Life, death, and foster children

LIFE
My family came to visit this last weekend.  I cleaned their dogs' teeth, we discovered some delicious new restaurants (The Olive Cafe and Coley's Bistro), and they helped me in the yard.  My parents are such a great support to me especially now that I'm an adult.   How do I even begin to say thank you and communicate how grateful I am to their ever loving guidance and support? 


This weekend, we just spent time doing life together.   After we wore ourselves out playing in the dirt, we sat on our patio reading and studying.  Dad read a book on his iphone, Chase worked on writing a paper, Mom studied her Spanish lesson, and I read "Personal Finance for Dummies."  Yeah...that sounds like a great book for weekend reading, but I'm a new grad married to a graduate student...and we're doing our best to make ends meet and plan for the future.  I just want to be a good steward of what money we do have by tithing, saving, and spending frugally.  I'd also like to start a retirement account soon...since it's a goal of mine to not be a burden financially on my children when I'm old and decrepit (God willing).  You have to start saving young! 

Spring is my favorite time of the year!  It's so full of hope...so full of joy!  Flower are amazing...each year they bloom and grow...lifting their colorful petals to the heavens.  At the end of the season, they die and in death return nutrients and seeds to the soil for the next generation.   A beautiful and colorful life that provides for the next generation....

 

Luigi didn't really spend his weekend at my house pondering the short life of flowers or planting vegetables.  He really just wanted me to throw his ball so he could catch it between his sparkly, white teeth. When you're a dog, it's the little things that count.




DEATH

My grandfather passed away this afternoon.  He was in his mid-90s and has been ready to join the lord in heaven for some years now.  He was a humble carpenter/farmer who worked hard to raise his 4 boys with my Nannie.   That side of my family so incredibly closely knit!  What a blessing they are to me! What a blessing it has been knowing my Grandpa!  So many stories...so many memories.  I really can't communicate all the thoughts running through my head now as they run from joy, grief, and gratefulness.   As a Christian, I have faith that this is the beginning of something even better!  I'll be heading down to Arkansas to go his funeral this weekend.


FOSTER CHILDREN

Chase and I have been called to do this. While we prepared to make a positive impact in the next generation, we said goodbye to a beloved family member today. We have great family that raised us and continues to support us.   We've been asked by numerous people..why?  Why are you going to do this to yourself?  You know that you will be challenged and you will be hurt... You know you'll have to love the children that enter your home, nurture them, tend their emotional wounds...and send them back, possibly to the very people that hurt or neglected them?  All I can say is that we've been called.   What better way to show Christ's love for us than to provide for his children?  What better way to demonstrate Christ's forgiveness than to help a struggling parent get back on their feet?  What better way to show Christ's grace than to love that parent as well?  Yes it will be hard...yes we will be hurt... BUT what task worth doing is easy?  As Christians we are called to provide for "the least of these."  We are called to care for the orphans and the widows.   The Crossing Church said it better than I ever could during their Compassion Sunday Sermon.  It's worth listening to :)

Ways you can help....

• Foster/Adopt (we used Great Circle as our licensing agency)

• Respite Care - respite care provides time off (usually 1 weekend or less) for current foster parents.  The licensing requirements are less stringent.  Basically you just have to get some background checks and have a home walk through.  The state pays you for this service and it's a great way to help foster families!
• Babysitting - Foster parents need baby sitters too!  
• The Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association - This website has a ton of ideas on how you can help without actually taking a child into your home.  They take donations and volunteers.  They help with providing continuing education to foster/adoptive parents, school supplies, mentors for teenagers, and food for foster families.
• Hope Chest for Kids - This is another program that helps provide supplies and support to families with foster children.   The song in the background makes me cry (Somewhere out there).

 

 

I know not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but you can still help the children!

 

 

Lastly, I've had a hymn in my head all day, The Hymn of Promise:

In a bulb there is a flower; in a seed, an apple tree;

In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!

In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,

Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;

There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.

From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,

Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;

In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,

In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,

Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

 
 

Peace and Love, y'all! 
 

WOYWW

This week I'm off on Wednesday!  Play along with us at the lovely Julia's Blog.
 

 

There's not too much today...just breakfast and a cup of coffee.  In the lower right we have a Passover dinner guide. We're having a couple over for dinner tonight to celebrate the Last Supper.  I still have to go to the grocery and purchase some supplies.   ...and there's a whole house to clean and get guest ready!  My husband baked a cake last night (it was delicious) so my kitchen...is just a bit mess too!  Ugh!  I'll try to pop in and visit some blogs during cleaning break!

