Wanna be sick?

You know I told you that Scott’s latest guitar was about done?  Well, yesterday while I was shopping at the local health food store, he dropped it!  The dogs were asking to come in, so he left in on the worktable.  As he let the dogs in, he heard the terrible crash! 

He’s going to have to take the top off and redo it!  This is a beautiful guitar but it sure has been trouble.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/elmcneill/Guitar#

 

 

 

skype

Hey, everyone!

I’m now on skype. My id is elaine.l.mcneill I have a web-cam so if you have one, we will be able to see each other when we talk. My Dad got me interested in this and we are having a great time with it. I’ve been chatting with him almost every day. It sure does make it easier to keep in touch. It is free when you talk computer to computer.

My sister-in-law just returned from El Salvador. We had her with us for a few days. Now she is at a friend’s house for the remainder of her time in the States.

Julia and Joel are busy with school and work. They come and go. Sometimes, it feels like I’m running a boarding house!

Scott is almost done with his latest guitar. When it is all the way done, I will post a picture of it for you. It is a beauty!!!

It was 24 degrees this morning for my walk. Of course, the dogs were unaffected by the cold. I got this new ski cap thing that covers most of my face so I found the weather much more bearable. I was actually a little too warm, so I pulled the face thing down around my chin. I didn’t have to wear gloves because I was so warm.

I just finished four weeks of babysitting. The kids are back in school for seven weeks. We had hours of fun doing crafts and things, but I am glad to be back on my own.

Buttons

On March 7, 1999 Buttons Salgado was born.  She came to live with my step-dad Ray and his first wife Shirley.  I met Buttons right after I met my new step-dad.  She took me into her heart right away.  Mom and Ray just celebrated their second anniversary so I’ve known her a little longer than that.  When I would come to visit, she was so excited to see me again.  I will miss her so much.  I loved to hear her “snuffle” looking for food snacks on the floor.  When she wasn’t snuffling, you could hear her softly snoring.  I can still see her eyes glistening as she would look at me with love.  One time that I was visiting there were a lot of thunder storms and Buttons would not be happy unless she was sitting on my lap.  I think that was the same visit that she growled at a workman that came to the house because he wanted to shake my hand as I was introduced to him.  She was such a loving little soul.  She brought joy to my life and I miss her greatly!

Buttons Salgado March 7, 1999 – January 3, 2009

http://picasaweb.google.com/elmcneill/Buttons1#

November went by!

I was in Florida with my Mother and Ray for the last week of October.  I had a very special visit.  Ray and I had a date and went to a neat old hotel,  you can see the pictures in the file contained here.  I got so that whenever we went out, I took my camera because I would miss unique pictures without it. 

 

The first few pictures are of Cookie and I can’t remember what breed she is.  She was hysterically funny.  Ray and I were supposed to let her out because my new sister and her husband were gone for the day.  Ray took me over for the second visit so that I could see her.  She was excited to see me, but didn’t want to cooperate to go outside.  Ray asked me to grab her leash, which meant to her that we were going on the golf cart!  We weren’t going on the golf cart and she wasn’t going anywhere except for the golf cart!  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!  She isn’t very tall, but you can’t make her do what you want her to do. 

 

I got home in time for Halloween.  I enjoyed giving out candy to the neighborhood kids.

 

Then came my birthday.  It was very weird.  Some birthdays are like that.  We had my sister in law with us for the week, as she was moving to El Salvador to do medical missions.  The next week I babysat my extra kids and came down with a cold from that.  It was a miserable cold.  I was in bed for nine days.  Then, it was Thanksgiving and we went to PA for a few days.  We had a good visit with Scott’s mom and dad.  We got home from that and November was over!  It was a weird month.  I’m glad most months are not like that one was.

 

I have missed writing on here, so hopefully December will go better!

http://picasaweb.google.com/elmcneill/December14?authkey=SiehAW4K6L4#

 

Picasa Web Albums - Elaine - First Flight

The last time I took a flight, I was first suspecting that our Joel was on the way.  Joel just turned 19 in September!  I was so panicked to fly from St. Louis to San Jose, CA that I was almost as bad as B. A. on the A-Team!  If you remember that TV show, they drugged him every time they had to make a flight, which was almost every episode.  They drugged him with Novocain, if you’ve noticed the bottle Hannibal uses!  I would have needed something stronger than that!  Scott and I were on our way to my brother Andy’s wedding.  Scott looked up how much it would cost to do a sleeper with Amtrak and said no way.  If we were going to the wedding, I must fly.  So off we went.  We had to stop in Dallas, unfortunately it was raining and a mess.  I was the other mess.  Tears were streaming down my face.  I was relieved when another lady stood up and she was as much a mess as I was!  We did discover that I was okay as long as I was reading a book.  If I peeked my eyes up from the book, Scott would say “Get back to your book!”. 

I decided about five years ago, I think, that I needed to fly so that Scott and I would be able to travel when he retires.  I started to pray for the fear to go away.  Last year we thought we might get to fly to Portland, OR to see my brother and I told Scott he would have to book two flights because I was going with him.  He looked kind of skeptical, but I remained insistent about it.  Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get out there. 

Yesterday, my new brother in law said he needed to fly his plane to Daytona to get some fuel and asked if I wanted to go with him.  I said a quick prayer and felt that I was at last ready to fly and quickly responded “I would love to”.  Ray said he wanted to go too, so off we went. 

I didn’t have my camera with me on the first part of the flight, so I didn’t get any pictures of that part.  It was probably just as well because I would have been distracted with trying to get pictures.  I felt no fear at all and actually enjoyed myself looking around.  God has answered my prayers and delivered me from that awful fear! 

Here is the link for the pictures I took on the return flight.  Hope you enjoy them!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/elmcneill/FirstFlight#

up early

http://picasaweb.google.com/elmcneill/FullMoon#5257764748997580658

I wasn’t up as early as usual this morning, but I could see this gorgeous moon from my deck! The picture actually doesn’t do it justice!!!

I just added two pictures. One of Aaron and one of Susannah taken this morning. They will be going back to school next week so I won't see them for awhile.

Thyroid

Well, the Dr. called in a panic again.  My thyroid is still way too low.  I cut my medicine dose again and seem to have gone right into a tailspin!  In two days my thyroid started to ache and then the tiredness came.  I’m hoping this is going to be a short adjustment time. 

 

I’m going to Florida to visit with my Mom and Ray towards the end of October.  I always look forward to going to see them.  Daytona has a terrific flea market! 

 

This will be my last week for babysitting till the end of November.  I taught the kids how to make iris folding cards.  They did extremely well for their ages.  One day they watched movies all morning, so I decided that they needed some creative outlet for their brains.  I’m not sure how many cards they made all together, but they made quite a few.  I finally got my dining room table cleaned off from their efforts.  It took quite a bit of scraping to get all the tape off the edges of my table. 

 

Chloe just started growling, so I’d better close for now.