Updates.

When I sent out Christmas updates this year, I put our blog address on them and then didn't even update the blog!  Isn't that just typical?  I get so busy baking and candy making that even the laundry gets backed up this time of year.  We were fortunate enough to have Mike & Toni come down this year.  Traveling through the worst of storms and arriving safely with their 4 kids.  It was great to have them stay with us for a couple of days.

The boys got to open an early Christmas present with their cousins.

Mame and her Grandkids.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I really enjoy having the boys home for a couple of weeks.  The weather has cleared up and all of the snow we got before the holiday is now melted, leaving a soupy mess.  But at least the sun is shining.   The holiday decor will come down this week and I'll move on to the next project.....Spring cleaning

SHOUT MERRY CHRISTMAS

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS , not Happy Holiday!

Go Beavers

This post is for P.A.T.

Love ya Babe!

"We congratulate you..."

on being selected for Federal jury service. I have never served jury duty, ever. It always sounded interesting and I thought I would actually look forward to it when the time came for me to serve. But, this service was in Federal Court. In Medford. At 8am on aWednesday. I dug my heels in. I went, along with about 8-10 other people from here. The process for selection was nothing like it is on TV. It took about 4 hours to select a jury of 13 (12 jurors plus 1 alternate). 4 of us were from Klamath.

Fortunately it only lasted 2 days, we found the defendant guilty: a felon in possession of a handgun. I later found out that this was a recurring problem for this guy. He is now looking at 15 years to life in prision.

"Take Your Medicine Before Practice....

So it doesn't interrupt our practice."

Now why the hell didn't I think of that? I usually don't have to deal with stupid, stupid comments from ignorant people, but this comment is from someone who is going to be Morgan's basketball coach.

Basketball tryouts started this past Monday. Morgan came out of it with a glucose of over 400. Not good. He can't function well when over 250 and it showed. When I got there to pick him up he was uncoordinated, breathing hard and just didn't look well. I spoke with the head coach, who has known Morgan since 1st grade and is completely on board with Morgan's diabetes. He wants Morgan safe and wants to know what he needs to do to keep him healthy. Basically, it came down to Morgan being uncomfortable taking care of his diabetes in this new 'high school' arena. He wants to participate 'just like everyone else', not be singled out for being different. His blood sugar had been 95, so he downed a ton of carbs and went back to work. With the adrenaline and carbs, he sky-rocketed to a very unhealthy number.

Pat and I decided that until EVERYONE (Morgan, Coaches, Parents) was comfortable dealing with diabetes, I would just attend tryouts this week and help Morgan manage his blood sugars. This way, he could focus on basketball, I could keep an eye on him for signs of hi's or low's, and he could gain the confidence to walk off the court to take his blood sugar and treat it as necessary. Tuesday and Wednesday were great, he stayed below 250, took insulin as needed and checked his blood sugar about every 45-60 minutes. No problem. Until last night.

Morgan had forgotten his ankle braces so I ran home and got them for him, so he was late getting on the court. A little into practice another coach (Coach B) told Morgan that Coach M wanted to talk to him....in the stairwell. I figured he was being scolded for being late and didn't think anything of it. But over the course of tryouts, I had to call Morgan off the court to have him check his blood sugar. He was 135, too low for comfort, but he ate a little and had some Gatorade, they were just going to be shooting and not running. Well, he did end up running and he would not come off the court when I tried to get his attention. When I did, he was 106, shaking and pretty emotional. I could not figure out why he was so upset. I told him that I was there, I wasn't going to let anything happen, he was okay, just sit out and lets get his blood sugar up. That's when he told me about the stairwell....

Apparently, Coach M told Morgan in the stairwell that he "needs to take his medicine before practice so it doesn't interrupt"! I could have committed homicide or at the very least ripped the skin from that man's back. I spoke with the head coach, told him what was said. He was furious. He said that there is no room for that kind of prejudice and ignorance on his staff and he would take care of it.

