Happy October 31st

Today...

We joined our CC community for our weekly gathering. Every week I am reminded of how deeply I appreciate this particular group. Today was no exception. A day of learning, sharing and connecting with friends is truly a wonderful way to spend a Monday.

I stopped by one of my favorite consignment stores. Upon browsing through the clearance rack I found an adorable exercise shirt that I had tried on about a month ago. It was now on the clearance rack for a fantastic price. Now it is sitting in my closet.

Costco was wonderfully full of samples and empty of people today. One of the ladies who was handing out samples insisted on giving my kids 2 nicely sized pizza samples. She explained that she had to give out the rest of the pizza before her shift was over and there weren't many people. Well, okay, we do like to be helpful. Grocery shopping was done in record time and the kids left the store full and happy.

We arrived home, unloaded groceries, the boys took care of the chicken chores and the kids changed into costumes. After some trunk or treating at a local church, we came home and settled in with the movie Luther. A bit of candy and a bit of time to remember and reflect on the beginning of the Reformation.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals.

~Martin Luther

A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing.

Our helper He amid the flood

Of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe

Doth seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great,

And, armed with cruel hate,

On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He.
Lord Sabboth, his name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him.
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure.
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers
Not thanks to them, abideth.
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also.
The body they may kill,
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever...

"God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars."

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."

"Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying."

Martin Luther

Nothing Says Fall...

...like soup served in a squash bowl.

My Favorite Mess

I shared about one of my not-so-favorite messes in this post. But when I walk into the living room and see books scattered, it makes me smile. Maybe I smile because books are so easily picked up, but mostly I smile because it means someone or several someones were reading.

The Busy Mom's 10 Minute Guide to a Healthy Happy Family by Nancy Parlette

A friend of mine regularly mentioned this book and shared how much it helped her to eat healthier. Then when I saw her last Spring, she handed me a copy. I am so happy she did! This is a great book! It is extremely readable. The book is set up into 20 lessons. Each lesson is a short chapter. You can tell the author is a busy mom because she designed the chapters so they would be easy to read in short bits. This is the type of book you can carry in your purse and read when you are waiting in line, at kids sports practices or that sort of thing. Plus as a bonus the book has a number of smoothie and juice recipes. I am a sucker for a book with recipes.

Here are some of my favorite bits from the book:

• "Eat the rainbow every day." In other words eat a variety of fruits and veggies that are brightly colored. The book explains why.
• Lesson 6 shares some studies in which the behavior of children was observed when they ate a poor diet and when they ate a healthy diet. Very interesting.
• "Oftentimes people will eat when they are actually thirsty but don't realize it."
• "I see life as a celebration, an education, and an occupation. Life is a gift from God and the most amazing part of that gift is not the beautiful world where we've been placed, and it's not even the amazing people that share the planet with us, but it is that God wants to have a personal intimate relationship with us. To fill our soul and bond with us like nothing humanly possible. THAT is worth celebrating!"
• "When it comes to our emotions and food, we can forget that food is simply fuel and fall into the trap of eating for comfort. Certainly food is to be enjoyed. It is a gift that we savor and appreciate. But it is not for our emotional comfort. It's not there to dull our senses so that we don't have to feel pain."
• "We all want to take good care of our children...We start with making sure they get plenty of rest, water and exercise."

Want to learn more or order the book? Click here. This is a book I highly recommend. It is extremely readable and packed full of practical information that has the potential to change lives. If you want to get on the track to a healthier lifestyle, this book is the perfect guide to help you in that.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

You Can Lead The Children, But You Can't Make Them

The floor in front of the shelves. Believe it or not, the shelves have a place for all of these items.

The inconsistently used shelves.

It was extremely exciting when we obtained shelving to put up in our office. Visions of organization danced in my head. A cubby for soccer/tennis gear, a cubby for library books, a cubby for AWANA items, a cubby for items left at our home and waiting to be returned....oh my! It would be organized, nothing would get lost, it would be everything in its place and a place for everything! BEAUTIFUL! BLISS!

For a short time, it worked. A very short time. Now, more often than not, everything is piled on the floor in front of the shelf. Sigh. And this is where reality crashes headlong into my system of organizational bliss.

Lesson Learned:

You can lead the children to a shelf, but you can't make them consistently put their gear on it.

Goodbye Food Rut

I have been in a food rut lately. My creativity and motivation have just not been there. On Wednesday we stopped by a little roadside veggie stand.

All this yumminess...loving the bounty of Autumn.

Then we stopped by another place and picked up corn on the cob. Grand total for all this, $8. Seriously. What an amazing price. And what is priceless is having my food motivation back.

