63rd Birthday Extravaganza

I've been on a Birthday Extravaganza since Friday afternoon. I've been to lunch twice, (yummy Mexican food). I've been shopping twice, to church and had my family over yesterday for dinner and ice cream cake. Yesterday I had lots of calls, cards, gifts and well wishes. I'm done celebrating, I've eaten too much and I'm tired. Sometimes I think I'm still a little kid when it comes to birthdays. I like to celebrate others special day but I don't really like mine. This year my birthday was on Sunday. Rich picked up my Mom for church and she came and listened to Tristyn's talk and a song she sang and then Rich took her to listen to my brother Len and his wife Julie speak in a Stake Conference. It was a good day with family and friends calling and coming over and all the kids and grand kids coming for dinner. This morning my house looked like a bomb had gone off and the floor was sticky due to the suckers Candi gave the twins to keep them in one place for a few minutes. I can't believe how boring my life would be without these people in my life. I feel old until my Mom tells me how young I am and compared to eighty-six I am young. I'm thankful I'm still here and well enough to do most of the things I want to do. I'm thankful for my friends and family who make me feel special and loved. I'm thankful for my testimony that God lives and answers prayers. I'm thankful for all my experiences that have made me who I am. Most of all I'm thankful for my knowledge that this life isn't the end and at some point I will see my Dad, Kamber and all those others I love who have passed on. Thanks Mom for bringing me into the world and being my closest advocate for the last sixty-three years. I love you all!

Let It Roll Like Water Off A Duck's Back

Last Saturday was busy for our family. With twenty grandkids there is bound to be something going on all the time. It was a special day for Brookie as she was baptized and confirmed a member of the church. We then went to Ethan and Jenn's for a luncheon before going to a championship basketball game at the YMCA that Trent was playing in. There was a lady there with laced up high heel shoes and a dress, definitely not basketball game wardrobe. She was an obnoxious mother of one of the kids on the other team. During timeouts and half time, one of her younger daughters went on the floor to give a cheer for the other team. It was a tight game but we ended up winning and it was so fun for the boys. After the game, the coach was talking to our boys and giving them the little medals they had just won as the parents and coaches of the other team walked by. When we got in the car one of my grandsons told me that this dressed up, not nice lady said, "you need to wash your face," to him. Our family wasn't born with peaches and cream complexions, skinny bodies, or knock out good looks, but we try to be nice people. When I was sitting in the car waiting to leave, I wanted to go in and hit this lady in the face. My poor elderly Mom was telling me to just relax and I know she was nervous I was going to do something to retaliate. We drove off with me still fuming mad. While I was sitting in church on Sunday during the Sacrament, I just couldn't stop thinking about how angry I was at this person. Why would someone think it was alright to say something mean to a child? All of a sudden I got an impression in my mind that said, "just let it go." We always joke that the Greers don't hold grudges that we just let stuff roll off us like water off a ducks back. Which is not true. Anyway, after looking at the pictures we took at the church, I can now add not photogenic to my list of bad qualities I have. At least we were there and tried to support, even if we do have some faults.

May Is My Favorite Month, NOT!

Today is Friday the 13th so I've been hoping and praying nothing bad happens to any of my friends and family today. May is almost half over and I can't believe how fast we are moving into the hot summer months, which I hate. Last weekend Rich went to Montana to spend a couple of days with Spencer. I spent most of the time being angry and hurt that he would miss Mother's Day. Even though I'm not his mother, I still thought is was wrong of him to leave. When I went to Landmark a couple of years ago they talked a lot about all the "rackets" we have with those around us. I definitely have some really strong rackets going on in my life that I have fought for a very long time. May is another racket I have. Both Mother's Day and my birthday happen in this month and I am so happy when the calendar changes to June, and I've survived another May. With Rich being gone and me not being able to sleep, I had lots of time to try and figure out why May is so hard for me. My parents were both school teachers and I know for sure just how stressful it is to try and finish up a school year. My birthday always hits about the time school is over for the summer. In fact next week Tristyn will graduate on Rich's birthday on Thursday. Of course I would marry a guy whose birthday is a few days before mine, that's just the way I roll. The reason Rich had to go to Montana last weekend was because Brookie is getting baptized tomorrow, our birthdays are next week and then on to Memorial Day. So I guess I will forgive Rich for not being here to shower me with gifts, love and breakfast in bed. (Now that is a total fantasy for sure.) The rest of May doesn't get any better with basketball games, graduation, birthdays and trying to get my pool ready for swimming. Maybe I can find someone to take me to the beach for Father's Day, that's only fair.

