Deck Extravaganza!!!

A team of my craziest and most handy friends hit my house on Saturday morning for a deck building extravaganza!!! We finished everything but the rail cap and the stairs because we ran out of wood. The only near disaster was when Brandon threw the OPEN exacto knife at Steve (the builder) and sliced his finger open. Killing the builder...not good for the plan!!

The way the day started...posts and a pile of wood.

This is a snake hole. Hopefully the snakes are now GONE!!!

Did I mention that Steve post holed right through my drain pipes for the downspouts? Twice? Kevin, Scott and Roger did some lovely ditch work to cut out the bad pipe and splice in new stuff. Rob is supervising here...

Still supervising...

Kevin and Steve still working on the piping!!

Brandon and Roger felt left out of the pipe fixing, ditch digging fun so they decided to break their own pipe while moving the sat dish. Hooray!! More pipes to fix!!!

Scott with a Sawzall. Anyone frightened?

Brandon...he fixed the pipe!

Steve and Kevin make sure that the first boards go in perfectly.

Kevin...I'm done now! Bring me a beer!!
Hey, whata happens if I whacka the Roger?
I make this look gooooood!
Railings going UP!!!Done for the day! Please don't fall off the deck!

So pretty!!!

I love it, I love it, I love it, I LOVE IT!!!

Me on my deck!! Hooray!!!

Me and Brandon

A Girly Day!

I had a wonderfully girly day! A friend of my parent's gave me a table they didn't need and I found these wonderful craft organizers for my scrapbooking stuff and wah-lah! Craft room!! Hooray! I am now uber-organized and have a place where I can leave my projects out and I can close the door! I am sooooo excited!!! Hooray!

My First Blizzard

I got to experience my first blizzard at my new house! First we had an ice storm - which knocked out my power so I had to stay in a hotel - and then we got over 20" of snow. It was AWESOME!!!! I even got to use my snow shoes for the first time since moving to Ohio! Hooray!!



Usually the mailbox is higher than my shins...about 2 feet higher than my shins!!


Snow, wonderful snow, I love snow!!


Did I mention we got a lot of snow?? If I had thought this through I would have posed with a shovel and called my guy friends to tell them how wimpy they are! :o) Alas, I was too busy balancing the camera on the garbage can and then trying to run in snow shoes over to the huge pile of snow. Snow plow guy - $400 a year. Never having to shovel and getting to laugh at all your friends? - Priceless!

Thoughts on Being a Grief Companion

This was posted on a young widow board and I felt that it was a wonderfully eloquent way of expressing how those of us who have experienced deep grief feel as well as being something many of us wish our family and friends understood.

"Alan Wolfelt has given considerable thought to the role of a grief “companion.” According to Wolfelt, being a Companion is about:

• Honoring the spirit – it is not about focusing on the intellect
• Curiosity – it is not about expertise
• Learning from others – it is not about teaching them
• Walking alongside – it is not about leading
• Being still – it is not about frantic movement forward
• Discovering the gifts of sacred silence – it is not about filling every painful moment with words
• Listening with the heart – it is not about analyzing with the head
• Bearing witness to the struggles of others – it is not about directing those struggles
• Being present to another person’s pain – it is not about taking away the pain
• Respecting disorder and confusion – it is not about imposing order and logic
• Going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being – it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.

In looking at models surrounding grief and loss, Wolfelt believes we are confronted with three forces that might be framed as risks:

Risk #1: In our culture, the predominant bereavement care model for the bereaved is a medical model: assessing, diagnosing, and treating grief as an illness.

Risk #2: That bereavement caregivers may mirror our culture by supporting the quick-fix medical model approach to what is really a soul-based journey.

Risk #3: That bereavement caregivers see themselves as a separate class of “master” grief educators and counselors.

Wolfelt continues: I believe the limitations of our clinical, medical models are profound and far-reaching. Our modern understanding of grief all too often projects that for “successful” mourning to take pace, the person must disengage from the deceased and, by all means, “let go.” We even have all sorts of books full of techniques on how to help others “let go” or reach “closure.”

Our modern understanding of grief all too often conveys that the end result of bereavement is a series of completed tasks, extinguished pain, and the establishment of new relationships. In attempting to make a science of grief, we have compartmentalized complex emotions with neat clinical labels.

Wolfelt then goes on to state that a perfect state of reestablishment is impossible because:

A person’s life is changed forever after the death of someone loved.

The grief journey requires contemplation and turning inward. In other words, it includes sadness, anxiety, and loss of control. It requires going to the wilderness. Quietness and emptiness invite the heart to observe signs of sacredness, to regain purpose, to rediscover love, to renew life!

Searching for meaning, reasons to get one’s feet out of bed, and understanding the pain of loss are not the domain of the medical modes of bereavement care. Experience has taught me that it is the mysterious, spiritual dimension of grief that harbors the capacity to go on living until we, too, die.

Our current models desperately need a “supplement of the soul.” We need, as caregivers and as fellow travelers in the journey into grief, more life-giving, hope-filled models that incorporate not only the mind and body, but the soul and spirit."

A Dead Man's Chest - Pirate Murder Mystery Party

The first annual murder mystery party is over with nothing left but incriminating photos, enough alcohol to keep the Marines happy and one helluva mess!!

Getting my house ready

Sir Percival and Elisabeth (John and Kelly) - such a lovely father/daughter team!

Mark and Mark as Captain Black Jack and Don Inigo

Deckhand Amy - Cutest deckhand to ever light brownies on fire!

Hayapitl and Toleleth - another cute father/daughter team!

Rick as Sawbones McGraw...a man with healing hands and way too much power!

Heather as the charming Tokeleth

Tokeleth and Bill Pistol (Mark) up to no good.

Tom (Alicia) and the Parrot (JP) - it's never too early to be a pirate!!!

Alice (Beth) and Captain Black Jack scheming...

Cris and Scott as Captain Nancy and Captain Hal...can both survive?

Linda as Blaise - the Fury's chef. Who needs a hook when you have a spatula?!

Sawbones and Bill, who has been healed!

Cutlass Annie and the Parrot (Anna and JP)

Deckhand Amy keeps us well fed and liquored up!

"Please take me on your boat...you're such a cute pirate..."

Tom (Alicia), the Parrot, Elisabeth, Alice and Blaise

Quentus (Nick), Bill and Sawbones (who seem to be together a lot...)

Hayapitl (Pete) and his fairly scary stick