Happy Father's Day

This is the first Father's Day in 73 years that I have not had my Dad to celebrate. He passed away on February 7, 2010. I miss you Dad, you were the best of the best. The father of my 7 children has been gone for four Father's Days now. I miss both of these men everyday, but these special days are especially hard. Loved you both with all my heart.

My four sons are all Dads now and have given me 8 of my 14 grandkids, with another on the way in the fall. My son-in-laws gave me the other 6 grandkids. They are all wonderful
Dads. I am blessed to still have these 6 fabulous men in my life.

Happy Father's Day to all you wonderful Dads!! I love you all.

The Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

I first saw this recipe in a Christmas catalog several years ago. It said something like - you hear carolers coming down the street- quick make these cookies and they will be done and ready to serve before the carolers reach your door. Not sure about that, but they are pretty easy and pretty darn quick. Also they taste really peanut buttery.

So I made them for my husband and he loved them. We took some out to my folks and my Dad loved them also. I said, Mom you should make these cookies sometime. Dad loves them and they are so easy and you won't have to stand for hours on your swollen legs. Do you know what she said? She said, they are not cookies. I said why do you say that? She said because they do not have flour in them and if they don't have flour they are not cookies. So I said, well they look like a cookie, they taste like a cookie, so I think they must be a cookie. She said, no they are not and that was that and she never did make them.

Know what's funny? My husband used to say and now my kids are always saying, Oh Mom you are getting just like Grandma! Guess we just can not help ourselves!!!

But you know what, my gluten free friends love these peanut butter cookies or whatever!!

Here is the stuff you need:

Peanut butter, egg, sugar and vanilla.

Recipe

1 cup creamy Peanut Butter

1 cup sugar ( I use 1/2 cup brown and 1/2 cup white)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In medium bowl mix all the ingredients. Roll into small balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten with fork in crisscross pattern. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool before serving or storing.

At long last....

At long last got myself a new little notebook computer. I love it. The Red Cross had their annual "angel auction" the other night and for the first time in my life I actually got into a bidding contest with someone for this computer. I hung in there and at long last outbid them. It is a cute little thing and even a pretty rose color. Don't have a clue if I paid to much, but it was for a good cause and I really don't think I did. Now I have computer, can travel. How fun is that?

Here are a couple of pictures:

Isn't it just the cutest thing? I'm as happy as a box of birds!!

May Day

I remember a interesting May Day many years ago when we were living in Ohio. It was late afternoon and time for all my kids to be home from school. Suddenly my front door bell rang, which hardly ever happened. I opened the door to find 3 beautiful May baskets hanging on my door knob. The baskets were filled with the most beautiful tulips. Of course I was so thrilled and then I heard my three young daughters giggling around the corner of the house and knew where the baskets had come from.

Suddenly my phone rang and it was my next door neighbor and she was not happy. Seems everyone of her beautiful tulips had disappeared from her yard. This was not so good, but I sure do remember it and always will. So a belated thanks for the tulips and the memories girls. Just don't do it again, OK!!

My Dad

On February 7, 2010 I lost my 96 year old Dad, Robert Allison Archey. He had been my Dad for almost 73 years. He was wonderful man and I am missing him so very much. I was lucky to have him for so long I know. After my Mom and husband died, it was just kinda my Dad and I taking care of each other. Tho we did not live together, we saw each other almost everyday. I never walked into his house without him giving me a great big smile and a laugh. It is so sad to lose those you love, but I think he stuck around just to see if I was going to be OK and when he thought I was, he was ready to go. He had been really missing my Mom, Zelma for almost 7 years. He quite often called me Zelma. They were both wonderful and I shall miss them more than anyone will ever know.

I am hoping Dad is up there in heaven dancing with my Mom and that my husband is playing the trumpet for for them. Love you all. Always will.

Lump Update

I am one lucky person. Also a very thankful person. I do not have cancer after all!!! Oh how I wish more people could get this news.

No squamous cell cancer!!! They now believe my lump was something called Branchial Cleft Cyst and that my friends is not cancer!! Something that may have formed when I was a embryo. In Greek, Branchial means "gill". (Is probably why all my kids were such good swimmers!!) Some kind of infection most likely caused lump to grow, because after taking antibiotics, the lump did shrink somewhat. Not sure I understand entirely yet, but am working on it.

If they had been able to determine this earlier, I would not have had to have 5 hours of surgery or removal of lump, muscle, veins, lymph nodes & who knows what else. Guess you can live with them. One good thing is that I guess this will cause the medical profession to maybe take larger biopsies in the future, not just fine needle biopsies. My doctor actually apologized!

