Hold on tight.

So sorry that it has been almost a week since I have posted anything.Things around here have been very hectic lately.
First off Cindy is finishing up her high school days. Her Graduation announcements / invitations are obviously being received as RSVPs are starting to trickle in.Tomorrow is her last official day of school and then she has Practice on Monday and Tuesday.She Graduates from the career center on Wednesday and then from High school on Sunday June 8th. After Sunday we will have to finish up preparations for her party. For the most part we are set but once RSVPs are counted I have to order a cake and those kind of little things.
Other than Graduation things Mike's auto accident mediation was Tuesday.Lets just say that due to no fault of ours things were called to a screeching halt .This little SNAFU now has the whole case up in the air. We may go back to mediation, we may just go to pretrial next month as scheduled or we may have to deal with setting everything back another month or so. Of course everyone ( Mike & I, the lawyers, the mediator, etc) is frustrated but God is in control, not us , so that is how it goes.
Physical therapy from my accident isn't going much better.I am told that my sports medicine doctor is going to personally talk to my Physical therapist ( his employee) about actually implementing what he prescribed three weeks ago. Oh life is grand !
But hey, next week I will watch my first born receive a diploma for all of the work that I have been making her do for the past fourteen years. OK she embraced preschool without my making her but beyond say forth grade or so I became the slave driver that I am today. Can you believe that yesterday I gave birth and eighteen days from now she will be eighteen? It sure seems like yesterday. Besides that it couldn't have been eighteen years ago because I am certainly not thirty nine years old already !( Hey, go with me on this one.... You too can drop eighteen years if you want to :-) OK well, before one of you send the men in the white coats to my door I better wrap this up.Don't worry if you don't hear much from me in the next couple of days, I assure you I will flood you all with pictures within the next week or so.

I have been admonished for leaving this one out

At the WITNESS prayer service Cindy and Matt were both asked to share with those present ( the rest of WITNESS,families, Parish council, alter Guild, and a few other organizations) a few words on how God has and is working in their lives. This was a total surprise to them both so there was no time to write it out or think about what would sound best. They both did a wonderful job. Cindy chose to mention a rather humorous phrase that we as a family have used many times. "God speaks to us in many ways every day. Usually he whispers in our ears but sometimes when we don't listen, he must throw a brick at us. Cindy went on to talk about a couple bricks that had recently been thrown in her direction. Below is a picture of our priest which just happened to be taken when Cindy mentioned this little quote

More pre graduation celebration

A week ago we got a letter in the mail asking for Cindy and the family to please be present at the Career center's board meeting on Monday as they wished to recognize her for placing in the regional and state competitions of Skills USA. In the same envelope another letter asked us to attend an honors show on Wednesday to view projects of students who have received awards. The main part of this show was Multi Media students showing their art portfolios but they wanted Cindy and a couple others to make a display to show along with her metals and again be recognized.In the middle of this on Tuesday night a church group that Cindy and Michael are involved in , WITNESS, ( Winning In The Never Ending Search for Salvation )had a dinner and prayer service to honor the two members who graduate this year. Since Cindy does have a job and our family does try to maintain some sort of life,we have had to decline on some of these things. In this grouping Cindy said No Thank you to the Wednesday night honors. First off because she would have to make up a display that she had no time or interest in doing . Secondly because she had mandatory Graduation practice and assembly at her home school this morning . Thirdly was because the honoring at the school board meeting was to say the least lame. Cindy's main instructor was not even told about Cindy receiving honors and was in the room across the hall grading papers while the whole thing went on . We ran into her on the way out and she was so disappointed that she was not asked to at least be present.
We did however make sure that we were at the WITNESS event though. It was very nice. We were fed a nice meal, and then went into the church. ( there was a video made with pictures of the two Graduates from birth to now but it malfunctioned. We were promised a copy when it was fixed)Inside the church this group did a wonderful prayer service honoring Cindy and Matt.


Below are some pictures from this week's events



Cindy receives a certificate at the Board meeting Monday


Pictures from the WITNESS event Tuesday



Why we felt so special :-) Our Table





The cake Congratulating the Seniors and welcoming new Freshman members




Hey Father...... who'se thumbprint could this be ?



Cindy reads the first reading



Cindy & Matt speak of their lives and church




Cindy & Matt stand at the alter with their candles that were lit from their baptismal candals signifying that they have been led by their parents and God Parents but now is the time to start leading for themselves




The WITNESS prayer service as all of the group present prayed over Cindy & Matt

The announcements are in the Mail !

