Update

I haven't posted for a couple of days, so I thought I'd take a minute to do that.

Work on the garage has been held up a bit.  The beam in the center of the garage is sagging and other work has been interuppted while they get a support in for that.  We are hoping to have some friends come and help us with construction and moving tomorrow - please be praying if you think of it!

Mama and I (and a couple of friends here and there) have gotten quite a lot packed this week.  There is still plenty to do, but it will all happen in God's timing.

Jonathan is meeting our friend and landlord at the store in the morning to pick up the new door, window, and sheetrock, so tomorrow should be a very productive day!

New House Work Day 2

Jonathan and I had to go into St. Louis for an appointment today, so we didn't get a lot done on the house. But Papa and the kids got a lot done!

I forgot to get a picture of the opening for the new door, but here's Papa starting to get the framing in:


And they got out all the drywall that needed to be removed from the walls. And we were pleasantly surprised to find good insulation back there! I guess with the two garage doors, the insulation can't be that effective.  I'm sure it will be much warmer with a real wall.

The garage door on the left will have a large window in it.

Can you carve out 15 minutes in your day today?

If so, then please read this.

New House - workday 1

Papa and Mama got into town last night, and today after several hours at other tasks (Jonathan and Papa doing installs, Mama and I packing), we all headed over to the new house to work.

The big project on the new house is that we are finishing the double car garage. It will be a multipurpose space, and will include our bedroom, office, and "den." We are tearing it out to the studs, re-working the wiring, adding insulation, drywalling, painting (including the floor, which is concrete), etc. We are also adding a window or two and a new door to the outside. Lots of work, and we hope to have the bulk of it done this week (probably excluding the mudding of the drywall and the painting of the walls).

I missed getting pictures of the garage before the guys got started. The pegboard walls of the garage were covered in hooks and containers. An amazing assortment of screw, nails, fishing equipment, shelves, etc, etc. Today's work of several hours consisted of stripping the garage walls of all their "stuff."

Here are some of the earliest pictures I took today (they had almost half of the stuff taken care of by this point):




And at the end of the night:





Yay for Jonathan and Papa, and for the Blessings, who helped out quite a lot.
And yay for Mama who helped me get lots of stuff packed and unpacked today!

More pictures of the new house

We had a wonderful time yesterday evening with our friends from whom we will be renting our new house.  I forgot to get a picture of all of them together, so I'll have to do that this next weekend (they're in town for a little while).

Here are some more pictures, mostly of the house.  They have captions, but I don't know if they show up in the slideshow (they do show up on the Picasa page).

Blessings

I think y'all must be praying for me!

Last night, while I spent 15 minutes (using the timer!) sitting on my floor sorting through some things, I found some verses and such that I have printed out over the years and have had posted around to remind me of important truths. The funny thing was, they were in a box full of baby books and pictures. What a "co-incidence" that they were in the one box of stuff that I sorted yesterday (one box because I'm being a good girl, you know).

Some highlights:

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
... God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong...
Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
I Cor. 1.25, 27, 31

The present circumstance, which presses so hard against you (if surrendered to Christ) is the best shaped tool in the Father's hand to chisel you for eternity. TRUST HIM, THEN. Do not push away the instrument lest you lose its work.
Mrs. Charles E Cowman, Streams in the Desert

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." ... I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me ... for when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Cor. 12.9,10

Mary was listening to the Lord's word, seated at His feet.
Martha was distracted with all her preparations.
But the Lord answered and said to her,
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only a few things are necessary,
really only one,
for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."
Luke 10.39-42

Be Still

I'm here to come clean and to ask for your prayers.

I am NOT being still. Either figuratively or spiritually. And I must, I really must. But I'm not. I'm twitchy beyond expression.

(Fair Warning: if you're a man, or if you don't want to hear about feminine issues, you might want to stop reading here and and just pray for me. I'm not going to be graphic, but my struggle relates to feminine things, and you might want to skip this blog.)

Here's the deal. Two weeks ago yesterday, I underwent outpatient surgery (general anesthesia) to remove a cervical polyp. It was large, and believed to be rooted at the back of the cervical canal, so the planned procedure was similar to a D&C. Basically, they used rods of graduated size to manually dilate the cervix sufficiently to get to the polyp and remove it at the base. It turns out the that the polyp was rooted just inside in the uterus, not in the cervical canal, so the surgery was a bit more involved than expected, but all went well. Pathology reports were all clear, as well.

