lizardblog ( the blog of liz creech

July 05, 2008
Visit to old Haunts and friends

Yesterday I went back to my home town of Somerset, Kentucky. I had been trying to get back and visit for some time and finally, since I am on vacation, I took a day and went. It was better than I had hoped. I drove around for about an hour, past the house I lived in, past the church I went to, and in general was amazed by how much it had all grown. I am pretty sure that the houses in the neighborhood where I grew up have shrunk. My house had 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, living room, kitchen, dining room, and a den. I guess it was about 2000 square feet or so. When my mom and step-dad bought it they paid a whopping 13,000 for it in 1972 or 73. Crazy! I think that house now would sell for about 113,000.

I went to visit my friend Sheila, she does an awesome imitation of a chipmunk, which I did not ask her to do. She used to hate it because we asked her to do it soooo much!! We sat and talked for about 3 1/2 hours and could have sat for longer, but I had told other people I would meet them at specific times. It was very interesting how parallel our lives have actually been.

I visited Robert, my younger sisters father. I only stayed for about an hour, because there was really only so much we could talk about. It was good to see him though.

Then I went to eat with my childhood friend Rhonda. We grew up down the street from each other, and inevitably, if I was getting into trouble, it was with her. I always loved horses and she had one. It is a wonder I didn't die messing with that horse as much as we did. At one time, we were riding that horse, barebacked with a rope halter. I was on him and turned him back to where we had come from and he took off with me. I slid off and under him. His hoof hit my chest then caught my chin and I still have the scar from it!! Yeah, stupid I know. But we were dumb kids and I just wanted to ride.

It was a good time and I look forward to getting back together with them and trying to stay in touch. Good times to find out where and who people are now.

posted by Liz at 12:25 PM - permalink - -

July 02, 2008
Vacation

So, for the first time ever in my life I am off for a PAID vacation. Woo HOO!! I have lots of plans to get some things done around the house, things that just 2 regular days off won't allow you to accomplish.

1. Get the nasty carpet out of the dining room, which we have used as a school room. - DONE!!
2. Clean up and organize the garage - partly done and going to work on that more today.
3. Finish painting my master bathroom - that is for tomorrow - I have to climb a ladder so pray for me!!
4. Go visit friends in Somerset - that is for Friday.
5. Haul some compost to put in the garden and around some of the new beds, I think that will be Monday.
6. Just do nothing!! I am trying to do some of that everyday, it is kind of hard seeing as I don't really like to just sit around and watch tv for hours. But I might be able to just lay in my hammock for a couple of minutes.

It is nice to not have to go to "work" work, and I do enjoy doing work around the house. Goodness knows there is plenty to do around here. I am going to take Kenzie to see a movie tonight, probably Made of Honor or Forbidden Kingdom, or Spiderwick Chronicals. Not sure which. Puttering around the yard and pestering my flowers a bit. Did some tomato transplanting yesterday. So, now I need to go get on the garage. What I did yesterday really helped with the flow of getting the trash and recycling actually OUT of the house. I am going to gather up all my tools that my son has scattered all in the garage and lock them in my tool chest so he can't do that anymore. I wouldn't mind him using them if he put them away, which he doesn't . Any way - I gotta go get to it.

posted by Liz at 10:38 AM - permalink - -

June 28, 2008
Things about me....

I was going to try and do a post about "almost" t.m.i. about myself. I decided that naturally I have a tendency to do that anyway and I might embarrass my husband. Not with things about him but with my bluntness to the whole world. Anyway, the older I get the more reflective of myself I become. I am reverting back to my teen aged years and thinking only of myself I guess. No, I know that isn't the case because it is usually about how I might impact others and such things. With that said, I don't know how much I might list, and how much of it will be redundant but there you go and here I go:

1. I am an early to bed early to rise kind of person, although I have learned to do the opposite since my husband is a night owl and my job requires me to stay up late.

2. My food tastes have changed as I have gotten older. I think I have realized what I was missing as a child by being picky, and I wasn't a typical picky child. Also, I believe that our tastes mature as we do.

3. I am a perfectionist when it comes to "how my house should be". Typical of a perfectionist, and because of the fact that it seems like I am never home, my house does not meet my expectations. I can always find something to change or improve. I have learned to live with it though, since I am only one of 6 people living in it and not everyone holds my views.

