Freshman Orientation

Wow! I think I'm crossing into a new phase of motherhood. Tonight was Jacob's freshman orientation at Glendale. I can hardly believe he'll be in high school....I was just rocking him to sleep and dressing him in little outfits the other day! I think the fact that he will be attending the same high school I graduated from makes it even more of a surreal experience. Just being there this evening was strange....I honestly don't feel like it's been long at all since I was a student.

Today was a busy day at work. I had several very elderly patients in the clinic, and one lady in particular stood out to me. She was a little 89-year-old lady, very stooped over, but very pleasant. As I was preparing her for her DEXA scan, I was positioning her legs, and I noticed that, although she had the normal age spots and thin skin of an older lady, the skin in the area around her knees was actually very pretty and very clear. For some reason, I was just able to imagine what her legs looked like as a young lady, and how pretty she must have been. It was interesting to see a shadow of her youth still there at the age of nearly 90. I often look at these patients, and in my mind, know that someday (God willing) I will be an old woman too, but I hope I can stay as positive and happy as this lady.

More Later!

Happy Birthday Sylvia!

Today is Sylvia's 7th birthday! I can hardly believe it....it's gone so fast. The slide show is full of pictures from her party yesterday. She had a Fashion Funway party at one of the local children's clothing store. It was really fun. Each girl got to pick out an outfit to model, then the girls who work at the store (high school and college gals) fixed their hair and "makeup" (mostly just sparkly powder). They then got to put on a fashion show on the store's little runway. It was VERY cute, and the girls really seemed to have a good time. Thankfully, Sylvie was finally feeling better after her flu which didn't really let up until Saturday morning. I'm still praying the rest of us manage to avoid it. Today we had a little celebration with MeMe, Uncle John and Dave with lunch at our new Red Robin restaurant (Sylvie's request). This evening, Grandad came over for a visit, and we ended the day with cake and candles. Overall, it was a nice end to what has been quite a crazy week. I'm still feeling pretty out of the ordinary. Sylvie and I stayed home from church this morning as I wanted to let her sleep in, and I honestly think this is the longest I've gone without setting foot into church for as long as I can remember! I miss it! The kids still have one more day off school (already planned for a teacher work day), and then maybe we'll get back to some semblance of normal.

Also on our task list today was bathing Mac and Tucker. Although not an easy task, they did fairly well, although Mac was shivering afterward and had to be covered with a towel.

More later!

Ice Attack

The title of this post is a direct quote from The Springfield News-Leader regarding our recent storm event (wow...is that an understatement!). What a week this has been. Sorry I have not blogged sooner, but nothing has gone as usual this week. The infamous ice storm began a week ago today on Friday afternoon, and at first just seemed to be rain....albeit hard rain. Even though the forcasters continued to warn about ice, we honestly started to believe this was probably just another in the usual line of misforcasts around here, and hence, we decided to get out of the house and go watch the first round of the Tournament of Champions at MSU, specifically wanting to see Glendale play. After absolutely soaking ourselves getting into Hammons Center and watching a great game (although Glendale lost), our first clue to the severity of the storm came when the family in front of us received a cell phone call from a neighbor saying that the power was completely out in Willard. We finished watching the game and quickly started home. It still just seemed like hard rain, although we could see the beginnings of icicles beginning to form on the trees. We were VERY grateful to get home and find we still had power. Upon awaking Saturday morning, I got a call from mom (in her 2nd day of battling a major flu) stating that they had lost power during the night, and still were in the dark. We turned the TV on and began hearing reports of widespread power outages, but naively thought it would be back on very soon. With ours still on and strong, we went on with our day, and by evening were feeling fairly confident. Jacob and I headed out to hit Wal-Mart, and I swear, the store looked like a refugee camp with people wandering around just to have somewhere to be with light and heat. I ran into several people we know, and it became quickly evident that we were in the minority with still having electricity. We made our purchases (including 2 gallons of ice cream....I know...I'm crazy!), and headed out. Not 5 minutes after leaving, my cell phone rang, and it was Darrell letting me know that we had joined the ranks of those in the dark.

We made it home and began scrambling around for flashlights, candles, etc. My goodness are we unprepared around here! We did, however, have a battery powered radio, and Darrell got into the attic and got down the kerosene lantern which successfully lit the living room and made things much better. I handled the call to CU, and after about 30 minutes, managed to get through and register our outage with the rest of the city. Reality then began to set in when the operator told me we were looking at "days" rather than hours to have our power returned.

