Coleslaw Recipe

This is a favorite recipe of mine that I received from my sister-in-law Aytha, who happens to be an awesome cook. I made this recipe several times this summer and fall and we so enjoyed it. A friend had e-mailed me about posting this recipe again so here it is:

Bacon Ranch Coleslaw

2 bags shredded cabbage coleslaw

12 oz jar ranch dressing

1 pkg. bacon bits

1 pkg. craisins

1 cup sugar

Combine dressing, bacon bits, craisins, sugar and cabbage, mix well. Refrigerate to combine flavors until chilled. Serves 12 people.

Parrot Humor

My friend, Lisa sent me this e-mail and I thought it was so cute that I decided to post it since we've all come through the Thanksgiving celebration. Enjoy!

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a badattitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious, and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing
soft music, and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary.
Finally, John was fed up, and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot, and the parrot got angrier and even ruder.
John, in desperation, threw up his hands, grabbed the bird, and put him in the freezer.
For a few minutes, the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.
The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said to John 'I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.
I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.'
John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. Just as he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, 'May I ask what the turkey did?'

Thanksgiving Moments

We had the wonderful priviledge of sharing Thanksgiving with my family this year, we try to alternate my family and Wayne's every year. It has been a tradition of my dad's family to meet at my aunt's house every year since she has the largest home and it is more central for everyone to meet at. We had the typical Thanksgiving fare with turkey and all the trimmings, every plate that I saw was loaded up. Holidays are just not the same without my grandparents, my grandma passed on a few years ago and her favorite thing to do on Thanksgiving was bring out the card games, she absolutely loved to play cards. Grandpa passed away last year a few days before Christmas and he was truly the sweetest soul, making sure everyone had everything they needed and of course we loved his hugs. Grandpa and Grandma have passed on but they are having a great time in Heaven sharing together and I like to believe they are looking down and watching over us all. I've included some pictures of the family gathering. Enjoy!

This is Caleb with a couple of his cousins playing a favorite game, my cousins and and I have primarily had boys so we have lots of testosterone running around and these boys are only a few years apart in age. They always have such a great time getting together.

The two ladies that are sitting at the table facing the camera are my two aunts, Linda and Annette, my dad's sisters.

This is my aunt Doris and her husband Bob. My dad's oldest sister.

My mom and Wayne.

My dad talking with his brother Daryl.

My cousin Joni and I. Joni and I can go for months without seeing each other but when we meet up again it is like we've not ever been apart.
My cousin Josh and Marcello.

Beautiful Flowers

We've had a very busy last couple of weeks. Our house is up for sale and we've put an offer on another house so we've had showings and lots of paperwork and decisions to deal with. It looks like we could be closing on our house in the next few weeks and moving into our new home before Christmas. I've also picked up extra days at the hospital because Christmas will be here before we know it. My dear husband knew that I was under alot of stress because I've been having to deal with the majority of this, he has been out of town. Last weekend he brought me home this gorgeous bouquet of flowers, so I thought I'd include a couple of pictures. The flower arrangement has lilies, roses, sunflowers, and a few other flowers I'm not going to attempt to name but they are beautiful. I normally hate for Wayne to spend the money for flowers because they just die but this time I decided they were definately deserved. Each day I receive lots of pleasure from looking at these flowers, so I decided to take some pictures so that they can be put in my scrapbook. This picture below captured the pollen that had fallen onto the petals. Enjoy sharing my flowers with me.

Playing in the mud

This picture was taken in September before the rain came, our pond was so low that the kids thought they would take the john boat out and row in the pond. They didn't get to far they realized that playing in the mud was much more enjoyable than rowing a john boat. This is Caleb along with Bethany and Caitlin Myers. These clothes were alot of fun to clean up, the mud smelled so bad on them they had to be hosed down outside before they were allowed to enter the house.

This is one very, very, very dirty little boy but he had such a great time playing in the mud. It definately makes for an interesting scrapbook page. I'm thinking the title should be "Fun in the Mud or Mud Boy". What do you think?

Then the guys (Wayne & Joe) decided they needed to play in the water and row around for awhile after they saw what fun the kids were having. The pond became the lowest it has ever been in several years this summer because of the lack of rain in Southern Indiana. We've since had rain which has brought the pond back to where it needed to be.

Mirage of Thoughts

I've got so many thoughts running through my head tonight that I thought I'd at least share a couple. This past week has been absolutely nutty at our house.

1. Update on John Price (Papaw): we went and saw him on Sunday after church, he is not able to talk to us because of the trach in his throat but he did recognize us. It appears that his neuro status is not completely back to baseline. He has a very long road of recovery before him but at least he was moved on Sunday to a rehab unit at University instead of the ICU. Continue to pray for him and his family.
2. I had to make a lady DNR this week which simply means that she has made a decision to not be revived when her time of life is up. I fell in love with her and her family, she is the sweetest 90 year old lady and just found out that she has colon cancer that has spread throughout her body with less than a year to live. She has an absolutely awesome attitude about her situation even though her body is filled with cancer and blood clots.
3. I've dealt with a patient who was admitted with multiple bed sores on her body because of not being taken care of properly, needless to say social services had to be involved, such a sad case.
4. I've had open heart patients that are 3 and 4 days post-op and they are still confused, what a busy day that makes for me trying to continously reorient them and still get all my work done. Whew!
5. I've had so much going on that I actually stood a friend up for lunch today, talk about feeling bad. I was eating humble pie.
6. This list could go on and on but I'm going to stop for now.

Thanks to all who have told me that they are praying for me and to hang in there. God's perfect plan still hasn't been revealed yet but I'm learning to trust and hang closer.