God is good all the time!

The statement "God is good all the time" can be a hard pill to swallow at times. Much of 2013 has been a hard pill for me to swallow.

 

But I keep in mind that God is good all the time. Because He has my best interest in mind. He knows what is best for my life. He also knows how all the puzzle pieces fit together now and in the future.

 

As I sit here waiting on my final medical test that will be done on August 13, I think WOW all the opportunities that the Lord has allowed into my life to bring Him up and talk about His sovereignty with so many that do not know Him. Oh, they know about a God, they know about a Heaven, they know about the book the Bible exists, but they do not know the one true God, Jesus Christ and sadly they do not have a relationship with Him. Others are hiding their salt and light under a bushel.

 

Sadly, often times true Christianity is a secret life for many, a hidden treasure that they keep for only themselves. I hope you will not keep your faith hidden from others.

 

In sharing my faith with those in the medical profession who have cared for me over the last few years, the Lord has blessed me richly. Take today for instance, just another ordinary school day, nothing too exciting besides textbooks and meal prep (my current mission field). The mail arrives and an excited teenager appears with an envelope and starts yelling "OPEN IT OPEN IT!! It's a note from Dr. X." I thought what on earth is Dr. X doing sending me a note? It's probably a bill! Dr. X is a busy colorectal surgeon with a practice, he is teaching faculty with a major university, has a family and lots more on his plate than taking time to write me a note.

 

The handwritten note was thanking me for keeping him up to date on the Mayo Clinic results as well as how I am progressing. He also congratulated the teenager on winning a Blue ribbon, getting an A rating and state fair for his 4-H Health project entitled Diverticular Disease & Prevention. The teenager was blessed by this too.

 

So, who can you bless today with a note? Think on it, it only takes a few minutes to jot down a few sentences and mail off a note. Who can you encourage today?

 

I am not a big fan of the Message Bible, but sometimes I like the way that version explains things. Such as this one...

"I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." Jeremiah 29:11

God is good all the time!

 

A Song To Get You Through Those Rough Patches In Life

Casting Crowns song "Already There"

I heard this song on the radio way back in February, it was so fitting for my life at that time and even now. I had been to the doctor that day and I jotted down some lyrics from the song, I had no idea who the band was or what the name of the song was. I lost the scrap of paper and just found it today. I Googled the words and here is the song. Casting Crowns "Already There" It has so much meaning to me today, just as it did that day in February when I first heard it on the radio. I just bought this song from Itunes.
The words are so true, God is already there, at the end of our lives and HE knows exactly what we will endure, even before we know.
 
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A Journey Through Learning Review

We have been given the opportunity to review A Journey Through Learning lapbooks. A Journey Through Learning is a company that was founded by two homeschooling moms Paula & Nancy, how cool is that? 2 ladies who know exactly what we do on a daily basis with our children!! Who better to create a curriculum for us.

Our son is 7th grade but still enjoys doing some of the lower grade fun stuff. This is our first experience with lapbooks, I had seen them online over the years, but I was so focused on book work in the first few years that I overlooked lapbooking, "You can't learn from arts and crafts" I thought! Well our 7th grader took to lapbooking like a fish to water!

Stack of library books that became a part of the leraning process.

Click on the link Knights, Castles and Middle Ages lapbook, the lapbooks are available in the following formats:
Instant Download- $13.00
CD- $14.00
Printed- $21.00
We were asked to pick one of the following lapbooks.
Letters, Numbers and Shapes (ages 3-5)
The Earth (grades 1-4)
Knights and Castles (grades 2-7)
Astronomy and Space (grades 2-7)

Section 1, with drawings and cut outs.

We were given the instant download version to review. That worked really well for us even with very slow and basic DSL Internet service. I printed out the lapbook for the Knights and Castles; my son just went to town on it! He got some library books to read up more on the subject. He has been cutting and pasting like crazy. He watched the how to videos from A Journey Through Learning and picked right up on how to make the lapbook without my assistance.

Middle section of the lapbook.

We had all the supplies on hand already for the lapbook. If you have younger children you will need to work with them on this, I would say most 3rd graders could read the materials on their own, 5th grade on up could do the lapbook on their own with you checking up on them. I highly recommend watching the how to videos that I mentioned above, they were very helpful and explained things in very easy to understand terms.

