Best Donor Ever

(Please forgive Spelling Errors, the spell check is....not working, and my teacher hat is missing)

Over the next few days (maybe weeks) I will be writing about my expieriences with family and traditons that keep me alive, many come just like this....some are mine, many are what my family has shared with me. Thanks for sharing stories, and always welcoming me home, even from afar.


Ok, everyone has heard me talk about my awesome grandparents, the Holtons, if you have known me for more than a few hours. A little background, they have been married over 60 years, 6 children, over 20 grandchildren, nearing 15 great grandchildren (correct me if my count is off family), and we are close, we love eachother, we have meaningful relationships. Seriously folks, we sing together, roast marshmellows in the back yard, hang out 3 and 4 generations in a den watching football or in this case a show about sperm donors. This brings me to the following exerpt my sweet Aunt Nadia sent me about her most recent visit to Holton Haven.....The family roles in the parenthesis are mine.....just so you can follow.....these are my aunts and there kids (the best cousins in the universe)

I just got back from the Holton Haven Sunday.Peter(Nadias's son) and I went over so he could take a real estate class he needed...! It was so much fun. Last Friday night Gus, (cousin)Carol(aunt) ,Marnie (aunt), and Allie(youngest cousin),me(nadia),Mom and Dad and Peter too.... were all together. overnight! And cousin Jerry was there for a visit. I know Mom and Dad get pooped....but HERE is a funny for you. We were all sitting around watching an Oprah show of all things. (Don't ask me why ! )It was about kids grown from a sperm donor, now adults.Some didn't know about it until they were older some always knew, but most of them had a need/desire to know who the sperm donor, their father, was for various reasons. Anyway we sat around and discussed the issue during commercials. Toward the end ,at a bit after midnight, Dad gets up and says," Well I am heading up to bed." He had been sitting next to Mom on the couch as I was sitting in his chair. As he leaves the room he turns and says
"Aren't you all glad you got a good sperm donor?!" We were first shocked a bit and then laughed our heads off!! Dad is the best "sperm donor" I know of!!! Thought you would like to hear about that one!


Folks this is my family, this is not an odd happening when we get together, talking, laughing (usually at ourselves or the aunts that raised us).....If you knew, only knew, the diversity of this group sitting in the sunken den at my grandparents that night, old (mature), young, middle age, grandchildren, grandparents, children, cousins, straight, gay, married, unmarried....all HAPPY and well loved, accepted, wanted, longed for,needed, we all have a place. When we walk into that home we are welcomed, warmly, we refuel, find hope, laugh and cry. We have screamed, we have had moments (many) of insecurity and found security there, in that space. From vinyl table cloths on the floor to keep our wet butts just run out of the pool from ruining the floor, to adults with our on childrne sitting on the couches and recliners, always with a little one rocking in our grandpa's rocker (he had when he was a kid over 75 years ago), one sitting in Grandpa's lap is not unusual, or at Grandma's feet on the ottoman, listening intently. We find hope, healing, history, the strength to move through our seasons. I miss them, I cry often, homesick for the relationship and warmth I find there. But alas, my Aunt Nadia writes me and tells me about a story like this, and I am right there, finding hope.....that yes I have the best donor God could have given me in every since of the word. Thanks Grandpa for the legacy.

Prosperity...$2200 makes you wealthy in the World

We want to travel with the kids and not worry about money and not go to work when we are sick. I believe this is possible. I don't know all the ins and outs, I do know there are nay sayers, this is not a 'name it and claim it strategy'. We are making a plan and thinking positively ( I do think that positive thoughts, creates more energy and a better out look). We will get what we hope for and continue to work hard and smart and give back. I made a list it started......
1. Give one thing for every one thing recieved
2. Don't need what doesn't make me happy
3. More stuff will not make us happy
4. KNOW what I am dreaming for
Which brings me to a new great site I want to share
http://millionairemommynextdoor.blogspot.com/
I don't know her, I am not making money for her, she simply shares financial ideas I tend to agree with....so here goes, I am doing baby step 1.....Treasure Map to a Rich Life
Please email me, comment me, tell me what does a Rich Life mean to you.
Rich life for me obviously is healthy, saved kids, but how can I enjoy them more......I am talking about the nickles and dimes here and how I can help my sweet Donnie not go to work sick and see a beach when Memphis is yucky.
There you have it.....Enjoy your journey. I will today.

Puzzle for the Day

I recieved this in an email....if you get the answer comment me and I will send you the spread sheet to put the answer in and add your name, and send it on..., I will post the answer in a few days with the drawings to help (if enough request it).....real puzzle no tricks.....just plain old fashioned fun... ENJOY


There are 7 girls in a bus.
Each girl has 7 backpacks.
In each backpack, there are 7 big cats.
For every big cat there are 7 little cats.
Question: How many legs are there in the bus?
This is not a trick question...the number of seats on the bus has nothing to do with, the answer is NOT the bus doesn't have legs.....

ick, ick, ick

Mom this is my happy face......

"What, what could you possibly want from me now, can't you see I am busy?"

