ll of Thanksgiving either here
(picture courtesy of some website full of flu shot images)I got my flu shot on Tuesday and now I'm sick. Not fully sick, just partly sick. I have a sore throat, headache, and feel like I'm walking around in another universe.
Maybe it is just the power of suggestion since the nurse told me that I might have mild flu-like symptoms.
I think next year I'll go back to just letting my own immune system do its job and take my chances.
No more flu shots for me. They make me sick.
"Is it a 'snow day' today?" was the question my son asked as I woke him up this morning to get ready for school.
"No, it's not a snow day; but, there is snow outside." I replied.
"Dang. I guess I'll get up and get ready for school," he said.
Yep, this morning we woke up to snow. The first significant snow fall of the year. If the weather-guessers are right, we should have snow on and off for the weekend.
This is my Grandpa Bud. He fought in World War II. He didn't talk much about his time during the war. Sometimes I can get Grandma to talk about his service and I love it when she does. I have no doubt that my grandpa was proud to be an American and proud to have served his country.
If my grandpa were alive today on this Veteran's Day, this is what I would tell him...
Grandpa, thank you for sacrificing your time and talents to serve our country. Thank you for believing in our values, ideals, and freedoms enough to fight to protect them. Thank you for providing our family with a legacy of love of country more than self.
Grandpa, because of your service and the service of so many other brave men and women, I can wake up in the morning and pray openly to my Heavenly Father without fear of reprisal. I can keep my scriptures out in the open without fear of who might see them. Because of your service, I can worship how I want to without fear that the government will step in and not only close down the church, but arrest those who are worshipping.
Grandpa, because of your service we have been blessed to live in a land of relative prosperity, and when compared to some other countries, luxury. Because of your service, we have the opportunity to travel down any education or career path we see fit to pursue.
Grandpa, because of your service my heart is filled with joy and gratitude on this Veteran's Day. I am grateful to all of those who still serve in the Armed Forces, who wake up every day ready to fight for and protect our country. I am grateful to those who are in foreign countries fighting against those forces who seek to totally destablize and destroy our country. I am also grateful for those in our society who recognize and honor the importance of your service and the service of other veterans and those currently serving.
Grandpa, I love and miss you. I hope that we are doing enough to make you proud of us. I hope we are doing enough to honor your sacrifice and service to our country. Grandpa, I do love the United States of America. Thank you for serving Her.
The CV theatre department wrapped up their production of, Wait Until Dark last night. The show was fanatastic. I was particularly biased towards one performer and thought she did a wonderful job.
Katelyn played the part of Gloria--a bratty 12-year old girl who helps the blind Suzie. I know Katelyn is a good actress because she really sold the "bratty" part of her character and if you know Katelyn, you know that this is about as far from her personality as one can get. She also got to practice knife-throwing, so if this acting thing or criminal justice (her current career choice) don't work out, maybe a knife-throwing career?
Katelyn really is in her element when she is on-stage. I love that she has found something that she is so passionate about. I think it's great that we have a right-brained child even though she lives in a house with left-brained people. Although, we did decide that Carson and I were "middle-brained" since he enjoys, and is good at, writing and I enjoy much of the arts. Dave? Well, he's an engineer for a reason.
The next show is Sound of Music and Katelyn is gearing up to tryout for the part of Leisel (sp?). That's the part she wants, but she says she'll take anything just to be part of the show.
So, if you missed this last production, be watching for information about Sound of Music. The run dates are in March. Come and see what a great job these high school kids do.
This is a picture of Carson on the day he decided that he hated cheese. He was at his Aunt Kim's wedding and his Grandpa Whiting was in charge of him because Dave and I were in the wedding party. I'm not sure exactly what happened. My dad swears he only tried to feed Carson a little piece of cheddar cheese, but since that day, Carson has hated cheese.
He really does. He will sort-of tolerate it on pizza and in a grilled cheese sandwhich. He does his best to scrape it all off of the lasagna noodles. Anything else that might have cheese, he will not even consider trying. He will choose to go hungry if the main dish contains cheese. No macaroni and cheese dinner has ever been tempting enough to lure him in.
So what happened last night? Well, as I was preparing dinner, he wandered in and asked what I was making. I said "scalloped potatoes and ham." He said "Mmm....sounds good." I should have stopped right there and asked if he knew what scalloped potatoes were, but I thought, don't jinx it. Maybe he is ready to give cheese another try. (I was making cheesey scalloped potatoes. I know, I really should have just stuck with the white sauce, but then I wouldn't have the rest of the story).
Dinner is being served and Carson says, "What's this? It looks very cheesey." I responded that it was the scalloped potatoes. He said, "I thought you said we were having scallops and potatoes." Ding. No wonder he thought dinner sounded good.
Dave and I procede to eat and Carson dishes up a small serving. He then sits and stares at it until Dave and I are finished. He then states he is full. "Full?" I say. "You can't be full. You haven't eaten anything. Just eat 3 bites and then you can be done." (Did I mention he is 14?!)
He then pulls out a SLICE of potato, cuts it into 3 pieces, and stares at it again. He stares at it for 3 minutes. He says "I can't do this. Oh man, I can't do this." With some encouragement, he finally eats the 3 miniscule pieces of potato, which he has scraped all of the cheese sauce off of. He then again declares himself full and he leaves the table before we could say anything more.
Fortunately, he is 14 and not 2 so there were no temper-tantrums. Instead, we got a lot of laughter. He also knew that this was going straight to my blog.
