How I Feel Some Days

There are days and then THERE ARE DAYS. Somedays I am happily puttering along...School is going well, I am on top of the laundry, dinner is bubbling in the crockpost before 10 am...all things that make me feel that all is going well. Usually that is when my ball is violently ripped out from under me and the sharks tear it apart. I do realize, in my inner most being and saner part, that humility is a better place to be. Still after a week like last week, I identify with this picture of Nigel. He is, in fact, my new profile picture for Facebook.

Take for instance this Saturday. I woke up to a gloriously beautiful day. Helped my oldest son learn how to make pancakes and was planning a wonderful day. My plans included cleaning, baking, painting girlies' nails and walking down to visit a sweet family's new house. As I was sitting with my husband, eating breakfast THAT little fantasy was shattered. I experienced horrible pain in my right side that left me writhing in agony (I am told I have a high pain-tolerance) and expelling everything I had eaten since Thanksgiving 2002. So instead of realizing my simple dreams for the day I got to visit our local ER. I did get a CT scan. Never had one of those before. It revealed that I passed a kidney stone. I enjoy doing new things, but I do believe the CT scan thrill was not enough to make me think it was worth this whole thing. Yeesh. I mean seriously. I could have used the money towards a better thing like a new washer.

As if the kidney stone was NOT enough...They sent me home with some medication that lowers your blood pressure. So I had a hard time getting going on my bike ride. I had a less-than-lovely run-in some some punk kids on the bike ride (don't worry, I'm fine although very upset with them). The worst part was that my washing machine quit in the middle of the spin cycle. I am almost destitute without my washer. The ole gal is being replaced (sniff, sniff). Okay, the REALLY worst part was that I put clean sheets on my bed. My husband makes me a cup of coffee in the morning and brings it to me in bed while I do my morning devotionals. THEN I SPILLED THAT WONDERFUL, PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE ON MY CLEAN SHEETS, COMFORTER COVER AND FLUFFY, WARM BATHROBE!!!!! Did I mention that my washer doesn't work?????

I need to be peeled off of the window and fed nice doses of chocolate (preferably dark with a hint of orange or even milk chocolate as long as it is Lindt and contains hazelnuts). Otherwise I might be found wimpering underneath something soon....

New Beginnings

It is always nice to have retreats, new beginnings...

You know, something to get us out of our ruts. I am definately a rut-type person. I just spent a wonderful weekend away with my husband and some dear folks from church. I didn't think the timing was great: a few weeks after Christmas with all the money that usually involves and after a week + lay-off for my husband. Yet again, God proves that His timing is perfect and my perception incorrect. Most folks make New Year's resolutions. I used to. I try now to have attainable goals.

This year's retreat gave me a healthy dose of perspective. I truly believe that if we take the time to cultivate and enjoy a helping of perspective it cuts down on our dishes of crow. Perspective takes quite a bit more in preperation. Crow seems to be a dish that we are welcome to choke down often and quickly. Like the difference between dining at Alexander's, where the trout can be caught fresh from the pond and enjoyed with fresh organic vegetables from their garden, and ordering something you can "super-size" and have in less than five minutes.

My big, over-arching goal for the new year is to see and savor Christ (hmmmm....where did I get that concept....anyone...anyone....). Under that umbrella, I desire to Find the Hero in my Husband (#1 wish list book!!!!!). I want get to know my children more and prayerfully help them maximize their gifts and minimize their shortcomings. I hope that God will form us into a beautifully functioning unit that enables us to be a part of what God is doing in our church, in our valley....

O.S.L.S. (Our Sovereign Lord's Ship) Heath has been overhauled and rerigged this last year. We shall see what adventures are out there. "Now bring me that horizon!"

Thanksgiving

I love Fall. It is my favorite season. Coming up is the quintessential, American, Fall holiday: Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful time to spend thanking God for our blessings. I find myself today, however, being crabby and ungrateful. I don't have a single reason why. So in order to pull myself out of my lethargic unhappiness I have decided to write down the things and folks I am so grateful for:
I AM THANKFUL....

