WOW!

WOW! I can't believe that my last post was in November! This is one of the reasons I really hesitated to start a blog. I felt like I would feel compelled to post more than I have time for writing! Well, I feel a little bit bad but the good news is that most people(if not all) have probably given up on me and this and all future posts won't matter anyway. LOL!! So much has happened in the past several months...
Tyler turned 9 years old in December. He also became a Christian (Nov 30)! It was QUITE exciting!! Its also very exciting to see him serve communion - he is getting so grown up! I praise God that all three of our children are His by their choice!
Courtney turned 17 in January and in March she got engaged! He fiance is John Cross, a very nice young man that she met at church. John asked Keith and I for permission to ask her to marry him. We talked a lot about concerns and he answered a lot of questions. We think he is a good man and that Courtney and he can be happy together!
Bailey will be 13 next week. She is also growing up fast!
I really don't have much to write about - just thought it was time to write something - just to see if anything comes back - ha, ha!
It's springtime and we are witnessing God's rebirth of the world. Is it possible that He renews despite our nation's financial stress, despite our world's current situation and future? I think so. I think that in His renewal of the earth, we are witnesses of His hope in us and His love for us. Despite whatever may be going on in your life, He offers newness of life through His son. May you clearly see the glory of His love for you as you struggle through the day to day distractions of life! And may you be blest with evidence of His presence in your everyday!

tagged

I have been nominated by Beth for an "I Love (Heart) Your Blog Award." Thanks! Due to this honor, I must answer the following questions with one word answers and nominate 10 other blogs for the "I heart your blog" award.

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Where is your significant other? close
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? heaven
5. Your father? dead
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your dream/goal? debt-free
9. The room you're in? den
10. Your hobby? ?
11. Your fear? Loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Kentucky
13. Where were you last night? parents
14. What you're not? single
15. One of your wish-list items? couch
16. Where you grew up? Illinois
17. The last thing you did? Facebook
18. What are you wearing? clothes
19. Your TV? yuck
20. Your pet? dogs
21. Your computer? laptop
22. Your mood? sleepy
23. Missing someone? mom
24. Your car? mini-van
25. Something you're not wearing? shorts
26. Favorite store? Target
27. Your summer? short
28. Love someone? many
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? today

Whew - that's a challenge to only do one word! So, here are a few people I will challenge...and give an award to!

Now I'm supposed to nominate ten other people? - as if that many people even read my blog!
Lee
Ashley
Terri
Dana
Judith
Jennifer

Thoughts of the cross

I didn't intend to blog this on our anniversary but its the first day that I've been able to write. I have thought about this for several days and decided that I nee to blog it to get some feedback. Last week (Friday) Tyler was playing baseball. He is in his first year of kid pitch. This is a little (a lot) scary! Up until this point, Tyler has gone in there and swung the bat and hit the ball. Kind of a "no fear" player. Friday night though, the pitcher threw the ball and it hit him square on the back, right between the shoulder blades. He went down and I jumped up! It took everything in me not to climb that fence. I teared up immediately. I wanted to go check on him and be able to comfort him. Keith helped me stay put. He got back up and took his base, but there was a scare. At his next up (to bat) he flinched every time during the pitcher's windup and he got hit in the knee this time. Later, I was thinking about the feelings it evoked in me. I started to wonder how Mary did it. My son was hit by accident and I had a hard time standing there and watching. Jesus was beaten and whipped and spat on and nailed to a cross... where was Mary during the beating? Where was she standing as they drove the nails into his hand? Did she cover her eyes or did she too feel the full impact of His death? What did she think? What did she feel as she watched the people do the awful things to Him? I just have to wonder...

So as I said, today is Keith's and my anniversary. 19 years of bliss for me! I have tried to come up with a romantic idea to surprise him for a few months now. Any ideas out there? Keith has been SO good to me for SO long and I can't come up with anyway that will help him to understand how much he means to me and how very much I love him! I wish he knew! Anyone who wants to make suggestions, please feel free!

I need to go... Courtney has play practice tonight, Tyler needs to get his homework done and his hair cut! I hope you have a great day!

Almost missed two in a month!