Graduation anouncements are almost ready.Now what?

As promised , Mike and I worked on Announcements this past weekend.They should go into the mail tomorrow. So far I have thought of only a few people that I forgot to invite so that is why they didn't go out today.Once they go into the mail I have decided that my next project ( or not) will be a card box for the party. Last year after Graduation season I bought a square card box really cheap but I sort of feel bad that this box is no mortar board hat replica that are always so nice.I don't remember if I had one of these hat boxes when I graduated or not but most Graduation parties that I have been to do. Honestly, it really doesn't matter, I guess . It isn't like someone is going to sigh and say Poor Cindy has this crappy square box but she deserves sooo much better ! In the end ,what would I do with a box after her party if I did make it ? Would I put money and time into making something that would just be thrown away ? I probably would try to save it for Michael & Robby to use but where would I put it ? Would it end up getting so beat up that it would be unusable anyway? Oh decisions, decisions ! Maybe I will just skip the box and do a slide show of Cindy's life pictures. No, I will probably leave this sort of thing to Mike. Hmmmmmm it is a good thing that I don't have to prepare any food. Not that I can't cook or anything, I actually consider myself a very good cook but if I am having this much trouble deciding on a card box, can you imagine how tough planning a menu would be ? I think I will blame my indecisiveness on my concussion. It has been nineteen days since the accident and with PT and muscle relaxers my headaches are backing off. The doctor estimated that I would still have problems thinking for about sixty days after until my brain completely heals. Was my brain right in the first place though ? Oh so much to ponder. square or cap shaped...... I think I'll sleep on it. Goodnight all !

Robby goes fishing

Since Michael has been fishing a couple times, with Pops, this spring, Robby has been itching to go. Sunday he finally got his chance and made good use of it. He hooked the biggest fish that has come out of that lake in awhile.Now he is also hooked:-)



Robby and Pops with "the big one"



Robby with another

Am I early ? Am I Late ? Am I on time?

When we received Cindy's Graduation announcements a few weeks ago I noticed that they were wrong. The confusion started because Cindy will graduate from our local high school next month, however she is now and has been attending the local Career and Technical school for the last two years. Because Cindy was not in attendance when the home schools announcement company came and passed out information on ordering announcements and the school never thought that these kids who attend the CTC would need this information, she never got it. In the meantime a company decided to print CTC announcements and passed out order forms at the CTC . This company never informed the students that these were not announcements with their home schools name but rather CTC announcements. Well because this was the only order form that we got, and there was no paper explaining that they were CTC included with the order form,I didn't think about it , ordered them, and of course paid through the nose for them.Fast forward to about three or four weeks ago Cindy got the announcements. We figured that there was a small mistake that could be corrected so I called the company and found out that a simple exchange was not possible. The man did offer to refund my money , which I should have accepted but then I wouldn't have any announcements so that wasn't real good either. I did call the man who was the sales rep for our home school( after I got his name from a family whose daughter still attends the home school ) but instead of offering to sell me some announcements that I wanted he screamed at me ( as if it were my fault ) and asked why this other company gave my daughter an order form. ( The question on my mind was .... Why didn't he ? ) Anyway, I just gave up and accepted what I had , set them up and went on with my life. The other day I looked at the box as I was thinking it was about time to send them out and the etiquette on the box stated that I should wait until two weeks before graduation to send them.It stated that I should wait even longer if we were having a party ( why yes we are ) more than a week after Graduation. I didn't think much more about this until I was talking to my Mom last night and she said that she hadn't received announcements for the five other Graduations in the family yet and wondered why everyone was running so late.Then my brother called this morning asking why he didn't get an invitation. I told him that I hadn't gotten them out yet and he told me that he has gotten three others already and that I needed to get a move on. Cindy also informed me today that her friends had gotten theirs out and asked when I planned on getting hers out ( no she made no offer to help.) So here I set wondering.... by the box I am still early, by Cindy I am on time, and by my brother I am late. I have decided that I will try to get them out by early next week so for those of you who think I'm early, Your welcome for the "heads up" . For those of you who think I am on time... Yea of course I know what I'm doing. And for those of you who think I am late I do apologise. Now I think I will get back to getting announcements ready.