1. ... that God saw fit to save me. He didn't have to, but He did. Not only has He saved me from Hell, He also walks with me and talks with me. How amazing to have the Creator of the Universe hang out with you?
2. ...for the beauty around me. I think I might be able to buy evolution except for beauty. Why is the world around beautiful? Why do we find it majestic and beautiful? Why does my heart swell with glorious emotion at lovely sunsets, breath-taking rainbows and the rippling of a brook?
3. ...for my husband. I am thankful for the bad times as well as the good. I am so grateful that today I got to wake up next to my best friend. It has not always been so, but I hope and pray that the bad times keep us both doing our best to keep the friendship alive during easy and hard times.
4. ....for my children. They all have their moments when I think the gypsies sound like a tempting option for them (as I am sure they would gladly trade their mama for a better model at times:). Still I would characterize them as happy and fun. I love them all and couldn't imagine life without a single one.
5. ...that I get to stay home. Far from being a hateful drudgery, it is a blessing to be able to be a "home-maker." There are aspects of the job that I don't like. Still I get to spend my day doing what I like the best for and with the folks I like the best. I get paid dividends that far exceed monetary compensation for an outside job.
6. ...to be healthy.
7. ...to have my mom around.
8. ...that I have good friends.
9. ....that I have a great church. Though the church should be many things, it often times is not. I am thankful that my church family might not always be what they should be, but they are willing to die trying.
10. ...that this list could go on and on. Now that I have started I am thinking of all the wonderful things in my life and I have a better attitude.

Now back to work.

Two Reasons Why We Homeschool

This begs the question: How do you eat with your mouth closed? I usually tell my children to CHEW with their mouths closed, but EAT? Um, how does one put the food in that way?

The only lunch number my children need to know is whether they want 1 or 2 sandwiches, 2, 3 or 4 apples slices. Yes, we do need to work on quieter voices. It would probably help if the teacher would refrain from throwing food or spitting water from time to time. Why, oh why could they not simply say, "Only touch your food?" I took these pictures at the Harvest Party. I thought they were pretty funny.

Lessons from a Corn Maze

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everthing in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." Colossians 3:17-18

Saturday we went to the Rutledge Farm's Corn Maze. It was pretty impressive. They had two mazes created to form an aerial picture of a military vehicle. Everyone got a map and a punch card. It amazes me that a person could conceive of the maze and then plant it in corn. We got off to a rough start. Some kids going one way and some of us going another. We were all trying to read the map and figure out which way to go. My stomache was all knotted up. Then I thought, "This is silly. We are here to have fun." So I prayed about it and let it go. I put my map away and let my husband do the directing. All of a sudden it was fun. We found the children in the other maze and they joined us. The Ole Daddy Rabbit successfully lead us to each punch station in the first maze. We enjoyed a picnic lunch and then went on to the second maze. We got all our punches. We then got a great hay ride. We all learned a bunch and had fun doing it. The big lesson for me was that it is so much more relaxing when you trust the Lord. The circumstances may not have changed, but I have.

It's called P.E.

Mom, what are they doing?

PILLOW

FIGHT!

A Place Where Hope is Young

There's tarnish on the golden rule
And I wanna jump from this ship of fools
Show me a place where hope is young
And a people who aren't afraid to love

This world has nothing for me and this world has everything
All that I could want and nothing that I need

This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear.
So when he says who will go, I am nowhere near.

And the least of these look like criminals to me
So I leave Christ on the street

This world has held my hand and has led me into intolerance
But now I'm waking up, but now I'm breaking up
But now I'm making up for lost time
----Caedmon's Call

Often times the lyrics from a Caedmon's Call song encapsulates where I am in my walk with the Lord. I feel as if I have returned to the garden where I used to walk with the Lord. There has been fear and pain and learning. As I walk I see the overgrown patches. I see the places where the walkway has been crumbled by plants growing up through it. There are many repairs to be made. Yet I touch those places and it is like the years fly away. Here I am again where hope is young and among a people not afraid to love. Together with the Lord we will make a garden that folks can come and sit and have their souls drink in healing and peace.

A new addition

It has finally happened! We have a new addition to the family. Besides the occasional fish none of our children have ever had a pet of their very own. Since our oldest boy turned 12 yesterday (and we also felt he showed enough responsibility), he became the proud owner of a guinea pig. It is a medium-sized one of the English breed. It is predominantly white with some tan patches. Hence the name "Patch." We looked up some care information on The Pig. We found out that they were native to South America. The Incan Indians domesticated them...for food and for sacrifices to their gods. Niiiice! The Europeans found that they made good test specimens and started using them in labs in the 18th century. Now you know why we have that particular idiom. They are also known as cavies, a derivitive of their scientific name. I had heard that they received the name guinea pig because they started to be a popular pet and could be attained (at the time) for an English guinea. This particular cavy or guinea pig looks like he will fare better than his ancestors. He doesn't look particulary appetizing, to be quite frank. He is a friendly little guy and both parties seem very pleased with each other.

Yes, we belong at the Zoo!

Look at all of them! We have this same picture from 6 years ago and there are only three of them in it. They are also much smaller.

I maybe in a shark jaw, but I am with a really handsome fella!

Monkeys have escaped from their cages!

I knew he really was a snail!