So now I am working on recovering for 4-6 weeks. Am feeling pretty good considering and really feeling good about not having to go thru radiation or chemo. Am sure once numbness and swelling go away, I will be almost good as new. Thank you, thank you dear family and friends, I know your prayers made this happen. Love you all.

Long time no blog!!

My, my it has been a very long time since I have blogged. Ashamed of myself! Guess life just tore me away for a while. Life can do that sometimes.

Where do I start? With summer I guess. It was a very, very busy summer with lots of family and friends visiting.

In June, my Dad had a stroke and we had to put him into a nursing home. That just about killed us all. He is 96 years old and still sharp as a tack, but his old body is failing him at a rapid rate. Luckily he is only a couple miles from me and I see him almost everyday. My brother fills in if I'm away, plus friends and family, when here, spend a lot of time with him. He is trying to make the best of it. He is a pretty remarkable man. Dad's moving into the nursing home, left me with two places to keep up. My house had been on the market for over a year and lo and behold in July I got a offer, but it was contingent on her selling her house. I thought well that is never going to happen in this economy, but guess what? She sold hers and wanted to be in mine in early September. I have never worked so hard or so fast in all my life. Family helped me move all in one day. We moved stuff from my place to Dad's and stuff from Dad's to mine and stuff from a storage shed to both places. That was on a Monday. Then on Thursday, three old school chums came and we washed and polished and arranged stuff for 4 days. Then the next weekend(Labor Day weekend) we had a 3 day estate sale. On Monday I had a guy come take everything that was left. Had the carpets cleaned the next day and moved out to my Dad's place the next day.

Needless to say we were all exhausted. I could never have done it without the help of my wonderful friends and family.

These are my wonderful school friends who came to my rescue. Could not have done it without them. Nancy, Sandy, Peg, Jim and Dick.

Dad's place needed some much needed repairs, cause he had a scooter and was not a very good driver!! So Dad's place was torn up again while they replaced carpet, kitchen and bathroom flooring and some new appliances. Finally got done just before Christmas.

On October 14th I discovered a lump on my neck. Waited a few days for it to go away - it didn't, so then started the medical merry go round these kinds of things cause. They think it is squamous cell carcinoma. Something I had never heard of before - let alone being able to pronounce it!! They are now on a hunt to find the source and so far have had no luck. Last week had surgery to remove my tonsils and to have more biopsies. Go back to U of M first week of January to see what they have found, if anything. Then we will move on from there I guess.

For Thanksgiving I flew to Atlanta to be with two of my sons and their families and got to stay for 8 days. That was wonderful. Also got to have lunch with my dear old friends, Virginia and Betty. Had not seen them for nearly 5 years. That was great fun, thanks to Sarah (daughter-in-law), who drove me up to Gainesville.

Sorry this is so dark. Hard to see us all the the dinner table!

This is Sarah cooking up a storm on Thanksgiving day. She made a great dinner which included her famous rutabagas and bread pudding with it wonderful sauce.



Here we have Camp, Tori and Cricket. Got to see Camp play in 3 basketball games. He is fun to watch and is getting to be very good. So tall for 13 years old. Beautiful Cricket graduated from high school in June and is now a student at GCSU in GA. Studying journalism and broadcasting.

Julie is quite elusive, but we did get one picture of she and her Dad. Julie is a very tall, beautiful girl. I so enjoyed being with all the grandkids and their friends. They are just so much fun. I need to be around all my grandkids more often tho, as I believe they keep us young!

Here are Traci and Tori out on Eric's porch.

My oldest grandson, Ian also graduated from high school this year. He is now a student at ISU. He is learning to speak Chinese and is in a new program called Global Resource Systems. He will travel to China this spring for 3 weeks. He plans to go to law school when he finishes he undergraduate studies.

Ian and his Mom, Elin.

Two of my daughters, Elie and Erin and my grandson, Jonathan came to help me out after my surgery and we enjoyed an early Christmas together. Which was super.

I spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my brother and some of his family. My great niece Grace, who is 2 year old, made it a fun Christmas . Nothing like little ones at Christmas.

Christmas morning.

Sweet little Grace and her Dad, Ryan.

So now I am adjusting to my new home. Enjoying the same ever changing views that my Mom and Dad loved for over 30 years. I often wish my husband could be here with me. He would have loved it so much. But maybe he is.





Winter view on a sunny day.

Blizzard view!

So now year 2009 is about to end. Been quite a year. Am hoping 2010 will be a better year for everyone. Would be nice if folks could get jobs, not have to lose their homes and all the other stuff that goes with not having a job. Would be wonderful if all our soldiers could just come home and there would be no more wars. Would be nice if we could just all love one another.

To all my friends and family I wish you a most wonderful New Year. May you all be safe, happy and healthy. Love ya.