Here in Oklahoma, you don't hear the word blizzard, but that's what we had on Christmas Eve. Between 6-8 inches of snow. Yippee!!!!! The only bad thing was that we were stuck at home on Christmas day. We don't own a 4-wheel drive vehicle. My brother was good enough to come and get us and take us to my mom's. His son took the daughter and her boyfriend. We were stuck at Granny's till someone took us back home. My sister and brother-in-law got stuck in their driveway, as did their daughter and family. (Bubba and Sissy) After about 4-5 hours of trying to get unstuck the neice had someone pull them out and the brother-in-law got his tractor and flatbed trailer and that is how they got to granny's for christmas. 4 miles away.....Let's just say this was an interesting Christmas....I was told that if I ever asked for a "White Christmas" again, the family was gonna let me have it......
Needless to say the candlelight service at church was cancelled.
Santa was pretty good to all of us this year. I was better than I thought this past year, haha!!
We are now waiting on some more snow tonight.......I love it!!!!!!!!
Ritzy thinks i am nuts.......
He had plans to cut wood this last week on his days off, well, with all this snow, that did not happen.
I guess I will just wait and see what the new year brings..........
With that Ritzywife is out for now...............

Yes, the days and weeks leading up to Christmas are my favorite times of the year. I love the anticipation of watching the little ones opening gifts, seeing their faces as they see what "Santa" has brought them. I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown by this year. I have been thinking about this time last year----Ritzy had just returned from Iraq, we did not know yet that my niece had brain cancer. Life sure throws curve balls sometimes. Everyone goes thru something...
An older man who I have known nearly all my life went to be with the Lord a couple of days ago. His wife is in my sunday school class. His funeral service was today, I played the piano for it. Mom, Dad, my sister and niece all sang. It was a good service.
I will be praying for his family over this Christmas holiday.

Back to Ritzy and I - we are still adjusting after his return.
Always keep our soldiers and their families in your thoughts and prayers......
I have a special place in my heart for these people who sacrifice so much....
I know because I have been there.......

SNOW!!!!
Here in Oklahoma we have a very good chance of having a "White Christmas" this year.
I love it!!!!! It is definitely going to be cold, as it should at Christmastime ;-)
I just hope we can get the snow without the icy roads.
We are supposed to go to my sister's (Nana's) tomorrow afternoon to watch her grandkids open their gifts. It is going to be fun. Tomorrow night at 8pm we are having a candlelight service at our church. Looking forward to that also.
Christmas morning we will get up and exchange gifts here in our home, then we will all go to Granny's for gifts and lunch. Mom usually has breakfast cooked when we all get there.

Ritzywife wants to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas

Well I don't have to wonder where the cold weather is anymore. It has finally arrived here in Oklahoma. We have the woodstove going good and the electric blanket sure feels good to Ritzywife at night.
My neice finished her radiation treatments last week. Her report looks good for now. She still has to take the chemotherapy for a year. The baby that was born early is doing wonderful.
I finished ALL the Christmas shopping yesterday. The tree was kind of bare and I could not stand it so I wrapped all those gifts today. They are now under it. I am glad it is done.....
Now all I have to do is wait on Santa. Ritzywife has tried to be good this past year......
We have put a new metal roof on the house, painted the gutter and trim. I have done a few more things inside. This has been a very busy Fall. Ritzy stays busy cutting and selling wood.
Our trip to Wisconsin is a "no-go" Ritzy decided he did not want to risk driving in any bad weather. His Mom said she was glad he had changed his mind. Besides that, the daughter started a new job and the son said he did not want to take off work. This was going to be an everyone go or no-one goes trip.
This is and has always been my favorite time of year as far as holidays go. I love Christmas!!!!!!
The decorating, the music, just the "feeling" in the air I guess.......
As I sit her I have my ear buds on listening to a christmas cd by Third Day. It is a good one!!
Anybody could be talking to me ( or about me ) and I would not have a clue, haha!!
With that Ritzywife is out....................

The past couple of weeks have been very busy. Last week I started redoing my bathroom. I just finished tonite. I love the way it turned out. Put up "beadbord" wallpaper and country bath border. Painted the closets dark blue with coffee trim. Put tiles around tub. But first I had to take off the old ceramic tiles. Did that tonite. We just finished cleaning our mess up. Ritzy cut and glued the tiles and I put them on the wall. Last weekend the family put a metal roof on our house. Looks good. Now Ritzy gets to paint the gutter. I already have the paint waiting on him. haha!!
I put new border (apples) in my kitchen yesterday. Now all I have to do is put new border in the living room. I am waiting on that to arrive. All this started when I decided to redo our bedroom a couple of months ago. My body is saying (((((enough already))))).....
I cannot beleive it is November already. The weather still feels like summer. I think it is supposed to cool off in a couple of days, tho.
We are planning a trip to Wisconsin with the kids in December, weather permitting.
We have never visited during the "holidays" all these years we have been married. Ritzy was always afraid of having to drive in bad weather. Ritzy, the kids and I discussed this trip as being our Christmas present. You get to a point and receiving "things" doesn't matter near as much as spending time with family. You never know how long you have with them.
My neice has only 2 weeks of her radiation treatment left. She was saying today that on her birthday, November 30, they will be taking an MRI to see the progress of her treatments. I told her it would be a wonderful birthday present not to have any of that nasty thing left.
I have gone with her a couple of times to watch the kids while she takes her treatment. It only lasts 10-15 minutes. We just stay in the car and I play with the kiddos.
WOW, I have "nothing" planned for tomorrow. What will I do???????
I'm almost sure something will come up. It always does.....
I'll be giving this body a rest, I guess....sounds good!!!
It is getting late so I better go.
Ritzywife out!

