As you may or may not know, we are expecting our 3rd child on June 29, 2012! We’ll keep you posted!

Love and peace to you all!
The Franczeks

Thank you

Love
- Joby

It’s been 15 months since I last posted anything.  And what  a 15 months it’s been…   Well, the last 3 months of 2009 was rather uneventful.  We had great holiday gatherings with family, basically.

Enter the New Year… 2010 has been filled with more sadness, more stress, and some happy stuff too.  Many ups and downs.

Unfortunately, I do not feel at liberty to discuss certain events that occurred throughout early in 2010 (January – March, let’s say) that have filled me with sadness and that I’ve tried so hard to move past, but it still keeps me awake some nights.  2010 began on a tumultuous, stressful, sad note and it seems to have set the tone for the rest of the year.  There’s really nothing more I can say about that.

February did bring joy as my brother and sister-in-law welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the family!!  She’s such a doll, with sparkling blue eyes!

March and April brought significantly more sadness as we watched my grandmother (the one I’ve posted so much about in the past) continually get weaker in her battle with breast cancer.  She passed away on April 18, 2010.  I am still filled with sadness, especially as we approach Christmas.  Thanksgiving was hard, but Christmas without her looms before me.  She always loved Christmas.  I miss her so much.

May is a blur of sadness and pain in my memory.  Of course, we did have a lot of soccer and tee ball games to enjoy!

June brought the end of the school year and much happiness for the kids!  Again, we attended the WV Christian Endeavor Convention, this time at the Warwood Christian Church in Warwood, WV.  Immediately upon returning from the convention, my oldest son went away for a week of church camp at Elkhorn Valley Christian Service Camp in Bergholz, OH and had a fabulous time!!  He can’t wait until next time!

July brought an intense mixture of happiness and sadness.  My husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary on the 6th of July….that very same day,  my other grandmother (my dad’s mom) passed away.  She had lived in a nursing home for about 2  1/2 years, continually declining from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases until they finally claimed her life just before midnight on the 6th of July.  So, after having her funeral, we went away for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary.  It was a very odd time.  I was sad at losing Gram, yet it was almost as if I had already mourned her because she had already been “gone” so long.  She hadn’t recognized anyone in along time and most of the time she was asleep, when she was awake, she just wasn’t there…  I miss her terribly, I’ve missed her for a long time.  None the less, it was wonderful to be away with the hubby for our anniversary.

August brought another week of VBS (Vacation Bible School), another fun CE Graduation/Bible School picnic, my parents’ 40th Wedding Anniversary, and the start of the school year!

Now, here we are in December.  My oldest son is in 4th grade this year and my youngest son started kindergarten this year!  Oh, how bittersweet that has been!  He’s getting used to it, though.  It’s taken some time, but he’s doing fine!  I’m so proud of both my boys!

Christmas is just around the corner and I’ve not even started shopping yet,  (Life is quite busy with cub scouts, basketball games, church Christmas play practices, etc, etc…)  but it’ll get done!

And maybe, I just might post a little more regularly in the New Year…

October of 2008 brought the return of Kim’s brother from Iraq!!  Hallelujah!!!  Home, safe and sound!!

November and December brought us Thanksgiving, a fantastic trip to Cancun, Mexico with Mick and Sue (Joby’s Dad and Step-Mom), and a great Christmas/New Year holiday!!

January welcomed us into 2009 with the birth of a nephew on January 11th!  Kim’s brother, TJ, and his wife Ursula had baby boy Logan-Charles Francis Greenwood!!

February, as we all know, brought us the Steelers winning the Superbowl!!  Yee Haw!!

March brought Kim’s 36th birthday and the start of tee ball for Donovan!

And on April 7, 2009, my wonderful, loving, awesome husband, Joby, turned the big 4-OHhhhhh my, oh my!!!  We celebrated by throwing him a 40th birthday party with family and friends present and it was a lot of fun!  A very simple, yet memorable evening!

The joy of April was followed by sadness in May, as my grandfather, Dick Greenwood, died on May 6, 2009 at Weirton Medical Center.  He had a very bad heart, only operating at 30% capacity, and even though we always figured he would go quickly when it was his time, it still came as a great surprise to us all.  He had been in the hospital for a week and was supposed to come home that day because he had been doing better.  He commented to his wonderful nurse that morning how he “just wanted to go home”.  He meant his earthly home, but the Lord had a different plan and took him to his eternal, heavenly home that day.  We miss you, Pap!

Then came June and the end of the school year!  Such excitement did ensue!    We attended the WV Christian Endeavor Convention in Doddridge County, WV!  It was held at Welcome Baptist Church in Salem, WV and it was a wonderful week!

