Congrats and it was Sunny!...

I can't believe it, THE SUN CAME OUT TODAY!!  It peaked it's yellow face out from behind the dark clouds.  It wasn't very long, but it was warm and it was friendly!  I have missed the sun so badly it hurts.  It physically hurts.  We have had so many cloudy days and grey days and rainy days that I had forgotten how good the warmth from the sun felt on my skin.  My cat and I spent some time, just her and me, lying on the floor in it.  I ocassionally wonder why animals enjoy lying in the sun so much.  Because they can, I guess.  I guess I would if it was easy enough to lie on the floor.  Ah, come back again, dear sun, you went away behind the dark clouds too soon!  The weatherman said it should come back again in a day or two, but I will believe it when I see it.

So, I wanted to congratulate Becky from Where Life Takes You who was the first to correctly guess both photos for this week's "Up Close With Val"!!  Way to go, Becky!!  The first photo was a banana that was getting very ripe and the second was a carnation.  Specifically, it was a shot near the center of the carnation.  I thought the leaves looked so cool when they were magnified like they were.  Here is your blue ribbon, Becky!!:

                            

Chelsea just left to go to a Maroon 5 concert tonight with a few friends.  They are performing here locally.  That sounds like a blast!!  I hope she has a good time.  It is actually her first concert!!  Wow!!  I am sure she will enjoy it!!  She deserves a night of fun!!

I have been terribly behind on journal-reading.  I think once you get backed up it is so hard to catch up.  I hate to miss any entries from my usual journals as I feel like I will miss something important.  Am I sick??  Am I an addict??  So now I am so behind.  I miss a few days and I have so many alerts in my inbox and I panic.  Whoa.  And I have to delete them and just go one by one to my favorite journals.  If I haven't visited your journal lately, I promise, I am coming :-), really, I am!!  I am going to get behind again when I go to Johns Hopkins in April.  Ack!!  Yep, that is April 4.  I guess that is less than a week away.  Six days.  I will be getting a shunt monitoring and possible change in my shunt - from a non-programmable to a programmable.  Sounds kind of complicated.  I will be out of town for one to four days, it seems.  Prayers would be appreciated.  Thanks so much :-)

Well, I am off to get some dinner and maybe get ready to watch American Idol.  I surely can't miss that!!!  Good night, all!! xox

"Up Close With Val" and Happy Easter...

Good Saturday to all and happy Easter weekend!  I haven't made an entry in a whole week!  I have been very busy.  I had two court dates with Chelsea concerning her P.F.A. and charges against her abuser.  She was granted her P.F.A. and at the second court date he pled no contest to the charges and was given the "standard" penalty, fines, etc.  Chelsea is grieving a bit but is glad it is over.  I am so, so, so proud of her.  It was not easy at all for her, but she is forging ahead!!

I have two new pictures for "Up Close With Val" this week.  I've been slacking off on this competition for a few weeks now.  Have fun with it and put your guess(es) in the comment's section or send me an email.  I will let you know by email if you have a correct guess!  I'll let you know who the winner(s) is/are tomorrow or the next day!

         

         

I am wishing everyone a very, very blessed Resurrection Day filled with love!!  I hope everyone has a special someone they can spend it with.  Please take care of one another...

JESUS IS RISEN! JESUS IS RISEN! JESUS IS RISEN!

"Fun"...

Happy Saturday, everyone!  For all of you who inquired, a P.F.A. is a Protection From Abuse Order.  It is given when someone is in danger of being harmed physically and emotionally.  I can not give any more details for Chelsea's security sake, but I would appreciate prayers for her.  Thank you all!

I went downtown today to find pictures for the Scavenger Hunt.  It was the first time I went out all week.  It was rather nice to get out of my house.  It was so pretty outside.  I was a bit fearful all week, but I just needed to get out.  I grabbed my camera and went and was so glad I did.  It was great to stretch my sore, achey muscles.  I went down to our local park and grabbed these pictures of children.  It was funny because as I was taking them I thought the parents were thinking that I was stalking their children.  It feels weird to take pictures of other people.  What are they thinking?  I was hiding behind trees and poles! LOL  So, here are my pictures of the subject "FUN" for this week's Scavenger Hunt brought to you by Krissy at Sometimes I Think.

           

Nothing says fun like playing at a playground on a tire swing on a Saturday afternoon!!

         

I really, really loved this shot of a father and son feeding ducks and fish.  I love how he is holding his son.  This one was really hard to get!  I pretended I was shooting the ducks and fish in the water. LOL

              This photo was taken last week at our condo in Myrtle Beach.  Chelsea and her best friend, Ali, were gabbing and laughing on a couch.  Nothing says fun and love like these two!  They are inseparable!!  When I see these two together I always get the biggest smile!!

The last photo I took was of a thrift store window.  It was filled with children's toys!  Now how fun is that!!?!!  I wanted to go in and grab them and play with them all! LOL  I played around with the photo and made it look a little different.  I know, I know, it is strange.  It is supposed to be.  There was a glare on the window, but you all get the idea.  Hope you find it interesting!

         

So, a journal-friend of mine is having a really tough time and it would be nice if she could get a few words of encouragement.  Please visit her here.

Everyone have a good night and take care of one another!

I'm Checking In Here...

Wow, it has been awhile since I have written a proper entry.  I missed reading journals and I missed writing.  I guess it has been about three weeks except for a quick on and off to wish Chelsea a happy birthday.  I feel bad, too, because I didn't wish Krissy  a proper happy birthday on March 13.  So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Krissy, my favoritest big girl in the whole wide world!!!!!  So, I think it will take me forever to catch up on journal reading!!  You see, I only give myself some time in the morning and then I get off and don't get back on until the next morning.  So, if I have not visited your journal I will be coming!  I promise!!  Just give me a little bit of time!!  Be patient!!  Thanks!!

