I obviously complained too much about my minor health problems, because after that I had a huge scare.
We have our basketball goal laying down right now because of huge storms and my husband's car already has a dent from it falling once. I had our big van parked in front of the goal and one night (the night before our home school convention) I went out to the van to get something. It was nice and dark and on my way out, I walked around the goal. On the way back in, with my arms full, I forgot about the goal and before I knew it, I belly flopped right onto the gravel. Scared me! I did end up with a few more bruises and scrapes to add to my collection from spraining my foot, and while I didn't have any cramping or anything, the whole event did not leave me with a peaceful feeling. Fast forward a few hours to Friday and a dear friend watched my children while I went up to the doctors office to make sure we could find heart tones...We did! His or Her heart rate was in the 160's and moving around! What a relief! I even made it to the home school convention in time for the lunch time keynote speaker and drop the boys off at the children's program!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Update on Me
No Laughing Matter!
Our boys are in Royal Rangers (kind of like Boy Scouts) at our church. The 1st and 2nd grade boys are together and my husband in one of the three commanders for this class. Last week, one of the commanders had eaten at a local Mexican fast food restaurant at lunch time. Well...the magical fruit had begun its magic in class and of course, everybody probably knows how little boys react to that!
I went ahead and asked my husband how the little boys did during these smelly times, and he just looked at me and replied, "What do you expect from LAUGHING GAS?!?"
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Summer Reading Programs
Royal Rangers Pie and Cake Auction 2008
"S" made a USA cake
"E" made a Jungle Paradise cake
"I" made a cake with the flag of Saint Lucia
Happy 6th Birthday Sweetie (A1)!
We LOVE you!
Works For Me Wednesday!
More uses for those inexpensive coffee filters! Falling Apart!
Since I have last seen my OB doctor a month ago, tomorrow, I have been diagnosed with gall stones, possible fractured second metatarsal and the need for a root canal!
Praise the Lord, I haven't had any gallbladder attacks since then...I believe the culprit for me is milk. The first time I had an attack (at the time I thought kidney stones), I was drinking a lot of Slim-Fast and right before the second attack, I had eaten a lot of cereal that week.
As for the fracture, I was stepping out of our chicken coop, stepped wrong and rolled on my foot and fell down. I was able to limp up to our house and limp around that evening, but in the morning, I couldn't put any weight on it and it HURT! I ended up going to the ER, where they diagnosed it as a possible fracture, but they couldn't tell b/c of calcifications. They put on a splint, told me to get a pair of crutches and stay off the foot. Where does one find crutches on Memorial Day? At Walgreen's, where you have to buy them, not rent them. The next day, to our family doctor we go for even more x-rays, to have him tell me it doesn't look like a fracture to him and then he proceeded to ask me about any past foot injuries. All I had to do was look at my foot for a discolored spot where I dropped a huge box containing a put it together entertainment center, when I was 13 or 14, and tell him yes...in the second metatarsal spot! I must have broken it back then, but b/c I didn't want to tell anybody what I did, I just dealt with the pain! Final consensus? Sprained foot, keep it wrapped, use crutches as needed (I don't think I need them anymore!) and stay off it as much as possible...and be careful this weekend at the home school convention! Yes, our doctor homeschools his children too, so he knows about it! This entire Dr's appointment was such a blessing. The ER doctor had said I would most likely need surgery to fix my foot...that would have happened right when I normally lose my balance pregnancy wise, or need a cast on for 6 weeks. The ER doctor also said I would have to use crutches for at least a week...that would have made walking around the homeschool convention quite difficult and would have made purchasing and carrying stuff even harder!
Teeth! Take care of your teeth, go for every 6 month check up...do it please, for your own sake. I have avoided that for quite some time, using the excuse that I was pregnant, nursing or that my hubby couldn't get off work. In my defense, the few appointments I did schedule, I had to cancel b/c hubby went out of town on short notice. The other day, I was eating watermelon and was almost in tears from the pain shooting out of a tooth into the rest of my head. I was able to get an X-ray yesterday (more radiation...just how good do those lead aprons work?), and yup, I need a root canal. We start the first part next week. I am not looking forward to this. Since I have actually started seeing a dentist again, he might as well start planning his next vacation, car purchase and possibly even a new house purchase!
