Wow it is hard to believe that on Friday July 4th Roger was back to his normal self (still tired though) and we all enjoyed going to fireworks...

Jennifer and Katie~

Dylan~

Katie~

Dylan being his normal silly self rolling down a hill~

Jennifer, Chris, Dylan and Katie~

And this is my favorite picture, my Beloved Roger~

We had a wonderful time at the park and watching fireworks~

We stopped on the way home to look at my Mom's new apartment, it's real nice. Just the right size for her, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom nice kitchen, dining area and living room. Granite countertops and a real cute fireplace.  It also has a washer dryer hookup which is real nice she won't have to be lugging laundry to a laundry building. There is also a nice outside patio quite large so she will be able to put her table and chairs out there.  She seems to like it so far.

We are hoping that Monday we will be a little more back to normal here. Yesterday I spent the whole day doing laundry, hadn't done any in almost a week!  Roger may be going into work but not sure, will have to wait and see how he feels in the morning.  We are both still very exhausted and just taking things easy, today I am doing nothing but relaxing, reading my Bible and just being with my husband..what a wonderful day this will be..

Thanks for all your continued prayers..

Blessings, Joann

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Roger is home from the hospital and we are praising God that he is doing fine, he will need to go in for blood work and he also has to give himself an injection 2 times a day but at least he is home.  We are both so happy and also exhausted, we plan on taking a few days of doing nothing and then gradually getting back into a routine.

For those on the "boards" thanks for coming here and checking in on Roger, it means a lot to both of us, hopefully the board will be up and running again soon...

A big thank you and lots of hugs for those who were praying on our behalf, prayer is an amazing thing!!

Blessings, Joann

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First I want to say thank  you so much for all of your prayers and concerns for Roger and me.  He was moved from ICU to PCU (kind of like a step down, not as much monitoring) last night. We were really hoping for him to come home today but that isn't going to happen, now we are hoping for tomorrow.  He is feeling much better and is looking much better. 

For all of my friends on the "boards" I was going to update last night and couldn't get to the site, still no luck today....so hopefully I will be able to get there later...thank you, you are such a great bunch of ladies...

I am home to let the dog out, grab something to eat and maybe take a nap, sleep is still not coming very easily.  I am going back to the hospital later tonight.

Will update more when I can

Thanks again to everyone for all of your prayers..

Blessings, Joann

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Saturday my husband was admitted to the hospital with numerous blood clots in both of his lungs, Sunday morning he was transferred to another hospital that was more well equipped to help him get better. He is now in ICU at a hospital about 45 minutes away from here. I have been spending most of my time with him at the hospital.  I miss him terribly and would just like to ask for prayers for both of us, he seems to be doing fine right now but he is very tired and worried and so am I.  I have only had a few hours sleep since Saturday, I just can't sleep, I keep thinking the hospital might call when I go to sleep and I may need to get there in a hurry, so I have my jammies on but I also have my socks and shoes on just in case.

Thank you to everyone who is already in prayer for him, we really appreciate it.

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We are having a very hard time breathing in the valley here in California...there seems to be fires everywhere and we are getting all kinds of smoke and we aren't even real close to some of the fires. I can only imagine what it's like if you live closer.  I have to run the air conditioner all the time, I would love to open the windows but it's just too bad out there. We are in the red zone for air  qualitly which is unhealthy for everyone.

Here is what it looks like around us

This was taking out of the front yard looking down our street...

This is  a park that is behind our house..

Here is another picture in the same park...

And this picture should be blue sky, but obviously it isn't...

Here is a picture looking at our back fence...

I know these pictures probably don't look too bad, but it's kind of like fog you can see it in the distance but when you are in it, it doesn't look too bad..

Roger has been having some problems with breathing, and it just smells horrible and the air is real heavy...

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I went outside this evening when Roger was weeding and took some pictures, only a couple today as it was really hot out there...

This is the crepe myrtle bush~

 it's getting bigger all the time, and this time it had about a dozen blossoms on it.  I am not sure how big the bush will get but in time I think it will be just gorgeous with all the blossoms...

Here is a picture of the one of the blossoms up close~

Then I went over to the other side of the yard and that is where the Butterfly bush is, it's getting bigger too and boy does it have lots of buds that will soon be blooming, not too many blooming right now but tons of little ones .

This is what it looked like today~

It sure is the pretiest color of purple and I really like purple...

