchildren and great grandchildren and me and dad. check out www.vacationhomes.com/23547 the living room is small, but there is a large common area downstairs. also, one covered and one uncovered deck. the latter is very large, overlooking the lake. right below is a public beach that you can steeply get down to, or drive 3 minutes and park at. grandpa saw a park across the street from the house with slides, swings, etc., but no one else saw it. a block a way is a park with an old artillery piece, a gazebo, and lots of green space, good for games. if you follow the link, you'll see what city it is in for you google earthers. the # is 103 plum st.

please, please plan to come.

love,
mom

Whoa! Big changes.

We had a special meeting today for the North Olmsted, 7 hills, cleveland, lorain, and westlake ward, in the which they severely changed all the boundaries.

Our ward now consistes of North Olmsted, Westlake, Olmsted township and falls, and north ridgeville.

Westlake ward is no more...they imploded into us, avonlake went to lorain, rocky river bay and fairview park went to the new Lakewood ward.

Strongsville, berea, brookpark, middleburg hts broke off from north olmsted and went to the new strongsville ward. this also includes , north royalton, brecksville and broadview hts, which came from the defunct 7 hills ward.

7 hills also joined with the cleveland first ward, which consists of cleveland, parma, parma hts., brooklyn, brooklyn hts. and garfield heights, 7 hills, independence and valley view.

wow. next week, we meet as usual. in two weeks, we meet as new wards. this affects our bishopric (2 counselors), primary entire presidency, elder's quorum presidency, high priests' group leaders, young women presidency. should be interesting, but i know it is the right thing to do.

i'm alive, really I am

So, you see that i am here, even though i haven't posted. do you like the green color of my text?? i have been away visiting cincinnati, well, not so much the city as the wonderful people at ...i was going to type the address, but then i realized how stupid that was. my children and grandchildren. i was very excited to be asked to help, although amy saw through that right away and only said, "goodbye" and "goodbye, grandma" to me. scott and joel and kennedy and i had a good time. well, joel stopped liking me by saturday when he realized that if i was there, then mommy would maybe leave. on that day, every time he saw me, he ran away to find mommy to make sure she wasn't leaving. Scott made my day on saturday when he said, with no prompting, "I'm going to miss you, grandma!" yeah, baby, that's what i live for. it was cool to see a blessing work right away. David blessed me that i would not be in pain (although sometimes i needed drugs to achieve this) and to be able to serve as i desired. that was cool. then i got home, and immediately went into a flare, which i am still in. that systemic yeast stuff. i mean, imagine never having any sweets or grains (or fruits) ever again. that's what they say i have to do. can't do it, baby. i could probably cut down, but i can't completely give them up.




So, you can see that they really enjoyed me. well, to tell the truth, this is saturday, and joel had figured me out. plus it was naptime. and amy is far away from me, so she's ok.

Aren't they cute. someone has a nose issue, however.

and we are so cute together.

love, mom

randomocity

so, i see i haven't blogged in awhile, so i am starting, and hoping that something will come to me as i type.

My foot is doing well post-surgically. i see the dr for my 4 week checkup on friday. unless i spend humongous times on my feet, no probs. i have even driven with it.

I believe that I have my NANO theme ready to go. It involves something dear to my heart, though i will have to fictionalize it somewhat. This, for those who don't know is trying to write a novel in one month, november, i forget how many words. ryan knows all about it. i wasn't sure if i could do it, as i didn't have a theme that stuck. i would love to do a murder mystery, action thriller without sex, but i really don't know much about police procedure, fbi, seals, cia, etc., so i would only be going from all the gazillion books with this theme that i have read.

Dawn and I are going to check out a place on Marblehead for the reunion, after i call and see if it is available. it is www.greatrentals.com/OH/63o2.html hope the link works. i forgot to originally include the www, so if it doesn't work, put the www in.

kevin already hates mcdonalds, but we told him that he can't quit without another job in place. he is especially griping because this is his first week at real "full-time", and as they have him on nights, he misses a lot of activities. He says, "i'll never have any time off!" all those of you who work full-time know the adjustment it takes. i did tell him that education is the only way out of mindless, boring jobs that are awful. if you like what you do, at least it makes it more bearable to work full-time.

so, kerry is gone from today til the 28th, working 11+ hour days at a great translating opportunity, and something else to put on her resume. I ask you all to pray for her, for the fatigue factor of pregnancy will make it even more difficult. don't expect to hear from her or see her blog till probably october. braden, however, has all our permission to blog.

ah, dreams

the stuff of fantasy and weirdness..

so, i meant to blog sunday about my dream saturday night, but sundays there seems to be a mad rush to the comp, and i rarely get on.



i dreamed that the church called kerry on a mission. braden had to stay finishing school. but they called kerry as a missionary because they needed her special skillset. no one would do but her. then they called me as her companion, so that if she went into labor, i could deliver her (probably so the church wouldn't have a medical bill :-).



so, we walked around all the time missionarying. I don't know where we went on the mission. i assume it was spanish speaking. i remember that kerry was the senior comp.
the end.