Where Does All The Time Go?

Two weeks have come and gone and I feel like I'm getting farther and farther behind. The last two Saturdays I've spent watching my granddaughters play in their last volleyball tournaments of the year. Tristyn is a senior and I will so miss watching her play, she has been so fun to see move on. She has been offered a spot on the BYU volleyball team and will be moving on to college in the fall. Tayler is just starting her high school career and hopefully she will stay healthy and continue to grow in the game and be able to get a scholarship somewhere after she graduates. I look back on some of the challenges we have to go through to be able learn and grow and it is so hard, but so worth it. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done around my house. I'm twenty days away from turning sixty-three and I'm getting slower at getting things accomplished. I have quilts to finish, ironing to do and tons of other projects I want to work on. These things will all be around tomorrow and the days after so I'm not going to stress about today. The older I get to more I wonder where all the time goes?

Where Has Forty Years Gone?

Saturday Rich and I celebrated forty years of marriage. I have to admit that being married to a guy and trying to get along, is the hardest challenge of my life. We come from different backgrounds and families. He isn't afraid of anything and I'm afraid of everything, hence the struggle to see eye to eye on many things. Rich wanted to go see the movie "Singing with Angels," which is about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was an okay movie, the acting wasn't great but listening to the choir was soothing. After the movie we went to wash the truck, because that's a ritual to have a clean truck for church. Then off to eat dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It was an hour wait, so we just sat and relaxed before we got seated for dinner. We ordered too much food and left full, but Rich needed a custard for desert, so our blood sugars were soaring by the time we got home. All day Saturday I thought how fun it would be to take off and go to some remote island and swim with the sharks and sip on non-alcoholic drinks. Wouldn't that be so romantic? Unfortunately time and money restraints make it impossible for us to even leave our neighborhood, let alone a destination anniversary. Rich is already looking to our fiftieth, which I wonder if we will still both be alive. We will be in our 70's by then. I told Mindi that she and her siblings need to start saving their money because hopefully they can pay for our party in ten years. That's if we are still married and alive.

The End Of Blogging?

For the last couple of months I've thought maybe my blogging days are over. I started writing when we lost Kamber and I wanted to write my feelings down so I would never forget the pain that her drowning caused me. It  has been almost eight years of putting my thoughts and struggles down for everyone who wanted to, could read them. These last two years have been extremely hard as I've watched my Dad suffer with cancer and pass away. It has also been a struggle as my husband continues to work twelve to fourteen hours a day trying to provide for our family. It doesn't help when there are dishonest people who take advantage of his kindness and don't pay him for his work. In the twenty plus years he has owned his company, we have only had one person not pay us. Luckily we were able to take him to court and get a judgment. This last year there have been four people who have decided to not pay him for the work he has done. This adds up to thousands of dollars in lost revenue that he needs to keep his business going. Yesterday as he came home I saw a look on his face I hadn't seen in a while. He said it was one of the worst days he has had and that everything went wrong. I never expected after forty years of marriage and being in our sixties that our lives would still be like this. Three weeks ago I had some blood work done and today found out I am diabetic. Wow! That is a hard thing to accept. I guess the "Trick or Treating with Mickey", and all the other holidays celebrating sugar, have finally caught up to this old granny. I've asked Rich several times, "at what point do you give up? I what point to do you quit?" Of course he always answers, "you never give up, you never quit." I don't want to look back at my writings and feel like I'm Debbie Downer who always has a dark cloud hanging over her. I have so many blessings I feel embarrassed to even feel sad. I do know that things will get better, they always do, and besides that my Mom thinks I'm darling, and I know she cares about me alot.

