The freezer meat mess is cleaned up. The good... it looks like the freezer is not broken after all! It appears that when we were cleaning out the flood in our basement from the last bad storm the knob that controls the freezer temp got turned down some how. It is at the bottom of the freezer (silly place to put the thing!) so probably we hit it with the mop without knowing. I had been smelling something weird all week and couldn't figure it out. Now I know what it was! That meat had been defrosting for about three weeks!! EW! EW! EW!!!! 

At least the dogs will be thankful that I am not blaming the smell on them any longer! *lol* We gave them two baths two days in a row thinking they kept rolling into something rotten outside. My Mini Dachshunds hate baths so this is good news for them. Not to mention we kept shooing them away every time they came near us when the baths didn't work. Poor babies!

OK, the bad... we are out of luck of two BIG turkeys, several whole, free range chickens that we buy at a local farm and a whole bunch of cuts of lamb from when we bought a whole lamb. We had some other miscellaneous stuff too but the meat was the expensive part. Eric wrote down exactly what we lost in the case we could claim it on our home owners insurance but I doubt it since technically it wasn't from a power outage. It was because of the flood though!  So who knows...

I would just be happy at this point if my house didn't smell like ten animals died in it! I can still smell a remnant of it in my bedroom. Lucky me to go to sleep dreaming of rotten meat huh? I can't wait to air the house out again tomorrow! The temp is currently in the 30's so I can't leave the house open at night. As it is I was cold all day with the 50 degree weather and not being able to use the heat.

Ah...but life is still good even when it tosses you a BIG stink every once in a while!

So, we are cleaning out the house today with the good weather. Things are getting ready for a yard sale, other things going to the trash or good will and new things coming in to help us organize better. Of course, there are the little annoying house repairs and window cleaning. BUT, nothing is as bad as going down into the basement for laundry to be faced with a smell as if something died down there!!! It's bad and no I can't possibly explain the stench. I had to follow my nose and it led me to our chest freezer. Yup, all the meat in the freezer is GONE! Fortunately, we had pretty much eaten all the wild game given to us over the winter. I am happy about that! I am not happy about all the rest of the money we lost though.  Now tell me how to get the smell that is permeating through out the rest of the house as we are unloading the freezer from the rotten meat. NASTY!!! I have every window open. Thank God it's a beautiful, warm day out!

ETA. It's worse than I thought. Eric is having to scoop out an inch of meat blood and juices. YUCK!!! I think I am going to become a vegetarian.

To trust means learning to let go...

As
I have shared already here my Gram passed away in April. It has been a
wild roller coaster ride of emotions. I had no idea how many emotions a
person could go through while grieving! Not that I have escaped grief
before but this time it was my Gram. Gram wasn't just anybody... she
was my absolute favorite person in the whole world!! She was the best
Grandmother anyone could ever have! OK, so I am a bit biased.
Regardless, Gram was my stability and my foundation in life in the
human form.

A few nights ago I had the worst part of the
grieving thus far, I think. The grief hit me out of no where with
floods of tears and a heart so painful I thought it would never heal. I
felt everything from anger and guilt to just pure sorrow. To say the
least, I did not sleep the entire night.

The last time I ever
came close to grieving as difficult as the loss of my Grandmother was
when the doctors informed me that I would never conceive a child and I
would have to have surgery to remove my entire womb. That was a loss
that ran so deep words cannot do it justice. It is hard for people to
comprehend how a person can grieve deeply for something or someone they
never met or experienced. My dream of conceiving and birthing a child
was a loss that I had to let go. However, God chose to bless me when I
finally submitted and handed over my dreams to HIS desires for my life.
Initially during that grieving period I never thought I would be where
I am today with four children born of my heart going onto six, Lord
willing!

With my Grammie's passing for weeks I truly did not
believe it even happened. As my little Chloe asked occasionally, "When
is Grammie coming home from the hospital?" Then my Caleb continued to
pray at bed time, "God please heal Grammie of cancer." Honestly, I too
have had a similar thinking as the children in these aspects. When am I
going to walk back into Gram's kitchen and see her busily making our
family meal as she always enjoyed? When will I wake up from this awful
nightmare? Surely it must be a bad dream! I never actually saw her when
life was taken from her body. Simply, I didn't believe it. My mind just
could not comprehend that the foundation of my life was gone. This
disbelief ran so deep that I just felt numb and remained in my normal
smiley state without shedding many tears at all. The only exception was
when I saw her in pain for a moment and then another time when I became
confused in the chaos, on the day of the funeral, that others were
cooking in my Gram's kitchen rather than Grammie herself. Like I said,
I just couldn't believe it was all happening. I even remember my
reaction the morning Grampa called me to tell she had just passed and
to go and have a good cry. I literally got off the phone thinking, "Cry
for what?" That was how much denial of Grammie going on to Heaven I was experiencing.

