Eunice Elaine Graser November 5, 1925- April 20, 2012

I had  a feeling when April first started and my Mom was admitted into the hospital that April wasnt' going to be a very good month. Unfortunatley what I was thinking came true, sadly my Mom passed away on Friday, with all of us at her side in her hospital room. I do thank God for not letting her suffer and for the fact that I know she is at peace. I  miss her so much it just hurts my heart.

My Mom and me, Lake Tahoe 2010 

My sisters and me with our Mom, Lake Tahoe 2010



Thank you so much to all of my friends and family that had been praying for her. We will be having a memorial celebration of life next Saturday for her.

Blessings,Joann

What a start to springtime......update on my Mom

I have been posting on my facebook page about my mom and what is going on but I just wanted to post here on my blog to give a more detailed update. Today I have a few minutes to type up a post. April 1 at about 12:30AM my sister called and said she had brought my mom to the emergency room because she was feeling very weak and couldn't move very well. I asked if I should come and my sister said that then they weren't sure what was wrong but they were thinking she is probably anemic so they were going to admit her. Sunday later in the morning I went and visited with my mom, she was in a regular room and they were giving her blood, she was anemic but they were also concerned that it was Lukemia. I went home that evening and the next morning my other sister called and said that my mom wasn't doing very well at all and was moved to ICU, I got there as fast as I could and basically she was very incoherent and very tired. Tuesday came and we were all taking turns being at the hospital with her. We all three of us sisters basically were there all day long. It is amazing how tiring sitting in a hospital room can be. I was exhausted by the time Wednesday came around so only went over for a couple of hours. I went home and did some laundry, and some basic cleaning. None of us had really eaten a meal since this whole thing started. Then on Thursday morning my sister called again at 6:30am and said things were worse and to get there as soon as possible so I called my daughter and told her the same thing. We got there and she had seemed to go downhill quite a bit. One good thing to have come from all of this was that on Thursday a special visitor was coming, the Red Cross had sent a medical emergency message to my son and my nephew so on Thursday at about 3pm he and his wife came to the hospital. Thursday evening we all went out to dinner and it was the first time I had eaten a meal the whole week and it was so good. We dropped Jennifer back off at the hospital and after checking in and finding out what was going on she stopped at our house to give us an update, things seemed a little better and we for the first time since this started got to breathe a little easier. My stomach which had been sick feeling from the first phone call started to hurt a little less, and Thursday night I actually slept pretty good. I woke up Friday not feeling well, I think it may be allergies, my head was pounding and my throat was very sore and my nose was all stuffed up so I didnt' go over to visit because I wasnt' sure it was allergies and you can't go into ICU If you are sick. Okay fast forward to Monday, I went over to the hospital (it's about 15 miles away) and was there for about 4 hours and found out they were moving her to another hospital for kidney dyalisis, her kidneys were not functioning good. I just remember they also did a bone marrow biopsy for the Lukemia, she isn't producing any red blood cells and her white count went from 20, 000 the first time they checked to 46,000 and she does have Chronic Lukemia, they also thought she was starting to show signs of congestive heart failure, but now she isn't....At the new hospital she is in a regular room in isolation as she has an infection (they think ecoli) so you have to put on a gown and gloves to go in the room. This new hospital is much bigger and I dont' care for it much so far. Hopefully she won't be there too long. She was talking a little better and I think her color was better but today I only seen her for just a few minutes as they were getting her ready for the dyalisis. Sorry this is such a long post and after looking back over what I have typed I can honestly say my days may be wrong and things may not be in perfect order but I feel like my brain just isnt' working these days, and I dont' really even know what day it is half the time. I was finally able to get to the grocery store yesterday so at least we have food :) So the final conclusion is that my mom was anemic, she does have Chronic Lukemia and she is now having kidney problems. She received I think about 5 units of blood and some antibiotic and has a feeding tube for now. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. I would like to thank all of my friends, blog friends, and family for all their kind words and prayers. I truly appreciate them all. Mattie, his wife Sara, Jennifer and the kids came over on Saturday for a little while and I was so happy to get some recent pictures of them all. I will leave you with the following pictures May you all have a very blessed week. Blessings,Joann

Me and my Mattie~

Mattie and his wife Sara~

Mattie with Jennifer~

 Dylan and Katie ~

"To be self controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands , so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:5

Happy belated first day of spring!!

