Sapporo Japan For Princess Four

Princess Four has wanted to go on a mission for some time. About a year ago, I was driving with her to a Disney audition and we talked about her serving as a missionary. Here is a link to a post about that.

I told her that missions can be very hard at times and you have to KNOW that you KNOW you are to be there as a missionary or it makes it hard to be there and some people come home. 

I told her that if she KNOWS she is supposed to be there and gets sick, then she knows it is part of the experience but if she is just out there for a "trip" to another country, she won't last. 

I told her she should pray to God asking if he wanted her to serve as a missionary so that if she chooses to go, she will KNOW she is supposed to be there. 

Having that knowledge makes getting through the difficult times easier. I told her that she doesn't need to get sick to come home and if she feels like she wants to come home, she should just "choose" to come home rather than getting injured or sick to justify coming home. 


Not that I think either of my girls did that but I believe Princess Two had to come home so that the missionary medical would help pay for her gallbladder surgery as we had no health insurance for her at that time. She was in Taiwan long enough to learn Chinese and then home to get surgery. Here is a link to that post. 


With all that said, she is truly enthusiastic about going and I KNOW that she KNOWS that she is supposed to go on a mission. I don't think missions are for everyone but she REALLY wants this, every day she is working on gaining more knowledge and trying to be a better person.


Today, she went out serving with some local missionaries serving in our area and is going back out on Thursday to serve with them again. She was so cute going to the mailbox and the look of excitement on her face when she saw the packet in the box. She couldn't resist running into the house and just collapsed on the floor with anticipation. 

We got on conference calls once everyone was home from work and we got the cameras rolling and she read out her call and when she read "Sapporo Japan" none of us could believe it. Not one person guessed she would go there. She said that Japan was her second choice but you don't get to write that down when submitting your papers, they just pick for you. 

She has had several years of Spanish and with her sisters going foreign, she thought she may go to South America somewhere but she is SO excited to go there. 

It is really cold and gets lots of snow and you can see Russia from the tip of her mission so she is a bit nervous about how cold it will be. She has to purchase a bike, helmet, mirrors, lights etc when arriving for $500. She needs $200 for fees when traveling and $60-$80 for bedding when she gets there as well as getting her ready. 

God is good and someone who wants to remain anonymous said they would donated $100 a month to the cost of the $400 monthly and my dad and his wife are doing $100 as well so we are halfway to the monthly fees. She has been working hard at several jobs during the summers and one during her school year so she has enough to cover the rest but I hope she can have something to come home to. I used my retirement to help pay for Princess One and Two's missions so they could have some funds to get back into school when they got home. 

I know God will provide as he always does. We are VERY excited for her to have this experience and learn the worlds 9th most common language. We have the top three covered with Chinese - Princess Two. Spanish - Prince One and we all speak high school Spanish. We have English which is third. 
 
I doubt we will get four and five but I took Portuguese in college and understand it some but Princess Five may be able to serve as a missionary and learn Portuguese or Russian. I have many cousins that learned Russian and eventually served as missionaries there. We will now have five out of ten of the worlds top languages.   

We have a few months to get her ready and she will be leaving in November just before Thanksgiving.... Exciting times...... 

Happy Birthday To Me - Blessed Day

 It was my birthday recently. I am to the point where it doesn't seem to matter much to me as it is just another day in life. I can't eat much anymore and I have never really enjoyed cake or cupcakes and now I know that has to do with my gluten allergy. 

I have so much going on in my world and even forgot it was my birthday until Princess Once and her husband called to sing to me. 

The girls did make it wonderful as the night before right at midnight, Princess Four and Five came to my room and sang to me just before my phone rang and Princess Two called wanting to be the first to wish me a "happy birthday" as that has become somewhat of a competition in our family. 


Princess Three texted while I was on the phone wishing me "happy birthday" and love. My dad and his wife took the prize along with one of my New Zealand host families by sending me cards that arrived before the big day. 

My dad and his wife sent me some cash and had me in tears as they both wrote on the card. They told me to do something that would take my mind off my stressful life but also wrote words of love, sharing how they admire me for how I raised my girls and how I can stretch my finances etc. 

I was truly in tears. It only got worse when I called to thank them for the lovely card and they shared that they want to help pay for Princess Fours mission as they did her sisters by paying $100 a month to help support her on her mission. 

They have done this for every grandchild that has served and I am truly grateful as at times, they have seven missionaries out and with that $700 a month, they could have bought a bigger house, nicer trailer, or new cars. 
 
They have never complained and are so gracious to do that for our family. I pray I will have the resources at that point in my life to continue with their generous tradition with my grandchildren. 