Here is our recent trip to the Pt. Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. We all had a really good time. We packed a picnic lunch and had free tickets (thanks to the library's summer reading program) so it only cost us gas and two adult tickets. We all rode the carousel at the end of the day-twice!

Maybe?

Maybe just maybe I will get some belated posts on our blog here :) The kiddos on Fourth of July sparkling!

The Downside of Facebook

My eleven year old remarked the other day that it was sad that no one seemed to be doing the weblogs anymore just Facebook. Many of our friends have been on vacation and we have been busy finishing up the school year. I do love to be able to peruse different weblogs of my friends as well as the creative writing outlet that it affords me. I am thankful, however, that I seem to have hit paydirt when it comes to former team members from YWAM here recently. It is a fun kind of reunion. It also came at a time when I had some time to spend frittering away on the computer. I need to get back to routine in our house though. We Heaths perish without routine or at least would get buried under a pile of laundry. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to recently.

Remember our Brothers and Sisters

Today our family attended a church service. There is growing disgust in the media and in some camps here in our country towards fundamental christians. Still I got up, got everyone ready to go, got myself ready to go and our family toodled down the two miles to our place of worship in our family vehicle. Yes, I have seven children under the age of twelve to get going (we won't mention TODR:). That can have its own challenges that might seem daunting and somedays it is that way for me. When things are put in perspective, however, I am lead to appreciate what I have for whatever amount of time I have it.

World wide we have christian brothers and sisters that face incredible challenges in order to meet together with other believers. They face long hard walks. They face the chance of being arrested and tortured like this man. Many face physical attacks personally or to their family. Many have risked their lives or have been martyred because they choose their christian family over old tribal feuds. The list goes on and on.

I am at the point that if I hear one more lazy christian quote the verse about where two or three are gathered in my name in order to make the point that they do not have to go to church...I am seriously tempted to lay hands on them...you know three ways: hard, fast and continuously. Now I truly understand that is a waste of time and effort in a fruitless way.

Instead I sit here and write. May we all honor our brothers and sisters in Christ that long to meet together with fellow believers as we have the freedom to do. It honors them if we meet together and then remember to pray for them. Let us lift them up before the Lord and let us do it together. Can you imagine one of these dear saints asking you why you didn't go to church? I can and some of my answers are shameful.

Happy Birthday Tiggy!

My Nana wanted a girl born on her birthday. I went into labor today on the 16th, but our Tiggy held out until 10 minutes after midnight to arrive on the 17th. It was a very hard delivery, but she was worth every second. Happy 3rd Birthday Sweetheart.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Woo-hoo!!!!

We did it! We did it! Yes, the Oma's yard is done. There are a few little maintenance things she wants done, but....THE YARD LOOKS GREAT! We finally had enough nice weather on a day we could do it. Everyone is tired and happy. And almost everyone is clean! And almost everyone is ready to crawl into bed! I will try to remember to take pictures tomorrow to post. Now I am headed off for a well-deserved shower and snooze (I mean cuddle time) with my honey.

This thing is so annoying.

The reason it is soooooo annoying is that my children all love it and do a great job of copying it. It sticks in your head. The worst part is that on church on Sunday I found myself walking down the hall singing ding, ding, ding to myself. ARRRRRRGGGHHHH!

If Money was No Object

If money were no object this is what I would like for my birthday. I will be thankful for whatever I get, as long as it isn't fireworks:) It is still nice to dream every once and a while. There is also a cruise that I would get TODR for his birthday, if we had the money as well. It involves a Ligonier Conference and Alaska. Maybe one day we will be able to afford these things. For now I am looking forward to time with TODR-just him-even if we are grocery shopping. My kids can dress up and we will go to The Big Bottom Blast on July 4. I guess I could dress up too. Most folks look at us funny anyway...

NO FEAR

I honestly don't believe NO FEAR is the best. I think we need to fear God and not man (or what man can do to us). I read an interesting article. It definately put some things in perspective if you are feeling slightly worried about the Swine Flu thing. I do not agree with the evolutionary outlook in the latter part of the article, but for the most part it is pretty good. Whether we actually ever see a major epidemic/pandemic or life goes on as usual God is in control. A wise man I know said that if we get the Swine Flu tomorrow we are wasting today by worrying about it (he is cute too:).

Redneck Garage

We don't have a garage or shop. We do have rain. So here is TODR's makeshift shop to keep the bil and himself dry while they fix the brakes on our truck. Woo-hoo. A truck that doesn't have to be stopped a la Flintstone style. Wonderful!

He's Alive

This is dedicated to the Ole Daddy Rabbit. Love you!

A Tidbit for Bucca

I learned a new word today. I love new words! I know Bucca likes new words too so here it is....

Cerebration: (noun) brain action, conscious or unconscious; cerebrating; thinking.