Spring is officially here. The weather has been anything but springish lately. We seem to be going back and forth between cool and warm and really I would like the weather to please just choose one and stick with it. I have been feeling like I am getting a cold from all the weather changes. Yesterday was in the mid 70's and today about 10' colder. I have been able to have the windows and doors open and I just love having some refreshing air flow through our home.

On Tuesday I took every thing off of our bed and washed it all, the mattress pad, the sheets and the blanket and when we went to bed on Tuesday night it felt so nice to snuggle down in wonderfully smelling linens. Tuesday for the first time in a long time I was able at the end of the day to have checked off all my to do's for the day. I continued on Wednesday and got everything done once again, then we came to today, Thursday is kitchen cleaning day which is the one day that takes the longest but I got almost everything done. My back started hurting around 3pm so I called it quits and relaxed for a while. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day and I am praying that I can get all I need to buy for under $150. When I need to buy household items plus groceries it always costs a little more.


Last weekend I finally finished my new spring purse but I already dont' like it very much.The colors are very pretty and this picture doesn't do it justice~




I think I will try and work on another one in a different fabric and pattern, but we will see.

Blessings,JoAnn

"To be self controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands , so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:5

Some of Katies stories...

Last Thursday I picked my mom up and we went over to see Jennifer and the grandkids. We had a lovely time. I just have to tell you a couple of different conversations I had with Katie.You have to understand that she is only 5 years old and we all know how cute little 5 year old girls sound when they talk..you have to keep that in mind when reading her stories.

I went into her bedroom to listen to her piano and I was sitting on her bed and she was looking very sad, I asked her what was wrong and she said Aiden (her *boyfriend*) isn't her boyfriend anymore and that his mom said he couldn't marry her when he grows up. She was serioulsy sad about this but then she perked up to tell me about Daniel, the next boyfriend but he already had another girlfriend Heather and Heather is Katies friend so she didn't know what to do....until she got Conner as her boyfriend now, and he doesnt' have any other girlfriends. So she said she was happy now with Conner. I know I am old but boyfriends and girlfriends when they are in kindergarten????

Then there was this story~

Me and my mom where sitting in the living room with Katie and I asked her what she did in school today. She told me that her teacher asked them to write about their favortie things. Since she loves princesses I asked her did she write about princesses. She said no and kind of rolled her eyes. She said she wrote about Ice cream and New York City!! I thought this was kind of strange and of course asked her about this New York City thing, she told me that her and Jennifer Chris and Dylan went to New York City on an airplane to go have ice cream with her Mamaw (chris's Mom) and she said it so seriously but here is the problem I know for a fact that her Mamaw lives in Arizona so my mom said Oh Katie you are a good story teller and katie got real mad and said it wasn't a story that it really happened so I said so when your mom gets back home (she had taken Chris to work) and I ask her about this she will tell us you went to New York City in an airplane and she quickly said I didnt' say airplane it was in the car! I said you did say airplane...by this time me and my mom are just laughing so hard it almost hurt then Katie said well my spanish word for car is airplane. Oh we laughed and laughed and laughed and then katie was upset because we were laughing so much but we just couldn't stop. Now I know it probably doesnt' seem as funny reading it I think it is one of those things you have to be there to get the full version, because when I told Roger he thought it was funny but he wasn't laughing as much as we were, I think it helps if you see her eyes and her gestures when she is telling us everything. Anyway all in all it was a great trip. I haven't seen them since Christmas and they have both gotten so big and tall. Jennifer said that they only weigh 8 pounds apart. Katie weighs 36 pounds and she just turned 5 in October and Dylan weighs in at a whole 44 pounds and he will turn 8 on March 25th.

So I guess that was all my fun and excitement for the week. Roger has been working on putting some sheet rock up in our back shed and the garage, it's a big job and he has been working very hard on it. I am hoping we can take it easy tomorrow, only have a few errands to do.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far.

Tomorrow will mark 5 years since my Dad passed away, a very sad day for all of my family :(

Blessings,Joann





"To be self controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands , so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:5

Ignorance!!!!!!!!