Wednesday night Dredded night

After a great day away on Tuesday Wednesday came along. We knew that Wednesday would be a tough day because Cindy had her English final project due Thursday. We had known about this project for awhile and she had worked on it for about a week but there was still much to be done. The project was to create a scrap book type of thing which included pictures and writing assignments. She had to write a couple short stories, a couple different poems,and some other Englishy things. Over half of the writings were done and typed up but we still had to find pictures. The title of her project was "Welcome to my world" which includes pictures of her, our family, our dogs, her friends, and so on so even with the help of Picasa, we still spent hours looking for the perfect pictures.By ten O'clock we thought we were finished.This was a good thing as my head was splitting.This is probably why I didn't catch that she needed one more short writing assignment that was overlooked.Thankfully I double checked things and she quickly finished it before school this morning.This project will be over fifty percent of her last quarter grade so it weighed heavy on all of our minds. Thank you God, it is now turned in and we can rest easier.Now Cindy simply has a couple finals in the next few days then she can Graduate. Yea !!!!! The boys have a couple more weeks before they can take three months off but it will all be here soon enough.

Mental Health day

Well we it it, On Tuesday Mike took a vacation day and I called each of the kids schools to inform them that we would be out of town and the kids would be absent. We then packed up the cooler and headed for Sandusky. It was a beautiful day. The sun shined and temperatures were in the sixties,just perfect. We all had a good time though some of the rides were down for repair or because the park was short on employees who were still in school. The park did make things up to us for having two main rides, The Maverick, and Top Thrill Dragster, down for repairs. They got them running by closing time so they kept them running an hour and a half after the park closed at seven o'clock. This enabled the kids to ride them with only about a half an hour wait. We then left refreshed and ready to go back to the old grind Wednesday.I have heard about these mental health days but never really thought of taking one. Now I am a believer. I think we will take a couple next year. By the way, I would include pictures but the camera was left on the table and though Mike took a couple on his phone,I haven't seen them yet. Oh well maybe next time.

Mass to honor the 2008 graduates from St. Paul's

In addition to celebrating Pentecost Sunday at mass this week there was a Baptism at the Saturday mass, a first Communion at Sunday's early mass, and the honoring and blessing of all of the parish's 2008 Graduates at eleven o'clock mass. Obviously being a mother of one of the graduates, I attended eleven o'clock. here are some pictures .



Cindy carries the wine to the alter as another graduate carries the bread



Cindy is Blessed and prayed over by Father as The director of Religious Ed. Prays over the next person and others wait.



Father signs a book given to Cindy



The group of 2008 Graduates pose with father, The director of religious ed, and some youth advisers

Mother's day at my house

Thank you Mike for getting up early and going to get Doughnuts and flowers, This made my job a lot easier not having to cook breakfast before church. Thanks also to Mike, Cindy, Michael, & Robby for the two Precious Moments figurines entitled" I love you this much" I really love them. You guys have a knack for picking out Precious moments figurines that symbolize our lives. the cards were also beautiful and so fitting. When I read these sort of cards I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I usually do both.Thank you Thank you Thank you !
As for the card and gift from Cindy, what can I say but I love it. Cindy got me a card that reads"Mom, what can I say, you gave me life"Then on the inside it says"So really you only have yourself to blame !"Cindy also gave me a photo frame with two little heart openings on top signifying 50% Mom, 50% Dad and then a big heart at the bottom ( for her picture) that reads 100% adorable. Finally I would like to thank the Knights of Columbus for the carnation. The K of C purchases and passes these out every year on Mother's Day to the Mother's of the Parish. What a sweet thing for a Men's organization to do !
As I type Mike is cooking bacon wrapped steak,sauteed mushrooms,and red potatoes for dinner. Hopefully we can just spend the rest of the day relaxing.
Happy Mother's Day to all !

Happy Mother's day !

I would like to wish all mothers out there a Happy Mothers Day today.Of course this greating goes out to my Mom, My Grandma, Mike's Mom, and Mike's Grandma . But there are a couple other groups of women out there who I want to personally wish a Happy Mother's Day. The first group that my wishes go out to are those mothers whos children have passed away. I wish I could send a card and bouquet to all of you today. Second I would like to wish a happy Mother's day to all who have lost their Mother's . In addition to my Grandmother passing in March, I also know of a few others that have rescently lost their Mothers and Grandmothers. This will surely be a tough day as you greive your loss and possibly take flowers to the cemitary. Please know that My prayers will be with you. Happy Mother's Day all !