Peace and Love, y'all!

Fostering and Adoption: Learning new things

I'm working on a scrapbooking project to try to provide a way to introduce ourselves to foster kids and their families.  Not sure if it will actually help, but if my parents were taken from my house...a book detailing where they were going might make me feel a little better.    I'll create the book and then see what our placement specialist says about it.  For now it gives me something to do.  I love having a project to work on ...something to inspire me!

 

 

I'll make pages for our house rules, the chinchillas, board games we love, movies we love (children appropriate), outdoor activities, favorite meals, things we love to bake...  Anything that would make a child feel more comfortable entering a stranger's house (ie...foster parents' house) or parents of the child feel more comfortable about where the child is going (if that's even possible).   


Foster class was really interesting on Tuesday.    We discussed the goal of permanency.   Basically while a child is in foster care, there are 2 plans that are concurrently in motion.  #1 reunification.  That's always the goal, but there's always the chance that reunification is just not going to happen.  So #2 termination of parental rights and hopefully adoption... Sometimes the powers that be are moving in both directions at the same time.  Probably the most important thing that we learned is that there are government subsidies that continue to provide financial for the foster children once adopted. Those subsidies continue to pay for day care and health care for the children.    That is such a huge deal for us!  We could actually afford to adopt a foster child should they become adoption.  WONDERFUL news!   One of my fears was that we'd want to adopt but not be able to afford it.  I'm so glad to put that fear to rest.  


Peace and Love, y'all.

Foster Class: Discipline

 Finished quilt! 



Disciplining someone else's child is a big challenge...esp if the child has not been disciplined appropriately (ie, punished too harshly...or neglected).  Foster parents cannot spank or hit foster children, speak to them in a degrading manner, withhold dinner, threaten to cancel family visits, threaten to send them back, lock them in a room, tie them up, etc etc etc.   While I don't really feel that the list of "can't dos" really limits how Chase and I plan on providing discipline, it's still good to think about how we are going to discipline these kiddos.  Chase and I have never been parents of any sort before...How are we going to handle this?

The class talked about some of the appropriate ways of disciplining foster children.  First, always remember you are raising someone else's child and the child doesn't really want to please you.  The child probably doesn't even want to be around you.  Most children in healthy families have a desire to please their parents.  I know I did growing up.  I can remember crying and feeling upset if I thought I had disappointed my family.  Since foster children may not be motivated to please you, the teacher of our class suggested a system of earning rewards and privileges as a way to motivate them to obey the rules etc.   

Even more important than providing rewards/consequences is living by example.  Children are always watching adults...always!  So at all times Chase and I have to lead by example.   Sometimes we still live like we did in college...We still let the laundry go until the last possible moment...sometimes our dishes stack up.  We forget trash day about 75% of Fridays...(luckily we don't produce much trash since we compost and recycle what we can).  I still leave out craft supplies.  I don't always make the bed.  BUT all that's not as important as the fact that we love and respect  God and each other.  We have love and room to spare for the children.   I really feel that God has called us to this and he will help us live out his will.  

What's on my workspace (ie, couch) today?

Here's what I'm working on this week:  I'm on the home stretch for making this quilt!  I'm going to get it done today!!! Thank you, Julia for hosting WOYWW http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/. 
 

Here are the cinnamon rolls I made from scratch this week :)

Sewing and cooking!  Maybe I'll do some painting later today!  Thanks for visiting!  Up next Foster Class #6: Discipline.

Challah bread, Foster #5, and Homestudy Interview #2

My goodness! I'm so glad to be nearly caught up with blogging.  Here's some pictures from a bread project:  Challah with raisins



The rising dough...

 The next day, I rolled out a hand full and added raisins.

Coiled it up and let it rest.  Then I  painted it with an egg mix and sprinkled it with sesame seeds.

 And baked it!  It turned out quite yummy!



 Lesson 5 was on the subject of strengthening family relationships.