Heaven Is Cheering Us On

I spent eight hours this weekend watching General Conference. I have to admit that in the past there have been times that I go into a post-Conference depression. Where could I even start to do all those things talked about in those hours? Yesterday was different for me as I listened to Elder Holland. There must be lots of Mormons going through the same emotions I am. It's easy to look at all the things I do and don't do. Things I wish I could change about myself and family members, and even things I hoped would be different as I wade through this mortal life.  As I heard him say, "we can improve, the great thing about the gospel is that we get credit for trying, even if we don't always succeed." Yesterday was sweet Brookie's eighth birthday. Ethan and Jenn invited us out to celebrate. We had Mom with us so she wouldn't be alone on Sunday and she seemed to enjoy being with family. Brookie was three months old when Kamber passed away and sometimes I think she was what saved us from the depths of hell as we went through the grieving process. It's hard to believe that almost eight years have passed and she is so excited to get baptized. It's so fun to see the grandchildren grow up and want to do what is right, it makes our hearts happy. At the end of Elder Holland's talk he said, "Keep loving, keep trying, keep trusting, keep believing, keep going. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow and forever." I could just see Dad, Kamber, Tenna and Grandma Fern in heaven cheering us on. The gospel is true!

Sick On Easter

Easter is one of those holidays that makes me reflect on what I believe and what is important in my life. I remember Easter as a child getting a new dress to wear to church. So last week I made Mindi take me shopping to see if I could find something nice to wear on Sunday. After a few stores, we decided that the stuff in our closets was better than what we saw on the racks, so we left having saved lots of money. Rich was wondering why I was even shopping with my three closets full of clothes. He doesn't understand that girls don't like to wear the same thing over and over like they do. After church I came home and took my rolls out to raise and cut up my strawberries for dessert. As the day went on and my family came, we ate dinner. I just remember sitting at the table feeling sicker and sicker. I got up and went in my bedroom and pulled a blanket on and started running a fever and chilling. As my extended family came over and I could hear them laughing and visiting I felt so sad. My grand kids were all playing outside and I was in bed feeling like crap. The talks in church were all about the resurrection and how our Savior can take away all our pain and suffering, I was sure praying for some help as I was lying in bed. I'm feeling much better now and am feeling stronger everyday. Rich is sick too, but with a nasty virus that some guy passed along to him while working. He was nice enough to cut me two bouquets of roses off our bushes to use for dinner. I need to find out how I'm picking up these bugs that seem to always show up on Sunday. Maybe that's a sign that I'm doing something wrong, or maybe I'm just lucky.

"One Step Closer To Death"

This morning the chapter I was reading talked about death. We are all born and then we will all die. The point he was making today is that we never know when we will take our last breath. After Dad passed away so suddenly last year, I have often felt like if I would have known he was going to leave us, I would have spent all day everyday in the hospital caring for him and asking all kinds of questions. What would I do if I knew I only had a day to live? How would I treat those who are close around me? What experiences would I want to have before I died? I remember for years after Kamber passed away, I would ask God to let me hold her one last time and tell her I loved her. I think sometimes I'm so caught up in the everyday mundane things I have to do that I really don't enjoy the journey I'm on. The last paragraph said, "So, instead of getting lost in the normal mental chatter, why not contemplate the temporal nature of life? Why not think about something meaningful? Don't be afraid of death. Let it free you. Let it encourage you to experience life fully. But remember, it's not your life. You should be experiencing the life that's happening to you, not the one you wish was happening. Don't waste a moment of life trying to make other things happen; appreciate the moments you are given. Don't you understand that every minute you're a step closer to death? This is how to live your life. You live it as though you were on the verge of death, because you are." Wow! I've never thought of it like that, but that still doesn't mean I'm going to get in an airplane anytime soon, especially with what's going on in the world today. I'm not afraid to die but I don't want to be blown up in an airport, or a plane.

A Companion for Rusty

Last summer my Golden Retriever Mollie had a litter of seven puppies. The first six were born healthy but the last one wasn't moving or breathing and was basically dead. I started doing some chest compressions and blowing air into his mouth hoping he would come to life. When Mindi saw what was happening, she took him and turned him over and cleared his airway and got him breathing. It was a miracle and when we took him to the vet he said he looked like he would be okay. As the puppies got bigger, we could tell this dog was special. He was always by himself and we didn't think he could see very well to find his litter mates or food. So as we found homes for all the other puppies, we decided to keep him and have him as our pet. We offered him to some who acted interested but as soon as they heard he may have a little bit of vision loss, they didn't want him. So last month I took him to get neutered and we prayed that someday we would find someone special who would see his worth. Last Saturday a friend told us about a family who were looking for a kind gentle dog for their son who has a traumatic brain injury. That story isn't mine to tell but after years of bullying and unkindness this boy injured himself. So Mindi being the kind person that she is, offered this family Rusty, our special needs dog to go be a companion for him. They came and picked him up and wanted to see if he got along with the other fur baby family members and the kids. Their son is in a rehab center who will hopefully get to come home soon. As we cried as they took him away, we knew he would be a special dog for a special boy and hopefully Rusty is behaving and being the gentle giant we know he is.

