Pixiemom

It’s been three weeks now since I fell. James spilled the mop bucket all over the kitchen floor. I was at the sink and when I quickly turned around, I went down… on my right hand. I thought it wasn’t that bad, so I put on the brace I had here. A week later, it was still really sore and swollen, plus the pinky side of my hand was purple. They did x-rays and found that my wrist was definitely sprained. The tendons or ligaments or whatever they are had been stretched a bit too much and my wrist bones were too far apart. They gave me a better brace to wear. A week later, I went to see the Dr. My hand was still sore, swollen, and purple. I couldn’t grip his hand with my ring or pinky fingers. His diagnosis… sprained wrist AND hairline fracture in the 4th and/or 5th metacarpals (hand bones that go to those fingers). He sent me to get an MRI this last Tuesday and to continue to wear my brace. So far… we don’t have the results of that and my follow-up Dr’s appointment isn’t until next Thursday morning. I ran out of my prescription pain meds a few days ago. I was only taking them at night to allow me to sleep. Now I know how much they were working because I really haven’t slept well since then.

Anyway, I’m asking for prayers. From the way my hand is still hurting and all, I am pretty sure it’s broken, but I’m not a dr. I need to get through this next week without aggravating it anymore. It keeps getting hit or whatever and that part of the brace is soft, so it’s not keeping things from pressing on it. I’m not really supposed to sweep or mop, but I’m a housewife and there is a LOT of dirt that comes in my house… So, pray for me. This is really hard.

We are helping out a friend by watching her baby until school is out. She’s a teacher at the local high school. While we’re watching him, we’re still doing some school, but we’ve slowed down a bit for now. James is loving having baby A here. He’s my main helper. He has even changed a few wet diapers.

Today, I thought this was funny… he had a blow-out diaper, so I pulled his clothes off of him and was washing him up when he let a stream flow. Of course, I was ready and threw a wipey down on him. Since his clothes were already dirty, I let them soak up most of the wetness. The reactions of the kids were funny though. First, they were all going “Ewww” and then they’re all “YIKES! He’s peeing! Get a diaper on quick!” I was laughing so much.

Right now, Christine is feeding him his bottle. This is her first time doing this. I’m glad they are wanting to help out. This is a good thing for them to learn.

I went through my links. I may still have some out of date links in there, but I pulled out most of the ones I know of that are either dead or comatose. I still have to update the theme.

Also, I’ve updated my other site some as well. PixiePhotography.net is still a work in progress, but at least it has something to look at. There’s now another page where you can see all the photos I’ve posted since I began. Kind of like a photo blog. If you go to that site, under the weekly photo, there is a link that says “view more” which takes you to that page.

So, that’s the news for now. I’m sure I’ll have more soon enough.

(I am not a writer. This is something I was imagining one day.)

Hi, I’m Pixie. I’m one of many faeries who live around here. My life is filled with all kinds of different things. What I see is the same as what you see only in a different way. I want to tell you about the things I encounter while I fly around.

In the fall, it’s the leaves. They are easy to avoid while flying as they are usually slow as they drift to the ground. Sometimes, I will grab a friend or two and we’ll find a leaf that is about to come loose and take a seat on it. The extra weight makes the trip a bit faster for the leaf, but if you find one with a good curve to it, you can have a great ride. It will spin and turn, even do some loopty-loops. This is one of my favorite times of the year.

In the winter, I have to stay inside a lot. My wings freeze up and I can’t fly very much. I do go out some though. Sometimes I take a short flight when the snowflakes are falling. When they are big and slow, it is like I am dancing with them. I can’t go out at all if there is sleet or ice. That is extremely dangerous. One of my big brothers lost a wing because it froze. Our wings are delicate things and even trying to move it a little made his break. I shudder when I think of that.

In the spring, oh my… here in the woods where we live, it can be dangerous. We have many maple trees around. When their seeds start falling, you must be very careful. It is hard to predict the fall of a spinning maple seed. The seed part is fairly hard and if it hits you, you may go spinning out of control yourself. The “wing” part of it may not be sharp, but at the speed it is spinning, it can take out a wing easily. I tried to ride one once. I was so dizzy by the time it hit the ground that I had to lay there for a long time letting my head get back to normal. Some of my friends like it, but it was something I really don’t think I want to experience again.

