Tag Archives: blog

My ONE-THOUSANDTH Post!

1000!  One…THOUSAND!

My blog is almost 4 years old.  This is the 1000th post.  But there are over 30 posts in my drafts folder waiting…just…waiting.

I started blogging 1409 days ago (11.29.06) a.k.a. three years, ten months and nine days ago.

Graphomaniacal.  In a word.  And if I could always sum things up in one word, there would not be this blog…with 1000 posts.

Oh, and as it happens, today is the one-year anniversary of the day I turned 50.  Or as some negative-Nellies like to call it: turning 51.  Sigh….

Aka – 18,628 days old.

Tre took the photo of me,  Stormie added me to the Sesame Street gang.  Some one else had posted the original pic and “1000” sentiment and I swiped it from Google-images.  Makes me happy. ;p

The most recent change to the blog is a new HOME MOVIES page.

 

My 800th Blog Post! That’s EIGHT-HUNDRED!!!

Why I write~

Do-overs, of course!  That is why I write and why I blog.  And to inspire, to rant, to rage and to whine unabashedly.  I blog to encourage and confess, to get comments (yes, I want comments) and be snippy-if-I-wanna.

I blog to be up close and personal and tell you how adorable my grandbebes are.  I like to write about the people I love and write to the people I love.  Sometimes I’m mushy.  Sometimes I am lamenting and sometimes I have to apologize – publicly!  I get to vent, I get to express my incredible opinions, and I get to gripe if I feel like it.

I hope I have made your mouth water with my food posts and infused you with passion or zeal on some amazing topic or another along the way.  I mean, after reading Thought Collage, are you anxious to be a grandparent?  Do you want to go in deeper in worship?  Are you in love with the Word?  Do you feel better about your life because I publicly self-deprecate and tell on myself?  I hope.  I hope.  I hope!

I am so grateful for those who wade through the meaningless drivel because they know I have the occasional day of inspired, grapho-epiphanic clarity {you KNOW I made that phrase up, don’t you?} which, I am just certain, causes the angelic choirs to break out into song and lives are changed forever for it.  Yeah.  Those are few and far between.  But they happen.  Wait for it!

And, finally,  I write because I love the words.  Not just any words.  The exact words that will capture what it is I really want to say.  When, oh, when will I actually find those?….

I love blogging~

{Source} 

Stormie asked me what witty banter I would have for my 800th blog post?  Could she have been mocking me?  Naaaaw…surely not.

I recently saw that people on Youtube do “vlogs!”  And I was like {lightbulb moment} Vlogs?  You can do that?  Hmmmmm….

Gratefulness

Thank-you to Tristan, the s-i-l, who got me up and running here at www.jeanierhoades.com on Novemeber 29, 2006.  Where would all these words have gone otherwise?  Thank-you for letting me say them and giving me a safe place to keep them!

Five Hundred

blogging

This is my 500th blog post!  Very cautiously and nervously entering the blog world in November of 2006, I find I can now blather endlessly about the minutia of my life, even sharing my most embarrassing moments in the mix.

blogging  blogging1

But still, I write it for my children and family.  That has always been the point.  And because my mom likes it.  But mostly for my children.

Because between the silly and the mundane, I have also exposed and cast down sin as it has been revealed to me.  I have spoken truths almost too unbearable to reveal in the light of day and I have written the things that someday they will look back on and read and see as an altar, a guidepost and landmark – the place where the truth of heaven was spoken and remembered in my life.  And it will become for them, eventually, if not now, the wisdom that will keep them on the right path.

“Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.”  Proverbs 22.28 NKJV

The coolest thing now, though, is realizing a promise of God to me in my lowest hour – that there would also be spiritual children, that I would be increased and multiplied, that I will continue to be vigorous and bear fruit in old age.  And true to His promise, my family enlarges (it has even happened through this blog!).  My capacity to love is increased.

So, for the children I know and the ones I have yet to meet, I write.  And I write. 

And I write what I have heard, what I have seen with my own eyes, what I have observed, and what I have touched with my own hands in the hopes that these things will be received in the spirit with which they are given and that they will, in some measure increase your joy (1 John 1.1-4).  May your joy be ever full!