Well, it's almost the end of the month and I've only posted once this month. I figured I better get on it or I would be letting my "regular readers" down! LOL! As I write, the girls and I are preparing to leave for camp. We are excited to say the least! Tyler and Keith are hoping to do some camping themselves. They should have fun too!
It has been a busy month. A month of gifts given beyond measure to some dear friends and blessings removed for reasons we can't understand. The month has been filled with answers to prayers and challenges that bring us to our knees. In spite of it all one thing remains, God is with us! Beyond that, I have no real words of wisdom and I have nothing really to share.
Tyler had Cub Scout camp this week. He went yesterday and had a great time. Today my man cub is not feeling well. His right cheek is twice the size of the left one and his tooth is abscessed. He is in pain and there isn't a thing I can do about it. That doesn't keep him from asking me to help in some way. I feel so helpless.
It reminds me of the time that Tyler had his seizure disorder (although certainly not to the same extent!). He would stop breathing and turn blue and I couldn't do a thing about it. I remember holding him and crying as I reluctently gave him back to God each time by praying, "Please God, You gave him to us, please don't take him yet." Then I would pray that God would comfort me if His answer was to take him now. It was a time of learning that no matter what I do, there was nothing I could do to "fix it". I HAD to rely on God. It's hard to put our trust in someone we can't see. At the same time, what choice do we have?
The funny thing is He earned our trust before we were ever here to know of Him. He knew that our lives would be full of sin and we would have to rely on Him for salvation and He provided. We hadn't even asked yet and He provided the solution. We never even knew how much we would need and He gave it all. How could I not trust that He loves me and cares enough for me to "fix" things for me? Obviously, we serve an AWESOME God!
I hope this post doesn't seem as scattered as I think it sounds. I guess my mind is running circles and I'm trying to grab a piece and hang on! I'm sure I've written enough to confuse you so I'll close for now. I can't wait to go to camp and learn more about Extreme Living in Christ! I need to go finish getting ready... hopefully I'll have more to post when I get back.

I thought I should let you know the answer to your prayers... no surgery. That's the short of it. The "long of it" is this:
Friday I finally went to Urgent Care for my knee. I spent over two hours there. The doctor looked at my knee and pushed it and twisted it a little then ordered x-rays. I was a little puzzled because I figured there was no way that it could be broken and me be able to walk on it for a week. So after waiting for the x-ray for a while, I stuck my head out the door and asked the nurse about it when she went by. She said that x-ray was backed up but that I was next. I told her that I had a pre-op appointment in thirty minutes and I didn't understand the need for the x-ray (then I explained why I was questioning it). She said she would check with the doctor. She came back a while later and she said that the doctor said I didn't need an x-ray and he was just going to finish up my chart. The long story short is that they gave me a knee brace and sent me on my way with a hefty prescription for pain medication. My question was and remains, "Why did he order the x-ray if it wasn't necessary? Then I went to pre-op.
At the hospital I got a blood work-up and answered lots questions. When they asked about past surgeries I had to tell them about my heart procedures. This sent them into a tizzy... they did an EKG (which came back good) and we went back to answering questions. The hospital decided that they wanted a release from my cardiologist to do the surgery. I told them that my doctor had that so they called him. My doctor told them that he decided that he wanted a better release than what he had and he wasn't willing to do the surgery.
I was o.k. with the hospital making the decision because they did what they thought was the safest thing to do. Needless to say, I am NOT happy with the doctor! He could have done something during this past month ( the surgery has been scheduled for over a month now) to get the release he wanted or to feel more comfortable about the procedure but instead he waited until I had cleared my schedule for two weeks, wasted over two hours time in the hospital for pre-op and wasted my time and money getting tests done that are now wasted.
All of this is to say, Thank you for your prayers and support for the surgery that will not happen in BG! Crazy! Now I will need to go to work and reschedule people for the next couple of weeks so I don't continue to put them off or lose money by not working. I guess it will all work out, God has a way of making things work out like that! Now I have a little more free time with my children this week and next! God will provide... Thank you again for your support and prayers.

Chaos! as usual....