Through all of this, God has been good. Yes, I have had a few moments of intense pain where I just want to cry (it takes a lot of pain for me to cry...not much to complain, though!), but it has been just that...moments. I have learned that I can not be in control all of the time and just have to let him work, and work he is doing!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
God's Will or Free Will?
Awhile back, during my quiet time reading the Bible, I was greatly disturbed by something I read. God’s men had taken wives they were told not to take and in doing so, had children. The men later repented and sent the women and children off into the wilderness. I read this and absolutely bawled, aching for those poor women and children, being sent off by God. I just couldn’t understand this. I asked God to please show me why he allowed this to happen. As usual, he is faithful!
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A few weeks later, during a sermon, our Pastor spoke on this. He said, it wasn’t God’s will that caused this, but man’s free will. These men had been instructed to not take these women as their wives. They disobeyed. These women and children were not sent off because of God, rather because of the choices these men made. Yes, they repented and were able to come back into God’s will, but they lost so much in the process. They lost their children FOREVER. .
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In talking with our children, we were able to use this illustration to show the point that when you disobey, it is not only yourself that you are hurting, but others as well. Everything you do affects others, whether you like it or not…it may be positive, it may be negative, but it will happen. It was powerful to see the children grasp the horror of just how much pain you can cause another…in the instance above the wife lost her husband and her provider, the children lost their Daddy and the only life they knew…all because of one man’s disobedience. On the other side of the coin, we also talked about how faithful God is and how he took these men back. That even if we lived our whole lives sinning, and then one day Christ gets through to us and we repent that God will still take us and make us one of HIS own.
Storms in Life
Shortly after becoming a Christian, I heard a song by a Christian artist about a storm. Some of the words are:
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Sometimes He calms the storm; With a whisper Peace be Still; He can settle any sea, but it doesn’t mean he will; Sometimes he holds his child, and lets the wind and rain rush by; Sometimes he calms the storm, other times he calms his child.
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This song has stuck with me ever since. I have sung it to my children when they are scared in the midst of a horrible storm, and to myself when I am facing a personal storm.
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Last night, we had one of those horrible storms and ended up with two children in our bed. It never ceases to amaze me how once they are within reach of their protectors, their comforters, their mommy and daddy, how easily they can sleep through the storm, without so much as a whimper. They know everything will be ok, now that they are in a safe place. Even though there was no way I could sleep through the storm (motherhood did that to me!), I was able to praise our Heavenly Father and thank him for being to me, what I was being to my daughters. I may not always run to His loving arms, but He is always there ready to hold me, dry my tears and calm me, HIS CHILD.
Esperanza Rising
We just recently listened to the the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan on. cd It has been awhile to have a book touch me and make me think like this book did. This book is based upon the stories a grandmother told her granddaughter, the author. The grandmother is Esperanza. Esperanza and her recently widowed mother make the difficult decision to leave Mexico, where they lived the lives of royalty to come to America, the land of the free. They leave with their servants who are now their equals and Esperanza learns the true meaning of “The rich take care of the rich, the poor take care of the poor”. She sees firsthand the poorest of the poor giving away their food and help to those in even more need than they themselves face, and later is both giver and taker of doing just that.
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This is the first book I have read/listened to that tells the story of the Mexican Emigrants and the hardships they faced after coming to America, where “everybody” has a chance at becoming rich. It tells how they were looked down upon because they were brown skinned and therefore must be dumb, even if in Mexico, they had had a better education and/or training than the white Americans. Reduced to rags and poor poverty like conditions, they struggled to feed their families. American born Mexicans were deported to Mexico because of setting up strikes and trying to make things better for everybody. Mexicans, who were reduced to digging and laying tracks for the railroad, even if they knew the mechanics of how the engines work and how to fix them. This is one of those subjects I have never before heard as it was not taught in the schools I attended, whether for geographical reasons (Wisconsin), or because if it isn’t in the books, it didn’t happen or for whatever reason.
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My husband’s great grandparents brought their family to America from Mexico, when his grandpa was a young boy. My husband’s great grandfather came here to work as a railroad worker. As his grandfather has passed away, I don’t know that we will ever hear what really happened when they came to America, but I can only pray that they did not face the prejudices that the people did in Esperanza Rising. I pray that whatever happened to my husband’s family when they came here, that they too, like Esperanza rose above it and became stronger people because of it, not hardened and calloused, but better people because of their circumstances.
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