Happy Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day! It's my favorite holiday. It's made extra special for us, because we actually consider February 12 and February 16 special days, too.

February 12 is special because we consider it the anniversary of when we started dating. That sounds corny, of course, but when we met in college we were best friends first. After a year, we both started to feel like we wanted it to be more, but there was so much at stake with our friendship we were concerned. On February 12, 1997, my dorm roommate and I had a little dinner party. Her boyfriend was in town from England (yes, the country, not England, Arkansas), and we wanted to have a special time. The four of us had dinner and watched the movie "The Rock." When HoneyBear left, we had a moment to talk, and decided to see what would happen if we became a dating couple. We celebrate February 12 as an anniversary.

February 16 is the day that HoneyBear proposed to me, in 1998. We had made a joint decision, and had even picked out a ring together, but he presented me with it, along with a giant panda bear and a precious card, in the living room of my apartment. It was a Monday night, and I had rehearsal for Fine Arts Team through the University's Baptist Student Union that night. Since he had been on the team the year before, the team members were good friends to both of us, and we planned to tell them that night of our engagement. He had excellent timing to ensure I had a ring with the announcement. Of course, he was a little sneaky and told me it wasn't ready so the actual proposal could be a surprise. We definitely consider February 16 a special day in our lives.

With the two dates, plus Valentine's Day, it's easy to find a time to celebrate together! This year we had the fortune of having two celebrations. We had a date night on Saturday night with the boys staying with Grandma. We took advantage of the Valentine's special at one of my favorite restaurants, Marketplace Grill. We even saw some friends--the instructors of our dogs' obedience school classes were out for the evening, too. As a plus, my hair was actually fixed curly, since I had gotten it highlighted that afternoon!


The next night was a special evening organized by our church. Child care was provided at church, so the boys were able to play with friends. Called the Great Date Experiment, it was the first of 6 structured dates, with instructions available for download. To be honest, we didn't follow the guidelines exactly, but we did appreciate the parts we did complete. This first one was on Communication, so there were some guided discussion questions that were really fun and helpful. We were also supposed to take a picture of ourselves at each step of the process.



Did you make a memory this Valentine's Day?

Making a Man Made Out of Snow

Snow! Our family has had some fun in the snow this year. During the days we called the NWA Snow Storm, the boys and I had several days outside in the snow. HoneyBear got to be in on some of the snow play, too.

Sunday afternoon, with snow everywhere and snowmen all over town, we made our first family snowman. HoneyBear had of course made lots of snowmen, and had always loved the snow. Tyler had also made some snow creatures, the most memorable being the one he made with the little Blue (from Blue's Clues) sprinkler we had in the garage when he was just 2. We moved Blue into the yard and packed snow on him. A little scarf finished off the snow Blue.

This time we had help from Daddy. We would make a snow man.

The boys brought Daddy the snow, with some help from cottage cheese buckets. The dogs didn't last long outside, but still left some marks that had to be avoided when collecting snow. With the boys' help, the snow was packed into a form. We added a cap from HoneyBear's collection, and he was done.

I took the chance to use my Flip Video camera from school so we could remember the day we made a man out of snow.

NWA Ice Storm 2010

During the last week of January last year Northwest Arkansas suffered from an ice storm that caused almost the entire area to be out of power. When people in Northwest Arkansas heard that almost exactly one year later we would be facing another winter storm warning with ice and snow accumulation, the region reacted. Grocery stores were quickly wiped out of bread and milk, and Sam's went through quite a few generators. People in the region also stocked up on bottled water, so that HoneyBear had extra deliveries to the grocery stores with Aquafina and other Pepsi products.

As we watched the weather move into our area, we all watched the radar and the weather predictions. Thursday morning started with some sleet and freezing rain, but then cleared, with no road problems, so we made it to school. The winter storm watch was changed to a winter storm warning and a winter weather advisory, though, making us nervous all day that school would have to dismiss early. Fortunately, we made it through the day before the rest of the storm system hit.

Just after school was out, light precipitation started. By the time I got home, just minutes from school, my Explorer was covered in icicles.

With memories of last year still in our minds, we began to get nervous. For our family, our safety net was even eliminated--though we had been able to escape to Little Rock the year before, central Arkansas was also expecting winter weather, and we could no longer drive down to Nana and Papa's house if we lost power.

Fortunately for keeping power, NWA Ice Storm 2010 turned into NWA Snow Storm 2010! The sleet and freezing rain changed over to snow, and kept it up for hours. The ice and snow in our yard was so pretty--a true winter wonderland.