I know it has been awhile but our internet has been very slow. It would take a long time for the pages to load and I just didn't have the patience to wait. It is still not as fast as it should be. It's all because of this thing called "Fair Access". We have satellite internet and if you use too much bandwidth they slow you down. I think it "stinks", but what can ya do???? We are paying for it, we should get to use it....Enough of that.....
My neice has just finished her second week of radiation and chemotherapy. The doctors told her that everything is looking "good". The baby is doing great.
She weighs 6 1/2 pounds and is 20 inches long. I have not been around the baby since she was able to come home because last week I came down with a cold. I sure wasn't going to get her sick. I can't wait till I am over this so I can hold her. Ritzy can't wait either because my night coughing keeps him (and me) awake...
It has been wet and cloudy for a while and I am ready to see a sunny day. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny.
It is after midnight and I am wide awake. Could be because of that frozen coffee I drank around 8 tonite ;-)
The daughter was telling me about them and I had her get me one on her way home from work tonite. Quik Trip has them. It sure was good, but I am paying for it now. I went to bed and tried to fall asleep, but that wasn't working so here I am........
Ritzy and I bought some new furniture and it was delivered yesterday. I love it!!!!
A large couch, a chair and 1/2 and a large ottoman. NICE!!!!!!
This should last Ritzy and I quite a while....."it better as much as I spent on it, haha!!"
I have already told those 2 adult kids no eating, drinking, or dogs on it....I expect them to follow the rules...
We saved the old couch, for whoever moves out first, hahaha!!!!! nothing really wrong with it except it reclined on each end and was smaller than the new one. I was ready for a real sofa.....
I was telling the daughter that we have enough furniture in our garage to furnish a small apartment, hint, hint.........
Ritzy has been busy cutting and selling wood. Wow, that big woodpile dwindled to almost nothing the past couple of weeks. People are getting ready for winter.
My sister's and neice's friends are having a benefit supper at our church for the neice tomorrow night which I hope does well. I told Ritzy that is where we are going for our supper. (I smarter than I look, haha.) That way - I don't have to cook or clean my kitchen.......
This is about all I have for now. Hopefully my next post won't take as long....
Ritzywife out!

My neice is doing ok after her surgery. She still has to talk slow and sometimes can't think of the word she is trying to say. A BIG difference frome the way she used to be. The baby, a little girl, is still in the hospital. She is finally starting to drink from a bottle. We are hoping that by the end of the week she will get to come home. I learned today that my neice has Astrocytoma - grade III cancer in her brain. That is not good at all. She has been to the dr.'s who will be treating her the past 2 days to set up a treatment plan. She goes to get the staples out Friday and next Wednesday she starts 6 weeks of Radiation 5 days a week. She will also be taking a chemotherapy pill for a year. This is going to be a long haul for everyone. I realize that sometimes healing doesn't take place. God never promised it would. What He does promise is that He will be there to help us through whatever happens. I am going to leave it at that.
It has been busy around here. We were either going to the hospital or down to my sister's or babysitting here at home the past few weeks.
I still cannot believe this is happening.
She is the first grand-child of our immediate family. Of course I spoiled her rotten when she was little. She was 4 years old when Ritzy and I married. We have always been close. I could always tell her what I thought, good or bad. Granny & Papa have 20 grand, great-grandchildren now. No thanks to my two kids ;-) I wish they would contribute their part, haha!!!!!
On to other things............the weather here in Oklahoma has been wonderful lately!!!! I know it won't last, but it will be hard to see it turn colder.
I think with the weather pattern we have had we are due for a beautiful Fall. I see the leaves on the trees turning and it is really pretty.
Ritzy is talking about bringing some wood up to the house to prepare for the cold weather.
This looks to be a busy week also, and with that Ritzywife is out.............

I don't know how else to say it. What do you do????
My neice just delivered her baby 9 weeks early. Baby weighed just a little over 4 lbs. She is doing very well. As for the neice, not so hot. During the pregnancy she learned she had a "mass" in her brain. The plan was to let the baby be born and then do a biopsy on the mass. Well that did not happen. Tuesday she was having a bad headache and her baby doctor suggested a ct scan. It showed the mass had grown significantly in the past couple of months, so......change of plans. Wednesday, they put the neice out, delivered the baby by c-section, and immedietly went to brain surgery. The surgeon told us ge got "all he could" (maybe half to 3/4 of the tumor) without hurting her. She was still having a few problems thinking and talking, dont know if that is due to the tumor itself, the surgery or the swelling, but Ritzy and I went to visit her last night and she was not doing well at all. Could not think,or tell us where she was and had a very limited vocabulary. I was more than a little worried. We found out this morning that the mass is malignant cancer. Geez, she is only 28 years old with a husband, 8 yr old son and daughters - ages--4, 10 months and newborn.
This Aunt is ticked off and that is putting it nicely!!!!!!!!!!!
We will be pulling together as a family and helping with the kids or neice or whatever. I think they are going to send her to Houston soon for treatment.
That is about all I have for now.
Ritzywife is out!!!