A Mother's Love

With her first son Jeremy



With her second son Matt



With her third son Landon

Very Trying Times

Here is a picture of Landon's mom, Debbie. I wish I knew when it was taken; my guess is late 70's/early 80's.


Many of you may not know that Debbie has MS (Multiple Sclerosis). MS is a terrible disease that effects each patient in different ways, but mostly it attacks the muscles. Landon's mom has been suffering with this for almost 25 years, and it has taken over nearly every part of her body. She is doing very poorly right now and is not expected to make it too much longer. I don't have the energy to go into all of it right now, but Landon and I went to see her today and she didn't know who we were. We stayed for about half an hour, and towards the end I think she finally kind of knew who he was at least. Her speech is very limited now and when she does try to talk it is very hard to understand her, and she doesn't sound at all like herself. It was really, really difficult to see her this way, especially for Landon. If anyone happens to think of us, please pray for our family as we go through this hard time. There are probably going to be some very difficult decisions coming soon, and we desperately need God's wisdom and guidance.

What's Going on with Me Lately?

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy at our household. Here's a little of what's been happening around here the last several days; some are cool, some are serious, and some are just plain silly.

Landon got a bit of a raise at work. WooHoo!

Our dog sleeps in our room every night now, but NOT on the bed! No 50-some-odd pounds of dog invading on the personal space. It works out quite nicely actually. She has a little bed of her own and sleeps all night in there with us. I get up and take her out when Landon leaves to go to work, then sleep for a little bit longer if I don't feel like staying awake yet. It makes for a happier (read: well behaved) dog throughout the day in my opinion.

Our Sunday school class at church has now moved to evenings (that was about 6 weeks ago), and we love it! We get to sleep in on Sunday mornings and feel so much more awake at 4 when we go to class, then to service at 5:30. Nearly everyone from our morning class also switched to evenings and our class has at least doubled in size. It's been really cool to continue to get to know friends and meet new ones too.

Landon and I have started a small group in our home on Tuesday nights. Another couple that lives super close to us are helping us lead it, and so far we have 7 people in our group. Our first meeting (I don't know what else to call it) was last night and it was not nearly as nerve wracking as I was anticipating it to be. I am naturally a more reserved and shy person when first meeting new people, and I was so glad that it was very relaxed instead. Last night was a time of getting to kind of know each other and learn about our backgrounds, etc. It was much better than the "meet and greet" that was at the church on Friday night where people came to try to find a group that would fit their needs. I think God is going to do something really cool with this new thing in our lives. I don't know what yet, but I'm watching and waiting!

Landon's grandfather on his mother's side passed away on Thursday and the funeral was yesterday. I don't want to say it was weird, because it was a very nice service, but I'm not sure what other word can describe it; neither of us knew him very well at all, but we wanted to show support to the family by coming. Landon never really spent much time around those grandparents growing up, except for during major holidays when lots of other people would be around too. I had only met his grandfather a handful of times, and nearly each time it was like meeting for the first time again because we never got to know each other. (on a side note, he never could hear me when I would talk...I'm pretty quiet)

I finally cleaned up my extra room where I keep all my books and stuff like that. Many papers came in contact with my marvelous shredder, and I really felt like I had accomplished something by making that room more presentable. I also organized my bookshelves a little and found about 5 books that I had forgotten I was reading at one time. Among them were Captivating by Stasi Eldredge and Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, both products of my Family Christian days; everyone was raving about them so I bought them and never finished reading them. I dug them out and put them in my room where I would be able to see them; unfortunately I have several more books in there that I haven't finished reading either. I will get to them eventually.

In cleaning up said room above, we now have better access to our ARCADE that Landon and his brother built about a year and a half ago. One of my favorite games to play is simply titled Yoshi, and it's from the original NES.

I had not seen my family for like a month, so I spent the day and night of Saturday with them. My Christmas present from Lollie finally came in this week from Amazon, so she and I watched one of the movies she got me: Wish Upon a Star. It's a cheesy little movie starring Katherine Heigel circa 1996, but I love it. It used to come on the Disney Channel allll the time when I was a teenager.

Sunday was pretty cool. So I had spent the night at my parents' and I went to church with them that morning. I am SO not used to early morning Sundays anymore! But it was really good, and I'm glad I went with them. Then Landon came and met us for lunch at Fazoli's, which was also good. We went home and he helped me make a 7 Layer Dip for our church class' Superbowl party thing. He was very sweet and did all the chopping-of which there was a lot: a whole green bell pepper, 2 tomatoes and some green onions. It was worth it-the dip was very yummy! I'll be making it again, but probably cutting the recipe in half since it was such a huge amount. Our party thing was really fun, although I didn't watch a ton of the game(mostly the end of the last quarter). I was rooting for the Cardinals, however, and was disappointed that they didn't win. Please don't hate me, Steelers fans! I, like many others, was rooting for the underdog to make it!

I got Doogie Howser season 1(the first disc) from Netflix this week, and I still think Neil Patrick Harris is adorable. I remember watching this show as reruns when I was a young teen, but I don't remember all the talk about sex! Naive little me just didn't get it, I guess. It's kinda funny because it was made in the 80's, but it's still a good show in my opinion.

Landon and I watch at least one episode of Friends before we go to bed every night, and we're on season 2 right now. Last night it was "The One Where Eddie Won't Go", probably one of the funniest ones ever. It's always funny when Chandler freaks out about anything!

Well, I guess that's about all that's going on in my little korner right now. :)