the saga

saga is a texttwist word, for those in the know

this is the story, or once upon a time, there was a rhododendron bush sleeping away in a plant store. it looked great! it said it could live in part shade to shade.

so, this lovely rhododendron bush was lovingly purchased and planted in the bedroom garden of a home in north olmsted. it got lots of sun in the spring, and bits (but only bits) of sun in the summer. but, hey, it likes shade. and the maple tree shaded it well, lo, these many years.

poor rhododendron, to go to a home where gardening is a hit or miss proposition. why, oh why, was it planted where said maple tree stole nearly all the moisture from the soil, and blocked the rain from hitting the ground in said garden.

it lived. but barely. it never grew. it had some leaves, but it didn't look healthy. then it started to die.

in the meantime, said unaccomplished gardener decided to make a hedge to block the view into the back yard. rhododendron plants are supposed to get big. just this one hadn't. so,

like the parable about the seed in good ground, the gardener decided to move poor rhododendron plant to the sunny, quite wet location of the new hedge.

LO!! i mean, LO!! the leaves started to look healthy, and there was one beautiful pink blossom within a week or two. how did the gardener rejoice!!

then, the rhododendron died.
the end

oh what awful feet


but, actually, this is my awful foot. the others are kevin's after his ingrown toenails were fixed.

to whomever cares

so, i had my surgery done on wednesday. i am still alive, i love my pain pills. i lay around with my foot up and don't have to feel guilty. no crutches...hooray!! that probably would have done more damage than the surgery. i have a special surgery shoe that i wear for protection.

"It's the end of the world as we know it"

I was listening to NPR this morning. They mention that Newt Gingrich is an advisor to the Pentagon. First of all, he is crazy. i mean certifiable. note his antics as speaker of the house. he resigns under a cloud of illegal activities or suspicions. Somehow, he still has a job.

anyway, he was quoted about his advice about Iran, and the probs with nuclear capability which they won't give up, possible supplying weapons to hezbollah, blah,blah,blah. His advice? REGIME CHANGE!!!!! if he wasn't certifiable before, surely this makes the case. we shouldn't have gone into iraq, IMHO (i know your views, braden, leave me to mine), we fight a mounting insurgency, we haven't enough troops there, recruiting is down, so let's do the same thing in iran. luckily, the white house vetoed his advice, saying diplomacy would be better (a hard lesson learned). of course this was after they sat down and looked at the consequences of such an action, nuclear bombing of israel, destruction of our bases in the area, possible bombing of american cities, inciting WWIII, armageddon, etc.

sheesh

why i haven't blogged

Hello, everyone. for most, my name is mom. for others, christy. that's in case people have forgotten me.

No one ever wants to really know how you feel, so i have not blogged because i am in a tremendous flare since beginning of january. i also have had reactions to several different herbs and/or medicines which have given me severe diarrhea, cramping, or impossible headaches. Not to mention, i have been under a vow of silence to one person who would have killed me if i had spilled the beans about one of the things i have been thinking about lately.

today, i feel ok. so, HI!!

the weather today is better than that heat wave we have been experiencing along with most of the country. yesterday was 76, today it is 70 at 10:30 am. grateful for the break from the dog days.

i am soooooo excited about being a grandmother for the 4th and 5th times!!!! yea!! this is one of the reasons i so want to be healthy....i want to have an impact on my grandchildren's lives. i want to be able to sit on the floor and play with them. i want to be able to hold them for periods of time. i want, someday when they are all a little older, to have cousin camp, where we take all the grandchildren for a few days to a week and do cool things with them while their parents have a break. or hang out together themselves.

i love my family. hope you all know that. that's why i want to live close by in order to interact. i am willing to move once i have money. or why, when i have money, to assist in building my children's homes in order to have a mother-in-law suite so i can visit for periods of time without getting in people's faces.

i guess that's my post of today.

family pictures

To the left, patrick, greg, jared, pam wil (hasn't he grown), mitch, mark,
and jessica aubrie, karene, and jake


Alan, laNice, and aunt helen Dave, jackie, candace, rebecca, rick,
(aunt helen is grandpa G's sister.) and sarah.








these are the individual pictures. couldn't find the big family . note the family resemblance. alan, rick, david, pam, and mark. especially the high foreheads. pam just has some hair covering hers :)

so, i got some pictures up here, but it was never so easy as dan said. no button just appearing when i go to blog.

some about the massanutten reunion

this is david and kevin holding the scottish (old) and american flags at the start of the Va games.

This is one of my favorite just our family portraits because of carolyn futiley (sp?) trying to get away from the gnats. they were awful. somehow i don't see the big family picture in my pictures. oh, and i have a better one of us from the reunion. this was just funny.

David went with some to monticello. says he didn't get enough time there, which is probably true. there was the drive to get there, and then back for dinner. i told him he just should have been late to dinner.

Well, this isn't the reunion, but it has to do with scottish games in a way. we took ( i am using we in the queen's way) down the rusting basketball hoop. while kev and dad were in the process of getting the bolts out, we very scottishly (read, use what you have) used ryan's caber to hold up the backboard until it was ready to come down.