Graphomaniacally yours…Jeanie/mom

NOTE TO SELF: “It is written…” was even for Jesus, a touchstone of proof, a declaration of the “fixedness of the divine record” to the faithfulness of God.  Make my written words nothing less, Lord…

Laugh

I just read a great blog post about laughing  and its’ importance, especially in this “constant, dismal media drain we are experiencing.”  The writer realized he had gone at least three months since his last really good, deep, long bout of laughter.

I can’t even remember how long it had been for me.  Sure I have laughed.  But I mean that kind that you cannot control, nor stop on queu.

But last Saturday night at Old Chicago way past my bedtime – oh yes!  Rolling, thunderous laughter!  And I wholeheartedly recommend it.  And it helps if you have a friend who talks like a ‘backwoods southern lawyer.’  Somehow adds to the experience.

A good laugh is like a good cry.  Sometimes you gotta give up control to get your balance!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Start planning for possible laughter episodes.  Watch Brian Regan, do somersaults with the grandkids, crack myself up if need be…

“I will be glad and rejoice in You…”  Ps. 9.2 NIV

Whew!

My blog disappeared yesterday for at least 6 hours.  I got panicked, but the amazing Tristan got me back up and running.  I was thinking I would miss re-reading the things God has shown me that I have written here and even now go back to.  They are markers of His faithfulness, reminders of the things He has been teaching me over the past 2 years and a couple of months.  I would just really miss it if I lost them.

Dave says I need to save copies.  But I have truly used it as an online web-log=blog!

????

house-and-hunter-012

On a cuter note ~ this morning during our “school time,” as I watched Hunter coloring the crap out of his worksheet, I asked, with all true sincerity, because I was thinking perhaps he had just never thought about slowing it down and concentrating on what those lines were there for to begin with,  “Hunter, have you ever considered coloring inside the lines?” 

To which he actually replied, “No, I’m not a ‘line kind of guy.’  I’m an out of line kind of guy.”  And, he is.

Relieved and amused, all in one day!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Back up writing.  Take a cue from Hunter about coloring outside the lines.

pictured: Hunter getting to do a back-flip, one week ago

A Thankful Tree, the Flu, a Light Snow and a “Blogoversary”

    

Thanksgiving.

Can I just say the sooner the leftovers are gone, the better (except for Stormie’s pumpkin pies)?  But all delish.

We did a “thankful” tree on Thanksgiving, everyone filling out little “leaves” and hanging them with things for which we are grateful written.

Thumbnails (click for larger image):

  • The Thankful Tree
  • Wrex, whose medium was colored pencils, wanted his art on the “family art wall.”  The picture was drawn by Amy Jo Becker and includes the lyrics to a little turkey ditty (Five Fat Turkeys are We) to the tune of a song from The Mikado.
  • Turkey-bread by Stefane (who, as a devoted Texan, also introduced us to “Armadillo Eggs”-which are fabulous!)
  • Fake Thanksgiving-food cupcakes by Tredessa and Stormie for Jovan, who does not like one thing  – not one  Thanksgiving-related food (not turkey, not dressing, not mashed potatoes, nor gravy…not green bean casserole, not cranberries, not even pumpkin pie!)!  So the girls made cupcakes (which she loves) that LOOKED like Thanksgiving food using icing, white chocolate, Starburst candies and melted caramel.
  •  

    The Flu.

    In the middle of the night following Thanksgiving, I got hit with a full-on, horrid stomach flu, complete with fever, chills, and wrenching.  I won’t say more.  If it hadn’t been for the entire Kelley family having contracted and suffered through it just before Thanksgiving (Gavin does go to public school now – germ breeding grounds!), I’d have been thinking food poisoning.  But no, just a very untimely stomach bug!  So I spent Friday, while my husband and daughters were all shopping madly, in bed – when I wasn’t running to the bathroom.  Truly a “Black Friday” for me!

    I wish the google image above really did reflect my 3 a.m. view Friday morning!

    Snow at Last.