Princess Four and Five posted little sticky notes all over my room, door, bathroom etc with things they "love" about me. It was funny because at first, I didn't see the notes on my bedroom door as they were light like my door but when I got into the room, they used different colors of notes so they stood out a bit more. 


I kept finding them as the night went on and even when I went to bed, closed the door and turned out the light, I saw some on the mirror on the back of the door and had to get up and turn the light on so I could read them. It was sweet to see what they had written.

We got pizza's for dinner and Princess Four bought me beautiful "queen" roses as that was their name along with 2 containers of my favorite ice cream, at the moment, called "Heavenly Hash" to enjoy. 

Princess Two surprised us all showing up the next day with some fun movies as gifts and helped us clean out a few things which was wonderful along with taking some stuff for her sister who she will see before we will. 
 
I got a few emails from my siblings but was a bit teary when I didn't get a call from my mother who always called me to sing to me. She usually made up some funny lyrics to "happy birthday" and I had saved my song that she left on my voicemail last year. I played it and shed a tear as it is my first birthday without my mother...... I miss her and her birthday is coming up soon and I will miss her then as I always called to sing to her as well. 
 
It was a great birthday with messages of love from those that matter. I loved this last note they put on my desk drawer that said, "I love how you always give gratitude." It made me smile. 

My favorite birthday present is that Princess Four got her mission call.....You will have to wait until tomorrow to find out where she is going......

Nintendo Original BEST FIX EVER for No More Blowing Into your NES

We have an original Nintendo Entertainment System that we purchased in the 80's. We played it late into the night enjoying the new games as they came out. 


When they came out with kids games, we purchased the Sesame Street games for the girls. My oldest three girls used to play the games until Sega came out and then playstation and now Wii. 


Many years ago, I was going to sell the system at a yard sale but Princess One said she wanted it. She kept it for a few years. Then, they upgraded and gave it to Princess Two. She couldn't get it to work well as we kept having to "blow" into the system to get it to connect and play the games. 
 
When she couldn't get it to work, she stuck it in Princess Five's car and it was in the car accident she had last month. The games were all over and the kind officer and volunteers picked up the games and the power cord was actually stuck in a wrinkle of metal in the car and was hanging down when we went to get her stuff out of the car and the girls took some time to get it out.
 
I cleaned all the games on the outside getting dust off and hooked it up to a small TV and it worked like before when I blew into the system. 

I took pictures of it all with the 21 games and got the original box out of the garage and had it ready to sell on the local site but figured I would ask the other girls if they wanted it and Princess Three said if no one else wanted it, she would like it. 

I am always happy if I can find something Princess Three likes as she is a minimalist and is very hard to shop for so I told her I would try and fix the "blowing" into it problem before giving it to her. 
 
I spent a full day looking online and following tutorials on pulling the pins out, cleaning it with a tarnish cleaner and alcohol and boiling it. 

I cleaned every game with the cleaner and alcohol and I actually made things worse. After trying everything I could find online, I couldn't make it work. 
 
I ordered a new 72 pin connector from Ebay for $10 and it got here a few days later. I spent another full day trying to get it to work. It was tight and worked only for a few games but never worked well. 
 
I called the guy I bought it from and he said it was because I used the other cleaners on the games and didn't take the old games apart that it didn't work. He also said I needed a gritty eraser that he sells to erase the contacts and take the games apart and use it before it will work and that I needed to clean his new part now that I used it with the "dirty" games that I had cleaned. Yet, the old pin worked with the "dirty" games but just sometimes and if I wiggled them. 
 
When he said "gritty" and erase the contacts, I thought, I wonder if a really fine 00 steel wool would work. So, I took a non-favorite game, unscrewed it and used the steel wool to run over the contacts of the game on both sides and then used rubbing alcohol to wash it clean. I put it into the original 72 connector and it worked. So, I spent some time opening and cleaning a few games that way. 

Then, I had the idea to just use a thin credit card and push the steel wool into the contact area and run it up and down a few times and then tapped it on the table to get any metal shavings out of the game and then I washed the contacts and surrounding area with a q-tip filled with alcohol. It worked and took all of about 30 seconds to clean each game! 

I then did the credit card with the 00 steel wool in the 72 pin connector and cleaned it as well and then cleaned the contacts on the mother board with the steel wool and alcohol and put the connector back on and tried every game and they all worked first try!!!!! The really fine steel wool worked great!! 
 
I left the game system out for a few days and Princess Four and Five had a great time playing Dr. Mario and some other games. I laughed when I came out at 1 a.m. thinking Princess Five had been in bed for hours only to find the two of them playing a game. 
 