As my children started to ask more questions and I had to
communicate further that Gram wasn't coming home from the hospital or
that Gram was healed of cancer but in heaven not on earth it started to
slowly sink in. Each day I was unable to go visit her to make sure she
was OK brought reality that Gram was no longer with us. As Jared asked
a question recently, "Will we ever have our family Thanksgiving and
Christmas again?" I realized indeed our family is changed. Short
periods of tears, within the reality of what I always knew no longer
exists, started to flow. Mostly it would hit me during meal times
because those are the times I am reminded of Grammie's hospitality and
love for her family.

Then the "whys?" and the "what ifs?"
started going in circles in my mind as I wrestled with not becoming
angry and insecure of losing the most precious person in my life.

Finally,
I sobbed for three hours straight with every painful sting my heart
could possibly feel realizing that Gram is gone. I missed her terribly!
Honestly, I felt as though I was not ready to be on my own without my
Gram's wisdom, guidance and stability. For a weak moment I no longer
wanted to continue my adoption as I thought I couldn't possibly
accomplish raising a large family without Grammie's encouragement as
well as facing the day the children would arrive home and not see her
coming through my door to meet them. I realized there would be many
wonderful events in my life that Grammie will no longer be physically
apart of.

My family is changed forever. I have no idea what
the dynamics of my family will be like without the strong Matriarch
that Gram was that held us together like super glue. Will any of us
ever be able to fill or replace such an amazing role that my Gram
played in our lives? Probably not. God made Gram in HIS own special way
and she was uniquely created by HIM. No, life won't be the same.
However, I have to trust that God is sovereign and that I have no
business in questioning why He chose to bring her home now.

In
each stage of my grief I have had to let go of something.... denial,
anger, lack of trust in God's sovereignty, insecurity, disappointment
and at some point the mourning. Until I have fully let go of these
aspects I cannot expect to receive the fullness of God's blessings!
Just as I know God has blessed me in past with letting go of my dreams
and my sorrows I know He will bless me in this circumstance as well.

My
hope is that my Gram's passing will inspire me personally to grow
deeper as a child of God, a wife, a mother and a daughter encouraging
me to be a better person while passing on the full richness of my
Gram's life. My hope is that my family can all work together to continue the
legacy of what my Grandmother gave to each of us as the torch must be
passed on. Family is what was important to my Gram. I believe with my
whole heart that each one of us is capable of finding that courage and perseverance my Grandmother
showed that will bring us back together
around the dinner table rejoicing in our family as Gram would desire us
to. It won't be easy to let her go but she will always remain in our
hearts as we move on to give thanks in the blessings we had with Gram
in our lives. I wish to walk in the example of my children as they now
say in their bedtime prayers, "Thank you God that Grammie is in heaven
with you and no longer sick."

I don't know what the future
entails but I do know I can trust that God knows what is best. God,
ultimately, is my foundation. God never changes and that is one thing I
can count on!

***SPECIAL NOTE: Family and Friends who do not have a Xanga account can now leave a comment by going to the comment section on the bottom of each journal and then click anonymous. Check it out to see if it works!***

Aren't our Garden "Glubs" (aka gloves) pretty? Even Chloe was willing to do this project because she had pretty "glubs" to keep the dirt off of her.

Whew! With a team this size I think we need to dig a bigger one this year!
  

How do you motivate children to keep on digging? Hide dinosaurs in the
garden of course! Jared found the first one. You can clearly see Caleb's enthusiasm with that big smile!

Spring is here!!!

Playing under her feet in the kitchen with bouillon cubes and her dishes in the lower cupboards while she was busy working in the kitchen.

Sleeping at the foot of Gram's bed in my purple sleeping bag. She allowed me to sleep at the foot of her bed because I was too scared to sleep in another room alone. During the night when my teddy bear would some how make it's way under her dresser I would cry and Gram would always wake up and retrieve it for me no matter how many times it happened in one night.

Sitting on the couch next to Gram before bedtime while she read her newspaper. I would read "the funnies page" (aka comics) and pretend I was reading the paper just like Grammie.

Walking out with Gram to hang up the clothes outside and then she would push me on the wooden swing between the pines. I will always remember being playful under the clothes as Gram hung them up. Gram had the knack of being able to work and listen to you very carefully as you talked with her.

Gram always let me have the last of the broccoli after everyone else was excused from dinner. I would eat the broccoli right out of the pan while she did the rest of the dinner dishes.

When I was around seven years old I had a discussion with Gram about marriage and I discovered through the discussion that my last name would be changing when I married. Determined that I would never lose my "Smith" family name, just like my Grammie had, I asked her if she could help me find the Smith names in the phone book. I sat up at the kitchen table with the phone book after Gram taught me how to find the names alphabetically and looked down all the Smith names in the phone book in order to find me a husband. She was the best Grammie to "play along" with you!