My last few weeks have been crazy, to say the least.  I took a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a week.  I was there helping a friend who had to retrieve things that belonged to her mom who passed away.  Although it was wonderful spending time with Chelsea the whole week, and nice to be away from my home at times, and good to be with friends, it was also stressful to be away and to put my body through what it went through.  When you are with three others who have different lifestyles it is just hard.  It was cold and rainy as well.  We were very busy, too, and it was an emotional trip.  I actually only got to the beach twice for a total of about twenty minutes.  I did get some pictures, though.  Here are a couple.

         

         

The second one was taken right before a thunderstorm.  This view was actually right out our condo. window.  We had an amazing oceanfront view.  It was incredible.  That was really appreciated because we didn't really make it down to the beach.  It was nice to be able to hear the sounds of the waves by just cracking the door.  I was able to go to bed each night with the ocean sounds!!  Now, that was heaven!!

Here is one final photo I took of a pretty sunset.  I was going to use it for Krissy's "Looking Up" Hunt, but couldn't get it in on time.

         

When I returned home I thought I was going to be able to get a bit of rest, but, without getting into much detail, for safety reasons, Chelsea has had to get a P.F.A. and leave home for a bit.  It has all been very, very hard on both of us and our friends and family.  I have not gotten much sleep and my body has been in knots.  I think that it has brought up old wounds and past traumas of what I went through as a young woman and wishing that I could take away her pain. 

So, I am off here as I have pulled a muscle in my shoulder and typing really hurts.  I hope to have my usual two to three entries a week now and a soon-to post "Up Close With Val".  It is good to be back y'all!! xox

Happy Birthday Chelsea!!

Chelsea and  I have returned from a trip where we helped out a couple of friends.  We were at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Unfortunatetly, we did not get to see a lot of the beach because it was mostly cold and rainy, but I did get a few pictures.  I will share them with you later. 

Today is Chelsea's 19th birthday!!  I wanted to wish her a very, very HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!  Chelsea, I am so, so glad you were born!!!!

                          

My, oh my, look how she has grown!!  And Chelsea, I am so happy you were born and you were a girl and you are in my lifel!!  It is so nice having you here in my home!!  I hope your next year is your best and that all your dreams come true!!  Happy birthday, little baby girl!!!  Love, Your Mama xoxox

                         

Snowy Day!

                            

We got a little bit of snow last night - maybe four inches or so.   I took a few pictures.  I think I put my camera on the wrong setting - no, I know I did - so this was the best picture, and it isn't very good.  I still like it, though, because it is a tree, and, well, you all know how I feel about trees!!  The snow didn't affect anything around town, really.  We were expecting much more snow.  A day or two ago, they thought we could have gotten up to two feet of the white stuff!  It is really pretty.  It is the really wet kind that sticks to everything.

I got to thinking about childhood memories involving snow.  It was so different back then.  Snow used to close our town down.  I lived in northern Virginia and people used to get a bit excited about it.  It snowed often enough, but back then they didn't do as much cleaning up after snow and just waited until the snow stopped and until, well, basically it was warm enough to melt.  Too funny!  So, we had a good time as children building snow-forts and igloos and snowmen.  We stayed out all day in the stuff.  We would get really cold and wet, but we didn't care.  I lived in a neighborhood where there were a lot of children and we all played together.  We became very creative at times.  We would have big snow-ball fights.  That was tons of fun!  Our street was an incline and had a small curve so it was a lot of fun to sled and toboggan down.  It became very icy and slippery as many of us would take turns going down.  Even the adults would come out and have some fun sometimes!  I remember one time a neighbor lady took her tiny tot (he couldn't have been more than 2 or so) and took him to the top of the street and put him on a sled and just let go!!  Kind of like tossing a kid in a pool to see if he will swim or not!!  Of course he could not steer and ended up right under a parked car on the side of the street!  What WAS she thinking??  I was horrified!!  You could really pick up speed going down our street when it was really icy!  It is one of those memories that is seared into my brain!  They didn't plow or sand it sometimes for days or even at all.  Actually, the only time they did is when someone would call and request it.  The person who usually requested it was a lady who had a hair-cutting business at the top of the street.  She wanted her clients to be able to get to her home.  We were so angry with her!!  We were past angry!!  We were livid!!  How could she take away our fun!!  She would call and have our nice icy track plowed and replaced with dirty sand!!  Sometimes when we were feeling daring we would go to the top of the street with an arsenal of snowballs ready to pummel at the plow and sand truck.  We would make him turn around we thought!!  Did we ever make him turn around??  I don't remember?  We had so much fun back then!

Now I am in Pennsylvania and I hardly ever see kids playing in the snow.  It makes me sad.  Snow almost never closes anything down.  Cars still drive while the snow is falling and you constantly see plow trucks plowing and tossing sand out the back.  It is such an efficient system.  The last time I remember snow actually closing down this area was back in '95 or '96 when the snow was over my head.  I remember walking down the street in a tunnel!  I remember opening my front door and just seeing snow!!  It was a bit scary!!  The National Guard was out in the street going from door to door.  That was a crazy year.  I am sure a lot of you in the North East remember that.

Well, enough about snow.  I am getting chilly talking about it.  Now I leave you with a silly snow joke....  Good day all!!  Stay warm!!