July brought an outing to Kennywood with Kim’s entire family, a 15th birthday party for a nephew, a weekend away for Kim and Joby’s 13th wedding anniversary, and attending the wedding of friends!

August was a very busy month with VBS (Vacation Bible School) at church, a fantastic visit from Mick and Sue, a family fun-filled church picnic at the park,  another visit to Kennywood for Joby’s company picnic (US Steel), and the start of school!!  Nick is in 3rd grade now!!

September, so far, has been just as busy with Donovan starting his 2nd year of preschool, a nephew’s birthday, both Nick and Donovan’s birthdays, and soccer games for Nick!!

Whew!  Well, that brings us up to today!!  Now I’ve gotta go get the boys in bed!!  Have a good night all!!

I am soooo happy!! Truly, down deep to the depths of my soul, happy!!! Despite everything that is going on in life, I am so very blessed and so very thankful for that!!! I can’t express the simple, radiant, joy I feel right now!! I have so many good things in my life! My sons whom I adore and cherish and revel in, my husband without whom I would not want to go through life – he is a gift, and above all else my God, my Lord and Savior and Redeemer and Hope!!!!! I believe in God and in Jesus Christ and I rely on my Christian faith in this life!

There are many other things that bring me great, great joy as well!! My friends are a true and sincere source of joy for me! I love them so much! I love that we can all be different and still respect and love one another as we do! So, whether I just spoke to one of them yesterday or haven’t had contact with them in months or years, they are a deep part of me! And I can’t wait to see them all again!!!! I miss them!

Now that I have gotten all of that mushy stuff out of the way……LOL!  I am thankful that my grandmother who is battling cancer is doing VERY well (it’s really, totally flabbergasting!) and my brother will return from Iraq in a few days!! YAY!! WOO HOO!! I am so happy and excited, and you can take that and multiply it by about a hundred and that’s how happy and excited my pregnant sister-in-law is!!!!

Well, that’s all for now! I am so blessed and so thankful for my life and the people in it! Remember: Laugh Often, Love Much, Sing Loud, and Dance Like Noone is Watching!!!!!

Ok, so, here I am sitting in my living room freezing my butt off because we STILL have not replaced the window in our bedroom from when it got busted in the windstorm a few weeks back!!!  LOL!!  Go figure!  And the reason we haven’t replaced it yet is because we just haven’t had the extra $moola to do so.  We have a small deductable on our homeowners insurance, but 1 window isn’t going to cost more than our deductable, so we wait until we have the extra cash to get the window!  In the meantime, it gets really kinda cold at night in our room and by the time you get up in the morning, the whole house is cold as well!  And I REFUSE to turn on the heat yet!!!   HA HA HA!!    OH NO!  Now I sound just like my mother!!!  AAgghhh!  Nah, just kiddin!  Seriously, I love you mom!! 

So, anyway, my point about rolling with the punches that life throws our way also stems from the fact that we have to replace a part on our car!!  This is the car that my hubby drives back and forth to work in regularly, so it is kind of an inconvenience for it to be temporarily out of commission!  Now, we can still drive it around town just fine, but he can’t drive it to Pittsburgh.  So, he has been driving our old clunker……lol!  It’s been fine actually, thankfully so!  But we haven’t had the extra $ to get the part replaced either, so we’re putting that off until payday now!!!  No point getting the car fixed if he doesn’t have any gas $ to put in it to get him to work, eh?! 

So, here we are, cold and (almost, but not really) carless!!!  Ah well, what can ya do?  Ya just gotta roll with it…..  It’ll all work out in the end!

Have you ever had the opportunity to sit in the middle of 5 seperate, swirling tornados? Well, I can only imagine this is what it might be like! HA! LOL! I’m not serious, of course, but I have the pleasure of having 5 kids in my house today! My 2 nephews and 1 niece spent the night here last night so that my sister and brother-in-law could go up to visit my grandmother, the one that I’ve written about in the 3 previous posts. I currently have in my care a 10 year old nephew, an 8 year old nephew, my 8 year old son, a 5 year old niece and my 4 year old son. What a whirlwind of action!! And of mess! LOL! And when you factor in the husband and the mother-in-law too, our 2 bedroom house is bursting at the seams! Don’t misunderstand me, I LOVE having my nephews and niece around and getting to do stuff with all the kids! I love them all, bunches!