I told Princess Five to head to bed as she had school in the morning and they both said, "Can we finish this level?" It brought back SO many memories of having heard that many times before so many years ago. 
 
I hope Princess Three enjoys her birthday gift. I was happy I kept the original box. I actually had the original playstation 2 box but we had gotten rid of that a few years back so it was nice that I actually found the original Nintendo box. For some reason, they are worth more with all the original packaging and parts! 

I was able to "return to sender" the 72 pin I purchased and get a refund on the part that I didn't end up using that was made of aluminum or tin where the original actually has some gold in it! 
 
Princess Three will be happy to know that Zelda and Link both work now without any effort! I know she will have some fun hours re-living the Zelda days! 

I am so grateful for inspiration as I finally prayed for help after spending three days I didn't have working on this for her. God is good and the inspiration worked so much better than the hours of youtube videos I watched on how to fix it. God is Great if we just ask and give Him a chance to answer our prayers! Who would have thought I could fix it for free with something I already had in the garage!

Teaching an Old Blogger New Tricks - Thanks Princess Four

Today, Princess Four asked me why I don't have links on my videos to my other videos and why I don't link to my blog from youtube. I told her I didn't know how and I am busy and when I start figuring things like that out, it takes me hours of time I don't have in my life right now.

She was rubbing my feet while I was at the computer and kept saying, "Just watch a tutorial video on it on youtube while I rub your feet."

Now, I know in all reality that it isn't that simple and kept resisting as it just takes longer than I want it to take but she kept insisting so we started watching one man and he had a south sea accent of some kind and hopped around so fast I couldn't follow him past the first few pages and we were having a difficult time understanding him.

True to form, I had just picked the shortest video and watched it. But, we clicked on the "next" video that was a bit longer and he was from India with a different accent and we both started laughing as we couldn't seem to find one that spoke our same language but the first part of his tutorial was sufficient to get me to the pages I needed to figure the rest out.

From there however, I needed to link my blog page and that was horrible and took forever as it wouldn't accept my password for some reason but after an hour or two, we went back and I typed it right in and off we went. So, we linked my blog.com to youtube so I can send people to my blog directly with a link on my videos now.

From there, I was able to put little "Subscribe" boxes on my videos so that with one link, people can subscribe to my youtube channel. That was fun. My problem is that this type of stuff and editing takes so long and my life is so busy that I hate to do it. Just thinking about going back and putting subscribe boxes on the over 300 youtube videos I have uploaded makes me stressed so I doubt I will ever do it because it takes quite some time to put it on each video.

Her suggestion, while she was so amazingly rubbing my swollen feet, was that I put them on my most viewed videos and not worry about the rest. She shared that if I can get people to watch both my toenail fungus videos, I double my returns on those larger viewed videos making twice as much monthly as I am on just one video.

Of course, my Suma Cum Laud  Business Graduate would come up with that so she sat with me for the four hours it took to figure it all out and helped me link the one video to the other video and between the two of us, we make a pretty good team as I figured that I needed to put the link after the opening of the video or they may not watch both videos.

We also figured out how to add the subscribe button and at the end of one of the videos, I linked them to my blog and she noticed that google put an essential oil advertisement on my blog and told me that I should really get some of my own advertisers and put them on my blog. I laughed..... Like I have TIME for that..... She laughed when I laughed as she knows being here just a week now how crazy my days are with everything going on with Princess Fives situation.

I am grateful she was so insistent in her willingness to help me and push my limits as truly, I haven't even looked at half the pages on my youtube channel and editing pages, in fact, we saw LOTS of new pages including one that tells me what countries are watching and how much of the advertisement money comes from each country. We had two countries on there we hadn't heard of and were embarrassed to admit. It is a learning curve but considering I am as busy as I am, it is amazing to me that I have blogged for as many years as I have and she suggested that instead of the lengthy blog I had planned to write, since it was after 4 a.m., I write one about learning this new thing. I smiled when I opened my blog page and saw that at that very moment I had all 1'a on my "online now" page showing people from five different countries yet each had all one's in the totals.

It took it as a sign that I need to continue to figure out how to do this thing that seems so overwhelming to me. I still don't know half of the stuff on my blog let alone youtube as there are SO many options. Considering my age, I think I do "OK" but we can all stand to learn more.

Thanks Princess Four for teaching this old blogging mom some new tricks!!! And, for rubbing my tired and swollen feet! I'm gonna miss you when your gone!

Framing A Record Memory - Gift From Grandma

 

I blogged a few weeks back about my mothers estate items being delivered to my home. It gave me a full house in the living room until I could finish some of the "projects" needed to get the items into usable shape. 