After a surgery like this, you're expected to have some bleeding for several days. It can also trigger your cycle to speed up, especially if done close to the expected time for menses. This happened in my case, and I expected to be done with the whole business by about last Thursday.

Well, I'm not done. Still. And it's not because there's anything terribly wrong with me. It's because I just can't be still. I've talked to the dr (via the nurse), and it all comes down to me doing more than I should.

Hello?? We're moving next week! I am so not ready (packing wise) for this move. I have so much to do.

If I could go back and have a "re-do":
~ I would see if waiting a month or so would have been a problem.
~ I would grill the nurse and doctor to get a more clear idea of what recovery would be like. I think they did their best to communicate that to me, but either they weren't emphatic enough, or I wasn't listening. The later is likely.
~ I would humble myself and ask for a week of meals from my church family. Two people brought a meal that first week, but the burden of cooking hasn't helped at all.

So, that covers the "if... then..." statements. Those are mostly for your benefit, dear reader. Remember them if ever you are up for surgery.

"If...Then..." does not, however, help me. I need to find a way to deal with the circumstances in which I am currently being given the opportunity to glorify God.

Last night, as we lay in bed, I appealed to Jonathan for help. I seem to not have the appropriate "gear" for going the right speed at this time. After I'd expressed my frustration with trying to not do too much and consistently failing (and whining about how much I need to do...), my beloved husband informed me that I was missing the point. I guess he was right, because I had to ask him to tell me what the point was!!

The point is (I hear) - I'm supposed to be resting and letting my body heal. I'm supposed to be mostly off my feet. And if I don't give my body the time it needs to heal, not only will this infernal bleeding drag on indefinitely, but I could hurt myself long-term.

Oh.

And here we are, back to faith.
Back to "Be still and know that I am God."

Because, humanly speaking, I cannot sit around and let my body heal like it needs to. I have a family of 9 to pack and move. Starting next weekend. And there is much to do.

But I must Be Still.
My God is big enough to take care of the details of our moving.
He loves me enough to not want this not to be a miserable time for me.
And His grace is sufficient.

Please pray that I will reach up with both hands and accept that grace. That by His divine power, I will Be Still. That I will know, not only in the core of my being, but in all my extremities, that He is God.

Thanks.

Mis-printed Signage

From our trip to Applebee's for tea and coffee:


And from the container of oats in my kitchen:

Double Date!

We were blessed to go see Fireproof on Oct. 7 with our friends Alan and Sue.  There were plans to meet for supper, which fell through due to a sick babysitter.  Jonathan and I went ahead and went to eat and then to the movie.  And a few minutes before the movie started, in walked Alan and Sue!  Yay!  They had managed to line up another babysitter at the last minute.

After the movie, which was amazing, we headed over to Applebee's for some coffee, tea, and visiting.  Aren't we sweet?

Good idea for Christmas...

I'm mulling over this idea from Malia Russell at homemaking911.com

Here's the intro:
Several years ago I heard about an easy way to narrow down Christmas gifts for children. Instead of buying a bunch of toys or other clutter, each child receives the following:
Something to Read
Something to Wear
Something to Play
Something to Share.

She goes on to give some thoughts on how to implement this. Like - if four gifts per child is still too many gifts for your budget, considering asking people you know will be buying gifts for your children to choose a category (or two). And - if they'd like to spend more, ask them to contribute to a savings/investment of some sort for the children.

Any thoughts? I like the idea, but would welcome some more practical implementation ideas.

Set Me Free - woohoo!

One of my favorite Acapella albums has always been Set Me Free.  It is packed full of fabulous songs, and is, in my opinion, some of the best road trip music ever!  Wonderful music for adoration of our great God and Savior, for refocusing our thoughts, and more.  The fact that it was the soundtrack for the Arizona trip when God first started pulling together the hearts of Jonathan and I - icing on the cake!

We lost both our copies of it years ago, and I've longed for it without spending the energy or money to get another copy.  A week or so ago, in a spontanteous moment, I found it used on amazon for $.80 (yes, 80 cents!).  A few bucks for shipping was well worth it, and our "new" cd arrived today.

Love it, love it, love it!!!

I'm considering making a video for one of the songs with some of my favorite "scenery" photos that we've taken over the last few years in various places.  But not till after we've moved, of course.

Moving!

I suppose this post should have come before the "packing" post, shouldn't it?

So, thanking you for your grace extended to my misplaced posting, I'm here to announce that we're moving!