This is something those raised in a healthy family take for granted.   Growing up in a healthy family provides children with a sense of identity, history, and cultural values.   It provides a sense of self esteem.   Your cultural identity includes your values, routines, communication patterns, religious beliefs, foods, how life celebrated and honored.  Part of your cultural identity also includes racial identity.  As a foster parent you try to instill in your foster kiddo that they (and the culture they come from) are valuable members of society with the same rights and entitlements as everybody else.  You try to dispel stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.   This is a big challenge for foster kids, because your house is probably going to be different culturally.  Probably the best way to help the kiddos respect their own cultural identity and instill confidence and a good sense of self esteem...is to support the bio-family.  Send them pictures, ask the bio-parents for advice, support visits etc.  Another important part is making a "lifebook" for the children.  I'm all over this lifebook thing.  A lifebook is a scrapbook sort of thing that covers the family history of the children.  It basically includes as much information as we can gather for the children.  The book belongs to the child so it can travel with them as they go from foster parents to bioparents/adoptive parents.  It sort of provides a map of where they've been and their story.  It can be as fancy as you want it to be.  Anyway...I'd love to put my scrapbooking skills to use to help a kiddo connect to their past.



Homestudy Interview #2

  This interview lasted 3 hours and we sat at our dinner table with our licensing/placement specialist over a cup of coffee (and some bread) and discussed our support network, drew out our "ecomap," and discussed our discipline styles.  We don't really know how we're going to discipline...since we've never had kids before!  Our specialist recommended reading Love and Logic for some discipline ideas.  A friend let us borrow his audio version of the book and Chase and I have been listening through it.  I have to say some of the techniques are not going to fly at all in my house.  For example...the author mentioned rehoming a dog because the children weren't feeding it and it was losing weight.  UNACCEPTABLE!!!  NO!!!  You cannot torture a living creature to teach a lesson.  For goodness sake...rehome the dog before it suffers.  I hope I just misunderstood that part.  Another part that really bothered me was the "Uh Oh Song"  It just sounded sarcastic to me...and you can't lock a child in his room.  That's illegal for foster children...  Just saying.  Other than those little points there are some good tid bits in the book.  I like the basic concept of you have to let children make choices and not always swooping them in to save them from natural consequences.


Peace and Love, y'all

Foster Class #4 and Homestudy

I’ve learned so much from just starting this process of getting licensed to foster children.  I think that even before our first placement…we’ve been challenged and our hearts stretched to hold a little more love.   I’m still a little behind on blogging about the classes…so maybe I’ll try to catch up today.  Chase (bless him) has taken over cooking dinner.  My made from scratch turban shaped challah bread (with raisins) is in the oven.  It’s looking delicious.  I’ll post a picture of it if it’s done before I finish this post. 

Let’s do some catch-up on our foster process…

Foster Class 4:  Grief and loss

 Lesson 4 was all about loss and the children’s (or really anyone’s) response.  The children that enter foster care have experienced more loss than most children (and even most adults).  This can include a loss of self-esteem, significant people, health… We talked about the pathway through the grieving process (Loss, Shock/Denial, Bargaining, Anger, Understanding, Coping, Managing Loss).  These can be experienced simultaneously or in any order.  No matter what sort of situation the children come from, chances are the love their bioparents and didn’t want to leave.  So being forcibly removed from their loved ones and placed in the home of a stranger is a significant loss on many levels.   It’s normal for the children to react to this loss.   Foster parents (ie, the strangers) are expected to help the children react to their many losses and teach them socially acceptable ways of expressing those very heavy feelings.    Sometimes while we help the children deal with losses, our own losses will come to mind.   We also discussed developmental grieving…that is that you revisit grief again as we develop more coping skills or perspective.  Here’s an example of that in my life.  As a veterinarian, I periodically diagnose lymphoma in dogs.  Every time, I not only grieve for that family that just got the news their dog has terminal cancer but I reprocess the grief of losing my beloved childhood pet, Corky.  I keep a picture of that rotten little dog on my desk, and I’ll never forget.  That is an example of developmental grieving.    The children will go through this as well.  It may seem that they are doing well and forgetting their pain…then suddenly they will become angry or sad again. 

Life is such a beautiful, wonderful…sometimes bittersweet thing.  I really hope we can help the kiddos.  In class the instructors said we can help by showing that we care about the children’s feelings (24/7), providing for the children’s needs, showing the children how to express their needs and that their needs will be met, and demonstrate that there are adults in the world that can be trusted. 

Anyway as a foster parent you serve as a “loss manager,” and in many ways I feel like this a skill I use at work regularly.   I help people grieve for their pets when our beloved pets suffer disease and die.  I grieve for my patients and my clients too.  I really take their suffering to heart and I work to make the passing of pet as peaceful as possible.