4. I have no tolerance for judgmental Christians. I believe that God calls us to union as his body. The "my way is better than your way" attitude just really PISSES me off.

5. I get seasonal depression. At least I have self diagnosed myself as that. I like the winter and snow, and in general I don't mind the cold, but for the 3 months that it is dreary, I am not my normal self.

6. I am a horrible friend. I NEVER "make" the time to call and stay up with friends. Not until my conscience gets the best of me. It is funny, I will think about someone for about a week and then I end up getting a call from them. I have decided I am going to try and "schedule" phone calls in my ICal to remind me to call people. HA!!

7. I love nature and animals. If it was only me I would have so many animals that it would be ridiculous. Of course if you ever go to my other blog you will see my addiction there.

8. With above said, I HATE animal cruelty. Any person who does bad things to an animal is on their way to doing bad things to a human being. I am not talking about horse racing, raising calves for veal, or in general using an animal to work or for food. I am talking about starvation, beatings, and neglect. Unexcusable.

9. I may say it but I am not a lazy person. I have my moments, but that is not my nature.

10. I am always eager to please. That you like me and my work and who I am is very important to me. It isn't the be all and end all for me, because if you don't like me than you don't know me - that is a fact.

11. I assimilate very well to almost any situation. It might take a minute, but I adapt very well. I would have been the perfect soldier.

12. I am a loner. I have no problem hanging out, getting in front of people, talking to complete strangers, and making any one else feel welcome in an awkward situation, but afterwards, I have to decompress. If it has been a hard day at work or we have had a big bunch of people at our house, I have to go take a bath. Watch if you ever come to my house with a bunch of people, but I will "disappear" for about 5 minutes every now and then - Weird, I know.

13. I hate it when I sound like my mother. I don't mind sounding like A mother - you can ask the people I work with - I sound like their mother all the time - HA!!

14. When I first meet someone I instantly put them at the top of my respect, admiration and trust scale. I choose to think the best of someone and allow them to change my mind gradually. What is sad is that most people usually do and will change my mind.

15. I like to eat clover. I just did as a matter of fact. That is one of the reasons I don't use chemicals in my yard. Some things just taste good and when you put poison on them, you at least shouldn't eat them. If you like basil or other fresh herbs, you should try a clover flower.

16. Horses are my favorite animal. That may be why I pushed Meaghan so hard to stay with it when she was young - I think today she is glad that I did. If I had the money, I would own a lot of them.

17. Too much t.v. at a time makes me feel physically bad. Even when I had broken my wrist and couldn't really do anything, I got so sick of watching t.v. I would choose to read a book any day over television.

18. I am afraid to die. I am not worried about being dead, but the process of dying. Although, falling off a ladder actually made me think that it might not be so bad. I hadn't really realized what had happened until I was on the floor. I could have died and I really wouldn't have known it until I was standing there at the gate waiting to be let in by St. Peter. Then again, I don't want some agonizing death either.

19. HA!! Even though I don't like to watch too much television, I could sit for DAYS and watch movies!!

20. I would like to own my own business. I haven't decided what exactly, but I have a few ideas. None of which I will do, but I will use the ideas when we do the Monastery. I wish we owned the farm now!!

Ok that is MORE than enough.

posted by Liz at 10:59 AM - permalink - -

June 09, 2008
Afraid in my "old age"

When I was younger I was a real go getter. I was brought up that if I saw someone who needed help, I should help. If I knew that someone needed something, I should supply it. If I was put in charge of something like getting volunteers for supplying meals for someone, I often ended up doing most of it. I always needed to be the first to volunteer, even to my own detriment, and the last to leave. Not that there is anything really wrong with that, but I sometimes put my family on the back burner. I became quite proud of myself and what I did. Thanks to my wonderful husband I have learned how to say no and that it is ok to NOT do everything every time.

The funny thing is that I am quite accident prone, and until I broke my wrist, I never really thought much about all the silly things that happened to me. On Friday night I sliced the tip of my thumb off. See, if had done what I was supposed to and put on a cut glove I wouldn't have had to pick up the chunk and throw it into the trash, after I stopped the blood that is. I stayed calm and kept thinking just how stupid I was.