We made the best of it on Saturday night, reading in the living room, and finally tucking ourselves in. The house actually stayed really warm on Saturday night, but by Sunday morning, it was REALLY cold. We turned the radio on and began hearing reports about the power possibly being out for a week, and that there were a few generators available across town at Granger Supply. We decided this was probably the thing to do, so we quickly dressed and headed out on the town. It honestly looked like a war zone. We had no idea how awful the damage was. We made it to Granger, along with the rest of the city, and were obviously unsuccessful in obtaining a generator there. However, while standing outside, Darrell heard a lady come by and yell out her car window that Smillie's IGA had a truck in the parking lot where generators were being sold, so off we went. After an hour-and-a-half wait, we were privileged to obtain a $600 generator, mistakenly thinking that we had tackled the hard job of the day. We then headed off to get gasoline to power said generator, and found that this would be the true challenge. We ended up in Ozark before we found a station that had gas and power.

After making it home, I began calling to check on friends and neighbors. I got my friend Susan who said they, too, had a generator, and that Jeffrey had it hooked up to the furnace, so they were nice and warm, although a bit bored. I quickly jumped on her comment about the furnace, and she told me Jeffrey would be happy to come over and help Darrell get ours set up. What a Godsend!! After Jeffrey left, we had heat, light, and television. I've never been so thrilled with a purchase in my life!

All in all, we have truly been one of the lucky households. Our power returned on Monday at around 11:30. Mom's came back on Tuesday afternoon, but we still know many, many people without power, and with no hope of power until late next week. To top that off, we are expecting snow tomorrow...so our prayers are with all of those who are still in very uncomfortable circumstances. Schweitzer served as a shelter until just today when they finally closed down and transferred the load to some other churches. It has honestly been the craziest thing I've ever lived through in my life.

The rest of our week has been quite out of the norm. The kids are not going back to school until Tuesday. Sylvia got a horrible stomach virus on Wednesday night, and is just now starting to feel a bit better. Her birthday party is tomorrow, and I really hope she sleeps well and feels more like herself in the morning. Jacob has been a bit bored and not wanting to tackle his homework. Coach Baker managed to get the team some practice time at The Courts, so they practiced 2 hours yesterday and 2 hours today. I think that was really good for them to get out and get a good work out.

Well....I'm out of energy for now, but will write more later in the week. Enjoy the pics. The field up the street from us truly looks like a scene out of Narnia, and we have hence nicknamed it as such.

Pershing Generals Basketball

Today it was Pershing versus Jarrett, and what a game it was!! Jacob played REALLY well....probably the best I've ever seen him play. He was just really on fire! I can't remember the final score, but it was something like 27 to 13, in Pershing's favor. Awesome game!

Tonight it was back to our normal Wednesday night church activities. It was my night to lead our mom's Bible study, and we discussed patience.....something we all agreed we need more of. It was actually an excellent discussion, and it's so reassuring to know that other people have such similar experiences to mine.

After that, it was dinner, and then choir practice, although Kevin was sick this evening, so Cheryl led us. It was a nice rehearsal, and we got finished at 7:30, so it was nice to get home at a decent hour.

Tomorrow is a work day, and then the first of an upcoming string of meetings for beginning the high school scheduling process for Jacob. I can't possibly have a child almost in high school, can I?

Later

Sunday

Today was a nice day. I honestly had to drag myself out of bed for church this morning, and probably wouldn't have except that I was scheduled to sing with praise band at 9:45. I was awake in the middle of the night not feeling extremely well, but I felt better once I got up, and I'm fairly certain it's just side-effect from the antibiotic. Luckily my doctor is also a fellow church member and was nice enough to write me a prescription (right at church no less!) for a different one. Anyway, I'm glad I went. It's really helping to sing with Kathy and Susan, and the last two songs today felt especially worshipful. What a truly amazing gift to be able to sing with these two wonderful women!!

After church, Darrell was nice enough to let me curl up with my book and rest for a couple of hours while he took Sylvie to sell some Girl Scout cookies....then it was off to Bunko with Heather. Today's game was at Launa's house, and we had a really good time eating white chili, chocolate turtle cake, hot cider, and rolling our dice like crazy girls. Suffice it to say the dice were not rolling in my favor either way today. I was extremely mediocre, but had a great time anyway. It's really fun to just get together and giggle and act goofy without any husbands or kids around once in a while.

I have some prayer concerns tonight....my stepdad Dave is having a lot of pain in his back and a lot of trouble getting around. I am praying that some rest will help, but if not, I'm praying that he will be willing to at least see a physician and get some advice. I'm also praying for my friend Tania who is really struggling with some health issues. Of course, I have many others on my prayer list, but these are just two particular ones at the top tonight.