This man has no idea of what he has done. Morgan was just starting to feel like he could take care of himself without having to worry about what the coaches would think. Unfortunately, ignorant people say stupid things and have no clue what it is like to deal with this 24/7. I wish we could just deal with it for an hour in the morning and forget about it until tomorrow. Life would definitely be much easier. I don't know what is going to happen. I think an apology to Morgan is in order. AND a very lengthy coarse in diabetes education.

It is only November 5th...

and this is what it looks like outside.  I hope this is not a sign of the type of winter we are going to have this year.

My very talented 'tile guy' finished up my entry before the snow started flying.  Of course, I love it.

Our 'tile guy' is especially talented in the art of sculpting.  He made a little present for Pat.  Do you think he is telling me that my grout looks like poop?

Lets hope he doesn't give up his day job.

And so it begins

For the last week or so we have had a wonderful break.  Morgan has not had Cross Country and therefore I have not had to worry too much about his blood sugars.  I did take this week to really hunker down and make adjustments and take more care in his carb counts, i.e. weighing his breakfast, writing carb counts on his lunches.  And the results?  Amazing numbers, at least for this week.  He started open gym for basketball last night, which means a lower basal rate over night, which typically relates to a higher wake up number....until I get it figured out again.  But not before basketball officially starts next Monday.

On a lighter note....this is what I woke up to this morning.  I guess it is time to break out the snow tires. 

Beautiful Sunrise

Pat has been doing a lot of hiking on the hill behind the house.  He went out before sunrise on Sunday and took this beautiful picture of Mount Shasta and the city.

Finishing up and moving on

Pat has taken to hiking the hills around our house and trying his hand at some beautiful pictures.  Well, they would be really beautiful if the sky's were not cloudy with smoke from the burning fields.  Mount Shasta is out there somewhere.

Morgan had his last cross country race this past Saturday, for which he is very thankful.  He finished pretty good and actually lost a few seconds on his time.

Lucas is having fun hiking around with dad and Lena, scoping out hiding spots.

Fall is in full swing.  My favorite time of the year.  I love all the color that the trees have and all I have to do is look out my front window.

My wonderful tile guy came by today and started laying tile in the entry.  He told me that it could be classified as a 'foyer' now, it seems so big.  We are putting an 8 inch dark brown border around it...that is the dark tile in the upper left corner of the picture.

For Jaelyn & Kaia

The Kitty's wanted to tell you "Hello" and Mera misses you!

Pondo Fun Run

The KU Cross Country teams hosts a 'fun run' for the Jr High school every fall. I am not sure of the distance, but it is close to, or just over, 1 mile. Lucas ran it this year.  We don't know what his time was, but I think he had a 'fun run'!

New Look

I don't know anything about editing html. It all looks like a bunch of gibberish to me so I have been stuck with bloggers standard templates. I did a quick google search of templates for blogger and found a couple that I liked so I thought I would play around. What I like so far...it was FREE, what I don't like...I can't transfer my widgets. I had to copy and paste html to save the ones that I wanted.

Yesterday was Pat and Mikes birthday. Pat told me that he was celebrating his 11th birthday...for the 4th time! He got to celebrate in warm SanDiego while the boys and I got to stay home with a little bit of snow!

Little Drummer Boy

Our youth group needed a new drummer.  Guess who got the job?

He never really played the drums before, but he has been practicing and is doing quite well!

Rocking for Jesus!

When did my kids get so big?  

Henley Invitational

I think this is our last 'home' run of the season.  Morgan has been doing well, but not really putting forth a strong effort.  I asked him to run hard and do his best today...meaning I didn't just want him to pace, I wanted him to RUN.

He looked awesome for most of the race, until the last 200 meters and then the pain started to kick in.

He finished the 5K race in 21:24, a PR.  Pat really wants to help him with his form, but Morgan isn't quite ready to listen yet.  Morgan has asked about the possibility of getting his nose fixed in the near future.  He has a terribly deviated septum and can hardly breath when he is even the least bit congested.  Maybe something to look forward to in the summer.