Then this evening after dinner(  I did end up making burgers~bacon cheeseburger, fries and onion rings) I got my friends present ready to mail out, need to get it in the mail Monday so it will get there on or before her birthday the 26th she lives in Illinois but I am sending it priority so it should be there on time...Hope she enjoys it...

Jackie's Birthday gift all ready to be packed in the box~

Okay I am off to relax for the rest of the evening...watch something cool on tv, oh who am I kidding we get like 180 some channels and there is never anything good on probably just put a DVD in, maybe a good action movie or thriller you know the ones you don't have to think about just watch and enjoy Have a great night!!

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Wow what a weekend, glad it's Sunday and a day of rest....That's all I have been doing so far today and it's already almost 6pm...

Friday we went and helped Jennifer move which was hard just because it was so hot... but she is now pretty much all moved into her new place..We helped with mainly the big things as we have a trailer to haul things in, so that came in very helpful for the move.

We also started working on our fish tank, Roger got me this fish tank for my birthday a few years ago, and this weekend we decided to make some changes, we changed the rock color and added a bubble wand, I know that doesn't sound like much  but if anyone out there has a tank and knows how much work is involved then they would understand....it's a lot!!  Roger did most of the work and of course I did most of the supervising that always seems to work out for us..

Saturday we were still waiting for the tank to filter through all of the "gunk" that was in the water, we then added the rock and put the bubble wand in, today (Sunday) it is all nice a clear and so pretty, Don't ya just love the skull and coffin, the skull is there because it reminds me of the Pirates of the Carribean Movie and Johnny Depp The coffin Roger picked out, not sure why..

Here is  a picture of it~

Here is another  ~ (the coloring is different, because I did not have the flash on)

I have also been working on some placemats for a friends birthday and I know she is like me and likes roosters, so I picked some rooster fabric that I think she also plans to make some curtains out of so I am hoping they will match

Here are the placemats~

Then before I go just wanted to share with you dinner I made the other night I think it was Thursday, it turned out real good tasting and it was something I just threw together...

Chicken and vegetables~

All I did was I had 2 chicken breasts thawed and some vegetables, carrots, celery, and onion and I put olive oil on the chicken and some seasonings, chopped up the veggies put a little water in the bottom of the pan covered with foil and baked about 1 and a half hours I don't remember the time I always check my chicken with a thermometer to make sure it is done and when it hit 170' I took it out, the veggies were so good...

Hope everyone had a good weekend, I am on my way into the kitchen now to make dinner, just some burgers and onion rings and french fries, unless I get sidetracked and go get chinese food

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It has come to my attention through some not nice comments left here that people don't like some of the things I have been posting about (Christian things).  If you don't like what I am posting about, then please feel free to leave! Anyone is welcome here I don't want anyone to feel unwelcome but just realize that I am a Christian and I will state my views on things that I want to talk about or things that I feel people need to hear about...It's my blog plain and simple!! If you don't agree with what I am saying then please feel free to leave a comment but don't be suprised if I delete it...

Blessings, Joann

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When my Dad passed away a little over a year ago, I was so sad, to my knowledge he never accepted Jesus as his savior, so I didn't  really know the state of his soul. I was so sad for so long until one day when I was driving  I heard this song on the radio and I just had to pull over because I was so moved by it, it reminded me of how even in the bad times I need to sing praises, and cling to the rock..I can sing in the troubled times..that always makes me cry..

Here is the song, if you have a chance to hear it somewhere I encourage you to, it's very inspiring..

"How can I keep from singing"

There is an endless song

echoes in my soul

I hear the music play

And though the storms may come

I am holding on

To the rock I cling

How can I keep from singing Your praise

How can I ever say enough

How amazing is Your love

How can I keep from shouting Your name

I know I am loved by the King

And it makes my heart want to sing

I will lift my eyes

In the darkest night

For I know my Savior lives

And I will walk with You

knowing You'll see me through

And sing the songs You give

I can sing in the troubled times

Sing when I win

I can sing when I lose my step

And  fall down again

I can sing 'cause You pick me up

Sing 'cause You're there

I can sing  'cause You hear me, Lord

When I call to you in prayer

I can sing with my last breath

Sing for I KNOW

That I'll sing with the angels

and the saints around the throne

This is truly just a wonderful song...it's by Chris Tomlin and it's on his "See the morning" CD

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Okay it is so slow going when I don't feel like doing something...Today I just sucked it up and got in the craft room, luckily my computer is in there too and I have been working in here since about 11 this morning and now it's almost 3pm ..Remember what it did look like~

Well now this is what it looks like today after working in there for all that time, I don't really see that much differnce but I think it's just because I didn't actually get to go through or organize anything it was just boxed and put on the other side of the room.  I did get 1 large garbage bag size of garbage out which is so nice, I just can't wait till it is time to get to put things into there permanent homes. 

