November Challenge Day 19

Wow! I’ve made it to 19 days in a row of posting. That’s amazing for me. You all know that I’m usually kind of a once a week gal!

The challenge today is that I’m supposed to tell you of a difficult time of my life. Probably the worst time of my life was when my mom died. You should never have to say goodbye to your mom when you’re only 29 years old and have three little kids. I still needed her then and I still need her now. I can still hear her voice and I can hear her laughter. She was taken from us suddenly with a heart attack. We did have almost three weeks when she was on a ventilator so we had a chance to tell her goodbye and she knew what was happening right up until the end. She was a great mom! Her funeral was standing room only. In fact, there were people standing in the parking lot because there wasn’t room inside. She didn’t have a big career and she never went very many places, but she loved people and everyone she met heard her laughter.  She had lost her own mother when she was only 14 years old from heart issues, so it must run in the family.

The second most difficult time in my life was actually three times. It was as each of our children moved away. I know you raise your children to grow up and be independent, but in my minds eye I always thought that they would grow up, get a house and live in Spokane or nearby where we could see them and our grandchildren on a regular basis.  First Mandy moved away.  First to Portland, OR, then Maryland, and now Omaha.  Then Jamie and his family moved to Montana and then the clincher. Alex moved all the way to Japan. We are so proud of our children and we love them with everything we have in us. We would do anything for any of them. But boy, sometimes it’s really hard when I see other people with their kids and grandkids.  But, we DO know that they all love us and keep in contact with us often.  And we look forward to being closer to Mandy soon.  If this virus would go away, we would be able to see them all much more often.

And now a much lighter subject. I have some things to show you.  I made homemade split pea soup in the instant pot today. Dennis said it was amazing and he ate three bowls of it for dinner! I ate about 1/2 of a bowl. I have never liked split pea soup and as far as I’m concerned homemade is no better than the canned stuff!  Ha!🤣 Dennis and Mandy both love it and don’t understand why I can hardly even look at it.  It sure did smell good while it was cooking though.

I forgot to take a photo when the instant pot was full. This was after our 3 1/2 bowls were already dished up.

We also had refrigerated Pillsbury biscuits with it. I know, I know. Most of you make your biscuits from scratch. Sometimes I do too, but you can’t beat the taste of these and they were on sale for $.99. Of course, I took this photo after we had already eaten several of them. I am so bad at taking pictures of food. I would never survive in Japan. There everyone takes pictures of their food before they eat it! I always forget.

Do you remember the beautiful card I showed you yesterday that I had received from my friend in Australia? This was the envelope it came in. How in the world did it ever get to me with the address like this? This truly amazes me. The post office truly worked a miracle.

The color on these socks is so washed out. They are much, much deeper blue but I do love how this pattern works up. It’s so fast and yet gives the sock such an elegant look. This is Cindy‘s pattern from the ‘Delighted Hands” blog over on my side bar and I finished them this afternoon.

Isn’t that just the prettiest pattern? It’s a simple four row repeat. The socks are one more Christmas gift checked off my list!

I remember reading this verse over and over when my mom died. It gave me so much comfort.

I hope you all have a wonderful day on Friday.  Thank you for visiting me again today. 

Blessings, 

Betsy