Grateful Grumbler

Article written for the December Issue of the Diether Gazette

I remember Justin calling little Lorein and me whiners (with great disgust I might add) when we were swimming at the lake and complaining to our mother about something.  I have tried to suppress this tendency.  My own children are pretty good at whining so we have implemented a “no whining” policy with little success.  The apple does not fall far from the tree still.  Dad asked me to talk about the Resurrection for Cleve’s Memorial the morning of the Memorial.  Dad did not want me losing sleep so he waited to ask me.  Let me tell you, I whined bitterly.  Karl had been asked to conduct; he did not whine.  Justin was asked to speak about the Plan of Happiness; he did not whine.  Breezy was asked to play the piano; she did not whine.  My dad told me that I should be grateful that he waited until right before because my stress was minimized.  So, in an effort to be more grateful, I am going to imitate Kristi’s gratitude article a few Christmases ago.

Okay, I tried.  I wrote reasons that I was grateful for Dad, Mom, Renee, and Justin, and it was way too much work.  I will be content with being a grumbler.

Evan has been biking less frequently to work with his nice bike; he’s down to about once a week now.  I think the dark and the cold have something to do with that.  He still enjoys his job and we are all happy that he hasn’t had to do much traveling lately. 

I’ve been getting up at 6 in the morning four times a week to go running with a friend.  The cold and dark make it a lot harder to be motivated to go, but at least I’m turning into a smoking hottie.  I also do aerobics at the church three times a week, which includes teaching the class on Fridays.

Moriah, Fiona and Kira are growing fast and keeping life interesting.  Moriah goes to Preschool Pals twice a week and really loves it.  It’s made us look forward to kindergarten next year now that we can see that she is really going to like it.  Fiona loves trying to keep up with her big sister.  She has a great imagination and can tell some interesting stories when you ask her what she did that day.  Fiona also loves to be awake in the morning and she is very perky when she wakes up, even though the rest of the family is not.  She and Grandma were great morning buddies when we visited for Thanksgiving.  Kira is crawling all over and climbing up on everything.  She has two bottom teeth which gives her a pretty cute smile.  Her big sisters can’t get enough of her and they can’t understand why Mom and Dad always get in the way of them playing with their doll, err sister.

We had a great visit with everybody at Thanksgiving.  Cleve’s memorial service was definitely a highlight as was the delicious Thanksgiving dinner Mom put on.  We’ll be staying home for Christmas this year, for only the second time since we’ve been married.  It’s nice that we have so many family members close by this year.  We’ve got a couple of spare rooms too if anyone wants to come visit for Christmas.

Being a whiner pays off; Evan wrote the rest of the article for me!  He tried to get back at me by making it sound like I wrote it and putting in comments that he hoped I wouldn’t catch and edit out.  I found them though and no, you can’t read the original article.  Oh wait, Evan wrote this part, too.

Photo Courtesy of my friend Kelley