Shucking the peas from the garden with Gram for dinner time. Of course, she always let me eat as many as I wanted while we worked. Uh, I think she worked more while I ate. Gram always knew I enjoyed my veggies raw, fresh from the garden and she was more than happy to oblige. Grammie always helped nurture my love for veggies!

Gram would let me go into her sewing room and play with the fabric markers on scraps of fabric and then sew along the lines I had drawn. She then would let me go through her pretty buttons and hand sew my favorite one's onto my creations.

Gram told me not to eat Grampa's unripened, green tomatoes out of the garden or I would get a tummy ache. I always did it anyways and she always loved me anyways.

My first time out figure skating I told Gram I was going to skate just like Peggy Fleming. Upon returning I met my Grandmother with a sour facial expression completely disappointed. Gram asked how figure skating went and I told her I fell on my bottom a lot. Gram hugged me and had a good giggle at my discovery that my first time learning to skate that I was not going to be Peggy Fleming. She was so good at letting you discover things on your own rather than bursting your bubble herself.

Gram always loved her flowers and birds. I remember filling the bird bath up with fresh water with Grammie as well as tending to the flower gardens as she taught me the names of each flower. I have vivid memories of purple morning glories. Later I remember her planting pansies every year by the front entrance.

Gram used to walk me to the little store down the road from her house and let me get a package of three chocolate chip cookies for a treat. I loved my walks with Grammie!

When I was sick and had to leave school Gram would take care of me at her desk at the hardware store while my parents were at work.

In the evenings I would sit and watch figure skating on tv with my Grammie.

When going to a private school my Gram used to make and sew all my dresses, skirts and blouses. She worked very hard to make sure my clothing was not only pretty but also to the dress code standards even if it meant doing it over. In my mind I had the prettiest clothes of any girl in school!!

I remember Gram teaching me how to set up a beautiful window display to help customers window shop and hopefully lure them in to buy at Grampa and Grammie's owned and run hardware store. I have fond memories of Gram teaching me all about organizing the shelves and pricing the gift section of the hardware store. My first job ever was working right along side my Grandparents.

While working Gram always knew when to look the other way so Uncle Danny and I could have a little fun. I know for sure my Gram was never in the dark with our games of tag and throwing rubber bands at each other in the hardware store when Grampa wasn't looking. (Sorry Grampa! We never hurt anything I promise!!)

As a teenager I was trying so hard to buy a sewing machine for myself. I was making payments with each little pay check I got. One evening Gram told me that she paid the debt so I could enjoy my machine now!

When Grammie and Grampa drove me to my first day at Bible College Gram walked into my dorm room, took one look and said, "Let's go shopping." She made my dorm room feel more like home.

Gram gave me the wedding of my dreams -she made all my decorations -napkin rings, rose center pieces and created a cross ring bearer pillow with me as well as helped me decorate my wishing well for cards to go into. Gram was also in charge of my flowers and reception details. Gram made sure I made it to my hair dresser appointment the morning of my wedding while she then fed all the girls in my wedding party breakfast. I will always treasure the last days of being single because I was living with my Grammie.

One time I asked Gram if she missed out on only having boys and not a girl for a child and she looked up at me with her clever smile and said, "no girls are always underfoot." We had a good giggle because it was true. I was always following my Gram every where. There was NO one else in this world that I wanted to be more like than my Grammie!!!

When I asked Gram why people don't stay married like her and Grampa she simply said "because times have changed" I reassured her that times may have changed but I was going to stay married just like she and Grampa! Gram's response to me was her usual humble smile.

Gram made it to every birthday party or event I ever had. She continued to do so for her Great Grandchildren.

Gram took care of Jared and Caleb one night when they were really little so Eric and I could do our taxes with my other Grampa who is a CPA. Gram gave the boys a big glass of milk and several clusters of grapes. When I walked in Gram was cleaning the floor because she didn't realize Caleb couldn't drink from a glass yet. As usual Gram took it all in stride with a big smile on her face. Then she asked me if it was normal for Jared to eat an entire bag of grapes? *lol* Gram always gave ALL of us as much food as we wanted. To say the least we all learned that night that when Jared eats an entire bag of grapes well, let's just say it's not a happy ending. She remembered this even on the last night we visited her at home and giggled about it as the kids were eating grapes my Uncle Doug and Aunt Paula had brought her.

When the twins came home Gram (with Grampa) walked into our house with *several* bags full of brand new matching twin girl outfits that she had just gone and bought. I had told her I was worried about how we were going to cloth twin girls without being able to use hand me downs from the boys. I will never forget how much she always gave to others so freely!

Even at 70 something years old Gram would still get down and play on the floor with her Great Grandchildren.

