deJong Online

As much as I love messing around with this blog, it is completely obvious that the way to go these days is ‘Microblogging’ through such outlets as Facebook. And so, that’s what I’ve gone and done. I’ve created a group that I titled “Jon’s Weather Talk”. If you subscribe to this group, you will have the ability to ask my any questions you want, hopefully weather related, I will post updates to forecasts, model trends, etc. Pictures of weather are also welcome. And like I said, if you have questions regarding your forecast for your location or whatever, that is welcome. I can’t tell you I’ll be 100% right all the time, but wouldn’t it be nice to interact directly with a meteorologist? Yes. Yes it would be.

So please, if you are already friends with me, join the group. If you aren’t friends with me (I’m looking at you WT moms ) please send me a FR and join the group. That is, if you want to stay updated with the weather.

Jon’s Weather Talk:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/233295090095971/

Later!

Jon

We went to the Great Wolf Lodge for the second year to celebrate Christmas with Jon’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and our nephew and niece.

Again this year it was a ton of fun. Well except when someone always gets sick. This time it was our sweet niece. Thankfully it was Sunday and she was doing better Monday when they left for home. We all got there on Friday within minutes of each other. We enjoyed dinner at Famous Dave’s and down time. Saturday started with breakfast and then water park and ended with Buffalo Phil’s. Sunday was water park as well. There were some arcade games played, some Ma.gique.st dragons slayed, money spent at the outlet mall and of course clean up in the condo as well as a run to a super store that is only an exit away.

The kids had so much fun playing together and it was so wonderful to watch the two youngest who are only a day apart play together. They had so much fun. The older two enjoyed their time together as well. I think it was a challenge for both of them, though they seemed to work well around it. Of course C was the ring leader most of the time as the others would just follow her lead.

We are thankful that this is something that we can all enjoy as a family and that it is possible to do this. Here’s to next year!

I lost my grandpa. Man that is hard to actually type. Just over a year after my grandma passed away, my grandpa joined her. They always loved taking road trips all over the US. Though I think they liked flying just as much.

When I got the news earlier this week it hit me, but maybe because I was away from home it wasn’t the devestation that I am now finding. You know, that wait it couldn’t really be true, but looking at his obituary online it really is. My heart hurts. The tears are flowing down my face as the realization comes forward that I have one grandparent left in my life. When I was 16 (just 16) I lost my grandpa P. It was so difficult to know that we wouldn’t go out to the farm anymore.  That same year I lost my great grandma D in May and New Years Eve lost my 5 year old cousin to a freak accident. During my junior or senior year I lost my great grandma K. After getting married I lost my great grandpa K, he lived to be 100 years old by one month how awesome is that! In 2003 I lost my 17 year old cousin to a car accident. She was killed by a drunk driver as was her best friend that was due to graduate that day. Not long after that I lost my other great-grandpa. Again he lived to be 100 years old by a month. Just last year my grandma K passed away after a long and amazing battle with cancer. It started out as breast cancer and ended up going into her bones. It slowly took her away from us, but it didn’t win. God won, because she was whole again and pain free. Now my grandpa. For a short time, we had 5 generations alive. C had a great-great grandpa and I have a beautiful picture to always remember that. Now there are three generations left on that side. The stories have ended and I never got them written down. Now I need to make time with siblings of my grandparents to get those stories for my girls to always have.

In my head I have some great memories of my grandparents. They aren’t always great and I can admit I wasn’t always the best grandchild, but I know I was loved by them both as were my girls. I remember making homemade ice cream on the machine that you had to hand crank. After it was made I would put Creme de Menthe on the vanilla ice cream and enjoy it. My grandma loved butterscotch. I remember staying with my grandma for a few weeks when she broke her ankle and was in a wheelchair. She allowed me to walk down to the local pool and go swimming even though I was suppose to stay with her. I would sit on the rollaway bed that was in the “loft” area before going into the two bedrooms upstairs and play with the buttons that grandma collected in a jar. I want to say I learned about Tom and Jerry’s at their house, though mine were always virgin. And memories that make me laugh as my favorite was singing happy birthday to a couple cans of pop. Yes they kept pop until someone either drank it or dumped it out without them knowing as they didn’t want to waste money. When my cousin passed away at the age of 5, they were staying with one of my uncles and their house caught fire. Thankfully no one was there at the time, but they did what they could to save as much as possible in their house, regardless if even years after the fire it still smelled just a little bit of fire.

