Week in Review

This past week has been total craziness!  Here is just a brief overview of what went on around our house.

Sunday :  Easter morning, sunrise service at church (as a non-morning person, you can imagine what this means).  Kids are dressed and ready, sporting their new garments (made with tender loving care by yours truly). The girls had new dresses, and the boys had spiffy new bow ties. 

Monday:  Paul had an outpatient surgical procedure.  Of course, the surgery was delayed nearly four hours, so we were at the hospital all day... instead of just half a day.  He is recovering well, thankfully.  Here he is suffering the effects of anesthesia.  Note the blissful smile.  :)  I thought the hat was kind of cute, too.

While at the hospital, I also saw this sign in the bathroom.  I really wonder how they figured this out.

Tuesday was pretty normal, if you don’t count all the extra work I had to do taking care of my recovering hubby.  I also hung the new shelf he made for me.  I wanted to hang it on one wall in our sunroom, but since we were unable to find a stud to which we could attach our screws/nails, it was an unqualified disaster.  My wall looked like Swiss cheese, from all the holes I made.  It was  bad!  I finally opted for another wall, and got out the joint compound to fill in the holes I made in the first wall.  Guess I’ll be painting that when we get back.  The shelf was another of my Ana White creations.  Love it! 

Wednesday was pretty normal for us, and Paul was able to get around a little better.  The kids and I had colds that we picked up somewhere, and were snuffing around the house, constantly looking for the Kleenex boxes.  Lovely.

Thursday and Friday we spent packing the trailer, doing laundry, cleaning, and preparing to leave on an extended round of evangelistic meetings.   That is a task that seems overwhelming at times, since there are so many things to accomplish before leaving for several weeks.  I always end up forgetting something, despite my extensive lists.  :)

Saturday: Bid our house farewell for a while, and hit the road. Paul was feeling good enough to drive (or at least he didn’t feel bad enough to let me drive the trailer).  Stopped mid-trip for a meal and saw something I had never encountered before – a complimentary mouthwash dispenser in the bathroom.  It was totally random.

So, that was our week.  This week we are in meetings, so pray for all of us as we minister to this church.  I will try to get back on my normal blog schedule, but I am not making any promises at this point!  By the way, we are all doing much better – colds, post-op. etc.  God is good!

Holding the Fort

This week, we are holding revival meetings at our home church.  The weeks previous have been filled with special cottage  prayer meetings and earnest individual preparation.  The opposition to this meeting has been tremendous, especially in our own family.  I was unable to attend two of the three prayer meetings because Josiah had a severe earache.  While he had no fever, he was in a lot of pain, and I thought it best  to keep him  home, although I hated to miss the special times of prayer.

Sunday morning, I took the cotton out of his ear to put in his ear drops, and saw blood and pus (ok – I know that is really gross) in the ear canal.  I was instantly more concerned than ever.  Of course, nothing is open on Sunday morning, so I could not get him to the doctor until Monday afternoon at the earliest.  He still had no fever, and said the pain, while less than it had been, was still there.  I really didn’t know what to do.   I thought perhaps the eardrum had ruptured, but was unsure of what to do in that situation.  I knew the devil was really fighting this meeting.  We went to church anyway, since he couldn’t get in to see the doctor, and he wasn’t feeling too badly.

Monday afternoon, the doctor checked him, and thankfully, the eardrum was not ruptured.  it was however, sucking inward, due to the negative pressure coming from his throat and nasal passages.  I had never heard of this before.  I am still not sure how all the discharge got in the ear, but I was glad there was no damage to the eardrum.  The doctor also swabbed his throat, since it was all red and inflamed, and I was not so happy to find out that Josiah had strep throat.  Who knows how long he had been sick, and he never complained of a sore throat, didn’t sound stuffy, he just had the earache.

That day, our toilet also decided to stop working effectively, and bubbled ominously whenever flushed.  We debated on what to do, and there was a fruitless search for the plunger.  Random question: do people pack their plungers in a box when they move, or do they just throw them away and get a new one?   Whatever your answer may be, ours was nowhere to be found.  I had to go buy another one, and thankfully, with a vigorous plunging, the toilet is now back to normal.  Disaster averted!

Now that Josiah has been on antibiotics for 24 hours, he will be able to attend the services the rest of the week.  I however, think I may be coming down with something.  I guess only time will tell at this point.

In spite of all the opposition to the meeting, the services have been good, and God is working in the hearts of the people.  We are already seeing answers to prayer.  Thank God that He is the Overcomer!

Happy President’s Day!

I have no plans for today – other than school, housework and the usual.  I know today is considered a holiday, but I didn’t tell my kids! Mwahahaha!  I am so motivated to get the school year over that I don’t want to take any extra days of vacation.

 

Last week, I took my girls to the doctor because they both had a rash on their face.  I found out it was scarletina rash due to the fact that they had strep throat!  Neither one of them had complained of feeling badly, nor did they have a fever, sore throat, or any other symptoms.  The doctor told me I had caught it early, and we were able to get them on antibiotics (I don’t usually do antibiotics, but sometimes you have to) right away.  I am so grateful that they didn’t get really sick, or spread it to their brothers.  Now I just have to make sure I don’t forget to give them their medicine every day.

 

For those of you who participate in Swagbucks, this is their birthday month, and there are a lot of special activities going on around the website.  One of the big prizes is that four people will win $1000 cash!  Now is the time to join if you haven’t already!  Check out Swagbucks today!  New members can get an extra 110 Swagbucks for using the Promo code BIRTHDAYBASH12 when you sign up, making a total of 140 Swagbucks on your first day!  What a great deal!