We will be renting the home of some friends of ours who have temporarily moved out of state.  The move will save us over $300/month in housing payments, which is a huge blessing.  The house is beautiful, and sits on a wonderful 10 acres of land (with creek, pond, chicken house, and more).

Though the job of moving a family of 9 is always overwhelming, I am so very much looking forward to being in our new home.  I feel God's blessing and guiding hand over this move, and I am thankful.

How about some pictures??  I hope to get pictures inside the house next weekend, when we will meet with our friends and finalize some details.  But for now, here are a few shots from the outside:

Packing, packing

I've been quite busy with packing the last couple of days.  I'm still not supposed to be lifting things, and I'm so thankful for my helpful boys.  I get a box full and call, "I need some muscles, please!"  And the feet come running.  What a blessing!

I'm working on the office right now, as it's the room that I would least like for someone else to pack and sort through.  I have a list sitting on my keyboard of the order in which I'm wanting to pack the different areas of the house.  The order is determined by what rooms I could stand to let someone else pack.  The ones I feel like I have to pack are first.  It goes:

Office (and school leftovers in the Barn)

J&L's room

Living Room

Dining Room

Kids' rooms

Kitchen

Bathroom

However, if you have a free afternoon, you're welcome to come over and take down all the wall stuff and pack it for me!  ;-)

Anyway, that's what is taking most of my time right now.  Check out my food blog for some Love you can Drink!

Slideshows of Family Camp

For those who might just want a quick peek at our weekend family camp at Dayspring, here are a couple of slideshows:

The "Followers" Gadget

Besides letting the blogger know that you read her blog, the "follow" feature also puts the posts in the "Blogs I'm Following" tab on your Blogspot dashboard. I still use my Google Reader, but this feature might be handy for some folks.

I've noticed how neat this gadget is on Mary's blog, and I know from my sitemeter that I have a few readers. Will any of them admit to it publicly? We'll see!

Operating procedures

As I mentioned, I had some outpatient surgery under general anesthesia last week.  I thought some of you might find it interesting if I posted a bit about the stuff that they did to get me ready for the surgery.  

We got to the hospital at about 7.30 in the morning.  The registration process was held up a bit because I didn't care for the wording on the general sign-away-your-life form, but we eventually came up with something to add to it that made me more comfortable.  Then I needed to go have blood drawn, as there had been a misunderstanding about that the day I had gone up for all my pre-testing.

After those delays, I put on my bright pink hard-hat (there is lots of construction going on at the hospital and patients have to wear hard hats on their way through the construction zone), and we headed back to the pre-surgery room.

Of course, one of the first things I had to do was change into one of those lovely hospital gowns and place all my belongings in a plastic hospital bag.  Then the fun began!

I'm sure I don't remember everything they did before the surgery, but here are some of the "highlights:"

Mixed in with the other preparations were questions from a couple of nurses about various things (Rx, vitamins, allergies, etc) and well as some forms to sign.  It was interesting that they were obviously used to folks signing the form without any questions, because me asking questions surprised them a bit.

They put leg wraps on my legs to prevent blood clots and such.  They were made out of very lightweight material and velcroed around my legs from my ankle to my mid-thigh.  Once we were in the OR, they hooked the wraps up to a pump of some sort to keep the blood moving. 

Another nurse hooked up my IV.  I appreciated that they asked on which side I would prefer to have the IV.  The IV was the entry port for almost every thing with which they injected me.

Everything, that is, except the heparin.  That went into my upper right arm, and good gravy it hurt!  The nurse warned me that it would sting like a bee sting, but wowsers, she was right!  It's not sore any longer, but I still have a bruise there.  The heparin is an anti-coagulant, which was slightly funny to me after all the admonitions to avoid aspirin, garlic, or anything else that might thin my blood.  

Once I was all "suited up," Dr. S came in (and Jonathan came back to the room, so that we could both talk to him).  We addressed our questions and concerns about the surgery, receiving answers that varied in their "satisfactory" level.  Then both Dr. S and Jonathan disappeared and I was wheeled into the actual OR, where I scooted over from the gurney to the operating bed.

The OR was freezing!  I was already cold, so I was very thankful for the warmed blankets that they layered on top of me.  I don't remember much from the OR, as I think they got the put-her-out drugs going pretty soon after we got in.  I remember being bundled up and strapped in (for which I was actually glad - that bed was small, and I didn't want to land on the floor!).  The nurses were chatting with me, helping me to be relaxed as I fell asleep.  They said that if you're relaxed on your way out, you'll wake up relaxed as well (which proved to be true for me).  I remember them asking for my children's names, and I got stuck for a bit after #5.  I think I managed to get out the names of Blessings 6 & 7, but that was about it for me!