My heart is very heavy tonight and I will get through this as I was the strong first grandchild a year ago just a few days after my birthday. I continue to work through the emotions that I have in my head and in my heart. The guilt I feel for not going down there and visiting family more, especially since they only live 3.5 hours away. My kids come first, but they also need to have time with their extended family while they are here. I need to get down there and get the stories from my lone grandparent of how she met my grandfather and their life on the farm. I seem to say this quite a bit but it just doesn’t happen. Now it needs to. I will be down there tomorrow, hopefully if the snow holds back so we can get down there safely.

I love you Grandpa. Enjoy the new car trips with Grandma. We all miss you both so very much but know that the angels watching over us are two amazing people.

I keep feeling like we have so many “rainy” days yet I still count my blessings. I have nothing to complain about compared to others, just lots of things that make me feel like I am hitting a wall.

Took C in yesterday for her 7 year well check, wait a minute when did my girl turn 7? How the heck did that happen already! Anyways, at her appointment they had a hard time getting her blood pressure and once they did it was a little on the high of the normal scale. I always thought blood pressure was linked to your heart. Well in kids, I guess, it is linked more to kidneys. Well C (and CJ for that matter) both have kidney reflux. So a renal ultrasound has been scheduled to check her kidneys. Just another “thing” to deal with.

With everything going on my weight has kept climbing. It isn’t like I eat horrible, but I snack when I am stressed. Gee, I wonder if I have anything that could stress me out lately?! I have noticed this and have been keeping a food diary with calorie intake. I would love to join Wei.gh.t Wa.tch.ers but we just don’t have the money right now for it so I am working on doing it with some help of some amazing moms on my WT board and my wonderful mom.  My hope is that they will have a nice litlte New Years deal that will make it affordable and I can go full force into it. So until then I will maintain my calorie intake and keep taking the stairs. What stinks is since we live in an apartment it isn’t like I can do any W i i game that has jumping involved, let alone any fitness DVD that has it. So working out can be difficult for me. It is getting cold and taking both girls on a nice walk is difficult. I have finally started to figure out why this is so important to me, and it isn’t just to get healthy, I have never had to diet in my life. I have been lucky to be involved in sports when I was in school, both Middle and High. My BIL’s wife is tiny, my guess is she weighed what I did at the start of my pregnancy with CJ at the end of hers with my niece. Why do I bring this up? Well I am seeing that what other think of me and see me as really affects me. In two months we will be having family Christmas with hubby’s family. I love spending time with everyone, but putting on a swimsuit scares me so much that I feel like I am having an anxiety attack. The last thing I want to do is put on a suit with my extra 30 to 40 pounds and stand anywhere near his family. I don’t want to embarrass myself or anyone else by how I feel I look. I realize it seems selfish to think of myself that way, but I do. I understand that 30 to 40 pounds is nothing and such, but to me it is huge. I feel huge. I feel unlovable, and to be perfeclty honest VERY unsexy. Now is the time I take control again. Now exactly sure how I am going to do that yet, but I will.

Hey guys and gals, it’s been a few weeks. I had been doing my Dave Matthews Band listening party project, but that got put on hold as a new Dream Theater CD came out. And unfortunately, it will be on hold a while longer as a new MuteMath CD comes out. 

If you’ve never heard of MuteMath, I highly suggest checking them out. They are hard to describe and compare to other groups, which is a good thing. Technically they are under the ‘Alternative’ genre, but it’s hard to have them under one classification. I’ll post a youtube vid or two down below for you to check out. I have yet to be disappointed in a CD from them. Their 3rd release comes out tomorrow. From what I’ve heard, it sounds quite different from past albums. I was a bit afraid of what I was hearing this summer, but once I was able to hear a few preview clips last week, I’m excited. 

Guess what Thursday is? Go on, guess. HOCKEY SEASON. As a hockey nut, I am really excited for this year. I have two teams I cheer for, the Red Wings are #1 no matter who they play, but living in Minnesota, it’s hard not to be a Wild fan. And there is reason for optimism this year with the acquisitions of Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley. We actually might score some goals! YEAH! Can’t wait!

Last, but certainly not least, Snow. It snowed in the higher elevations of the Appalachians this past weekend. In fact, there were some areas above 1500 feet that got quite the accumulations! I’m excited for snow, when it comes. Meanwhile, the forecast for around here: Boring for the next week. Much above normal temperatures and virtually no precipitation. Yuck. 