Bits of Fall

And yes, my kitchen window is THAT spotted and dirty. I do think the picture makes it look a bit worse. I can still see out of it, but nonetheless, it is in need of a washing.

I used to use this game in my job prior to being home with my kids. It is a great game. The cards are full of questions such as:

• Tell about an incident when you overslept.
• Tell about a favorite letter you received.
• Name something you often did on Sundays as a child.
• What is one of your goals in life?
• Describe a way that credit cards have affected your life.
• Tell about a historic site or famous place you have seen or would like to see.
• What is a habit you picked up from a relative.

I was thrilled when I found the game at a garage sale this last Saturday for a $1! The box and board had water damage. But the cards were perfectly fine. The playing board is really not necessary to the game. It is just a way to take turns and select a category. I tossed the damaged box and board, saved the dice and game pawns for the kids to use when they make up their own games. The cards went into the container on my coffee table. If you look closely in the picture, you can see them. They are between a section with dried corn and a section with gourds.

At dinner time we have been grabbing out a couple cards and using them as conversation starters. It is great to have good dinnertime conversation. I always envisioned lively mealtime conversation, but with very young children that just isn't always realistic. Dinner time with young children can be downright exhausting, it can feel like it is more about survival than enjoyment. Now that the kids are older, it is exciting to find that fun mealtime conversations can sometimes be a reality. I had previously considered making my own conversation starter cards using some of these questions, but for now, I will rely on the garage sale find.

Advent Calendar from Land of Nod

I know it is early to think too much about Christmas, but when The Land of Nod catalog arrived and this advent calendar was in it, my heart got all fluttery. How fun is this?

In Which I Acknowledge That I Need to Chill Out and That I Have Nerdish Tendencies

Needless to say the last two weeks have left me feeling a bit overwhelmed at moments. Homeschooling is, at times, similar to having a full time job. It takes a large amount of time and energy. Being home so much has pros and cons. Pro: I can toss laundry in the washer during the day and get that done even while I am doing school with the kids. Con: Who has time to fold the laundry when I am doing school with the kids and trying to keep up with the other things we have going on right now?

M told me last night that I needed to "just relax" when it comes to school. I told him that his telling me that does not make me feel more relaxed. Due to medical appointments last week we missed large chunks of time when we typically do school. Then on Friday when we were home, A was exhausted. He took two naps that day. That is not ordinary for that boy. He was wiped out.

This week I feel the push to make up for the time we missed last week. But, M is a little bit right. He is probably more than a little bit right, but I'm only going to concede a small amount on that. I do know that he hears me though because he has made sure he is home in time this week to take kids to soccer games and practice. A highlight of this week was 2 hours at home alone while everyone else was at soccer games. When M sees the pile of unfolded laundry on our bed, he just quietly disappears in our bedroom and folds it and puts much of it away. Awww, so sweet.

When it comes to school, we are accomplishing a good deal. I tend to see all that we potentially could be doing. I tend to feel behind if we aren't doing all the things I had hoped to do, but there is a time to let go of expectations and roll with what life tosses at you. This is one of those times.

Here are a few bits from my week:

Most of my down time has been devoted to reading this book. I am learning a great deal.

This year at Classical Conversations we are learning the states and capitals of our nation. We have been enjoying this web site with a states and capitals matching game.

Here is a states and capitals memory game.

This site has a number of different states and capitals games. Many increase in difficulty, so as you master one level, you can move to a more challenging level.

I must be a real nerd because video games are not appealing to me. At. All. But I could waste spend a lot of time playing the games I linked to. They are just fun and I feel like it is a legitimate use of time since they are educational. :)

Striving To Lean on the Everlasting Arms

The following is the last part of an email sent out to some family and friends regarding our situation with A:

Right now the Lord has brought this to my mind, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind…” I am going to stop there rather than write out the entire book of James, but do go read it J In this time we get to stand on truth and the truth is that this did not catch God by surprise. It isn’t the news we wanted to receive, it would have been so much easier to hear that all was perfectly great, but life is about the glory of God and if God is most glorified in A’s life through this, then we pray for His strength to praise Him in it. Pray that we would count it all joy, that we would take time to cry and process and that we would keep our focus on God and His glory.

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Since sending that out, a number of people have shared encouraging words and are praying and we feel surrounded in love. Words can't capture how much that means and how that is carrying us in this time. One thing that has stood out to me is how a number of people have shared Bible passages or verses and I don't think any two people have shared the same two verses. Although maybe people have and each verse I read sounds fresh right now. What has stood out to me is how relevant God's Word is to us and how the Bible is full of comfort. There isn't just one passage that speaks to the ache in our hearts or to the disappointments in life, but rather there are numerous passages. God shows His love to us in innumerable ways. I love that.

