Ally has had 2 fabulous days of first grade!  She loves everything about being at school!  She even loves the after school program at ther school, run by the local YMCA.  But let's face it, she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her teacher!

She comes home exhausted and grumpy, but about 5 minutes into dinner and she is back to her normal self.

We are so thankful that Ally is having such a positive experience with school. We know we are a very lucky family.  Neuroblastoma is a nasty disease that doesn't like to let go; and so many other families do not get to send their children to school.

September is childhood cancer awareness month.  Please think about something small you could do to ease a family battling cancer; donate money, time or a skill you have, making cards, or sending in a little boredom buster to your local children's hospital, Ronald McDonald house or the like is a great way to help out.

Happy Whistle Pig Wednesday!

Life is strange, the paths we take, and are sometimes forced to take.  In the late eighties when my mother in law came from China to live with us, we gave her our bedroom and moved to the rec room.  She'd had dreams of streets paved with gold and was very disappointed.  I tried to tell her how well her son was doing, but it didn't meet her dreams.  They spent several hours together every night.  In the event, she was telling him he could do better than what he had, than me.  He tried to start his own business on top of a very demanding full time job.  I was working 16 hours a day on a new crafts business and both of us working against a recession.  She left the next summer for her daughter's wedding in China.  When she returned, my marriage was dead, and he was living with a new woman who'd been helping him with the side business.  She hated the new woman and her kid, and finally decamped permanently for China.  Josh married the new lady a few years later, had a little girl and left her less than a year after the marriage.  Both businesses went belly up in Bush's little recession, I sold the house and tried California, and was back in a year, and ended up here.

The summer I bought the land with my last $20,000, planning to build, I recall sitting in the grove where my living room now is, and finally just turning it over to the Universe.  I had $60 in the bank, I was living in a tent made from blue tarps clipped to the frame of my craft booth and winter was making itself present every night in the 30+ degrees I was getting regularly.  It was perfectly clear that I was *not* going to be under roof before winter was fully present.  I believe that my exact words were: I have come as far as I can on my own.  If You want this to happen, it's Yours. 

Evidently, the Universe did want it to happen because literally within a few *hours* things began to turn.  That afternoon a stranger drove down the road with a message from John's store to call my ex.  And the wheels were put into motion that gave me a place to live for the winter and support to do so.  Before winter came my friends and relatives had helped me put in the telephone poles that were to be the foundation of this home.  It was to be the coldest winter of my life, before or since--minus 28º temps and the biggest snow storm (3+ feet).  By Christmas Eve the next winter I moved in to stay.  And have to say, it's been the most interesting score of years I've lived so far.

I'd hoped to live to see it finished.  I won't.  But Lord Willing, my son will.  I hope so.