We are ick, ick, ick, according to DJ who couldn't get the SSSS sound out yesterday with his horsed little voice. It is official, flu epidemic is in our home. Zachary and Maggie were confirmed yesterday. Zachary is a mean sick person, I love that kid, but could someone who has had a teenage son or been a teenage son reassure me that my son will be nice again and that he will realize we don't all stink as bad as he thinks. He pronounced that nothing runs smoothly around here and that nobody has anything under control (keep in mind this is because I didn't do something on his schedule). I try not to take these things personal, but come on, I like to be in control and have things run smoothly, that is what most of my life since I have had all this kids has been dedicated to, a smooth road. How would he do it diffrently he doesn't know afterall"your the mom, it isn't my job to have the answers" proclaims he. Please let me remind you and tell those of you who don't know that this is the same child who after I have successfully (almost one on the edge to go) gotten through six, yes six, count them on your hands ladies and gentlemen, six kids without peas in their nose, pencils in their ears, that I had to explain a be be in my 14 year old's ear. You heard it right a be be, no he wasn't trying to shoot himself or actually hurt himself, apparently he just wanted to know if he could get it out. *SHOUTING* He is 14***** what the heck was the self proclaimed know it all thinking. I told him if Dr. K (our fabulous....yes you heard right awesome Pediatrician who my last born is named after) that if he couldn't get it out that it would have to just travel throught the ear canal and out his sinuses and snot it out I was not, I reapeat not sitting at the ENT with 14 year old bb victim. Dr. K was able to get it out. Apparently things like this are more than we know, until we know, with adolecent children....they do these things without thinking, but actually they are thinking, just not clearly. I remember being 14. Fourteen years old stinks for most everyone I am sure. Maybe some of you had unwittingly bright parents who sanity or reasoning you never questioned or thought you could do most better than them, but not me. It is hard knowing everything and not having any legal rights to put all that wisdom into practice and that my friends and family is exactly where Zachary is at......alas, he will have children and he will go to therapy and I will admit all that I did wrong, so that there is no delay in healing and then he will call when his kids know it all and say "this is ick, ick, ick, mom....what now" That is how I envision rising up and calling me rightous. Thanks for reading the rant if you have gotten this far. I really do love him....he is a good Godly, mostly obediant kid......who knows it all.

Mars Is Bad For Us

"NO MORE MARS'

Maci Pike

We have the flu, because Mars is bad for us.....actually it is mercury that is bad for us, but hey all planets created equally in our home. We don't do some immunizations because of mercury (the element, not the planet). So when I was talking about hand washing, herb taking, vitamin c accumulating measures to keep the other children (mags and dj and daddy are already ill), Maci said "we can't do the shot because of the Mars."

*******DISCLAIMER PLEASE keep in mind, I am not taking a stand on any medicine or its affects....I am ONLY sharing something funny my child said. I will NOT debate the merits or risk of modern medicine.********

All this made me think of so many funny things my children have said and that for the life of me I can't remember most of them as I want to share them, which brings me to my point. Do what my Grandma says and keep a journal, write things down. We are writers in our family, even the ones who deny it. So there is no excuse for this lack of record keeping. I am not speaking of a *quiet voice inserted* Baby Book. I am talking about a note to self in a journal, notebook or calender. I am a systems person. My inner self wants to complicate this and have a system for keeping up with these things. At this very moment I am stressing over all the pictures and for some of my children the lack of pictures in our home, it is what it is because I was waiting on a system. I will buck the system, move against the established memory authority (whoever that is....Kodak, scrapbookers, baby book keepers, you know who you are) and I will jot notes to myself and put pictures in albums with a note and be happy they aren't lost in a drawer or the deep recesses of my brain

I Took Off My Socks

Ok, just a quick note, the kids were great went to bed right on time, soon after returning home from Wed. night church. I was thinking how we should reward them, hugely, for this.....1 am....NO LIGHTS< NO HEAT< NO SANITY.....we were at the mercy of MLGW until just before 2pm yesterday. Durning that time (after each of the children awoke cold, between the hours of 5 am and 8am) we went to a friends home, did school work, ate homemade pancake and chicken nuggets and ramen for lunch. Full of starch and new school work in hand ( I love going through friends school books), we headed to the homefront (leaving one kid behind and exchanging for another one). It was cold, but things were heating up. I love electrical tricks we get over here on my cove.....if electricity is out, we are involved, almost guaranteed. I wonder how my children will remember this week. We have had other weeks with modern conveniences, during the hot, hot summer months and summer storms of memphis. This was our first really cold, long days and nights. Will the remember the funny parts or will the remember me melting down last night after choir practice in the lobby of First Evan, when I ran out of nice? Too much, too big, too loud, that is what everything seemed around me and the kids, the basketball court on the other side of the lobby, the teenagers rushing downstairs so full of their dang youthful joy and I just wanted to yelll "just stop it, be happy, but go away"......it was time for me to go home, go to bed and get warm really, really, warm. I did get warm, in fact about 10 I told my sweet Donnie I thought I could take my extra pair of socks off. Thank you Lord for modern conveniences, that we don't live on the prarie like Laura and that my children are more ammused by insanity at moments in their lives than hurt by it. I hope.