Definition of IGNORANCE
: the state or fact of being ignorant : lack of knowledge, education, or awareness




First off I am not calling any certain person ignorant but wanted to touch on the subject and why I don't like people being ignorant about things

One of the definitions of ignorance is lack of knowledge and that is what upsets me the most people want to make decisions with out knowing all the facts. I had a group of people do this to me a few years back, just because myself and a friend had a disagreement and that friend decided to not be friends anymore but then all of the group all of a sudden were no longer my friends WHY??? Because of ignorance, they had no idea all that went on, they didnt' know what was said between me and this other person but because of this person I lost those friends too

I think if someone has a problem with another person they should try and find out why there is a problem in the first place and remember there is always two sides to every story. Don't just go by what someone else says, find out for yourself and then make your own decision.

Sorry but I just had to post this.
Blessings,Joann



Definition of IGNORANCE
: the state or fact of being ignorant : lack of knowledge, education, or awareness

Lots going on this past week...

I decided the other day to get out my keeper at home binder, one problem-- I had no idea where it was! Can you believe it? What a great keeper at home person I am :) After searching for a few hours and yes it took a few hours to find it I got it all set out to start marking things off that I had gotten done.




This is Monday's page, as you can tell No items are checked off isnt' that just sad, I always seem to have good intentions of getting things done but have the hardest time following through and actually doing them. I did get some of the items done but not all of them. I am usually pretty good at doing the morning things though there has been quite a few times when the morning things end up being more like afternoon things :)




Wednesday's list didn't get much better....



ANd by Thursday I had really given up. Oh I do things just not what I have on my lists, this means another redo of my list of things to get done. I think the list is too long but some of the reason the list is long is that I break everything down so I remember to do everything.This next week I will give it another try and see what I can get done :)






The other day in the mail, I received this beautiful gift from my friend Treva. It is so pretty and so is the card. She put a lot of work into it and I really just love it.


Today the UPS person delivered this~








MY old bread machine stopped working about 2 or so weeks ago and I ordered another one on Sunday and was suprised when it came today. This new one makes a loaf horizontally not vertical though I only use the dough cycle, this one has two blades for mixing so hope that will improve the quality of the dough.. I prefer to bake my bread in my oven.

Plan on testing it out this weekend so will see how it does.

Today being Friday it was also grocery shopping day and today's total was $125 not very good

I got lots of fresh fruits and veggies YUMM!!




This is the ground beef I get at Walmart, it's only 4% fat and it has such a good flavor and when you cook it up there is very little fat that comes out of it. It cost $4.58 per pound but oh so worth it for the taste.The reason it looks kind of funny is that I pulled it out of the freezer to take the picture of it.



I certainly hope to have some much more productive days next week. I need to work on my to do lists and I also need to work on my getting sidetracked onto other things.

Please have a very blessed weekend.

Blessings,Joann

It is Friday and nothing has gotten done this week :(

I have been sick since Monday early morning and this is the first time I have turned on my comptuer all week. I have been checking email, a few blogs and facebook during the day through my phone, but haven't put any new posts up on my blog till now :)

Monday and Tuesday I was a total wreck and accomplished nothing, Wednesday I was actually able to get out of bed and sit upright without feeling too sick. Thursday I was feeling better and today I feel even better. I plan on continuing the feeling good part for a while if I can.

I have a new Bible that I have been exploring, it has tons of footnotes, explanations, and study helps along with a huge concordance. I am just loving it. It is huge and has lots of pages and pictures. I don't have a picture of it but will try and take one this weekend and post it so you can see just how big it is. I enjoy reading it and have been doing lots of reading lately.

I pray you all have a wonderful weekend in the Lord and I plan on being back to posting and tending to my home like I should be.

I recently had someone question my being a Titus 2 woman, and I was really thinking about this and figured out a couple of things first of all I don't care what anyone has to say about me :) Second I have never said I WAS a Titus 2 woman, I have always said and thought of myself as striving to be a Proverbs 31/Titus 2 woman. Maybe they don't know what the word stiving means:)

No pictures for this post.