Tucker wasn't very happy with the cold or the snow, but Roly spent time outside. He was so funny prancing through the snow.

We were quite thankful to not have the power outages and dangerous conditions from the previous year as we settled in to enjoy the snow.

Happy Birthday Tucker

Today is Tucker's birthday. Tucker is not one of my sons. He is, however, my first "baby." Tucker is our oldest pug dog. He turns 12 years old today.

Actually, today is technically only the day we celebrate Tucker's birthday. Much like Christ's birthday, we don't know the actual day Tucker was born. When he joined our family, he was determined to be 6 weeks old. That placed his birth sometime in late January. HoneyBear's birthday is August 27, so we used the day--27--to make a celebration day for Tucker's birthday, so his birthday became January 27.

When Tucker joined our family, he was tiny! HoneyBear and his mom had a Ford Thunderbird with a center console that wasn't very big, but was almost empty. HoneyBear often drove with Tucker inside the console--a perfect little fit for the little puppy.

He is a pug mix, and we rescued him from the animal shelter because his mom was not supposed to have anything but purebred pugs, so a mixed litter of puppies was not allowed. There were several to choose from, and I still don't know how we picked him, but it was just as likely that he picked us. What he's mixed with is also unknown; he looks just like a "puggle," but we've always been told he has some terrier, and he's not as large as a beagle or puggle would be.

We've also believed he's part terrier because of the energy he had as a puppy. Now that we have another puppy, we're remembering some of Tucker's early days. It may be that we're not remembering exactly the way things were, or we may just be working better with the new puppy, but Roly-Poly is much less excitable than we remember Tucker being.

When he was a puppy, Tucker would play and play until he just collapsed into sleep. He "tuckered out"--which is how he got his name.

When he was a puppy, Tucker chewed everything in sight. When he was almost 8 months old, HoneyBear and I got married (we adopted Tucker just after we got engaged.)  Nana and Papa stayed in my apartment with Tucker after the wedding and took him home with them while we were on our honeymoon. While they were at my apartment, Tucker apparently chewed up several of Nana's shoes. They remember buying a bag of pigs ears to keep Tucker entertained on the way to their house--and he went through several.

When he was a puppy, Tucker ate anything. We found that he had eaten foil, rubber bands, and the little ball on the top of HoneyBear's hats. It's hard to think of what might still be inside that dog's belly!

When he was a puppy, Tucker loved Pup-peroni treats. We got some as part of his adoption kit. He ate the first one almost without chewing, and it was longer than he was! While we ran into Wal-Mart on the way home after adopting him to pick up a collar, food and water dishes, and food, he found the bag of Pup-peroni. We're not sure how he didn't get sick, but he finished off the entire bag--as a tiny puppy.

We didn't really celebrate Tucker's birthday this year. We had kid's choir and Bible study, plus Shawn's therapy after school, so Wednesdays are very long days for us. But we got him a bag of Pup-peroni for his very own, and he got one tonight. He'll cuddle with me until bedtime, then cuddle up against me under the covers when we go to bed, so that I'm sandwiched warm and toasty between my two pugs, Tucker and Roly.

He's my first baby, and a cherished part of our family. Happy birthday, Tucker-puppy!

If you have pets, do you celebrate their birthdays? Do you know the date, or is it a guess?

Being Reminded

As a wife and mother, I spend a lot of time reminding people of things.

"Don't forget your backpack."

"Remember to feed the dogs."

"Don't forget we have karate tonight."

"Can you please put your keys where you can remember where they are?"

Some might call these reminders closer to nagging, but in our case it's the way we can actually get things done. The problem is, I am not as good at reminding myself of things. I know this is normal. What may not be normal, though, is how easily my disease takes over and causes me to forget things that I should have no problem remembering.

More importantly, when things are going well for me it's easy me to forget how quickly my health can go bad. The past few weeks I've had a strong reminder of how important it is for me to be careful with my disease.

It started with just a little too much activity. I did too much bending to plug in equipment. I did a little too much fast walking, rushing to get things fixed for a meeting already in progress. I had a little too much worry, spending a lot of time concerned about things I couldn't really control.

Then I had my medicine.

My medicine is a miracle drug for me. I believe strongly that I would not be as mobile and active as I am, even with my limitations, were I not able to take this medicine. It is a pretty strong drug, though, and must be carefully monitored. With the monitoring, the IV infusion takes about 3 hours. I usually miss about an hour and a half of work each month for the medicine. Although I make it up by working late throughout the month, and just getting my projects done in general, I am still out of the building when teachers and students are not. I typically try to have the infusions on Friday afternoons, since that's a time during the week that tends to have the fewest things missed if I am out of the building.