When I came to, I was back in the room where they had done all the prep work.  It took me several minutes, I think, to even recognize where I was.  And really, from the time I woke up until after we got home is pretty much a blur.  Dr. S came in and talked to me, the drugged one, but neglected to go out and talk to Jonathan.  I'm not sure how that happened, but by the time I got around to trying to remember what the Dr. had said to me, it was Friday afternoon and I knew both he and his nurse would be out of the office.  So I called today and got the scoop from wonderful nurse Tammy - she's a gem.

So that's my experience with operating procedures.  If you made it through my account, I hope you found it interesting!

New Recipe

Easy Enchiladas here!

Home and Groggy

I'm glad to say that I've been home for a few hours (most of which I've spent sleeping). Things went well with the surgery. I am in too much of a fog to type much, but if you want, you can read Jonathan's update here.

Wednesday Surgery

Okay, I've been debating about whether or not to post this, but I think I shall...

I'm supposed to be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 7.30 to check in for outpatient surgery.  It's not considered a major deal, but to someone like me, general anesthesia is never going to seem like a minor thing.

Not sure if I'll feel like checking in tomorrow evening or not, but I'd appreciate your prayers - both for peace for Jonathan and I, and guidance, etc. for Dr. S.

Thanks!

BBC Family Camp

Our chapel (Believers Bible Chapel) had our first Family Camp this last weekend; we rented Dayspring Bible Camp.  Though Papa spoke at Dayspring when I was younger, he didn't take Mama, Eric, and I because it was so primitive back then!  So this was the first time there for all of our family.  

It was a special weekend of fellowship for our chapel family.  John Jimo from Emmaus Bible College came and shared with us from God's Word.  He was obviously led by the Lord as his messages were very much what we needed, both as a body of believers and as individuals (at least it was for this individual!).

Jonathan and I both were drawn to Dayspring, and I expect that you'll be hearing more about it from me in the future.  As many of you know, Kansas Bible Camp is home to us, and I don't think that will ever change, no matter where the Lord leads us in the future.  I found myself surprised by the tug on my heart toward the camp itself.  I don't mean the grounds, but the Dayspring staff and the feel that I got about the camp and the way the Lord is at work there.  Hard to describe...

I've posted pictures in a couple of Picasa Albums - One for pictures from the weekend that include People, and one for pictures that are of the beautiful grounds and Scenery.

Here's one of my favorite pictures from the weekend, just for a teaser...

So Much to Blog...

... so little time.

I have multiple blog posts swirling again in my head.  And not much time to blog right now!

I'm going to try to get a few posts up this afternoon.  If I don't manage it, I apologize for the false promise.  If I do manage it, I apologize for the flood!

Walking

The following devotional was written by Richard Burson and was in the KBC Intercom in January 1973.  It was included in this month's KBC Good News, and I thought I'd pass it on.  

A message from God's Word:
There are three expressions in the Bible concerned with our walk that may be helpful to think about.

1. Deuteronomy 13:4, "Ye shall walk after the Lord your God." Walking AFTER God tells us we have a leader; Someone walking ahead of us. In the New Testament we are admonished to become "Followers of God as dear children," He is our example. The expression "walking after the Lord" is found three times in the Old Testament.

2. "Walk BEFORE me and be thou perfect" said God to Abraham. David commented: "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." Walking BEFORE the Lord reminds us that God is our interested observer. We are always in His sight and He is interested in what we do. He observes us, not as a critic, but as a loving parent observes his little toddler. Every step is observed with love, pride, and gentle care. Every improvement is noted and encouraged.

3. Noah and Enoch are said to have walked "with God". We can only walk WITH people with whom we agree: Can two walk together except they be agreed? Two can walk together only if they have the same goal, take the same path, progress at the same speed, and adjust to each other.
You and I are also called upon to walk with the Lord. Our lives must conform to His plans for us. Our path must conform to His word. Today, more than ever in the history of the church of God, we need youth who will walk after the Lord. We need youth who will walk before the Lord and youth who will walk with the Lord. How are you walking?

It's on the Market

The Byrds' Nest went on the market this week.  

I don't know what else to type... sitting here with my fingers hovering... but no words.