Homestudy Interview #1

Following lesson 4 we had our first interview as part of the home study (FYI the first interview was sort of a pre-homestudy, pre-class interview).    We talked a lot about grief and the losses Chase and I experienced throughout our lives.  This was a fairly intense interview just because of the subject matter.  I was apparently very pensive at work the following day.    We also talked about some of the issues our families have historically struggled with.  We talked about the effect Chase’s work has had on him etc.   Overall I’d say the interview went really well even though the subject matter was a little intense.

WOYWW - Challah bread resting and quilt

Play WOYWW with the lovely Julia over at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/.

Here's what I'm working on this Wednesday morning: 



Challah bread is resting and about to be glazed with egg, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and baked.  Not picture is God's portion...which I pinched off and put in foil so it will burn in the oven.  This is a traditional Jewish bread made on the sabbath.   I'm not Jewish, but the bread sounded really delicious.  It's got honey, oil, yeast, flour, salt, and water :)  I hope it turns out yummy.  Maybe I'll post a picture when it's out of the oven.

Here's the other project that's on my workspace this week:  a  quilt I've been working on for 3 years. I'm finally going to finish it!! #determinedcrafter


In 8 minutes our foster licensing specialist will arrive for another 2 hour interview and home tour.   This is the 3rd in house interview.

What's on Your Workspace Wednesday (er...Tuesday)?

I haven't done this in awhile, but here's my desk this week.   The creative Julia Dunnit hosts the weekly snoop of crafting spaces at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/.  All day Tuesday was a snow day for me...so I drank hot chocolate, watched movies, and did some painting!  Tomorrow it's back to work.

Here's my desk with a hot chocolate.  By the way...the Ott light was a Christmas present.  How did I ever work without it?  I love my Ott light... and it makes my little happy plant wiggle its leaves.

Here are the cards I created today for 2 swaps (Walk the Dog and Yellow Monochromatic..and 1 blue betta as a host gift).

 

Snow! Snow! Snow! Catching up - Foster Class 3

 

 

 

Here are some pictures from the 2 snow storms that hit us.  It's so beautiful on the ground.   Ruby has enjoyed bounding through it.  Chase and I drove to Eagle Bluffs to look at the birds weathering the storm.  It was beautiful, but we definitely don't have the right car to drive in the snow so I think we'll forgo Eagle Bluffs in snow in the future...

I'm a little behind on blogging about our experience as we work on getting licensed to foster children.   So here are my reflections on what we covered during the 3rd class:

The subject of class #3 is Meeting Developmental Needs: Attachment.  During this session, the teachers discussed the types of abuse/neglect the children might face before entering foster care and the effects this might have on development.  This has been the hardest class for me emotionally.  I just don't understand how someone could abuse a child.  They showed us a video (featuring actors) of a child that had been sexually abused.  The video only hinted at what was going on, but it was enough to generate intense feelings of anger from my classmates.  Obviously abuse and neglect can severely impact the children and result in "developmental delays." The children may be behind in physically, (example malnourishment), emotionally, and intellectually.  As a foster parent, you try to help the children with these delays.   

During this class we also talked about attachment.  A child in a healthy home environment should feel attached to her parents.   Attachment develops by having needs met:  Child feels discomfort (or needs something), child expresses discomfort (ie, a need), parent meets that need/comforts child, child feels comfortable.  Some of the children have lived years without having needs met by their parents, so they struggle to feel attached.  Some of them have learned that adults can't be trusted...adults only cause pain.  As a foster parent, you can't expect rapid change...the children have years of unattachment...and the children will fight and resist attempts to form any sort of bond with you.  It's very possible even after months, foster children will still be "unattached" to you.   The next lesson (#4) was about grief.  Then I'll almost be caught up with where we are in the foster licensing process.

Peace and Love, y'all!

Foster class 2: Teamwork toward permanence

The second class was on the subject of establishing "permanence" for children in foster care.   The children that enter foster care are at serious risk for not developing lifetime relationships. 