Here is a picture of the side where my computer is (this is it's permanent home)

The shelving above the computer is basically going to be for books, binders and baskets, no not those green and blue ones, those where just left here from Matthew's room but right now I am using them just to store stuff in.

This picture is of where the two sides meet kind of right in the middle of the window area, you can kind of see where the two table tops are different, one is deeper than the other..

Then I came across some cards that were sent to me when my father passed away and I really had a hard time going on from that point so instead of doing anymore today I just had to get out his Mandolin (this is kept in my craft room, so it is always close to me) and look at it, it made me cry but that's okay I cry most every day thinking about my Dad this past weekend was just horrible, and unfortunately my husband bore the brunt of my saddness..

So in memory of my Dad ~ William  ~ November 7, 1923 ~ March 11, 2007 here is a picture of his beloved Mandolin~

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I started my day by reading most of my favorite blogs, the ones I read daily somehow always seem to inspire me somehow...

It wasn't until afternoon that I got around to doing anything but here are my accomplishments for the day...I am very happy with what I got done..

First I did one load of laundry, from beginning to end, that means wash/dry/fold and putaway. I know one load doesn't seem like a lot but it was all I needed to do today.

I then got the dishwasher unloaded and put away all the clean dishes in the dish drainer...

I started dough in my breadmachine (one of my servants)

for dinner rolls for tonight, while that was doing it's job I stirred up a batch of brownies and put them in the oven.  When the brownies were cooking I started a batch of oatmeal bars in my mixer (another one of my servants)

Here is a picture of a few of the ingredients I used in the bars

When the brownies came out (Oh don't they look sooooo good!)

I let them cool and then I cut them up and put them in a container

I then had to clean out my 9x13 pan ( I only have one, need to get another one) and proceeded to put the oatmeal bar batter in the pan, got those baked (don't these look good too!! they are real gooey!!)

By the time I was done with that the breadmachine had finished my dough, I made them into rolls and put them in a pan to rise, waited about 30 minutes and they were ready to go in the oven

Twelve minutes later they were ready to come out and they looked so yummy!!

Then it was on to dinner, for tonight it was  Skillet macaroni and beef from a Gooseberry patch cookbook I picked up when Roger and I went to Missouri last year, I just love their cookbooks, wish I had more of them...

Here is a picture of some of the ingredients

First I browned the ground beef

Then I chopped up the onion

Then I added the onion and the peppers (which were already chopped and frozen, just had to defrost them a little)

Then came the elbow macaroni

and the tomato sauce and worcestershire sauce

after cooking for 25 min. this is what it looked like, real yummy!!

So that is what my day was like.....

Have a very blessed night..

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Hi !! Hope everyone is having a great week so far.  I was reading blogs this morning and found the best post at my friends blog   

Cult, catholic church & false teachers

http://fruitofthespiritg.blogspot.com/2008/06/cult-catholic-church-false-teachers.html

I think anyone who has family or friends in the catholic church should read this post..

My entire family is catholic(all of them born itnto it, not chosen to be catholic), luckily I was able to find Jesus when I was about 26 and have never looked back.  I love knowing that I have Jesus in my heart and that I am saved.  I do not agree with any of the teachings of the catholic church and I do believe it is a cult!! Plain and simple..

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My husband Roger has been so good to go with me to the library every other Friday, I found some wonderful books especially one I had heard a lot of good things about- Home Comforts, I haven't started to read it yet but plan on it as soon as I am done with the book I am reading right now....