Tomorrow is back to school (thankfully as the kids are REALLY getting on each other's nerves....and ours!), and back to another crazy week of activities.

Later!

Overflowing

We just had a spectacular experience today and this evening. We had a worship workshop at church with Todd Sukany and the praise team from The Vineyard, and my spirit just feels filled to the brim. It was so exciting to hear ideas expressed and reinforced that my spirit so agrees with. Worship is such an amazing, living thing, and an outward expression of our love for God, and I feel so blessed to be included in our praise team at Schweitzer and so honored to be allowed to help others experience and participate in worship in hopefully a meaningful way.

I really needed today. I've been pretty down in the past few weeks about singing. I had such awful stage fright during our cantata, and I know I wasn't able to sing my best. It was so frustrating, but I really think it was God's way of teaching me a lesson. This is not about performing....it's all about worship, and I feel so completely different when I am truly singing with an attitude of worship (i.e. praise band on Saturdays or Sundays). It's so funny to me because when I was younger, I sang solos all the time, and never felt nervous, and always felt confident (and I think sounded confident), but I guess it's just been such a long time that I've lost that confidence. Something Todd said tonight really stuck with me, though, about constantly working on improving his skills. I have so wanted to take voice lessons all of my life, and never have taken the time. I think I'm really ready to begin working on these skills if I am truly serious about continuing to serve God in this way (and I TRULY am!). I'll have to start asking around about voice teachers.

In other news, aside from the workshop, today was a fairly productive day. I managed, with the help of the kids, to get the house clean and straightened, then answered a bunch of e-mails, and did some work on my upcoming class reunion. The weekends just zoom by too quickly! It's back to school next week for the kids, though, so things will begin to get back to our normal schedule.

Later!

Skating Away

Today was the middle-school skating party, and although we didn't have a huge turnout in terms of kids (there were actually more chaperones than kids!!), all had a great time. I chose to sit on the sidelines to visit with one of the other moms as I have a raging sinus infection and feel dizzy even while sitting still. I broke down and begged my doc for an antibiotic today, so I plan to be on the mend shortly. Mom and I ran into each other at Wal-Mart and had a nice visit while browsing. I mention this mainly because she told me she had read my blog and was not mentioned, so I'm remedying the situation : ).

One Less Tooth

The big news around here yesterday was Sylvia finally losing her front tooth which has been hanging by a thread for about 2 weeks. It was just finally unbearable to look at anymore, and although it took much wailing and gnashing of teeth (pardon the pun!), it was finally dislodged last evening. The tooth fairy came through generously with a $5.00 bill. She must have added a little in for pain and suffering.

In other news, we had a nice shopping trip last evening to supply our ever-growing son with a new pair of tennis shoes. Of course he opted for the new Nike Shox with the "Tune Your Run" feature so that his I-pod actually communicates with his shoes to let him know how far he has run, how far he has to go, etc. Pretty cool, but pretty pricey, and he had to pony up roughly half of the money on his own. He did so willingly, but I'm just hoping they last for a few months without being outgrown yet again! Stay tuned.

Today is a day of transcribing, laundry, shuttling Jacob to and from basketball, etc. Sylvie is spending the day at her friend Sarah's. No snow in the forecast yet, but I'm holding out for another good storm before winter ends.

New Year's 2007

Well, here it is.....the start of my attempt at blogging. Call it a New Year's resolution, but I'm just one of those creatures who needs some kind of arbitrary beginning point (like Jan. 1) as an impetus to begin a new project. I initially looked into My Space, but felt a little bit old (sigh) for that community, and after taking a look at my friend Kim Morrow's site, this seemed a more comfortable format.

The new year rang in at the Haase house with the usual fanfare. Actually, this was the return of our annual New Year's Eve Bash as we skipped last year due to the installation of the new wood floors and my inability to put the house back together in time for a houseful of company. But, by popular demand, this year we managed to amass large amounts of food and drink and fill the house with an abundance of friends and children for a party that lasted well past 1:00 a.m. We had an interesting Trivial Pursuit - Totally 80's Edition tournament, and lots of good fun and conversation. Today we are recovering. Jacob and his friend Austin (who stayed behind after his parents left last evening :) didn't manage to join the living until about 1:00 p.m., and Darrell, Sylvie and I have been running at slow speed most of the day.

Tomorrow is back to work, although the kids are still out of school until next Monday. Jacob will have basketball practices Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and then we'll be back into full swing with our crazy schedule next week. I'm hopeful that this blog will help me to be more intentional about keeping up with journaling and picture taking. I'll certainly try to update and post on a regular basis.

Happy New Year!!