Blessings, Joann

This song by Building 429 is a song that just says it all " All I know is I'm not home yet, this is not where I belong. Take this world and give me Jesus, this is not where I belong."

I plan on having a joy filled week this coming week, yes I am chosing to be joyful and not worrying about what other people think about me. I have lots of things to do this week and I have to be in a frame of mind to get them done. I read lots of different blogs and there are two out there that really inspire and encourage me a lot.

These last few weeks have been hard on me, I have been called all sorts of names by someone of whom I used to be friends with, I was also criticized by what i said in my last post about holding plans loosely so now I feel like I am walking on egg shells so I don't offend anybody else.

I am planning by the end of this week to have a tour of my home up but I can't promise anything because I will just have to see where each day leads me. I haven't been on the computer much for a while now, but am enjoying a new Bible I got this past week.







Have a wonderful week ahead of you, may it be blessed, Joann
"To be self controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands , so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:5

what a day today has been

Today is Friday and that means grocery shopping day. I had many plans for today that I planned out yesterday, but as someone I used to know said we need to hold our plans loosely because sometimes what we have planned and what God has planned for us do not always work out the same. Too bad God can't send us and email or text ahead of time :)

So instead of getting out going early today as I had planned I woke up with both a horrible headache and miserable back pain and that was at 5AM. I ended up laying back down hoping it would ease some of the pain in my back. The dogs decided that my laying down was not a good idea and continued to pester me until I got back up. By then it was 6:30...After taking a shower, feeding the animals, letting them out to play about 3 different times and calling my mom I was finally ready to go shopping. It was now already 11AM, my day was already almost half over and I hadn't even started anything that needed to get done. So I went to Walmart first, bought some groceries there. They sell the orange pineapple juice I like and also the best ground beef that I like so much better than other places.I came home and unloaded those groceries let the dogs out for a few minutes and had a nice big glass of water. Then I went out to the other Walmart in town as I was looking for dog sweaters for the dogs. The first Walmart I went to didn't have any. This other Walmart didn't either so I ended up getting them matching little dog coats made of fleece. Finally I made it to Winco where I do the majority of our shopping. Got my groceries purchased, stopped at McDonalds for a coke (I love coke from McDonalds and always get one after shopping) then I had to make one more stop...at Raleys (another grocery store in our city) they had foster farms chicken breast on sale for 99 cents a pound which is a really good deal. I purchased 12 packages of it. We don't eat much red meat and eat a lot of chicken so this was a great find. I ended up getting home about 3:30pm and put all the groceries away. Then I started dough in my bread machine which I had planned on starting this morning. I also got laundry going also planned on starting that this morning, I guess better late than never. My headache and backache has never felt any better than it was feeling this morning so I was really going slowly on everything I tried to get done today. I was out in the garage changing laundry over from the washer to the dryer and I slammed my finger in the door of the dryer. Now it was no major injury but it HURT A LOT, it actually made me feel sick to my stomach for a while. Now I am sitting here in my craft room it's about 7:30PM and I am still doing laundry, my finger, back and head still all hurt, I am also waiting for my rolls to raise some more. The dough I made today didn't turn out good at all and it isn't raising right...what more could go wrong today??? I dont' even want to know I am ready for bed and plan on heading there as soon as the laundry is done. I made no dinner tonight so when Roger got home from work he had to make himself a sandwich for dinner. I would appreciate any and all prayers so that my tomorrow will not be a repeat of today :) God wouldn't do that would He?? I am sorry if I have babbled on too much I seriously am so sleepy that I don't really remember all that I have written.

Blessings, and have a wonderful weekend, Joann






"To be self controlled, and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands , so that no one will malign the word of God." Titus 2:5

Not sure what to do yet...

I recently got my haircut short again and I also colored it, it looks so much better than it did.







