Another Limerick by Libby

The Park Rules

No talking
No touching
No spitting
No coughing
No barking
No yelling
No smelling
No walking
No talking
No mocking
No singing
No dancing
No laughing
No crying
No sitting
No knitting
No smiling
No frowning
No standing
No skipping
No reading
No playing
No writing
No chewing
No thinking
No pets
No drinks
No food
No gum
No candy
NO PICKING NOSES!!
No kids
No paper
No pencils

NO FUN!!

By: Libby Newman

Libby has discovered the Poet Within

The Park!

The sun will then arise,

And form the happy skies,

The bells ring,

As the birds sing,

The leafs dance around,

To the rocks that they surround.

We sat on the rock, on that windy day,

There is not much more to say.

The rain was still there, from the night before,

I really want to say more.

Down below, we saw ponds,

And tons of people’s lawns.

It was peaceful, wonderful, joyful, and beautiful!


By: Libby Newman

Reader: Thank you for reading my little poem! I hope you enjoyed it!

Kids' Activities

This is Sarah's first year to play indoor soccer and it's actually alot of fun to watch. First, it's indoors, so the weather is no issue. :-) Plus, the games are shorter than a traditional soccer game and the action is faster. They play with a partially-deflated ball so that it doesn't bounce so much. In the picture above, the boy next to her is pushing her... as he was doing the entire game. I almost yelled, "Stop pushing my daughter, you brute!" at one point, but refrained myself. She can hold her own with the boys.

Libby is taking a ceramics class again at the art museum. This time she brought her friend Caroline. Jacob is also taking a clay class at the same time, but this past week his class was cancelled. He didn't mind- he told me the second week of the class that "Mom, art is just not my thing". Read, "It's not a contact sport". So instead we fed ducks at the duck pond next to the art museum while we waited for the girls.

Good Book

I got this book from the library and read it over the weekend at the recommendation of my cousin Kristy. It's a great book (fiction) about a pastor who is trying to build a church and the people around him. It's a great faith-builder with many, many lessons for any christian. Have tissues handy. It's kind-of lengthy, but hard to put down. (For anyone local- I'll be returning my copy to the main library this week, but the binding has come loose from the pages, so it will have to be fixed before it'll be back on the shelves- it was like that when I got it, for the record).

Another Update

That's the latest picture of me. I'm officially old. And if the pink pants (ha ha) and pill bottles all over the house weren't proof enough, this is the third post on my blog about my continuing back pain. You know you're old when all you can think to talk about are your aches and pains.

But, for those who care anyway, I went back to the doctor on Wednesday and they x-rayed my spine this time. She said I have a degenerated disc right at the site of my worst pain in the middle of my back. "That wasn't caused by the fall, but the fall probably triggered the problems you're having" is what she said. She didn't use the word "herniated", but after I came home and did some reading on the internet- I'm almost positive that's what has happened to the disc and what she was trying to say. When they're already in bad shape, discs are even more susceptible to being herniated if you bang them up the way I did.

P.S. According to the internet, degenerating discs happen to everyone "as they age". See? More proof.

Back to the story at hand- she gave me steroids for a week and more pain medicine and said to come back in two weeks if I am not better and she will send me for an MRI. The only way to see a herniation is with an MRI, as opposed to an x-ray. Although, most things I read said a herniated disc will heal on its own.

I started the steroids Wednesday and Thursday morning I woke up pain free for the first time in two weeks! I felt this weird sense of freedom. Now, I could still feel something wasn't right in my back- because I can actually feel what I think now is the bulging disc when I sit back against something. But, of course, I didn't care! I was free!-- and so I think I overdid it yesterday. Last night, I was in pain again and took the pain meds for bedtime. This morning, I'm okay again. I'll try to be nicer to my back today.

So... that's where I am.

And for anyone following the saga of my sore, sensitive tooth ... I also went to the dentist yesterday and do not need a root canal! Yay! He made me a mouth guard to sleep with- he thinks I am causing the pain by grinding my teeth at night.

There you go. My health history for today. :-)

Happy Anniversary To Us

It's kindof funny there is an ice storm sweeping the nation right now... (not funny to those affected, of course), but it's ironic for me because there was another ice storm that moved across the U.S. 15 years ago over these same few days! I know because that is the day Tim and I got married. I was to leave Michigan for Maryland on January 27 with my mom, sister and her boyfriend (now hubby) David. And we were to be married the next day- January 28. We rented a van and watched the weather and realized that if we didn't leave on the evening of the 26th, we would get trapped in Michigan by an ice storm. So we set out at night to "out-run" the storm and drove all night. I remember taking turns driving and trying to stay awake. We got to Maryland, tired, the morning of the 27th (see above). Tim's parents drove down on that day and had a really hard time getting through, as I remember it. We got married on the 28th, as planned, at the courthouse (and no I wasn't pregnant, and how rude of you to think so!). My dad couldn't be there because he had just started cancer treatments. I missed having him there.



Below is a picture of us that night at the Mt. Vernon Inn having our wedding dinner. It was a very fun night. My mom remembers fondly when Tim's dad asked the waiter, in period costume and acting very formal, if they had put Massengill on his salad. :-)









After the wedding, we left the ice and went to Cancun for our honeymoon. So beautiful! And wasn't I skinny?! Tim looks so cute in his straw hat... but he ended up getting sick after we ate at that little outside lunch counter on Isle Mujere, so that wasn't so fun. The third picture is us swimming in an underground river with lots of beautiful tropical fish. I was actually terrified the whole time, but was glad I did it!

After Cancun, we flew to Southern California for a job interview for Tim. While there, we visited Disney World. After California, we flew to Pennsylvania for a conference and it was winter again... we actually went skiing, but I can't find any pictures. It was two weeks before we were ready to settle back into our apartment in Maryland. The second picture below is a party they had for us at our church. We look so young!

This picture, and sorry it's crooked, I don't feel like re-scanning it, is a shower at my church in Lansing before leaving to get married. That's my B.F. Darcy and my sister in the picture with me:

Happy Anniversary To Us!!!

P.S. I went back to the doctor today for my back and they x-rayed my spine this time. She said I have a degenerated disk right at the spot where it hurts that may have been aggrivated by the fall. I am now on steroids and yet another pain medication. She said to give it two more weeks and if it still hurts, she will send me for an MRI.

Update On My Pitiful Condition

(A card from my mother-in-law- thanks, Elsie!)


So a week ago today I fell backward coming down the stairs carrying Kennedy and Tim took me to the doctor where they said I had a fractured rib and there was nothing they could really do - that I should take it easy and get some rest and "feel better" and I was handed two prescriptions . I think I overdid things over the weekend (maybe the medicine was working too well) and woke up Monday feeling not so good at all. The spot on my back where I was told the fracture was- is sore to touch- but that is not where most of the pain is, to be honest. Most of the pain is right in the middle of my spine. This morning when I woke up and sat up, I was not met with seering pain, so I took that as a good sign!! I have spent most of this week on the couch and have limited what I do as much as I can. (That's harder than you'd think when things need to get done). Wonderful servants/friends at church have brought delicious meals and that has helped SOOO much. I'd say my biggest complaint is that I'm bored. I can use the computer some, but after a while, my back starts to hurt. The medication makes it hard to concentrate on the crossword puzzle book I bought. I get sleepy fast when I try to read. So I'm often left with TV and sleep. Tomorrow Sonja is coming to visit me.... Yay! :-)

Thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts, prayers, meals, etc. :-)