Here’s a few of those MuteMath vids:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t7E7gEDk8

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2mjAgFTaI

I am going to be taking a break from this as the much anticipated Dream Theater album is coming out next week. It may take me a few weeks of listening to that before I come back to this, so forgive me.

Today, we celebrate 11 years. It has been 11 years since we said “I Do” in a small country church in Byron Center, MI. I loved that church, how small it was, the fact that Msgr was just wonderful and all the stories behind it. I had Faith Formation there, went through my Confirmation classes there (Confirmation was at the Cathedral downtown Grand Rapids), taught Preschool Faith Formation and was a reader. It was a beautiful setting for our truly beautiful day.

11 years ago, we were both getting ready for our ceremony, seperately. Jon was able to see me for the first time as I walked down the aisle with my dad. I spent time with my four bridesmaids and flower girl. Since those 11 years, said flower girl just graduated from High School and the Ring Bearer graduates next year, man that makes me feel old! Funny thing is to this day we still try and see all those that were in our wedding. One groomsmen is difficult since he moved to California and we are never home at the same time, but regardless we do see most of the wedding party when we are back in Michigan once a year.

In those 11 years we had a great honeymoon in the Smokey Mountains, a sub-honeymoon up in Traverse City camping one last time before we moved away, moved to Minnesota, Jon finished college, job change for me, moved again, job change for Jon, had our beautiful daughter C, change job for me, had our beautiful daughter CJ, I stayed home for two years, and here we are. Never would have thought 11 years would go that quickly, or the fact we have been together for 15 years already.

It may be 11 years later, but I love my husband like I did when we first met. The love has changed, increased, over the years but it is still as strong as when we met in 1996 or married in 2000. We have had ups and downs, but through it all we are still together. And for that I am eternally grateful.

So, if you have a twitter account like I do (@Storm_Jr), then you are aware of hashtags. They are essentially a fun thing to put into your tweets and in some cases more people will use it, then you can track what people are saying about that subject. So when I put this hashtag in a weather tweet, #MNwx, it is referring to Minnesota Weather. That way if people search for #MNwx, they can get updates or whatever on that subject. It’s pretty intuitive and neat.

If a hashtag is used enough, it ‘trends’ on twitter. This means it is getting used a lot and will show up in a top trends list, getting even more attention.

Which brings me to the reason I’m doing this post. There is a young girl name Alice. She lives in Ulverston, UK. She is 15 years old. And she has terminal cancer. She’s been fighting this terrible disease since she was 11. She started a blog for herself and her friends, so that she could list things on her bucket list and hopefully share any experiences with her friends in crossing items off of her bucket list.

On her bucket list are such things as, Meeting Take That, Staying in the Chocolate Room at Alton Towers, to Have a Nice Picture Taken With Mabel (her dog), and to make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor. One other thing that was on her bucket list was to ‘Trend on Twitter”. Well, that’s one thing that can be marked off. And because of it, even more can be marked off. Someone took it an ran with it and started the hashtag #AliceBucketList. Within hours, she was trending. Hits on her blog rose to astronomical levels. One of her posts had almost 2000 comments, most from people she’s never met and all of them giving her encouragement and finding inspiration from her. She has had to have friends and family help her read and respond to messages that have come pouring in.

As if that wasn’t enough. In a recent blog post, as mentioned before, she said she is not looking for money for her. She didn’t start this for her own personal gain. And instead said if people want to do something, to donate to her sister who is walking/running in the Race for Life. They had a 1,000 £ goal to be donated to Cancer Research….as of right now they’ve raised almost 14,000£!!! And again, bunches of donations from people across the world! And the comments are amazing.

Random Acts of Kindness….there are amazing people in this world. This girl and those random people running to help someone they don’t even know are absolutely amazing.

Alice, if you read this, I hope you get to do a lot more on your bucket list, but you’ve already inspired a lot of people across the world to join in the battle against cancer and that will save COUNTLESS lives in the future. You are a true hero.

If you’d like to follow her blog: http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/

If you’d like to follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Alice_Pyne

If you’d like to donate for her sister on the Race for Life (or to just see her amazing total keep rising): http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/millypyne1908/1

If you’d like to become a bone marrow donor: http://www.marrow.org/