In the summer, I find my bug friends coming around. Have you ever watched a dragonfly as it flies through the air and pauses in it’s flight? That’s probably when it is stopping to say hi to me or one of my kin. They are very friendly and enjoy a good chat. Sometimes we ride on them. They are so much fun. The bees know where to find the best nectar for our food. We have found there is always enough for them to use for their honey as well as providing food for hummingbirds, butterflies, and for all of us faeries. When we go searching for nectar, we usually team up with a bee. They will point out a flower for us and then move onto another for themselves. When our reserves are full, we give them the rest of our nectar in exchange for a bit of honey to put away for the winter months. We don’t associate with the butterflies very much. They are a bit stuck up about their beautifully colored oversized wings when ours are smaller, thin and transparent with no real color of their own, but I love my wings. When the sun hits them just right, they seem to have all the colors of the rainbow.

I wish you could see us like I can see you. Humans seem like such interesting creatures. They come into the woods where I and my kin live. Some of them are not so nice and leave things around that harm us or the animals, but most of them are considerate. Some like to talk and laugh, like me, and then others are quiet and seem to enjoy looking around. I fly up close… hoping that one day, there will be one of you that will see me…. hear me. Hoping that I can find another friend.

I know I’ve rambled a bit, but I do hope you have enjoyed my little story. Sometime, maybe I’ll tell you about other things in my life. Until then, if you feel a light touch on the back of your hand, but see nothing… know that it is me, saying hello.

In the town where we live now, the first Saturday of May is Good Neighbor Day. They have a parade and lots of people cook out. We live on a main street of the town and found them lining up the floats for the parade in front of our house. We watched there for a while before we headed down to the actual parade route and found a place to sit while we watched.

Noelle did not like the beginning of the parade. They had ALL the firetrucks, ambulances, dive rescue vehicles and police cars at the very beginning… all of them having their sirens going.

I loved the marching bands. Those were my favorite part. There were three of them throughout the parade. It always makes me remember my days of marching band in high school… especially Sullivan South down in Tennessee. Those were some really, really good days.

Another thing I liked was how the musical floats and the marching bands were spaced out enough that one didn’t overwhelm the other with their sounds.

The parade was an hour long and they threw out way too much candy, but it was a good one to watch. I really enjoyed it.

In other news, Jeremy and I had our first time actually leading the Youth Group yesterday evening. It took a little while for the kids to get into the discussion, but they did well. What impressed me the most was their willingness to pray for each other’s prayer requests. Afterwards, we had a game of Capture the Flag. So far, I’ve met four of the girls in the group and I don’t what they think, but I know I am going to love working with them.

So, there is my update for today. I’ll try and make sure to update again soon.

As many of you know, I used to be the Youth Leader at our church for the youth girls before we moved to Chicago. I loved doing it. I’m still in contact with a few of those girls through Facebook.

At our new church, Jeremy and I have been asked to fill in until they can find a new Youth Pastor/Music Leader. They are looking for a young man and are willing to look at some fresh out of college. (If you know anyone who might like this job, Here’s the church’s website.) They are thinking that if he is unmarried that I will stay on as the female leader. We went up and met a few of the kids last Sunday night. I enjoyed talking to the girls and getting to know a few of them a bit more.

One big thing that will be different this time… I will have one of my own children in the youth group. Amie will be old enough to join starting in June. It will be interesting… I wish I could share my thoughts on this, but I feel it is safer to keep it off of this public place.

Mostly, I’m excited. I love working with this age. I seem to get along with them well and they are more accepting of my quirks and craziness than older people. So… here’s to starting this new chapter in my life. *smiles*

This last Saturday, I helped a bit youth with a thing here in the Chicago area called Breakaway. It started at 9:30 pm on Saturday night and ended at 7 am on Sunday morning. The 500 kids came from many Churches. It started at a church with a worship rally and a speaker, the Chicago Bears chaplain. Then, they had pizza and soda before breaking into three different groups and heading out to three different fun places and rotating through those places during the night. I went to the church and heard a bit of the band that was leading the Worship Rally and then listened to the speaker. He was a good speaker, really knew how to get the kids’ attention. I was working the Bowling Alley rotation, so the girl I was working with and I grabbed some pizza and soda and took off to make sure everything was ready there by the time the youth groups started showing up there. The first group showed up at 1 am and each group was there for almost 2 hours. We had questions and activities for the kids to do to get candy as well as trophies for high scores. I was using the microphone quite often during those 6 hours we were there. It was a lot of fun. The next morning, I got home and found that all four girls had taken baths or showers the night before and James had already had his shower that morning. The only thing I needed to do was help AnnaBeth and Noelle with putting their hair up and then Jeremy and the kids walked to church and I fell asleep.

All in all, it was a good night and lots of fun. I have a few pictures from the night, but most of the time, it was too dark for good photography. I have none from the bowling alley, but that’s ok.

Until next time… Good bye and may God bless you.

So, yesterday was my oldest niece’s birthday. I miss living close to them. My sister and I have talked a lot over the last few days. Mostly about school stuff, but I’m wanting to see her and her family very much right now. I’ll have to wait until whenever it is we see each other again. If it be next month or not until August… at least I know I’ll be seeing them sometime.