Cedar Point already opening

Back in December we , as pass holders, were informed that Cedar Point would open May tenth.In December this seemed so long away that ,though we put it on the calendar, we sort of forgot about it. Cindy happened on this date when she was asking for dates off for prom, graduation, and other days that she will need to be off work. Since Mike works many Saturday's Cindy asked for Sunday the eleventh off. At the time we didn't realize that it was Mother's day and that she probably would have to work since she has very little seniority. It turns out that Cindy did get off Sunday but has to work Saturday which Mike ended up getting off. We planned on spending Sunday, Mother's Day, at Cedar point but plans got changed when we found out that Sunday's eleven O'clock mass was the mass where the parish honors the upcoming graduates. The Graduates were also invited to have breakfast at the rectory with Father and Carol, our director of religious ed. Cindy thought about just telling everyone that she had plans already and our family attending Saturday's evening mass instead, leaving Sunday open for the park. After Mike and I discussed this we decided that we had all summer to Go to Cedar Point but only one day for Cindy to be recognized at church as a graduate. We thought of leaving straight from church for Cedar point but by the time we drove there and the park closes at seven,we would have only had a little over three hours to get our passes processed and ride a ride or two. With gas prices at about three sixty five now this seems like a waste.Since the only day the kids missed this year ( besides Cindy's trips to competition, work in service days and other days that the school does not count against her as she is in a work study program)was My Grandmother's funeral,we are considering letting the kids skip school one day next week, Mike taking a vacation day and going then. Doing this should allow us shorter lines for both pass processing and rides. The only problem is that we have to pick a day that Cindy is off that it isn't supposed to rain. God willing it will all work out.

Sometimes it's best to walk away

After my upsetting call to the car rental company yesterday, I called Mike at work. he didn't care for what they were doing any more than I did so he called the company as well as the adjuster to straighten things out. He got nowhere quick so we started calling other rental places. Sure enough " You Save auto rental" was more than happy to accommodate us. Since they are a littler business that Enterprise or Hertz they were much more willing to go the extra mile for our business. They even drove the car from their shop, twenty minutes away, to our house and dropped it off. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to go with big corporations. To them I am just a number and if I walk away the next number will be by soon enough. To a smaller company though,the next person may not be by as soon so they are happy to keep me there. Sure they didn't have the selection of cars that Enterprise had and the Chevy Malibu that we ended up renting is an old 2005 {gasp}(with only 16000 Miles on it) but hey I can make some sacrifices for a company who treats me as though I matter. To me there is nothing sadder than people being treated as if they don't matter. We are all here for a purpose, even if people don't realize what other peoples purposes are.
I guess that it is just the world that we are living in. How sad when businesses can't remember what makes them a business in the first place, the people. Too bad we live in a world where this is the norm. For me I will just keep seeking the small businesses that go the extra mile and hope that more and more people will do the same.If we get enough people doing this, things just may change someday.

Tell me again why I have to hassle with this ?

So I was taking my seventeen year old daughter to work on a rainy Sunday a few weeks ago. It is good that my daughter learns that we must put in an honest days work in order to be a valuable part of society.On my way home as I drove short of the twenty five mile per hour speed limit an older gentleman, who claims to be going two MPH but is actually speeding runs a stop sign . Luckily I seen said man as he sped toward the drivers door of Mike's low riding Grand Am, which I was driving, with his foreign SUV. Knowing that a hit here would not be conducive to my well being ( heck to my continuance to live for that matter )I sped up to try to get out of his way(it was too late to slow down or stop without taking what , no doubt would be a serious hit )Thanks be to God I was able to get out of the way to where I did not take a direct hit in the drivers door. Unfortunately, though said man driving said foreign SUV , running said stop sign at advanced speed did hit Mike's Grand Am right behind back drivers side door. This hit did considerable damage to said foreign SUV (as well as Grand AM) as it continued through the intersection spinning Mike's Grand AM out of it's way. Thanks again to God that other than a concussion from hitting my head on the door frame during the spin and instantly feeling foggy I was not injured. The man who drove the foreign SUV was apologetic but not stupid as he took advantage of my fogginess to tell the responding Police officer that he did in fact stop at the Stop sign and hit me going 2 MPH. I guess it really doesn't matter as he admitted fault and offered an apology along with insurance information.( Gee someone in the state of Ohio, Other than my family really follows the law and carries insurance , COOL !) So the next day Mike calls the man's insurance company . Two weeks later after mike calls again three or four times, an adjustor calls. Lucky me, the adjustor comes while Mike is at work. First off they will not replace the stress cracked( from the impact and spin)windshield. Then I am told that because Mike has a gallon of Anti freeze in his trunk( now listen, we didn't know that this was such a crime )that it makes it evident that he has problems with the colling system of the car. ( Glad someone told us because we honestly didn't realize we had this problem)
Luckily this man left before I, well anyway.....
My uncle who has run his own Body shop since I was a baby is fixing the car, while the car is in the shop I am entitled to a rental car. This car rental was supposed to be all set up. " Yes Diane all you do is drive in and pick up the keys, your all set "I was told.
This morning however, when I called to make sure the rental was available for pick up,a different story was told. Now they want my credit card so they can bill me . Ummmm,I don't think so. I am using the insurance companies preferred company to avoid paying up front and getting reimbursed when the insurance company good and feels like it .
This whole ordeal brings me back to the before asked question. Why do I deserve this hassle? I was doing nothing wrong. If people would just obey the basic traffic laws, there wouldn't have been an accident in the first place.
Yes I am feeling sorry for myself right now and know that I just have to offer it up and move on. This is something that I struggle with all of the time.I know that I should think " WWJD " but it all seems so unfair. Was the crucifixion of Jesus unfair ? Of course it was. If only all men had obeyed God's basic rules,Jesus would never have been inconvenienced by Crucifixion. Did Jesus whine and cry like I am doing? No of course not. Hmmmmm maybe I need to work on the offering up a bit more huh ?

