How many states have you visited?

What's your favorite state you have visited?  Just saw this (from my daughter in law's post on Facebook) and decided to see how many states I've visited. I think my favorite would be New Mexico (or Virginia, where I live!)

Create Your Own Visited States Map
So I have only 6 to go till I've visited all 50!! Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin!

Head Lice!!! (Or, "Memories of the little buggers --of more than one species"

When our sons were small-- I babysat for the little girl across the street for a few weeks. I can't say that it ended happily as when it was almost time for the new school season to start, I took the three older ones to the barber to get their hair cut. Not a minute after the first sat in the barber's chair, the barber called me over with a strange look on his face. I was horrified to see the reason for his expression- my son's hair was infested with a fairly large amount of head lice. I was so embarrassed, but never so much as in the next minute or two when we discovered that all 3 of our older kids, all except the 9 month old, had bunches of bugs in their hair.

On the way home, little Christine said "yeah, well I had them two weeks ago, but my mom told me not to tell ANYONE". Gee, thanks lol.

Sort of on the humorous side, when we got home, I immediately poured copious amounts of insecticide shampoo on each kid's head before letting them go out to play. The first to get the treatment was our 6 hyear old son. He went outside while I was shampooing the next victim-- er, kid, our 7 year old. While doing this, I could hear the 6 year old sashaying up the driveway, and, in that bragging sort of voice that makes parents cringe, he said loudly: "WE have HEAD LICE!!"  The mothers on the street were gathered in an angry mob by the time I got outside after finishing with the 3rd kid. I approached the group, explaining the situation, which allayed the murderous expressions on their faces. It turned out that of 26 kids on our little townhouse cul-de-sac, 24 had head lice. One of the two that was clear was little Christine, bless her.

We called our Pediatrician, who said that the over the counter stuff we'd gotten was not good enough. We needed your basic DDT equivalent (not really DDT but since it was back in 1978, I hate to think of what nasty stuff was iin there.) So there we went, again, but this time I let my husband shampoo them, as if the kids were going to hate me for such treatment, they might as well hate both of us. The same kid who bragged to the neighborhood that all our kids were all infested at our house, screamed at the top of his lungs "YOU'RE KILLING ME!!!" to my husband. The neighborhood's ears must have perked up then too, but I didn't go out to check.

It took us weeks to get all the eggs out of their hair. I finally gave up and more or less shaved it off, as I was tired of the school nurse calling that she had seen a few more eggs on this kid or that, and to come get them. All our sons had very thick hair. It took years before they would happily get hair cuts again. I am not kidding.

Anyway, what made me think of this? I saw this article online about a more natural way to treat the critters (kids and bugs lol!) Avoid our drama and check it out, all you who have kids under the age of 12 or so:

Safe, Natural Remedy for Head Lice

Beautiful New Granddaughter- Evelyn Grace!

Little Evelyn was born 3 months ago. She is exquisitely beautiful, and has such a cute personality. We saw her for the first time 10 days ago.

 

Newborn

One week old

2 months

Three Months Old

Kindness Quotes and Sayings, Generosity, Compassion

Kindness Quotes and Sayings, Generosity, Compassion: I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble. ~Rudyard Kipling

Publish Post

New Grandson: Sawyer James Wilson!!

Our newest grandson (first biological one) was born June 22nd- Sawyer James Wilson. He is having some difficulties so he is now at UNC Chapel Hill. His parents have set up a fund to help with the costs of his care as my son lost his job on Father's Day- 5 days before Sawyer was born. I am not sure that this link will work but here is the fund for him if anyone is interested:   SawyerJamesFund

This is Sawyer right after birth.

Sawyer and his Daddy while still at Rex Hospital, where he was born.

Sawyer and Mommy :-) - still at Rex Hospital

Son Rob and Sawyer's older brother Hilton, and Bethani, Sawyer and Hilton's Mom.

A Recipe for Chocolate Lovers

OK I have to confess....  I love Chocolate. I have a stash of chocolate recipes that I figure I might as well share. So here goes with the first installment. I've made an image that you can download and print up so that it will make a sort of recipe card. Make sure you click "print to fit page" if you have that option on your printer. I also will provide a copy and paste version too, after the image.

Chocolate Brownie Trifle 

Utensils needed

13x9 pan
trifle or glass bowl
mixer

Ingredients

2 brownie mixes made according to directions on box
2 16 ounce containers of whipped topping or homemade whipped cream
2 boxes of chocolate mousse mix made according to package directions
6-8 bars of chocolate toffee bars, such as Skor or Heath bars
1 large chocolate bar for chocolate shavings

Recipe

Freeze the chocolate toffee bars and chocolate bar.
Bake two packages of brownie mixes according to package directions. Let cool.
While brownies are baking, mix two packages of the mousse mix according to package directions.

Let chill in refrigerator.

After brownies have cooled, scrape or crush the brownies until they are crumbly. Put a layer of brownies in the trifle or glass bowl. Next, put a layer of chocolate mousse on top, being sure to spread it evenly over the brownies. Spread the whipped topping on top of the mousse. Take the toffee bars out of the freezer and crush them. Sprinkle the crushed chocolate toffee bars on top of the whipped topping. Continue layering in this way until you finish with a layer of whipped topping. Take the chocolate bar from the freezer and use a vegetable peeler to peel some chocolate curls from the chocolate bar. Sprinkle the chocolate curls on top of the whipped topping.

If you have any toffee pieces left you can sprinkle those on top too.

Enjoy!

Poetry

I'm feeling like writing some poetry.

Retirement

When is one really IN the golden years?
Is it when the grandchildren are grown?
Or is it when life simply shifts gears?
A slower pace with a more peaceful tone.
Why can't this exist when one is young?
Could we not look back with less 
Must we stress on every ladder rung?