Spring Break is done for my kids and we are getting back into school. I have a slight problem with the fact that our external hard drive got knocked down by the kids, so it’s not working, and with my laptop in the shop, I don’t have my phonics or counting worksheets that I use with AnnaBeth and Noelle. I’m making do with what I have and we’re working with their math and phonics workbooks until my laptop gets back, but I miss those pages that I’ve used with them.

I got out my stringed instruments yesterday and tuned them. I played a bit on the mountain dulcimer and the guitar and worked with Amie on the autoharp. My fingers are pretty sore today, so I’m not sure if I’ll do any playing today, but I’ll do some more tomorrow. Now I need to also get out my flute sometime and refresh myself on playing it.

We headed down to our other house this last weekend. It’s getting cleaned out and we retrieved the last of our stuff from there. I love all the flowers that are blooming down there. So many more than up here and it’s only a 3 hour drive south. Amazing how much of a difference that makes.

I think that’s about it for now. Laundry and mopping and other housework stuff is calling. I also have a few flower pictures to edit and post up on Facebook and Flickr later today.

First… Happy Birthday to my lovely sister! I love you, Jill. I wish we lived closer so I could celebrate with you and then watch your kids and let you and Rob go out on a date.

It’s Spring Break here for us. It is much needed. We were all getting a bit burnt out and stressed. We’ll start back on Monday and until the end of April, we’ll go 5 days a week and then cut back to 4 days a week and a day out (field trips?) starting in May.

We were told that our membership will be up for vote in the new church this next Sunday. We’ve loved meeting the people there and we’re still meeting more.

Also… I have a photo website now. PixiePhotography.net I’m changing the lower photo about once a week and I’m trying to figure out how to put slideshows on there. I think I need Jeremy’s help with that though.

It’s been a while since I’ve really updated, so I’m trying to think of what all to say. Hmmm…

AnnaBeth, James, Noelle, and I are all learning the routines for dance to prepare for the recital coming up in June. It is really fun. Jeremy got me an iPod Touch a few weeks ago and I’ll put on the music and do my routine over and over. The kids think it looks funny because they can’t hear the music… but that’s okay because it’s not the music I’m dancing to in class. I practice with whatever music comes on while it’s on shuffle. Sometimes a bit slower, sometimes a bit faster, but always going over the part of the routine I’ve learned so far.

I miss singing with others… really miss it. I haven’t done any singing other than with my iPod or my radio. It’s not the same.

Jeremy and I got bikes and have been riding. Because of my knee, I’m limited at how far I can go. I’m quite happy with my 1.26 miles though I do hope to get farther. Jeremy is hoping to get to where he can ride the 27 miles into work. So far, he’s gotten up to 18 miles. I’m proud of him and his determination. He’s a bit discouraged as he hasn’t been able to ride any this week because of the rain, but he’ll be back at it as soon as a nice day comes around again.

Oh.. I went down a size for jeans. That surprised me greatly. I needed new ones because the old ones were holey or ripped. I knew my old jeans were a bit loose, but figured they were like that because of being… well… old. When I tried on the same size at the store, I found differently. I haven’t been this size since before I was pregnant with Christine. A bit less “5 baby fat”. Woohoo!

My sister is pregnant with #4 for them. She’s due in early October, I think. I’m hoping she goes a little early… you know, around September 23. *smile*

Ok, now for the best news… on February 2, both AnnaBeth and Noelle became Christians. Jeremy recorded the events… so you can see them here and here.

Now… for my readers… to help me blog a bit more, ask me some questions. What would you like to know about me?

I put a list of pictures together that kind of define who I am.

1. Me… No one else.
2. Christian
3. Awed by the works of God
4. Married
5. Totally in love with Jeremy
6. Mom to five
7. Auntie
8. Friend
9. Social, especially with family and friends
10. Love my kitties
11. Photographer
12. Homeschool teacher
13. Often tired, worn out
14. Sunsets, awed almost every evening
15. Mountains, they are “home”, miss them all the time
16. Streams, they are calming
17. Hiking, another thing I miss living in the city
18. Climb trees
19. Flowers, they are all so beautiful
20. Silly, crazy
21. Somewhat crafty
22. Geeky, my computer is used for Facebook, RP, and chat most of the time.
23. Musical, I sing and collect instruments to learn to play
24. Dr Pepper and water, my favorite drinks
25. Chocolate… I’m a chocoholic.
26. Oberweis… a special place for me and my kids.
27. My feet. I like having different cute shoes and sandals and doing my toenails.

I’ll probably add to that as I take pics of more things that define me.