Well it's been a while since I last posted on this blog, I had started a new one and I am now not quite sure what to do. I love this blog and the title of this blog is very near and dear to my heart but I just got so tired of people commenting about what I post about. I have had many mean comments and good comments and some times the mean ones just get to me and make me want to just quit blogging alltogether. Then I remember why I started blogging and that was for a few reasons. I wanted to find like minded friends....also to keep a journal of sorts for my grandchildren. Well I have met some friends and some non friends and they seem to try to attack me for my feelings. I really can't stand it when someone tries to tell me how to feel, I look at it this way if you don't like what I am posting about then don't read my blog. I was telling my friend DeNiece the other day when we were talking that my blog title says right in it a Bible verse so why would someone who isn't a Christian read it. We both laughed about that. It's like duh!! I wouldn't go to a blog that has Satanic things in the title. So please if you dont' like my blog or what I write about please leave. Thanks!

So for now I am thinking of keeping this blog and using the newer one just for my crafts which is so far this year at a big fat Zero...No crafting going on yet and I was so wanting to get at least one thing done before the end of the month. I guess I do have a few days but who am I kidding we all know I won't get anything done :)

If you read this blog and like it please leave me a comment that you do I would certainly appreciate it.

Blessings,Joann

Christmas 2011

This year for Christmas we drove over to Chris and Jennifer's apartment in Brentwood and had Christmas there.
First though I have to tell you the story of the Belle Doll :) Katie has an american girl doll and we had bought some clothes in the princess and me doll line by Disney. We bought two very pretty outfits. My mom also bought her an outfit. We went over to my mom's house the day before Chirstmas and had Katie and Dylan open their gifts from her as she couldn't make it to Jennifer's the next day. We were very sad when the outfit she had bought didn't fit, I dont' know much about any of these dolls other than they are outrageously priced. Now we knew we had outfits that also won't fit. So we thougth about it on the drive back home and decided to go ahead and stop at toys r us and see about getting the doll for her. Well the doll cost a fortune but they did have a kind of good deal, you buy a doll and you get three outfits for free and also a tea service for two. So of course we bought the doll so that way all the clothes would fit. I have to say that toys r us wasn't too bad for it being late in the afternoon on christmas eve.

Here are some pictures from Christmas~







Not many pictures but we had a real nice time. We ended up going to Denny's for a late lunch and then came home.

We got all of our Christmas things down and put away because we were leaving on a short vacation to Oregon for a few days.

We left home on Tuesday morning and go to where we were going around 6pm, unfortunately I wasn't feeling well so we ended up not staying except for the one night and then we drove home. We did look at some land while we were up there but nothing looked like we wanted to buy it. So we are still on the search.




Hope everyone had a great Christmas, Blessings,Joann

2012 is finally here!

Happy New Year to one and all.

This post will have no pictures as I am trying to get it done pretty fast and pictures always take so long to upload. I will make a more specific post later this week when I have the time. I will be sharing our christmas and other things going on in our home and lives.

This post is about the new year. I was SO happy to see 2011 come to an end. I almost always post about what my goals are for the coming year and each year right before New Years Eve I re read them and realize that I did not accomplish what I had wanted to so this year...no goal list, not that I don't have any just not writing them down for all to see :)

There are a few things I do every new year. The most important one is I take about a week or two and sit down and write my children and grandchildren letters. I know this may sound dumb but I do this so just in case anything happens to me during that year they will have something that I wrote to them to remember me by. If this doesnt' make sense that's okay I just enjoy doing it. I try to look back at previous times and write how I felt about things the good and bad things that happen throughout the year. Another thing I like to do is to get my home in order, this almost always starts with cleaning out cabinets...especially the kitchen ones, getting rid of things we don't need anymore and making room for new things, making it just much more convinient to use all of the cabinets and to find things. I also go through my routines and such and try to re do them to where they will work better for me. I also of course sit down and pray, pray, pray for both the wisdom, strength and energy I so sorely lack for finishing anything that I write a list out for.
This week I will be busy in the kitchen taking everything out of cabinets one at a time and cleaning both the inside and the outside. Getting rid of outdated or unused things and I love the fact of having everything clean to start the year. This will take quite a bit of time as I am almost always moving slow, but slow and steady I WILL get things done.
I truly hope and pray that everyone has a very blessed and beautiful New year ahead of them.

This is the ending for all the letters that I write, not all of it but a few words that I feel are very special.
I give you two things, life and love, the rest you will have to work very hard for and you will become a better person for doing so. I also print the life verse that I pray for that particular person so they know that I have been praying for them for as long as they were alive.

Blessings,Joann