To Mrs. Lapp,

You don't know me, but I am grieving for you.

I heard about the accident that took your two sons lives. I'm sure your pain cannot be put into words and that no words can, or will ever, erase that empty feeling.
It brings me some comfort, and hopefully brings you some as well, to see the outpouring of love from your Amish nieghbors and community.  In my opinion, many of us so-called "Westerners" could learn a few things from the Amish.

After all, more than 200 members of your community went with you to the crash site to offer their love and support.  This community, these Amish neighbors, have seen more than their fair share of grief and hurt.    It is my understanding that you and your family live only a short distance from the site of the schoolhouse shooting not so long ago.

Perhaps, Mrs. Miller, who lost two daughters in that tragedy or Mrs. Stoltzfus, who had three members of her family shot that day, can offer you some sort of comfort.   The Stoltzfuses buried their 12 year old, but were able to offer immediate forgiveness to the shooter.  

You are right to surround yourself with people like this.

As for me, I have nothing but cliches and empty words.  Your boys, your babies, are gone.  I believe that you will see them again, but I do not know when.  And like many, I have no answer as to why this has happened.

May your deep faith help you through this dark and uncertain time.

~me

Some of you who popped by this morning or over the weekend saw my post with the hail storm photos. Whew...we still haven't fully recovered from how crazy that really was.

I figured out my mileage for DH and the total came to almost $1,000; I guess that will work out to my benefit. Good thing I kept track.

After much debate and a few comments, I decided to keep the scrapbook page just as it is. It is growing on me.

The birth announcements for my friend are 90 percent complete. I still haven't taken a photo. They are very simple, but I think that she will like them. I'll post a pic tomorrow.

All 34 pages I made last weekend are now in a new scrapbook album. I love it. Nothing beats getting all those into page protectors!

The house is very quiet because all of the bambinos are at school and I'm tempted to just blog all afternoon, but alas laundry is beckoning and I must run the vacuum. Dog hair is over taking my home!

What did you accomplish this weekend?

I should preface this post by saying shortly before this mamoth hail storm, I took all the kids and the dog to the park to ride bikes.  If we had not left when we did, we would have been caught in this mess.  The thought is really terrifying to me as I'm sure these hail balls would have really hurt us and I don't know where we would have hid.


This is my yard.  If you look closely you can see each individual hail ball.  We had to actually shovel our driveway.  That's how much hail we got.

1. Take oldest for her 10 year pictures.  I debated if I really wanted to do this.  We have fall school pictures and spring school pictures.  We all know that the older they get the less their looks change, but I think I'm still going to take her to Sears for pictures with the big number 10.  It's been a tradition since my kids were wee little and I think I will regret it if I don't do it.  I figure I won't take her again until she turns 15.
2. Figure out my work milage from 2008 so my hubby can get to work on the taxes.  Maybe if I hand over all of my information it will motivate him get started.  After all, the clock is ticking.
3. Figure out why I don't like this scrapbook layout:

When I saw this week's writer's prompt over at Mama Kat's I thought, "Wow, can I really write about that. Can I just write about one?"

There are so many people I am praying for that I cannot just mention one.

I am praying for my mom; she hasn't been feeling well and an ultrasound found a cyst on her kidney. She had some sort of dye injected into her on Monday and is awaiting her test results. Options range from "Oh it's nothing" to "Sorry you have kidney cancer." I am praying that she can handle whatever may come to be.

I am praying for my nephew; he has juvenile diabetes and lately his blood sugar has been spiking all over the place.

I am praying for my other nephew; he is almost 20 months old and he doesn't stand up. He doesn't creep, cruise or any other "c" word for walk. I am worried about him.

I am praying for my sister-in-law's dear friend, Jess. She is a young mother of four. Her children are all under the age of 8. She has breast cancer. Her baby is only 6 months old. She has been sick since her last trimester and right now isn't doing very well.

I am praying for my grandmother, who is trying to start living again after the death of my grandfather.

I am praying for many things. Too many? I'm not sure. How will things turn out? I don't know. Do I believe prayer makes a difference? Absolutely!

• Did Sayid just wound young Ben? If he's dead, how's that going to work? Will it be Back to the Future is and things will start to disappear?


• What is up with Sawyer? Where does his loyalty lie? Is he really an other now?


• Will the Dharma initiative be wiped out now or won't that happen now that Ben's future is questionable?


• Where is Miles? Where is Faraday?


• When are we going to learn what happened to Bernard and Rose and all of those people? Are they trapped in the 1980s? Will Rose have Diana Ross hair?

I'm sure I have more questions, but it's early here. I'm not thinking straight yet.

I've been trying to read one book a  month.  TRYING.  For all of you read-aholics out there, don't laugh.  It is really hard for me.  I figured, IF I could keep this goal, I would read 12 books in one year, which for me would be quite an accomplishment.

Last month, I read Gods Behaving Badly and LOVED it. Cute, funny, easy read. This month, I made the mistake of trying to tackle WICKED.