Fishing with Pops

For his birthday,Michael wanted nothing more than to go fishing with Pops.Fortunately Pops was quite willing to spend the day at the lake fishing with Michael.

One more chance

Honestly I did look and look for more pictures of Mike's brother Wayne but could only find the two posted. Mike told me that there were more, that he felt I should have used and I really did look but somehow could not find them.
Today however, when I was looking for baby pictures of Cindy that were needed by the church for an upcoming dinner that a church group was having for this years High school graduates, I ran across these. They are not very recent either but I think they are worth posting anyway.



Mike with Brothers and Mom and Dad




Mike ands me with our kids, Mike's brothers and their kids, Mike's parents, and Grandmothers



Wayne with his daughter Kayla and our Robby

I don't beleive this one got by

While looking through pictures for the many birthday posts this past week, I ran across this picture taken of the three kids the beginning of March. Since it is very rare that any of my kids dresses up this much ( we usually even wear nice black jeans to church)all three of them being dressed up is an occasion that I have to post.

Happy Birthday Michael

Today Michael turns fifteen. It is hard to believe that fifteen years ago today he woke me up at three AM forcing me to call and wake Nanny and Pops to come and wake and take Cindy so that I could board the Ambulance which drove so slowly to the hospital that Mike arrived there from his job in Alliance at the same time.In some ways it seems like just yesterday you were born but in others it seems that you were here all of my life.From time to time you have been a challenge, as I am sure you as well as your old Kindergarten teacher will attest to but more than anything, you have been a great source of pride. You were the first twelve year old in the US history of Shoto Kan karate to pass your black belt test and though others have done the same since, you will always be the first. You know that no matter what you put your mind to, you can achieve. You have big plans for your life and I have no doubt that you will fulfill them all. Always know that Dad and I are always behind you to punish you when you need it and to pat you on the back when you deserve it. We love you and always will ! Happy Birthday

Prom #2

Today is Cindy's Home school's prom. Funny how these days sort of sneak up on you. This one especially because due to graduation in a few weeks , state Skills USA competitions last week, and all of the other things that Cindy has going that has stretched her so thin that you can almost see through her, I didn't realize that prom was upon us. Cindy has also been feeling the stretch as she forgot to order her date's boutonniere even after I reminded her between school and work yesterday.Once I realized that it wasn't ordered , when Cindy called me from work in a panic,the flower shop was closed so I figured I would beg for them to take one more order this morning. As I figured I was admonished for waiting until the last minute ( in my defense I called when they opened at nine AM and didn't need it until five minutes before they closed at five PM. Plus they are Dick Adgate, a huge flower shop that should always be able to accomidate such a small request within minutes if necessary. )In the end they took my order and promised either a white rose air brushed lilac ( if they had one left after making their hundreds of corsages and boutonnieres that were ordered) or a white carnation air brushed if not. They had a rose and everything turned out well in that department. Everything else went pretty smoothly as the lady who did Cindy's "Nelly Hair" last time did an up do this time . ( Thank you Lana for your generosity) I did agree to print her a couple pictures of both hair dos for her personal album. Cindy is now at prom as I type but here are some pictures that we took earlier.






Cindy ready to go



Cindy pinning the boutonniere on Mike




Mike putting Cindy's corsage on




OOps the corsage has a sharp part on it ( notice the band aid )