Afterwards I got kind of scared and wondered if I am just going to end up killing myself by some stupid accident instead of getting to die in my sleep like I would prefer. I have to admit that that was the first time I have every been afraid of something like that. I don't care for the feeling too much, hopefully I just become more cautious instead of bound up in fear.

posted by Liz at 10:04 PM - permalink - -

May 30, 2008
May has been a busy month

Let us see....I turned 40, became an official Roman Catholic and celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary.

I must say that this time last year I am not sure I knew just so much stuff would be coming my way. The end results have been very nice but some of the getting there has been way too hard. Mostly I am talking about becoming Catholic - that is the one thing that I would change the path too - talk to "higher ups" about doing it differently.

Of course I knew I was going to turn 40 and of course I knew how long I had been married. The living you go through to get to that point is well worth it, or at least it has been for me. I have been fortunate and not experienced any unexpected big losses of people, my children are "good" and I married the perfect man for me.

So, I will just leave it at that and wish as great a life on you as I have had to this point.

posted by Liz at 10:38 AM - permalink - -

May 13, 2008
I was brought up better than that

So, sometimes I am pretty lame. My older sisters birthday is the day after mine and mothers day is always pretty close to that. I had to work on Mothers day so I couldn't go see my mom then, so I went yesterday. I didn't even buy her a card. Shoot, I had the time, I just didn't do it. Same with my sisters birthday, she sent me a card and all I did was call her before midnight, after she was in bed and left a message on her phone. Really you all, I was brought up better than that!! I think of things, but then promptly forget or don't have the money. Shoddy really. I did stop and get an ice cream cake that we all could share, but that was about it, well except for "gracing them with my presence" - Ha!!

posted by Liz at 9:03 AM - permalink - -

April 21, 2008
This weeks news

It has been an interesting week for me. I found out Friday that my mother has tumors on her brain, they don't know what kind or where but the Doctor should tell them today or something. Please pray for my mother.

Yesterday, for the first time ever I "let someone go". That was a necessary thing but I didn't care for it too much.

My dog has some kind of skin thing going on from his tail to about 7 inches up his back. I had seen him licking a lot but never had the time until a couple of days ago to investigate. I got some scissors to cut the hair so I could check out what was going on and it is pretty bad. I need to cut more of the hair away and give him a bath to clean him up, but I see a vet visit in the near future.

Lastly, my cat is getting pretty old. Yesterday I thought for sure she was going to die. She looks healthy, skinny, but her eyes are bright and her coat is full and shiny. I took her to the vet at the begging of the year and they found a mass in her abdomen. They did blood work but didn't find anything. Her calcium was high, which could be a sign of some type of cancer, but the vet said because of her age it very well could be nothing. She had been throwing up a lot, but now it isn't so much. At least recently. So she needs to go back and get her shots. 13 is a good age for a cat I think. I will be sad when she does die though.

The best thing so far this week is that I am off today and tomorrow, then Friday and Saturday and the weather is beautiful. I need to get some seeds in the ground which I plan on doing today.

Meaghan has prom coming up. She found a lovely dress, not too frilly but sophisticated. AND I have the big 40 coming up May the 6th. Despite being a woman I am not afraid of getting older or being a certain age. I also don't mind telling people how old I am either. I think I look young for my age, but then I don't really care about that either. ( I hinted at a surprise party from Alan so you might get an invite - just don't tell me!!) HA!!

Enough for today. I hope all your news this week is good!!

posted by Liz at 10:46 AM - permalink - -

spiritual

> vine & branches
> vineyard central

blogs

> Garden Escapades
> Trish Hiduk
> Maryann
> Alan Creech
> The Vine
> Little Houses
> Amber Bishop
> Jody Nixon
> Laura Ogle
> Debi Warford
> Jason & Brooke Evans
> Eric Keck
> Beth Keck
> Pete Matthews
> Trudi Matthews
> Brian Phillips
> Bryan Sherwood
> Malie
> Kim Johnson

Homeschool

> vegsource homeschool
> discovery school channel
> saxon math and phonics

general interest

> john rosemond's affermative parenting
> lisa welchel
> thunderstruck
> Homestar Runner

gardening

> Kids Gardening

books i like

Here are some books I suggests if you are looking to homeschool or just for information. I gleaned a lot from them. Our church gets credit if you buy through these links.

In their Own Way
by Thomas Armstrong

Seven Times Smarter
by Laurel Schmidt

How to Talk So Kids Can Learn
by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Teen Proofing
by John Rosemond