The Children's Division is a part of the Department of Social Services charged with protecting the nation's children.    Part of nurturing the children is helping them foster lifetime relationships with adults.  That means once a foster child leaves your home, you should still try to be a part of their lives as a mentor/friend to the children and also to the biological family.  A big hope of the children's division is that foster parents will also serve as parenting mentors to the bioparents.  No one ever wants to be a bad parent...I think we all want to protect and nurture our children.  So you can imagine how it feels to be confronted with the fact that you failed to care for and protect your children.  If you couldn't care for someone you dearly love, how would that make you feel? Then, how would you feel if the government forcefully took that person away from you...established limitations on how often you can see them...and placed them in the home of someone else?   Thinking about that...I can see how much it would mean if the foster family demonstrated mercy, love, and forgiveness toward the biofamily.  What a huge difference it would make if the foster family supported the biofamily!  If we both play on the same team, not only can we show the love of God to the biofamily but we also demonstrate God's love and teach the children they don't have to be ashamed of their biofamily.    I'm nervous about working with so many people... but I'm really excited to share the blessings God has poured out in my life with others.  I understand that I might be viewed as "the bad guy" in many of the cases, but I still hope to be a force of good in this world. 

Peace and Love, y'all!

WOYWW 191 - Foster Class #1

 

Here's my desk this week!  I actually did some art earlier this week...All the little ATCS on the right side of my desk are for swaps I'm hosting (or thinking about hosting).   Right now I'm hosting Watercolor Signs of Spring, and I'm considering posting a monochromatic watercolor swap too.  If you can see out the window, you might be able to see snow falling.  Yesterday the temperature was in the 60s and 70s...today it's snowing!    Also on my desk is the large packet of notes for the class we are taking to get licensed to foster children.  That's my desk this week!  Thanks for visiting :)  Thank you Julia for hosting What's on Your Workspace Wednesday!  The rest of this post is about our experience as we get licensed to foster children (WOYWW readers stop here).

Foster Class 1

Last night after work, Chase and I hurried off to make it STARS class.  During this first 3 hour session, we watched a video about foster parents to sort of introduce us to the subject, introduced ourselves to our classmates, and discussed how the agency we're working through (Great Circle) works with Children's Division. 

STARS stands for Specialized Training Assessment Resources Support/Skills. 

So what's the difference betwen fostering a child and adopting a child?  Well to foster means simply to nuture.  When you foster a child, you take that child into your home and help him/her to grow in a family setting.  The ultimate goal of foster care is reunification with the biological family.  As a foster parent, you are part of a professional team and you are expected to work together with the case worker, children, and biological family.  Adoption means you take that child in as your own child both in a legal sense and emotional sense.

The children we hope to take into our home will probably have suffered and endured more than most children.  They are forcibly removed from their family and life they've know and brought into our home.  The primary goal for this class is to equip foster parents with the skills and knowledge (competencies) needed to care for these children

Competencies:
- Protecting and nuturing children
-Meeting children's developmental needs and addressing developmental delays
-Supporting relationships between chldren and their families.
Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime
-Working as a member of a professional team.

The 4 levels of competencies:
1. being aware
2. understading and knowing
3. having skills
4. using skills

Before we can become foster parents, we must at least be competent at the first 2 levels (being aware, and understanding and knowing). 

After each class, we have additional reading and homework :)  This process is going to be a lot of work, but we're still proceeding!  I'll be sure to share my thoughts and updates on how the process is going.


Peace and Love, y'all!

A Vet's Own Dog

Ruby looses a tooth...
I don't tend to blog much about my work, because I try to keep my personal life separate from my professional life as much as possible.  BUT sometimes the two collide.  A couple of weeks ago, my Ruby-dog suddenly started shying away when I touched one side of her face.  Upon further examination, I realized she had a very subtle swelling underneath her left eye.   Her energy level-normal, appetite-normal, behavior-basically normal.    She's a good little dog and she let me do a full exam of her mouth and teeth...not bad - just a little calculus and mild gingivitis, no fractured teeth that I could see.  However, the most likely cause of the swelling observed in my own little Ruby-dog is a tooth root abscess.  So I decided to anesthetize her, clean her teeth with our ultrasonic scaler, and shoot some intraoral films...and remove an teeth with abscessed roots.  I dreaded it, but I had a strong inclination that it was the big, bad carnassial on her left side.  This bad boy is the biggest tooth in the dog mouth and has 3 roots.  So removing it involves using a scapel to cut a mucosal flap, drilling away the alveolar bone covering the roots, sectioning the tooth into 3 pieces corresponding to each of the 3 roots, elevating each root, smoothing out any sharp bony points that might poke on her gums, and then suturing down the flap covering that big ole hole.  Basically...it's outright oral surgery.  So I take her to work with me one Saturday so I can get her done after I finish seeing appointments.