This was at monticello, and we all agree that it is the coolest tree ever.

so, i got pictures up...still wondering how i did it.

love, mom

great grandchildren

someone else is giving grandpa great grandchildren....

dan, the only buttons i have are for bold, italics, color of text, links, a pair of opening quote marks, spellchecker and "edit html"

THE MACKENZIE!!!!

Yesterday was the day for the Ohio Scottish Games. Although I have Irish ancestors, I do not believe that there were any Scots. But, being married to a Scot works. We had an enjoyable day, temp about 75 after having thunderstorms for the previous 3 days with flooding. but not our PERSONAL flooding, thank goodness.

This is the guy we call Gimli (for some reason) showing Kevin how to put on a REAL kilt. you lay it on the ground. leave a piece, whatever your width is, then start making folds of it on the ground until you only have a width size left. then you lay down so that the bottom is just above your knees. oh, sometime, you slipped a belt under the folds on the grass at whatever the length to your knees are. you pull the far side over your front, the near side over it, and buckle the belt. then, you stand up. the piece that now falls in front is longer than the one underneath. you can pull this up over your head if it is cold and rainy. you can connect the corners to put plaid on your front and back. or you can tuck in the corners and leave the back long. that's what gimli does. he said that those people who had their kilts with sewn-in pleats were not wearing kilts, they were wearing " catholic school girls' skirts"!!

This is Kevin at home wearing his catholic school girls' skirt MacKenzie Tartan and waving his footlong dagger. It is a dress dagger, he found out.

David in the Black Watch Tartan which was military, and you could be any clan when you wore it. Kevo in the MacKenzie.

A closer view....
This is a great traditional shot, missing only Ryan

We saw caber tossing, the march of the clans, the bands. pretty cool. david checked out a kids' game area to see how to adapt the scottish games for the reunion. oh, the vendors. kevin bought a mackenzie kilt, a dagger, and a (phonetically) skahn dee. you'll see.....

am missing my fam. wish you were closer.

love, mom

The wanderings....

So I went wandering down to cincinnati last thursday to last monday. i had fun. the kids were pretty open to me, and i got to play with all of them. of course, if carolyn is in the room, all bets are off with joel. i went swimming on the way home, so i could get some exercise.

we get a new garage door today. i am waiting for them. this is because the city likes our neighborhood and cited many of us for peeling paint on garage doors. we were also cited for the trim on the house needing painting. this is all true. so david is doing outside stuff until it's done. then, back to the basement.

kerry and braden get internet acces on friday. that's cool. maybe we can IM or have them finish their blog.... i love to know what is going on.

see ya soon. esp those going to virginia.

love, mama

oh, where, oh, where has my ryan gone....

i suppose when he gets in his apt in june, he will be more able to communicate, but i haven't heard from him in a while, and i miss him. hope all is well.

flattery will get you everywhere

we (the missionaries and I) were teaching this lady about the gospel. she looked at me and said, we're about the same age. since she had an 8 year old and a 12 year old, she's probably 15 years younger than I am. but, what the hay, think that aaaaaalllllllllllll you want.

Well, they're gone

Well, they left about 11:30. kerry and i put up brave fronts. on to a new adventure.

momorama

so, i heard it is time to blog about my boring life. it has been raining so much we are considering an ark. but today, so far, is sunny.

spent wednesday and friday helping kerry and braden pack. ya just gotta dig in and start somewhere, even if it's not a "plan".

went to kerry's graduation. very proud. i was the only one who saw her march in, because the program and kerry said that the graduation was at 2:30, but le universite started at 2. so, while we thought we'd be there early and get a decent seat, we were up on the bleachers (yuck) and without a decent view. but we were there, we saw it, and she is gradjiated.

Started a new set of sim2 characters, trying to encorporate grandparents, and extended family. yes, i know i didn't need the comma there, but i would rather write this whole sentence than go back and change it. kerry has been born, though not dan. i am currently married to w. dave, at least till dan is born, then we'll divorce. i still have to get all the aunts and uncles together, although rick does like jackie, and larry and anne have met. i have this expansion pack that lets you pick 2 things that your sim is attracted to, plus one that turns you off. so, i like men with brown hair and glasses. also, if a sim is angry with another sim, then in the relationships bar, they have a red covering their faces. when they cool off, it goes away.

oh, well, it's a post, anyway.
love the fam.
momorama

I hate the day after naet

ya see, i can only eat certain very limited things, and have to stay 7-8 feet away from others. last week it was metals. no swimming(chlorine), had to wear gloves so i didn't touch anything metal, nothing cooked in a metal pan or pot. luckily, i passed, even though dad said, about 7:30pm, "what about your glasses?" then he masking taped the metal, which was cool and sticky, not to mention gorgeous.

yesterday it is salts and sodium. so today is, in a way, cause i must avoid until 5:30 tonight. i just saw that one of my meds has sodium laurel stearate, or some such. we will have to see.

i admire ryan's reading of holocaust victims. we really should "never forget", although i think we do, as in darfour, nigeria, etc.

kerry's big day is coming up...don't forget her tomorrow afternoon.

love, mom