An Answer To My Prayers

About three weeks ago I realized when I was taking off my jewelry that I had lost one of my diamond earrings. I have searched high and low in my house and around the yard where I thought it might be. I took a flashlight and went from room to room looking everywhere for it. I even vacuumed the whole house and then went through the bag, which was full of dirt and hair. Yuck! I have pondered and prayed and begged to find this earing that Rich gave to me years ago. I kept having a feeling that it was in my room but never did do the deep clean I needed to find it. Last week I finally gave up and called the jeweler to see how much it would cost to get another one. On Saturday I finally decided to dust the furniture in my bedroom. I started on Rich's side and put all his nails, screws and misc. construction items in a bowl, then moved to my dresser. When I lifted up a couple of boxes and started dusting there was my earing, at the very back of my dresser under my jewelry box. How it got back there I do not know, but I am so happy. What an answer to a three week prayer. We are taught all the time in church that our Heavenly Father is aware of us and our needs. That he loves us and wants us to be happy. That our prayers are answered, but not always how or when we want them to be. I know a diamond earring isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of important world events but it was important to me to find it. My parents always taught us to live a life worthy to ask for answers to our prayers, I don't know if that is true but I am so thankful for what I believe and have been taught, and especially that what I had lost was found. 

Insects in the Lemon Tree

The weather has been absolutely beautiful the last few weeks. I can't remember when we were in the 90's in February but these last few days have been cool and breezy. I have so many things to do inside and I'm working on a few quilts, but yesterday I decided to go outside and pick some lemons to juice. Rich uses them for lemonade in the summer and I need them for my jelly. As I was picking, I could hear some buzzing and knew there were some insects in the tree. I had two buckets full and was reaching for one big one when something flew at my face and stung me on the bottom of my nose. Of course I panicked and started running as fast as this large old lady can towards Mindi's house. I pounded on her window as this critter was attacking my head. When I got inside I grabbed some ice and was relieved that I hadn't gotten caught in a swarm of bees. It was really scary. Anyway, Mindi came in from her bedroom and asked what had happened and suggested I put some Frankincense oil on my nose. It's a little bit tender and I have a small scab but I'm glad it wasn't worse. I've been stung before by a bee and a wasp so I knew I wasn't allergic but I took some Benadryl anyway.  All of our citrus is starting to blossom which reminds me of traveling to my Grandma's house in Mesa when I was a child. Hopefully this nice weather will stay awhile because I'm really not ready for the 110's yet.

All Is Well

My goal for the weekend was to have all the animals and kids alive when Mindi got home from Colorado on Monday night. It was a success and all is well. I was lucky because the kids are getting older and more responsible and they help a lot too. Dave was also here to help with laundry, dishes and running the kids around. He even got the kids up and ready to attend three hours of church on Sunday. I was really impressed with that because I know most Dads would just stay home. It's always amazing to me when the Mother is out of the home how empty it feels. I think the women are so important to the spirit of the home. I had a lot of calls on the puppies. I always meet some really nice people when I am selling a litter. Some are trying to replace a pet that has just passed away and others want something for their kids to play with and learn responsibility. I also have some who call and say they are on their way and they will be over at a certain time and then never show up. That fires me up a little and I may say some not so nice things about them. I have noticed that since I'm getting older things are changing inside of me. It's taken me a long time to realize that I'm in charge of my happiness. No one really cares about how I feel, I have to give myself what those close to me can't or refuse to. I realize they are dealing with there own stuff. I want to find things to do that make me happy and not depend on anyone or anything to be responsible for my happiness. Now thinking that and putting it in to practice is a different story. I just don't want to spend the rest of my life being disappointed in who and what I gave my power to. Plus I'm just too tired to worry about it anymore.