Last section of the lapbook.

For the review our son picked Knights and Castles Lapbook with Study Guide which covered the Middle Ages. We liked the fact that the materials were from a Christian perspective.

What our son liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) It covered the Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, this was all new to me.
2) Love learning about the castles, I learned that they are not very fun to live in.
3) Knights and armor
4) Loved doing crafts that counted as school work.
5) Liked how there were places to draw pictures.
6) This was so much fun!

What our son did not like about the lapbook:

1) NOTHING

What this Homeschool Mamma liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) This was so much fun!
2) Easy for "On your own work."
3) Easy instructions.
4) Not too many supplies needed.
5) Did I say "FUN?"
6) BONUS!!! No outside materials needed for research, if you wanted to go more in depth there are book suggestions included. Otherwise you can just use what A Journey Through Learning provides for you.

What this Homeschool Mamma did not like about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) NOTHING! It was totally awesome and even hubby thought it was a cool way to learn.

I am finding that lapbooking is great for those homeschooling days, weeks or months when a homeschooling mom has health issues. I've gone through a Sigmoid Colon removal surgery, had an anastomotic leak, and then an infection from the leak, which has made for an interesting end of the school year to say the least! lol. A Journy Through Learning lapbooks would be a great learning tool for those times that homeschooling is difficult on mom. My son worked on handwriting, cutting, reading, spelling, and history, all while I rested quietly as I recovered.

Come see what others reviewers have to say about A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks.
For those of you that have NEVER done lapbooking, it's so cool and I think we are hooked on it. Looking back now, I wish that we had done lapbooks from the very beginning, but ya know, you can't go back. So we are going forward and he is looking at what else he can lapbook. So all is not lost, but you know how our mommy homeschool brains work, it was sort of a sad moment thinking about how those fun little homeschool learning moments are fleeting. Enjoy your children and relax with the textbooks for awhile and try a lapbook out.

GOTCHA DAY! Adoption Day!

This week we celebrated our son's adoption day, we call it GOTCHA DAY! In our home when it's your special day (birthday or Gotcha Day) you get to pick your meals. Our son picked cold cereal for breakfast, we normally have hot breakfast so this was a treat. Lunch was a favorite buffet restaurant and dinner was Subway. In the past we have spent the night at a hotel swimming,  gone to the zoo, played board games all evening long or find other fun stuff to do for his Gotcha Day! We had planned a fun field trip to tap maple trees for syrup but those plans unraveled. We got on the road by 7am with my sister in law (AKA favorite Aunt of the child) in tow and headed toward the forest of maple trees.

About an hour into the drive husband calls to say the field trip was cancelled due to weather. From the backseat comes a yell to head to the children's museum instead. OK, foiled plans are now made in to more fun plans!! It was cold (33 degrees) anyway and I think we were all a bit glad it was going to be an inside day. We decided to take a side trip to look at the baby chicks at the feed store, always a fun time. We now have BABY CHICK FEVER! lol. We will need to go to the doctor for that cause I ain't got no energy to care for baby chicks right now, though we only have about 4 chickens left in the freezer. We did buy a chicken hutch that was $119.00 on sale for $89.00. When I am up on my feet again we will get some meat birds to fill that up. YUM!!

Then we headed off to the museum, we get in free with our son's AOPA membership so that is pretty cool! Since I am not up for much in the way of walking around and expending energy since my surgery/leak/infection, I rested on a bench, then sat for a few hours in the lunch room. I brought the Kindle Fire along with me to watched an episode of the Duggars show 19 Kids and Counting, if you want to know exactly what my only child is like, he is a carbon copy of the Duggar boy that is interested in cameras and photography, I will have to ask our son what that boys name is. If anyone knows post the name, I know it starts with a J . . . hahaha, but I can't come up with it, post it on my blog please. Josiah is his name!

After the children's museum we headed off to the mall since I needed some new pants, none of mine fit anymore since the surgery, my stomach is still swollen, though this morning I did see a bit of my large incision, so the swelling is going down some. We walked around the mall and sat down a few times. Son treated his Aunt to a chair massage, they both liked it. I thought it might be too much for me so I just watched. Did not buy any clothes, but got talked into being a model for a fashion show and I will get 40% off my purchases that day. I'm thinking it was the pain meds that made me do it!  Otherwise I would NEVER consent to being a fashion model. But for 40% off everything that I buy, well I'm thinking I can do this. And the child was going nuts about it, so I said "YES!"