These are the books I picked up last time we were at the library~

I bought some fabric a while back to use for a tablecloth for our table. I have since realized I would rather have placemats than a tablecloth anyway this is the fabric for the placemats~

I did something yesterday that I haven't done in almost a year.....I went to the MALL !!  I am not a shopper at all, I would rather order something online than go to a mall and shop but the things I wanted from Bath and body works were out of stock on line so I went to the store...I was buying a birthday present for a good friend (she doesn't read my blog, so it's safe to talk about). She loves the fragrance Brown sugar and fig??? I thought that was kind of strange as I had never heard or smelled that fragrance before and well the name doesn't sound that pleasing, anyway last year I went to the Mall also to get some things for her and when I smelled that fragrance I just fell in love with it too, it's very light scented and so of course I had to buy myself some too...well this year this is what I am sending Jackie for her birthday next week~

Hope everyone has been having a great week

Blessings, Joann

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Roger and I went out last night and he did the weeding and I did the raking up of all the weeds.  I finally got around to taking some pictures of what the back patio looks like without the screened in porch walls....it is so much more open and bright looking...

Here is a picture of what it did look like~

Here is a picture taken from in the yard looking back to the house~

Here is a picture looking to the east part of the yard~

Here is a picture looking to the west part of the yard~

Here is a picture of a bloom on our butterfly bush~

This is our ugly back door(which will soon be replaced)~

Well that's all the new pictures of the back yard for now...

Blessings, Joann

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I did manage to get some placemats made for my sister for her birthday.  The striped fabric I used was real hard to work with (it was heavier than the other fabrics) but after just a few times of stitching it together and taking it back out it seemed to work okay.  They didn't turn out as good as I had wanted but they were fine.

Here is what the placemat looks like~

Here is the napkin~

Sunday me and Roger spent most of the day getting the rest of the Gazebo put back together. We take down the fabric part for the winter and it is getting that time of year to have it back together.  We couldn't believe that all of our lights still worked, usually there is always one that has burned out or broken... we also washed down the table, chairs and even the cushions.  It looks so nice out there.  We went to Home Depot and bougtht one of those deck boxes to store the cushions in and it is huge, about 6 feet long.

Here are a couple of pictures of the gazebo area~ it's in our front courtyard...

And here is our new deck box~

Isn't that box just huge?? It was so nice to get everything cleaned up and washed down it looks so nice now.  Roger even cleaned off the BBQ.  Last night he washed all the windows on the back of the house, he is so nice sometimes

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I decided today to try a new recipe for cinnamon rolls, this one seemed to use less ingredients but in the end I think I like my old recipe better...anyway this is what I did today, of course this is only my second try at making cinnamon rolls, so they aren't very pretty looking or all the same size, but they still taste good

This is what the dough looked like at the end of the dough cycle in the breadmaker~

This is after I put it on the lightly floured countertop~

Then I rolled it out~

Then I spread the butter and cinnamon filling on~

Then I rolled it up~

Cut the cinnamon rolls and put them into a pan~

This is what they looked liked after about an hour of raising~

This is whay they looked liked when they were done baking~

And after the frosting~

Next time I do some baking I will go back to my original recipe. There was nothing wrong with these they taste fine but I think we just like the other ones better. These also are made with all white flour and the other recipe I have uses part whole wheat pastry flour. I have been trying to do all of my baking on one day so that way the oven is on for a few hours for one day instead of 20-30 min. on more than one day. I am trying to get some sort of schedule made up for different things.  I was doing my grocery shopping on Mondays and then on the way home stopping for a pizza (I never feel like cooking on a grocery shopping day) and I think that will stay the same but I think istead of trying to do baking on Mon. also I am going to change it to do it on Wednesday, I want to start doing laundry on weekdays only so that leaves our weekends free and I don't have to worry about - do we have clean clothes?? Roger and I have started going to the library every other Friday, that works out great, we also have to do some other errands on that day so it fit in perfectly...

Tomorrow being Thursday, Roger is usually at work but he has a dentist appointment so he will be home.  I enjoy him being home and he will be here until next Tuesday.  I need to start working agin on my craft room, I have moved my computer over to where it will be permanently and now starts the task of moving everything from one side of the room to the other, all the boxes, baskets and plastic containers need to be relocated to the left side of the room while the right side is being finished off like the left side was..right now the whole place is a mess..

My sister is having a birthday party this weekend and she will be turning 50, I am thinking of making her a set of placemats and napkins but haven't even started on them yet...so we will see..

Blessings Joann~

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I have finally got the time to post my tour of our home.  I had wanted to do it a while back and then never seemed to find the time to take all the pictures and get them on the computer..

So here we got, first this is the front door and the entry way... Come on in

When you come in the door if you turn to the left you will be in the kitchen, here are a few pics of the kitchen..