Puppies and Cleaning

I'm happy to have lived through another busy week. After being super sick on Sunday and hearing about others who felt worse than me for way longer, I feel blessed. This week has been busy with getting our fourteen puppies ready to go to good homes. Mindi and I have wondered many times if it is worth it. We love golden retrievers and know there are others who share our love of this breed, so hopefully we can find nice people who will love them. We spent all day yesterday decorating and running errands for the blue and gold banquet last night at the church. Mindi works with the little cub scouts so she offered to do the decorations. This morning she and Tristyn got on a plane and flew to Colorado for a volleyball tournament all weekend. So I'm here in the trenches, cracking the whip with the kids, mopping her floors and doing a little laundry. After today Dave will be in charge of taking care of them and helping with the animals. I hope Mindi will be able to rest and enjoy her time with Tristyn because next year she will be going to college and playing volleyball there. Sometimes it's hard to believe I have a 39 year-old daughter and an almost 18 year-old granddaughter. It's been a lot of fun watching them play and now it's on to bigger and better opportunities for them both.

My Brain Hurts

Last week Trulie was sick most of the time. She was running a high fever and said her brain hurt. So on Sunday morning when I woke up at 2:30 a.m. chilling, shivering and my brain hurt, I realized I was sick. I could barely walk to the bathroom and after grabbing a quilt and trying to get warm and stop the shakes, I realized I had a Tylenol in my purse sitting by my bed. I was scared to venture in the kitchen to find some pain relief in fear I would pass out and die. That's just how sick I felt. My head was pounding and everything in my body ached. After staying in bed all day, keeping my fever down and resting, I'm much better today. I sure hope I never get sick where I am in bed all the time because that would really be terrible. So now I'm doing everything I didn't get done yesterday. Making Sunday dinner and hopefully getting to the grocery store for the basics. I take for granted the days I feel good enough to do laundry, dishes and housecleaning, I'm thankful that whatever I had only lasted a day because having your brain hurt is really hard.

Mindi Turns 39

Today is my firstborn daughter Mindi's 39th birthday. How is it possible that I have a child that old? She is a wonderful person who puts the needs of everyone before herself. Being the oldest she worked really hard to keep the other kids out of trouble and now she's doing the same thing for her own children. When I got sick and couldn't cope with life, it put lots of responsibility on her and I don't know many daughters that would do what she has done for me. I will forever be grateful for her and know she will be blessed for her efforts. Last week someone close to me said, "No one is going to come rescue you." That has played over and over in my mind as I have tried to figure out what exactly was meant by that. I have to agree that as a young girl I had visions of someone on a white horse coming to save me, but I gave up on that idea a long time ago. Life is hard and as I get older and the body starts breaking down a little bit everyday, I realize that the only thing I really have is my testimony of the Savior and my belief that when I die it's not the end. After talking to a friend about some of my concerns he asked if I believed in Agency. Of course I believe, we fought the war in heaven for the right to choose between good and evil. What about the Atonement, do you believe in that? I wish when I was young and when I raised my kids that I really understood what that means. I guess it's time to let a lot of those old demons go, and I realize that everyone has their agency to do what they want and hopefully rely on the Savior to take care of the things we do wrong. Hopefully this doesn't sound to preachy, it's just been on my mind all week so I thought I would write it down.

Murphy"s Law

Last week was one of those Murphy's Law kind of weeks. If it could go wrong it did. It started off with two dogs who decided that they would fight. The older one ended up on the losing end and I had to take him to the vet. His ear was injured, so we spent the next few days keeping them apart and finding a new home for the younger, dominate male. Spencer was in town for a few days and invited me to run some errands with him and Annie. After we got home and I rested for a few minutes, I realized that I was missing one of my 1/2 carat diamond earrings Rich had given me. I have spent lots of time looking, cleaning and praying to find it but haven't yet. I did find my lost Fitbit while searching for my earring. Saturday I spent the day in Phoenix watching Mindi's volleyball team play in a tournament. Tristyn was in Las Vegas playing there, so Dave stayed home and took care of all the pets so I could go watch Tayler and Tenna play. My cousins Barb Abney and Miriam and Norm King were there too, so we had lots of time visiting and laughing. Today I have so much to get done because I was gone all day Saturday, but there will always be work for me to do. It seemed like the theme of church yesterday was adversity and how to deal with it. That's something that we don't have a shortage of over here, but we still have a pretty good life. It's sure hard to keep my eye on the eternal perspective when these challenges come my way. I sometimes wish I had been given a more kinder, gentler, non contentious personality because my life would be a lot more peaceful, but I am who I am and hopefully as I get older I won't let things get to me as much as I do now.