Kitchen Remodel and Anniversary

I guess you could say that we are officially finished.  Though I need to put up the backsplash and we are going to tile the front entry.  Hopefully, these things should get done before the end of the year.

In addition to the kitchen, we put new flooring in the dining room and took about 8 inches off the front entry wall.  We can now see from the kitchen into the front room.

The laundry closet that we removed is now a peninsula/bar that is 9.5 feet long.  The sink and dishwasher are also here.

Looking toward the dining room from the computer area.

Island area.

The new laundry room, where the old kitchen used to be.

We are very happy with the way it turned out.  It is so much more functional and I love cooking again.  Pat has already planned a couple of parties and after Oregon States whipping of USC, we are looking forward to our annual Civil War Party.

We also had an anniversary of sorts this past week.  9/25 was Morgan's diagnosis date.  3 years.  Obviously I have mixed emotions.  100 years ago he wouldn't be here, but we would all rather that there was a cure.  The past couple of weeks has been difficult trying to get his glucose back in range.  Must be another growth spurt on its way because his insulin needs have almost doubled again, even with running cross country.

Prefontaine

So the cross country team headed over to Coos Bay yesterday to run in the Prefontaine Race. I was checking in today to see where Morgan came in. I was told that it was just another fun race and that they were going to dress up. (Is there going to be a serious meet?) I heard that some of the girls were dressing in a 'Wizard of Oz' theme. Well, it took me 18 pages but I finally saw where Morgan finished.....895, right smack in the middle of a bunch of girls....9 of them from home and 3 from Coos Bay and my son. Go figure!

Mud Run

Yesterday was the 6th Annual Mazama Mud Run.  This is a fun race that Mazama High School hosts that draws schools from all over Southern Oregon and Northern CA.  There were 2 mud pits, a smaller one that people ran through twice and a much larger one that they ran through 3 times.  Morgan ran in the boys JV race, which was the 3rd race, so by the time he got there is was a thick, soupy pit.

Before the race...

nice and bright

The larger of the 2 pits.  This one was about waist deep.  The uphill side was very steep and after a few races was a very slippery slope.

When the runners came through, it reminded me of those scenes on TV when the wildebeast are crossing the river avoiding the gaitors and it is just mass chaos.

The second time through, cannonballs and flips are typically the norm.  Morgan performing a front flip, and yes I was worried that something would get broken!

You definately do not want to stand too close to the pit, nor do you want to be wearing anything light colored.

Fun after the race!

Morgan ran this race 3 years ago a few days before his diabetes diagnosis

Can You Call It Finished?

Even though there is no range in the kitchen?  My contractor finished his work except for finishing the back of the island, but we are waiting for a piece that had to be ordered.  I am hoping to get my electrical finished in the next day or two.  In the mean time, my microwave and frig are connected to extension cords and my range is in the laundry room.

It is so roomy, we all love it.  It opened the house up so much.

When I am not so exhausted, get the range in and the second frig out of the kitchen and into the laundry room, I will post more pictures.

Payback....

I TP'd a few houses in my day, but these gal's were professionals.  Good thing we caught it BEFORE the sprinkler system came on and made most of it permanent.   Lena didn't let us know what was going on until AFTER they left.  Some watch dog!

Did you know

That when you do a remodel, Everything stops when the electrician doesn't show up?  My finally fast moving remodel came to a complete, screeching halt last Wednesday.  I think I actually smelled burning rubber things stopped so fast.  They were supposed to show up Wednesday to do the electrical, nothing on Thurs, nothing on Friday, and nothing on Monday!  I finally saw the whites of their eyes on Tuesday and made them stay until they got it done.  So now we are behind about 4 days.  The guys put up drywall and did some mudding and taping today.  Hopefully I will be able to paint this long weekend!

This is the old laundry closet & pantry.  My sink & dishwasher will go here.

My old kitchen/new laundry room all framed in.