 She had the first allergic reaction I've ever seen to our anesthetic protocol.   My boss in all her years of using this protocol has never had a dog break out in immediate hives either.   Therefore Ruby-dog got a shot of benedryl and her hives cleared right up.   As soon as I took the dental x-rays, my fear was confirmed...Ruby-dog's carnassial tooth needed to come out.  It had a big ole periapical lucency (ie, an abscessed root).  The procedure itself went fairly well.  I held back my tears as I sectioned her tooth and drilled away bone from my Ruby-dog's mouth.  I fussed that the gums didn't suture as pretty as I would like...I fussed that there was so much blood.   I admit...I  fussed a lot.  The techs couldn't understand why I was fussing so much when the procedure was going along just fine.  I fussed as she was waking up, because she cried with every breath unless I had her in my lap.   I even had the senior technician come in so I could fuss to her as well.  In the end, my Ruby-dog was up and walking within 10 minutes of sewing up her mouth, and the bad tooth was out.  I cried as I drove her home, and spent the rest of the evening snuggling with her on the couch and hoping her pain meds were strong enough.   Her little swollen face upset me so badly.   That night, I even tucked her in next to me in bed...under my sheets and the heating blanket.  

So here's my conclusion...I can't calmly and rationally be a veterinarian to my own precious doggies.  Their blood freaks me out, and even giving them a shot makes the tears start flowing.   And..and I never...never...want to perform anesthesia on my own doggies again.   Chase and I don't have any human children, so our pets are like our kids...especially our dogs.

2 weeks later... She's not gaurding that side of her face, and her face is almost back to its symmetrical cuteness.  Now I can address the next health concern with my Ruby-dog....


Ruby-dog has a fat butt...
Here's a picture of my Ruby-dog...my family is constantly teasing me that my dog is fat.  They say she looks like a sausage with pointy little toothpick-legs.    Well...hmph...she's not that fat.  However...I will grant you that she is...a touch...overweight.  So if you read the above story about removing her tooth, you probably know that I'm not entirely rational about my dogs.  So when a food rep came and talked to us about an objective way of measuring body fat and calculating a healthy weight, I volunteered Ruby.  According to Hill's new Healthy Weight Protocol measurements...Ruby-dog has a body fat index of 40% and she needs to lose 8 pounds.  8 pounds!!!  8 pounds is a ton of weight when you're talking about a 30 pound dog!  Regardless if I agree with her target weight of 22 pounds or not...I'm going to give this new prescription weight loss dog food a shot...We'll see what she looks like with every pound of weight loss and stop when she gets to a healthy weight.  If I can get my own dog to loose weight...I'm sure this plan will work for clients too.





Ruby has lost her girly figure - her waist isn't as prominent as it should be and you can't easily palpate her ribs.

When viewed from the side, she should have a distinct abdominal tuck.  She doesn't.  If you look at her from behind...she has a distinctly plump rear end.  Oh, Ruby-dog, you are indeed...fat.



Prayers for my grandpa
My grandpa is in his mid-90s... He fell at the assisted living facility last week and broke his femur.  His surgery to repair the fracture went well, but he has a long road to recovery.   Please send him your prayers and good thoughts.   He's been ready to be with the lord for quite some time now, and I can't imagine how discouraging this must be for him.

Peace and Love, y'all!

Sunday Sketches

This morning, my husband and I slept in...accidentally slept right through church.  So we stayed home and listened to the recording of the sermon while I sketched and painted.

I'm so ready for spring...the warm sunshine, the beautiful flowers, planting my veggie garden.  I've got my seeds all picked out!  I just have to wait to plant them... Since I can't plant my garden yet, I painted flowers that remind me of spring...daffodils and tulips. 
 

These are the latest 2 loaves of bread I made.  This is from the batch I intially forgot to add salt to...so after the first flavorless loaf was baked, I threw in a bit of salt and kneaded the dough.  These turned out much better than the previous loaf, but the crumb turned out just a bit to moist for my taste :)  Oh well!  Lessons are learned everyday!

Here's my desk this morning... I just love the new Ott light I got for Christmas.  How did I work without it?  Well I'm off to refill that coffee cup.  It's a rainy, lazy Sunday today.

Peace and Love, y'all.

Play along with Sunday Sketches here:  http://www.bluechairdiaryillustrations.com/2013/01/sunday-sketches_26.html