This is the side with the stove and refrigerator~

This next one is of the stove where I cook all the wonderful meals for myself and Roger

Here is a picture of the counter area next to the stove~

Next here is a picture of the other side of the kitchen where the sink is~

Here is a picture of the counter on the sink side looking back toward the doorway~

Here is a picture looking from the doorway all the way to the dining room which is at the end of the kitchen~

If you go straight instead of turning into the kitchen you will be in our hallway, a little jog to the left and that is the living room, here are some pictures of the living room...

This picture is of the south side of the living room~

This is another view of the same side of the living room, that door that is open leads to our backyard~

Here is our entertainment area- Yes we have a very large tv and we love it, we also have tons of movies and a great surround sound system so we have lots of movie nights! Sorry for the flash in the middle of the screen. On the right side of the TV is where I keep all of my books, as you can tell I am going through them right now so it's a mess~

Next picture is of the North wall of the living room~

In the next picture you will see what takes up half of my living room, yes it's an eliptical machine those pictures and shelf that are sitting behind it are to be hung up in the master bathroom but haven't made it in there yet!

If you turn right you will see our long hallway...

Going down the hallway their is a bathroom on the right....

My craft room is on the left, sorry no pictures of that though I had posted some of them before, basically just picture a real messy room!!

At the end of the hallway is the master bedroom, here are some picutres of it, notice the big empty space above the bed well I actually did find somethings to hang up there but haven't gotten them up yet...

Here is a picture looking into the master bedroom~

Here is our Master bathroom...

And the last room on the hallway on the left is Roger's office...

Well I certainly hope you enjoyed touring our home...

This past weekend Roger spent many hours taking down our screened in back patio and does it look nice and open now, I haven't gone out to take the after pictures yet but will in the next few days.  It was such a big job. 

Here is a picture of one part of the walls he took down~

Here is a picture of the back patio area all of the walls are now gone, in this picture you can see where there was a wall at the left side, well now it's all open

Here is a picture of my hibiscuis blooming, the color is so pretty and it has about 4 more about to bloom..

I have a few sewing projects that I would like to work on in the next few months, some shorts and things for the grandkids, but I am usually very slow working on things, so don't be holding your breath to see any finished projects

Here is what I am wanting to get done~

A pair of shorts for both Dyaln and Katie out of this fabric~

A little outfit for Katie out of this fabric~

And I would like to make a pair of shorts for Dylan out of this fabric and Katie a little outfit~

Guess I better wrap this up, have lots to do today and need to get in the shower and get my day started.

Blessings, Jo

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I had promised a while back to do a tour of my home and well I just kept putting it off and forgetting about it...I finally took some more recent photos and will be putting them up in the next few days.  So please come back and you will have to excuse the look of my blog as I am messing around with my template and since I am not very good at it, well it may take some time...

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I have a friend that is throwing her daughter Kelly a sweet sixteen party and I had just come across some pictures of my own daughters sweet sixteen party, but it was 11 years ago!! Where has all the time gone and boy did it go fast.

So I decided I would scan in some pictures of Jennifer's sweet sixteen and post them here on my blog.  We all had a nice time and most of the girls wore poodle skirts while most of the guys that came wore white t-shirts and jeans a couple even came with their hair slicked back and had black leather jackets...

Here is a picture of the whole gang, she didn't have a lot of people but it was still fun...

Here is a picture of her cake...

Here is a picture of her then boyfriend and her acting crazy...

As you can tell the picture quality isn't very good, we didn't have a digital camera back then.

We had her party at our Church hall, that our pastor let us use . I can't believe she just celebrated her 27th birthday and that she is the mom of two children, they all grow up way too fast...

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I met someone online a while back, her name is Robin and she lives with her family in Florida.  She graciously asked on a message board that I belong to if anyone would be interested in receiving a "Flroida Box" this would be a small box that she would put somethings you can find in Florida.

Our box arrived today, I was so impressed with the time she put into making this for us. 

This is what it looks like~ I didn't take pictures of all of the sides but she wrote different things on each side and put stickers all around it *how cool*

 I was wanting to give it to my grandchildren so they came over this afternoon to pick it up and I took some pictures (of course) by this next few pictures you can see how Dylan was so excited!

Here he is holding one of the bags with seashells and sand, he is hiding the other bags behind his back (I don't know why??)

I didn't take any pictures of Katie as she didn't seem to be as interested in the box as she was in our dogs toys so I just let her play..

Anyway I just wanted to post what a bright spot that brought to my day and it was so much appreciated~Thanks Robin~

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