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The books arrived! Yay! Now to dive into them. Life does not slow down for hard times. Someone gently asked me what we are going to do now that we have this information about A. I replied that we are going to keep living life and pray. And that is what I hope to do. That is a very simplified version of what I hope to do.

Living life, what I say I want to do, meets the reality of my emotions when books on seizures and epilepsy arrive and all I want is a quiet house and a chair to curl up in to read. Living life means the kids keep going, it means that they don't adapt naturally and simultaneously to every mood I have. It means that responsibilities are still there. It means the books arrived and there was still school to teach, dinner to toss in the crock pot, attitudes to attend to (both mine and the kids), laundry to swap out and so many other things that are just part of daily life.

Daily life can feel inconvenient, but it can also be a security. Normal routine can provide comfort if I slow down and savor it. Today my prayer was to not become annoyed at the things that kept me from curling up in quiet house with a stack of books. "Jesus, help me to be kind, help me to respond in gentleness because all the knowledge gained from those books is nothing without love. Help me to be loving, no matter what comes my way. It does not come naturally, but help me to reflect You."

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

(1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV)

Two Days of Testing and What the Doctor Said

Two consecutive days of testing came. Day one went smoothly. It was a long day, a needle was involved, which A didn’t care for, but who does? Overall he did a super job. After his testing we went out for ice cream. I chose a swanky little eatery full of local and organic goodies and he chose lavender-honey ice cream. It was very tasty. I chose cake that was a bit dry, but the company was good, so the dry cake didn't matter so much.

Day two was another long day. The test went well, as far as A doing a great job, but the results were not what we hoped. We, of course, hoped to find out everything was A-OK. But that was not the result we received. The test revealed a brain pattern that is consistent with seizures and epilepsy.

The doctor, who is very skilled at this type of thing, was not as gifted at delivering unpleasant news. He shared in an easy manner about all the tests that did come back well, but then his tone changed , he opened the exam room door became more abrupt, not rude, but rushed and uninterested in discussing details. Maybe he has been trapped in a room with distraught parents and wanted to avoid further situations? I am not sure. But I left a bit stunned.

Stunned in the sense that I had this concerning information, A seemed quite healthy and I had no idea what this would mean for our lives. I am still not sure. The doctor did recommend a book and that is on order from Amazon, along with a couple of other books. As much as I appreciate Amazon, their one day shipping actually was projected to take 5 days, what is with that? I opted for the 2 day shipping instead. It was much cheaper and the books will arrive soon enough.

For now, we chart any symptoms, strive to rest in the mercy of God and live life. Live life with the knowledge that there is the potential for some life altering symptoms to flare up. And as soon as those books arrive, I plan to dive into them. We live with the very real knowledge that life could change in an instant, but in many ways that is always the case. Life could always change in an instant, it is just that sometimes, things come my way that cause my awareness of that to increase.

M's deployment did that. It reminded me daily, sometimes hourly that life could change in a moment. Now this health issue with my sweet boy reminds me. The thought that he could have a severe seizure wakes me up in the night. What if...what if...what if...and it is all very scary at times. At other times it just seems like it can't really be true. No way, my kiddo is fine, he is running around perfectly fine, but then he has a moment when he does not feel fine and he comes by my side and tells me he feels anxious or worried or that his body does not quite feel right. And right now it is all relatively minor, but we know that could change and that minor could turn to seriously life-altering.

Hard To Wrap My Mind Around

I have held off in sharing more about this. In this instance my story merges with A’s story. I want to honor him and not over share. After talking with him he said, “I don’t mind mom, go ahead and share.” I had almost hoped that he would have told me not to share, but I am blessed that he is willing to be so open. So, here is where we are at.

We had an appointment with a pediatric neurologist. After calling to ask if there had been any cancellations, we were able to get in 10 days earlier than our original appointment. That was nice. Rather than go on a rant, I'll just leave out the parts about the hassle of getting A's records transferred and simply getting an appointment in a timely manner. None of that matters at this point.

At that appointment the doctor explained migraines to us. He must have thought the incident we were describing was possibly a migraine. Then he had some concerns about blood flow and ordered some tests and told me to put A on a low dose aspirin, 81mg per day. Between that appointment, the tests and a follow up chat with the doctor five hours passed. That was a much longer day than anticipated.

We left wondering if it had actually been a stroke that A had had and scheduling two days of tests for the next week. There would be more tests on his brain and blood flow. A seemed so healthy and normal, it was hard to wrap my mind around the possible reality that something sinister could be impacting in his body.