Grammie made the best _________ (fill in the blank because she was the best cook for everything!!!) Pickles and Pumpkin pie are two favorites in my household that she made. She used to always have a plastic container full of some homemade treat on the end of the kitchen counter. Usually yummy cookies!

Gram was always ready for good hospitality. She loved to serve people!! If you walked in the door it didn't matter who you were but you had better plan on sitting down for dinner. Don't you dare try to help clean up afterwards either because you were her guest and she would only tell you to go back and sit down with the rest of the family. I cannot tell you how many times Gram would instruct me to go spend time with my Grampa and let her do the cleaning up instead.

I loved watching Gram push the great gandkids on our tire swing just like she used to push me on the wooden swing. She was so active, involved and playful!

Gram had the most positive, sunshine attitude of anybody I have ever known. She never complained! If you started to complain she would give you something positive to think about instead.

Gram was the most submissive, humble and committed person. I remember when she disagreed about something instead of arguing she would click her tongue, put on a smile and shake her head as if to let it all roll off like water on a ducks back. She just loved all people and never put herself first!

Grammie was always so forgiving! I remember a time I had brought something into the dining room that had a rough surface to it on the bottom. When I went to lift the object off the dining room table it put a long, deep scratch in the table. Gram never even balked at the awful eye sore. She just prompted me to carry on with what we were doing and not worry about it.  I knew that day that Gram believed loving people was far more important than possessions! I don't even remember what the object was because I was and still am in awe of her quick reaction to forgive. Knowing my Grandmother Grampa probably doesn't even know it was me that put that scratch there! (Just keep reading on Grampa...)

Grammie always smiled!!! (although she also always knew how to give a good stern scolding when you deserved it!)

When visiting Gram at her state job with the children (she never retired from working even after my Grandparents sold the hardware store) I always saw her entire work space plastered with pictures of her Great Grandchildren.

My last visit with Gram at her home, while she was lying down sick, she wanted to talk about baby names as she knew that was my absolute favorite discussion with her as we go through each adoption. Gram also gave me a celery dish that was always used at our holiday meals and has been passed down in the family from my Great Grandmother's side. We talked a little more about our Mayflower genealogy too. Then in normal Gram humor she looked at my hair, while I was sitting on the floor next to her lying on the couch, and asked "Are you going to just let that gray hair stick out like that or do you want me to pull it out?!" Gram was ALWAYS looking for a way to put a smile on your face no matter how sad or serious circumstances were.

Her last words to her Great Grandchildren (while in the hospital)

    Jared, "You grow up to be a good boy. I love you."  "Hello Friend" (this was when Jared would go in and out of the hospital room to check up on Grammie and she would cheerfully play along every time he woke her up) "Put a smile on your face." (this was another time when he was sitting with her rubbing her hand and started to cry.)
    Caleb, "Be a good boy. I love you. Keep brushing your teeth." (the teeth comment was because Caleb couldn't fully understand her and I had to explain that Gram didn't have her teeth in.)
    Chloe, "I'm glad you are with Mama and Papa. Be a good girl. I love you."
    Phoebe, "I'm so glad you girls came home to be with Mama and Papa. Be a good girl. I love you."

Her last words to Eric, "You are very orange tonight. Even your hair is orange." (you had to know my Gram and the relationship she had with Eric to understand and appreciate the humor. Eric was wearing an orange t-shirt that matched his hair exactly. Eric made sure the next night to wear another orange shirt to visit her! *lol*)

Grammie's last words directly to me, "You love those new babies, OK? I love you."

The last thing Gram taught me is that you can never say "I love you" too many times.

 
 

I miss you Gram!! I wish I had just one more moment... I can already hear you saying carry on and SMILE!

Oh ya that... Remember we went out to Springfield, MO for our National Appointment last September? Well, we have been busy raising our missions budget since then. We had been working for 11 years without a fully raised budget as districtly appointed missionaries. (only because way back when we came into our district the district officials didn't allow national appointment) Anyway, Eric just did his calculations and if all the faith promises/pledges come in we only have about $500 per month left to raise!!! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!! I soooo miss our students on a full time basis. Please pray with us that our Missions budget WILL be raised soon and we can start getting ready in August to be FULL TIME on campus again with a FULLY raised budget! Pray that all the pledges will come in. Pray that the Lord will provide the remaining $500 per month so National Chi Alpha Campus Ministries will release us to get back to the work the Lord has called us to on our mission's field of secular Universities.

Another major praise is that the Lord provided Eric a new Macbook pro laptop for the ministry through two separate means that believe in what we are doing on our campus for the Lord. This will greatly increase the capabilities for Eric to minister to the students in a more relevant way than beforehand. It will also take a lot of burden from our work load by making our tasks easier to accomplish with the capabilities of the new macbook. Our new laptop replaces our old pc in which the mother board died around Christmas time.