One item I inherited was my mothers Pace Victrola. Here is that post. Interestingly enough, when I took the picture of the items I inherited for my blog, this very record was brought to my home in the Victrola and the picture I took shows this record in the dusty Victrola. It was the last record my mother listened to on the player.

 

The record is a "Cameo" album. One side was "A Boys Best Friend is His Mother." which is the record which is playing on the above video here where I share how I fixed the needle screw. Just listen to the beginning as that is the record with that song.  

I had the impression that my mother would like my niece whose name happens to be "Cameo" to get the record. I called Cameo's mom and asked when her birthday was as I am NOT one of those people who remembers everyone's birthday. I wish I were that way, but having over 50 nephews and nieces, it makes it hard. 

Her mom said it was a few months away so I wasn't worried, I knew it wasn't pressing to get done and I could figure it out after the crazy of car accidents, missions, returning to school etc was over. 

I was trying to sleep and of course, being exhausted, I couldn't so I just laid in bed for over and hour before dragging myself up to be useful since I wasn't getting sleep anyway. 

While laying there, I thought of this niece. She is so talented and I thought about hiring her to make me some Halloween decorations for one of the girls doll houses as she is really talented with little fimo clay food, etc.  

While out running errands, I felt like I needed to frame the record and get it to her today. I wasn't sure why but I bought a document glass frame with the see through sides. I thought it would make the record stand out more. 

I came home and cleaned the record and after consulting a specialist on old records, I found that "windex" is the product of choice to clean them. I sprayed it and cleaned it as best as one can with a record that is almost twice my age.

I put it between the glass and held it above my head to make sure it was centered and had to move it a few times to get it right. I show in the bottom video how I framed it and I really like how it came out. I obviously cleaned all the sides of the glass and I dinged the edge so I just took a Sharpie marker and filled in the scratches I made.

I called my sister and talked to her daughter and found out that Cameo was starting high school this week and was nervous and I then realized why it was important that I gave her the record today. My mom was probably up in heaven hounding me to get it done to let Cameo know that someone was thinking of her..... 

My sister dropped by and I gave it to my niece and she was very happy about it and I suggested maybe putting a little information paper in with the record or something but she told me she liked it just the way it was, simple and the focal point. 

I know it made her feel good that someone was thinking of her and for some reason, I thought she was still attending a charter school and not the public high school so I am glad that I was "inspired" to follow that "feeling" and follow through with framing that and giving it to her on a day when she may need it. 

I thought it came out nice and am glad it will be appreciated. I thought she could hang it in her art studio one day as she is one TALENTED girl! I have no doubt she will make it big some day!   

Clay Poultice With Cayenne Pepper To Open Pores

Over the past week, at least five people have mentioned clay poultices to me. I figured it was a sign that I should probably do them on Princess Five. 

In my mind, clay poultices are messy. I envisioned my mother putting mud on my bee stings when I was little and dirty water dripping off my limbs. 

I think because of those images, I was a bit hesitant to do a clay poultice. I have used clay on stings but always use "mud mask" and put that on injection sites, stings, or spider bites etc. 


I have never had a child with a large area of injury before. The biggest trama was a broken arm from monkey bars which was casted immediately, and Princess Three's foot being cut open on the fourth of July which you can read about here.

So, I just said a prayer and pulled out some "Redmond" clay which is mined deep in the earth in their salt mines. I have posted about the "Redmond" salt before here. 

I just made a quick past out of the clay and proceeded to lay it out just as I did the comfrey poultices as they have worked so well using the paper towels to hold the stuff together and allow it to work through the towel without making a mess on the skin.  

When I was about to put the poultice on, I had the "impression" or "inspiration" to put a bit of cayenne pepper onto it. It isn't a really hot version which I do have but I just used the table seasoning version and barely sprinkled it over the clay.  
 
When I pondered on why I was to do that, the thought came that cayenne opens the pours like a hot bath would, that allows more toxins, heat etc out. I thought it seemed logical but whatever the reason, I did what my "gut" told me to do and it didn't seem to hurt.

Before putting it on, I flipped the dry side to be touching the plastic wrap and put the more moist bottom side towards the skin. I wrapped it in plastic wrap but after about 20 minutes, I took the plastic wrap off and allowed the poultice to dry and hopefully pull out any toxins, damaged tissue die off in the area.   

Princess didn't seem to have a problem with this poultice at all so we are going to try and do some poultice nightly but things have been so busy, she falls asleep and I forget etc. 

We are learning so many things and I pray they will help her heal quickly so she doesn't miss the entire year of dancing!