    At about 11 o’clock last night, we looked outside to see the most beautiful snow.  My nephew Zach from Montana, living with us while he completes a ministerial internship here, had just asked 2 days ago, “Yeah-so when do you guys get snow here?”  I am not a huge fan, but since it has so politely remained largely at bay this year so far, it was a welcome sight.  This morning the grass is almost covered and every branch has a puffy white coating and it is lovely and makes you want to watch Christmas movies and wrap presents.

    This is the snow-on-the-branches view out the back door this morning at 7:15 a.m., just after the bunny rabbit, who’d been looking in at me, hopped away.

    Blogoversary.

    Teena from Toronto left me a “Happy Blogoversary” message this morning and I realized that, yes, it is indeed my “blogoversary.”  How did she know that?

    Two years ago today, I started blogging.  The kids found and bequeathed the image that adorns my blog banner to get me started.  They all said she looks just like me, and I am happy they understand the inner me, for surely that is what they see. 

    To blog was both exhilerating and trepidatious for me.  I was so afraid to hit the “post” button back in those days, fearful of what my words would reveal of me, but also needing a place to tell some truth and speak some words I was struggling to communicate, especially to my children.  I was so cautious and agonized over how much to say, carefully wondering how much I could really tell truthfully, lest my truth hurt some one else.  You can read my very first blog here. (from 11.29.06)

    Now I blather on with both spiritual epiphanies as they come (they are for me, anyway) and the torrid, word-filled minutia of my life (like telling you about my stomach flu, for crying out loud!!).  This is my 398th post and I have 30 drafts in the folder waiting for me to finish off and publish – there is no end in sight, people!  And I always wonder about when I am gone – if my offspring should really ever begin to read this stuff, investigating it as they look for meaning and understanding of their past and their own lives – how really weird will they think I was? 

    It all remains to be seen…from the ever-graphomaniacal Jeanie

    NOTE TO FAMILY:  To all the Rhoadeses in every direction-hope Thanksgiving was warm and wonderful for you.  To the whole Moslander bunch, far and wide, always think of you and miss you on these days. 1991 was our last everyone-together Thanksgiving, and that does not seem right!

    Top 10 Reasons I’m Blogging

    I am blogging now!  My amazing son-in-law, Tristan Kelley, got me set up, so with a nod to David Letterman for the use of his format, I’ll tell you why.  Here goes:

    Top Ten Reasons I’m Blogging Now

    10. This is a way to record what is happening in my life in all different areas.  I stunk at keeping diaries when I was young (always lost the key), and my journaling has been sporadic, but if I think some one will discover I’ve been neglectful, I am motivated to do it!

    9. Bad memory.  This shall be a record of my journey for everything I may forget as the days and weeks go by.  And the kids can tell you, that could be a lot!

    8. Because I said so…and I’m the mom! :)  This is a chance to speak into the lives of my children (I hope to inspire and encourage them) and other friends and family and tell them things I want to make sure they know.  And they can even talk back (through the use of “comments”).  It’s your chance, kiddos!

    7. I LOVE the site Tris set up for me!  My girls found this stock image of the red-head and Tristan made the fall leaves swirl.  It makes me laugh every time I see it.  So, for that reason, I will be here blogging! [update: this was in reference to original header gif]

    6. It’ll help me process what I am thinking and learning and, as I write,  help me figure out who God intended me to be.  “I think, therefore, I blog.”

    i think therefore i blog jeanierhoadesdotcom

    5. Because I just know everyone will adore all my grandkid-stories and pictures!

    4. You’re so far away: hopefully, I’ll get comments from friends old and new, near and far. And those letters that never seemed to have been mailed will morph into shorter, but more steady contact! HOPE-hope-hope!

    3. I have soooooo much to say!  Ask any of my childhood school teachers! But I hate talking on the phone. So. Blog.

    2. Really cool, intelligent people seem to have blogs.  I am hoping to become one of those.

    And the number one reason I am now blogging:  1.  My mother will like it!

    Blessings! Jeanie

    NOTE TO SELF: Ask Tristan where spellcheck is on this thing???