Cleaned Out

I have been a little under the weather this week, and therefore, decided that I could exert my limited energies to doing some long-delayed chores in the trailer.  One of these was getting rid of the sock box.  You may wonder what a sock box is, but I know you have one, too, although it may not be called a sock box.  When we transferred our belongings from our previous trailer to the new trailer, there was significantly less storage space.  Due to this, my sock collection (which is not really that impressive – maybe a dozen pair) did not fit in the drawer with all my other unmentionables, which will continue to be unmentioned…  I decided I would just stick the socks in the top half of an apple box until I could find a place to put them.

Fast forward seven months.  The sock box was still there, sitting in front of the dresser, and impeding not only our access to the drawers, but also blocking the narrow walkway at the foot of the bed.  Although it was still called the sock box, it had grown in usefulness, and now held not just socks, but hosiery, jewelry, pens, papers, photos, picture frames, important papers, excess folded laundry, and a few sweaters.  Suffice it to say, the sock box had become a major pain in the foot, probably due to the number of times I kicked it while trying to squeeze past to the other side of the bed.  It had to go.

In reality, sorting through the box was not nearly as bad as I had dreamed.  It took about thirty minutes to clean out the clutter and I was on to a much more formidable task—the kid’s toy box!



I am a nice mom, and so the toys all survived the purge.  However, the great majority of them will be put in storage until we have space for the kids to play with them.  The children are still amazed at how nice their room looks without toys strewn from one end to the other.  They still have plenty of toys to spread around, but the ones they rarely play with have gone on vacation for a while.  Maybe permanently! Mwahahahahaha!  Here are the toys I decided to send on an all-expense paid vacation to the storage unit!  Impressive, huh?

What task do you dread more than any other?  Take the challenge today and tackle it—you can get rid of your “sock box,” too!  :)

A New Experience

Eagle Point Resort, Beaver, UT

It has been several days since I have last given an update, and those days have been quite full of adventure!  We left San Diego on Monday, headed for Richfield, UT.  We ended up stopping in Las Vegas for the night.  A church there allowed us to park the trailer on our way through. (We did not "invest" our love offering while there!)  Paul and I were looking for the trailer hookups in the dark, and could not find any.  I did find an unlocked door, though, and looked in the building.  When the door shut, an alarm went off!  Yikes!  Within 10 minutes, the security man was there.  We explained what we were doing, but he said that our statement had to be verified with someone from the church.  He couldn't get in touch with anyone ( they were probably all out on dates since it was Valentine's Day), so we had to pack up and leave.  As we were headed out of town, the assistant called us, and told us we could come back - it had all been cleared.  This was a tremendous blessing, especially since our children were sick and needed to go to bed.

The next day, we headed out again toward Richfield.  It was a drive of about 3-4 hours form Las Vegas.  We were about 60 miles north of the city when a car passed us, honking furiously.  We knew something was wrong, so we pulled over to the side of the road.  One of our trailer bearings had seized, and the wheel was locked up.  There was smoke everywhere, and we could not drive any further.  The wheel was on the driver's side, and Paul attempted to remove the wheel, but in order to do so, he had to lie down in the oncoming 70 mph traffic.  I told him I would rather not cash in on the life insurance policy just yet, and we began calling for help.  AAA told us they couldn't find anyone with a truck big enough to tow our trailer.  We called several service places, but the numbers were no longer in service.  I called a friend and got the number for the NV highway patrol, and after 30 minutes, they showed up.  They shifted traffic so that Paul could work on the wheel, but he could not remove the wheel.  We did some more calling, and finally found a mobile service that could help us.  We ended up having to chain up the  axle and drive to the next town to the repair shop.  By this time, we had been sitting on the roadside for several hours, and we were quite glad to be going anywhere.  The parts had to be ordered and shipped, so we had to stay in a nearby hotel while the trailer was repaired.  In the meantime, all the kids and Paul became sick with cough and high fevers.  Four of the six bearings on the trailer had to be replaced, but the shop did a tremendous job and completed it the day the parts arrived (that in itself is amazing)!

We headed out to Richfield once again, and I prayed fervently that we would make it all the way this time!  We pulled into town under one of the most beautiful moonrises I have ever seen.  The sky was a pale amythest and the moon looked like a giant, luminescent pearl hovering over the snow-covered peaks of the mountains.  It was such a tribute to the Creator!

Friday we went skiing with the pastor and his wife.  Neither Paul nor I had ever been skiing, nor had the pastor, although his wife had been once before.  I was quite nervous, but excited as well.  We headed onto the slopes with an instructor and great trepidation.  The first ten minutes were pretty good, but once we headed onto the beginner slope, things went downhill fast - literally!  It was amazing how uncoordinated we all were, wiping out all over the hill.  I spent more time on the ground than on my feet, I think!  Paul wasn't feeling well at all, and although he cut some pretty smooth moves, he was frustrated over his lack of control.  We agreed that it would have been more fun if we had spent more time skiing and less time falling.  Maybe next time we will do better!  I considered it a successful trip in that we all came home in one piece.  I have been quite sore for the last couple days - evidence of my inexperience on skis.

The meeting in Richfield started yesterday, and we had several visitors throughout the day.  Please pray that the Lord would open the hearts of the hearers, and that we would see some people saved this week.