The Untethered Soul

A few months ago a friend recommended a book for me to read. I was busy with the holidays and didn't feel like reading. These last three weeks have been really hard and I've found myself in a deep dark hole. This morning in my reading, I decided to open up this book, "The Untethered Soul," by Michael A. Singer.  It says, "Every day we bear a burden that we should not be bearing. We fear that we are not good enough or that we will fail. We experience insecurity, anxiety, and self-consciousness. We fear that people will turn on us, take advantage of us. or stop loving us. All of these things burden us tremendously. As we try to have open and loving relationships, and we try to succeed and express ourselves, there is an inner weight that we carry. This weight is the fear of experiencing pain, anguish, or sorrow. Every day we are either feeling it, or we are protecting ourselves from feeling it. It is such a core influence that we don't even realize how prevalent it is." The chapter then goes on to explain how we can try and untether our soul away from all the negative and damaging feelings and thoughts that we have daily. Basically having to let go of it, all which is so hard to do. I can read the scriptures, go to church and serve, but it's still really hard to forgive and get past all the crap that floats around in my mind. Yesterday we went and picked up Mom to come over for dinner and to watch the Super Bowl. I figured she needed to not be alone and I think she had fun. When we took her home I could tell she didn't want us to leave. It was late and we needed to get home. I know someday she will get tired and want to leave, but now she is holding on to her memories and doing the best she can.

Dad's Birthday

Yesterday was Dad's 67th birthday. Last year we celebrated it by having his funeral. I can't believe it's already been a year since he's been gone. As I've reflected on the last year I'm proud of some of the things I've accomplished. After spending many years suffering from anxiety and staying home, I traveled to Montana in a U Haul truck with my son-in-law. It took us 29 hours to get to Billings, going through Nevada, Utah, Idaho and then finally making it to Montana. While there, I got to go see Mt. Rushmore and go through South Dakota and a little piece of Wyoming, I think. Then on the way home we went through West Yellowstone which was absolutely breathtaking. We came down through Richfield, Kanab and Page until we got back into Arizona in Flagstaff. What a great trip. I probably won't ever go again but I'm so glad I got to experience that. In October I got to go to California with Candi's family. I went to a Renaissance theater where we had dinner and watched a duel between different Knights on horses. After a couple of days at the beach, we went to Disneyland to "trick or treat" with Mickey. There again I was out of my comfort zone with thousands of people, but I even made it on a few rides that scared me almost to death. Definitely won't do that again. This past week I went to the fair grounds with a friend to attend the quilting extravaganza. There were hundreds of people there and so much to look at. That definitely stretched my abilities as I had to constantly try and control my anxiety and claustrophobia. I was proud as we left that I had endured the experience. I wonder what it would be like to be normal, to be able to go and do everything I wanted without worrying about how I feel. Someday I hope it will be taken from me and I will be the person I was before the trauma of life. Tomorrow we are getting together to celebrate Dad's birthday. My siblings, Mother and cousin Barb are going to cook out steaks and enjoy dinner together to honor our Dad. This year hasn't been easy, there are still a lot of things I wish were different in my life and I hope to someday be able to change them. But I'm thankful for another year with my Mom and we hope to have her with us for a very long time.

An Emotional Year

Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of my Dad's journey to Heaven. I was warned that even though we knew he was sick with cancer and was going to pass away, until it actually happened I wouldn't understand or start the grieving process. Boy was that right as I have struggled for a year trying to deal with his death.  I have always battled with my weight since I had five pregnancies in the first ten years of marriage. My sister and I have been seeing a doctor for the last few years and going up and down the scale between hip replacement and her recent knee replacement. After Dad died I was out of control with my eating. I am an emotional eater but this was something I couldn't control. For the last few months I have felt better and have battled back to get to where I was before he left us. Today as I weighed in and got my shot, I was a little disappointed that I was .2 pounds over what I was last year after gaining fifteen pounds. I was beating myself up when my sister said, "What is the difference between those two weights, .2 pounds? Your jewelry weighs at least that much." My sister is really a smart person and has way more intellectual thinking than emotional like I am. As we called Mother to report our results, she told us how darling we are and that we take after our sweet Dad in our battle of the bulge. She didn't give us the right DNA to be skinny but I'm thankful for my body anyway. I was able to play sports and travel with teams. I was able to carry four babies and give birth to them.  I'm thankful for all the good qualities my parents gave me and try to overcome those things I don't like about myself. At some point I will have to become an adult and stop blaming my parents for my shortcomings, but I still wish I would have gotten Mom's skinny genes.