After all this they wanted to go to a bookstore, I conceded and headed out to the car to recline. I napped and ate some egg salad (what other type of sandwich would you eat when you raise chickens?) and chips. They enjoyed themselves and Auntie thought she would never get the child out of the bookstore...hahaha, she was getting tired and there are no chairs in this particular book store, I guess they don't want you to sit around and sample the books before you buy.

We arrived home around 10pm, I was pooped (pun intended after my intestinal surgery. . . LOL), the next day I did NOTHING but breathe, sleep and eat. I am for sure not ready for a day out like that again for awhile.

There is a silver lining to all this.
After all the stress of my illness and added responsibility that the child has had over the last 6 months, remember I broke my foot, ended up on bed rest with it, then was hospitalized in December (Diverticulitis), then again in January (surgery), then yet again in February (infection). Now my recovery phase (should be back to normal by summer, but really what is NORMAL. . . hahaha.) It's been a really long ride for all of us. So this comment from our son really threw me for a loop, it got me thinking WOW I guess love is what it's all about (the love of the Father first and foremost) and you just do what you have to do to make it through. I think this has all been a HUGE learning experience for our son, in watching how Daddy takes care of me and how our marriage vowes really come into play with something like this, especially when your spouse is not able to function for months on end, you have to take on household responsibilities and new financial responsibilities (my medical bills just for 12 days in the hospital + all the extras of tests, co-pays, prescriptions etc. are well over $100,000.00 and insurance is fighting $48,000 of that saying it was not medically necessary for me to be in the hospital for the infection and IV antibiotics. Prayers would be appreciated in this area. I am thinking that there is an insurance coding glitch or something since I was very ill and I don't think I would have fared very well at home in the condition I was in, there is no way I could have functioned at home.

I pray that our son will remember us getting through these times when/if his wife or children should ever become ill. I look at this as a time of growing for all of us, and WOW what opportunities I had to share through the course of my illness, to God Be The Glory is all I can say! As I feel up to it I will share more things that I encountered through my illness.

Visiting Mom in the hospital. I look much better now!

I will leave you with the comment from our child the night before his Gotcha Day, he says to me "Mom, I am so glad that you adopted me." I said "Why?" He says "Because I get to grow up in a Christian home, I get chickens and I get to have a dog." I told him "Thank you and also be thankful for your birth parents, they made a really hard decision in placing you for adoption."

How does your family celebrate Gotcha Day!?

 

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How I Spent My Day & An Update On Me

After being in the hospital for 13 days (4 for surgery and then 9 for an infection after surgery) I got to know some of the staff and many of them had taken care of me both times I was in. I decided to fix up some treat bags for the staff that I could remember by name and also took a few large boxes of microwave popcorn for the rest of the staff. I would have made up more treat bags but many of the staff wore name badges backwards where you could not read their names :O(      So they missed out. My dear sister-in-law that is an RN brought in a big tray of cookies for the nurses one night during my stay. I was really shocked when I was walking down the hospital corridor when one of the nurses looked up and recognized me from a distance with street clothes on and a heavy coat. I've been out of the hospital since I think Feb 6th or 7th it's all a blur to me. She said "Well hello stranger!" That was a blessing to be recognized, again I NEVER felt like a number with this staff! As our son and I were leaving to head to the elevators I just cried, it is still very overwhelming to have gone through all this and to still be weak and not up to par.

The treat bags had gum, candy, suckers and chocolate in them, the black bag is special for one of the nurses that has Celiac Disease along with her children having it, so it's full of Hodgson Mill products and some other goodies. Hoping these treats are a blessing to them.

So our day started out like this I took our son to Chuck E Cheese since he had 90 tokens to use up from the past and present school year, I always check the coupon section of the website for when they have token specials, usually 100 tokens are $20 which those last a long time. I give them for doing well on math speed drills or pop quizzes. Sometimes if work is done really well with no complaints I will surprise him with 1 or 2 tokens. He keeps them in a baggie so he can just grab them when we are going to be near a Chuck E Cheese and he can spend them. Sometimes he likes to save them up and spend a few hours playing, other times he wants to run in and play a few games of Skee-Ball. Chuck E Cheese also has Chuck E Cheese Rewards Calendars that you can print out and get 10 free tokens for turning them in, they have chore charts, homework charts and more.