This month, though, I opted to have my infusion on a Monday. We were out of school for a holiday, and I thought it would be good to avoid missing any work and take advantage of the day away from school.

No one reminded me of how much this drug affects me.

Since I typically have the infusion on Friday afternoons, I rest over the weekend. Resting on Saturday or Sunday afternoons is a part of our adaptation to having multiple sclerosis; in our family this is a normal, necessary part of life. So even though I know that after having my meds I'm more tired than usual, I usually think of the day of the infusion as a day I need to rest--about 4 hours after it's over, actually.

While this is true, and my body shuts down to deal with the medicine about 4 hours after the infusion, I've been reminded that two days after I have my medicine I am forced to rest. This is not just a case of being tired. Multiple sclerosis laughs at "tired." It laughs at "exhausted," even. The term used most frequently is "fatigued"--as in MS fatigue, which is one of the potentially debilitating affects of the disease.

After my medicine, my body took MS fatigue to a new level. The boys got to stay home, because Mommy couldn't get out of bed (Tyler was also dealing with the after-effects of a migraine and Shawn was feeling poorly, so staying home was actually a good thing for them, but when I'm being honest they stayed home because I had to). Mommy couldn't move. Mommy absolutely, no-questions-asked, do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 had to rest. With the drugs doing their thing, my body told me it was out of order while the repairs were taking place. Because I had tried to force it without that rest, they had more work to do, and I had a harder time recovering.

As the day drew to a close, I returned to normal. The fatigue lessened, and I was able to get out of bed. We didn't make it to choir, but were able to get back into routine the next day. By the weekend, I was feeling great again.

I've rescheduled my next medicine, though. We may be off on a Monday the week of my February medicine, but I'm not taking any chances; I'll have my medicine on a Friday afternoon.

Hopefully, I've gotten all the reminder I need to rest 4 hours after and again 2 days after my miracle drug. If not, I'm open to being nagged/reminded in the future.

Have you ever had a time where you were strongly reminded of something the hard way?

Snow Dogs

While the boys made snow angels and had snowball fights on their January 4 snow day, they did not get to build a snowman. We got carrots when we picked up new hats and gloves, so we were ready, but it was just too cold.

Of course, we did not actually plan to build a snowman. We decided we would build a snow DOG! It originally was going to be laying on its belly with little sticks for legs sprawled out. As we talked about it, Shawn decided he wanted it to have something special. He was determined it should have a "weiney." Actually, it should have 8 weineys. Plus, they had to be black.

As a little bit of background, a stray dog had been spending time at Nana and Papa's house before Christmas. This dog was very pregnant, and probably gave birth during the holiday. In preparation for the birth, the teats on the dog were quite large--and they were black.

Apparently, it's time for more of a "talk" between Daddy and Shawn!

Though it was too cold to build our snow dog, with or without correct anatomy, our real dogs did spend some time in the snow.

Tucker did not enjoy it very much, but did sniff a bit before he came back to the front door and waited to be allowed back inside.



Roly was more adventurous, though only slightly.









Daddy asked us where our snow dog was when he got home that night, since we'd told him we would build one. We showed him the real snow dogs, and enjoyed time inside for the evening, so we could all return to school and work the next day.

(For the record, I would not have allowed any private anatomy to be added to our snow creature, disappointed children or not!)

Have you ever built a snow creature other than a snow man?

Snow Days 1

This winter we've already gotten more snow than we typically do. Though we missed most of it while we were at Nana and Papa's house, we technically had a white Christmas, something I'm not accustomed to. Of course, as a child we celebrated Christmas in south Arkansas, in Magnolia and Camden. Most Christmases could be spent in t-shirts.

Since we missed the Christmas snow, the boys were very happy when it snowed again New Year's weekend, especially when it meant that the Monday we would have gone back to school turned into a snow day! The snow was not easy to work with, and it was incredibly cold, but that didn't stop the boys from having some fun--for brief moments at a time.

They started with my personal favorite snow activity, snow angels. The snow was only deep enough for the snow-angel-making to sweep the snow from the ground in those spot, but the boys enjoyed it.



Since boys will be boys, the next order of business became a snowball fight!






Shawn had to check on the snow sticking to his glove,


While Tyler hammed it up for the camera.


Since it was incredibly cold, with a steady wind, that was about all the boys could take.

After Shawn took one last look around at...something....we all headed inside to warm up and play video games.



Wonderful snow days...

What's your favorite snow play activity?