OK, it's the 30th and I have to try to get one more entry in this month! It's a personal challenge to see how many people I can send into shock (especially for those of you who haven't even had a chance to read the one I actually posted yesterday)! So Memorial Day weekend will be one to remember this year! Too funny!
We spent the weekend in Birmingham at my sister's house with all of my family except one of my sisters and her family. I know that sounds weird - there are six of us siblings so five met for the weekend and my Aunt and Uncle have become honorary FOO members and my cousin joined in the fun too!
We had Thai food (my cousin's contribution) quite the experience. I wasn't sure how the children would do with that so I asked them all to TRY it and be polite and we would figure out something else later if they didn't like it. They did great. They ate a little and then told my cousin that they "... appreciated the cultural experience." It was interesting though and some of it was tasty too!
We mostly visited and relaxed a lot with the family. Monday we came home and thats when the adventures began (although Keith refuses to call them adventures because we usually refer to things that are low or no cost as adventures and this was definitely NOT one of those)!
As we were driving home (I65) some weird things started to happen with the car. Like when Keith used the turn signal, the radio clicked off. So he said, "something is wrong." Almost as soon as that came out of his mouth, the car started jerking - like loss of power - and died. He navigated us from the left lane to the side of the road on the right. It was raining pretty hard and we were stuck. Keith called for a tow truck and we waited. We played Go Fish while we waited. The hardest part was for the females who had to go to the bathroom... the rain didn't help and we couldn't do anything but wait. So, the tow truck finally arrived and was willing (thankfully) to stop for us girls and the driver made lots of calls trying to get things going to get the car fixed that afternoon. It was late though so we had to stay the night in the hotel (I wrote "the" hotel because there was only one in Cornersville, TN). We went to the hotel and the driver lowered the trailer for us to be able to climb into the van and get out our suitcases. As I was standing on the edge of the trailer (remember it had been raining) I slipped off and landed on my rear end on the concrete! OUCH! Worse yet was the fact that I twisted my knee on the way down. I sat in a puddle of water laughing at how ridiculous this was and how silly I must look! Long story short, we dropped about $800 (between hotel and repairs for the car - new alternator) for that very expensive night in Cornersville, TN!
I have to laugh at the whole thing though. Keith was able to pull us off the rod to safety, thank God, we had a place to stay and it could have happened at a worse time or place! God is good! The understatement of the century! I've often thought that the way to handle garbage in our lives is a choice, you either laugh or you cry and laughing is a whole lot more fun! I think I could do stand up comedy with our life experiences!!
I hope that you have a blest and enjoyable weekend with family and those you love! Pray that mine is productive as I have a tonsillectomy scheduled for Monday morning and I will "not be able to do ANYTHING for two weeks" as the doctor says. I need to get a lot done today, tomorrow and Sunday! May you be blest to find joy in your moments of trial!

Another fun family day!

I know that there are some of you who will probably think I'm about to die or something since I have posted three times in one month! Crazy I know, but I had to brag for a few moments. As some of you know, last year our family won a nice commemorative edition Super Stock Soap Box Derby car. Bailey began her driving career last summer with that car. Tyler was too young and Courtney had her wisdom teeth removed the day before, so Bailey won the opportunity hands down. She made it through her heats to the "Sweet 16" and then she lost. Not bad for a first time out!
This year, we were given a Stock car for Tyler to race. This car was in pretty bad shape but Tyler and Keith worked long and hard together to bring it up to specs! Long story short... Tyler and Bailey about gave Keith a heart attack by making it all the way to the final race! Seriously though, we were close! Tyler was a bit more disappointed than Bailey - he actually wanted first! We had such a blast cheering them on! Thank you to the friends who stopped by to help cheer and those who stayed longer than they had to, just to support them! For those of you who didn't make it this year, it's o.k., we're hooked and hopefully you can make it next year - I anticipate that we'll be there! I'm going to try to put in some photos but I' m having a hard time narrowing it down (and now that Keith reads this, I want to make sure I get the right ones! LOL!!)
When I look back on this event and the fun family day, I think about all the fun family time preparing... Especially the fun "Keith and Tyler time" and "Keith and Bailey time," but some other extra family time to prepare them for race day. What fun we had! I am SO thankful for our children and the fun that we have because of things they are involved in and allow us to be a part of! I certainly hope that they know how much we love them and enjoy spending time with them!