They now carry GLUTEN FREE PIZZA too!! It comes pre-made and individually wrapped, so you know it's SAFE! What a blessing for our little ones as well as adults. I do not know the corn status of the pizza, you would have to check that out. They also have a GREAT salad bar too.

So on to my day, while our son was playing games and having fun, I was sitting at a table packing up treat bags for the nursing staff and doctors. I found some Gospels of John at the Christian book store, but they only had 2 on hand  :O(     I gave one to my surgeon, his first name is Peter and I wrote in the book that I would have given him the book of Peter, but John was so much more exciting to read  ;-)

I was totally exhausted from my day of being out and about, plus I did not sleep but 2 hours the night before since I had to take a double dose of steroid meds for the blood test. I slept in the car on again off again. I had to be in town by 8am for a blood draw, slept for about 30 minutes in the car after that, went to the Christian book store, napped in the car for about 15 min, went to Chuck E Cheese, that was good since I was just sitting and not up and about. Then went to the grocery store, napped in the car for about 30 min after that and then delivered the goodies to 3 different places and napped in between those. This is all perfectly normal after having the surgery and then the infection. I should be back to normal by Summer. I actually feel pretty well, though if I over do it I KNOW IT! lol. I told my guys that I am not leaving the house for the next few days and will be sleeping as needed. I am still sore especially when I make the 100 mile trips to the doctors, and I did that 3 days in a row last week and I was hurting, felt like I was bruised on my entire torso from the bumpy roads.

We have some great products to review for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Review Crew coming up so we will be working on those. School is going well, so glad that we skipped Christmas break so that our son could take a winter break while I had my surgery, it worked out well since I have had a longer recovery time. We started back to full time school this past week, while he was at Grandpa's house he dabbled in math, science, history and of course his favorite subject reading.

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Surgery tomorrow..............

Well, friends I'm signing off here for awhile. I have to be at the hospital tomorrow morning for my surgery. After years of being misdiagnosed with stomach issues, doctors had always told me it was nerves, depression or stress causing my stomach issues......well they were wrong. So now I have to have part or all of my colon removed. They will decided once they get in there and get a better look at things.

The one nice thing out of all this was when I had a doctor that saw my CT scan tell me that he was very sorry that I had suffered for so many years. I told him "Oh, so it's not really all in my head?" And he told me that he could see from the CT scan that it was definitely not all in my head. Another specialist had a good laugh when I told him that I was told I was depressed and that was causing my stomach issues. He said with much sarcasm in his voice "Well having chronic diarrhea many times a day for years might make a person a touch depressed." lol. The doctors also apologized for me being one of those "medical mishaps" as they call it. Where someone slips through the system and is not treated correctly. Glad there is a name for this.......lol. As our Pastor always says "Doctors practice medicine." It's all just practice........EEEKKK!!!

Fear not if things don't go well and I end up in Glory. I know that Jesus has gone before me to prepare a place for me, John chapter 14 verse 3. The book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 6 says "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:" 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 55 says "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Do you have this same view of your own future death? Or do you fear death? Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can remove this fear. To find out more ask me or go to NeedHim.org or call 1-888-NEED-HIM.

Love ya all,
Moe
p.s. I'm not even worried about our homeschool. We have gotten all the 4-H books out and plan to have our son read over those, sketch out his projects for the year and stuff like that. Lots of reading, cooking and enjoying time with his 80+ year old Grandpa. He plans to set up a tent in Granpa's dining room and camping out for the week.

Illness strikes so please pass the Lysol

I'm thinking all I am going to get to is a picture to make you chuckle. We have been passing around a cough/sore throat/fever/headache thing. So here ya go  :O)

I found this cartoon very amusing as I was at a yard sale today with 2 mommies that have young kids and they were tired mommies needing a break. But no sitter today during the yard sale. It's easy to forget how those different seasons of life are.

Psalm 127:3
"Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

Have a good weekend!
Moe