I’m sure this day will hold its’ fair share of playing, fighting, having fun, getting mad, etc, etc. It will also hold some Halloween fun this evening! We are taking the 5 kids to Boo at the Zoo! All dressed in costumes, the zoo supplies you with a treat bag and you walk around to different stations within the zoo and get candy and see some animals and take a spooky train ride! It’s good family fun at a good family price too! So, that will be the big event to end our day because when we get back home, my sister and her husband will be home and it will be time to say farewell. Until the next sleepover……

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Attitude Current mood: exhausted Category: Life Well, this one is going to be short, sweet and to the point!  I believe in having a good attitude.  Attitude is everything.  It can make or break your day, your life, your relationships, your career, your dreams, your personal growth….everything!  I heard a saying WAY back in jr. high school…..Attitude, it’s 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it!  I love that!  I believe that.  The Word of God tells us to “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” – Romans 12:12.  I love that too! I recently received the following in an email and I’ve read something similar to it before, but I think this is an excellent example of having a good attitude no matter what life throws your way! There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. Well,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll braid my hair today?’  So she did and she had a wonderful day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.  ‘H-M-M,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today?’  So she did and she had a grand day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.’ So she did and she had a fun, fun day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head. ‘YEA!’ she exclaimed, ‘I don’t have to fix my hair today!’ Attitude is everything.  Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle. Live simply, Love generously, Care deeply, Speak kindly……. Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. - Author unknown That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  I have a real life good attitude example in my grandmother.  I hope that I am able to be so peaceful and positive  when I am approaching the end of my days in this life, as well! A positive attitude can make anything a little bit better or a little bit easier or a little bit more manageable….and a lot of the time, it does more than that!  It can simply make things in life great! So, make sure you have a good attitude today!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Walkin’ on…..one step at a time… Current mood: contemplative Category: Life Well, here I sit, feeling so many different things… I’m tired, I have a headache (of course, I’m hungry, so that doesn’t help matters), my sinuses are starting to bug me…all of those surface things. Going a bit deeper though, I’m sad that I’m going to lose my grandmother, but so very happy that I am getting to spend time with her and that she is so at peace with her decision to refuse any more treatment and spend her remaining days at home with family around her! I have to tell you that she looked pretty good, all things considered, when I saw her this past weekend. My mom and my aunt both said the same thing….that almost as soon as she made her decision to refuse any further treatment, it was like this weight was lifted and so much of the stress and anxiousness was gone. Since she’s been home, she’s been eating SIGNIFICANTLY more than she has been and sleeping very well! She does indeed have a little more energy. Now, not that I believe that it’s going to last, but it was my prayer that she would not be miserable and that she would regain some strength. She is still very weak, don’t get me wrong, but she isn’t in any pain and does not seem miserable to me. So that’s great!! My other prayer was that she could hold on until my brother, TJ, gets home from Iraq so they can see each other….I personally believe that she’ll be able to do that. I know we can never know when our time is up or how things will happen, but I just truly believe in my heart that they will get to see one another! I can’t explain it, I’ve just always felt that way about this particular aspect of the situation. Doesn’t mean I’m right, but that’s what I think. So, anyway, Godspeed my brother! I can only say this…I hope that when I am faced with death, I can be like her. She is truly at peace. As my dad, my sister and brother-in-law, and my husband and I visited with her and as other family members were in and out visiting her over last weekend, we had a good, positive time together. Laughing and carrying on….grandma would think of something specific that she would want someone specific to have after she’s gone, or she would ask one of us if we would want a certain item and we would talk about it peacefully and relaxed….. It wasn’t morbid or overly focused on the item, just more like a fact of life, simple… She even expressed concern to my mother over whether or not my sister and I would bring our children to the funeral…..we talked about it and we don’t plan to at this time, instead we are going to take the kids up, one or two at a time over the next few weeks, to see her for a few hours….can’t bring them all at once, she doesn’t have the energy for all that commotion…. So, am I sad? Yes, you bet I am. I am going to miss her soooo terribly when she’s gone. But, she’s not gone yet, and I am going to spend every possible spare moment with her that I can muster for whatever time she has left! And for that opportunity, I am happy and thankful! Also, I appreciate the incredible support of my friends! (A few special ones in particular! Girls, L-T-U, you’re the best!) Life wouldn’t be the same without you! You’re amazing! You all rock and I love you! And I cannot possibly forget to say how thankful and blessed and grateful I am to have my husband, Joby, by my side. My rock, my love, my partner and friend. I don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you for your support and your love! After spending time with grandma last weekend, as we were driving back home, I was thinking about how glad I was to have gotten to spend time with her and how blessed I am to have friends to help me through…..and a line from one of my favorite movies popped into my head…….it’s from the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King…..at the end, as Frodo and Sam are lying on the big rock amidst all the lava flowing all around them, Frodo says to his best friend Sam something along the lines of – I’m so glad it’s you that I’m with here at the end of all things……