Girls’ Night Out

My friend and I had a wonderful evening together!

We started out having supper with the senior pastor and associate pastor from the Church of God here in Lincoln. Then we went to one of the malls here in town. I’m pretty sure we were there until the mall closed. 😉   The lights starting to turn off while we were still inside kind of gave that away.  And I’m pretty sure my friend wants to go back to the mall before we pick her husband up from the hospital this morning. He is being discharged early, so I’m not sure if that is going to happen. However, the only time she gets to go shopping without her husband is when she and I go out, so we just might. 😀

I also introduced her to Godiva chocolate. 🙂  I also may have had some myself. 😉

Well, I need to go load up the car.

Hope everyone has a blessed day!

February 26th

Yesterday I drove a couple in our church to Lincoln so the husband can have surgery.  The wife is disabled and is not able to drive.  I’m sure they are thankful that we took their car instead of mine, as mine still reeks. 😛

His procedure is this morning, and then I will be driving them home Thursday, if everything goes well.

While the husband is in the hospital recovering, his wife and I are spending some quality ‘girl time’.  🙂   The last time this precious woman and I tried to have a ‘ladies day out’, our husbands were in town as well and decided to join us for lunch. While we love our husbands, this definitely wasn’t in the plan, and our long, heart-to-heart girl talk over dinner and coffee went out the window.  We decided the next time we were going to an undisclosed location for the day – no men allowed!

Well, we are not at an undisclosed location, but my husband is 4 hours away, and her husband will be unable to follow.  I don’t want this to sound as though I am unconcerned about the husband’s health. I am, and will definitely make sure that he is doing well and we are not needed before we go.

When I get back home, I will finish organizing the school room/office at the house and will show you all pictures. I’m so excited to actually have a dedicated school/office space.  I am hoping that this fall I will be able to start seminary. I had planned on attending Anderson School of Theology online starting this January, but the timing just didn’t work. I am hoping that by fall everything will be well-organized and fall into place for me to be able to attend. 🙂 This will also give me a little time to become a little more proficient in Greek. Not that I know much….  A little Hebrew wouldn’t hurt either. 😉

God’s sense of humor…

Saturday, the kids had a basketball game in York, NE, which is about 4 hours away.  Tim stayed home, so it was just the kids and me.

The games were over around 5:00 ish, and then we went out for supper with some of the other basketball families.  During supper, I received a call from hubby that it had started to snow at home, so we decided to get on the road.

Now, most of you who know me well know that after 7:00 pm I’m pretty much done for the day. As such, I DO NOT like driving at night. The sleepies kick in and I occasionally find new sides of the road on which to travel.  As the kids were deciding who was going to ride “shot-gun” I informed them that whomever it was needed to be able to keep me awake. My daughter was elected (yeah, like she’s going to stay awake.).

Since Shan is so much like her mother in the sleep department, I decided to go to a much more reliable source to stay awake: God.

I prayed that He would help me stay awake if Shan went to sleep. Which she did.

Once she fell asleep, God took over.

Maybe I should have prayed a bit more specifically about how he was going to keep me awake, because me hitting a skunk and the aroma filling the car for the next three hours was just not what I had in mind.  But it worked, and proves once again what a sense of humor God has. 😉

The aroma is still overwhelmingly present in the trunk of the car and on anything that was in the trunk on impact.  Like the kids’ gym bags, uniforms, basketball shoes, and all of our winter coats.  I really don’t think the uniforms and shoes needed any help in the stench department. 😀

So, now I get to figure out how to take skunk smell out of the car and everything else that was in there. I know that people and animals are bathed in tomato juice, but I don’t see how that is going to work on anything else.

Any ideas would be appreciated. 🙂

 

Prayer needed for a friend

To all of my family/prayer warriors:

I have a prayer request.  A friend of ours has been through a hellacious time with his health.  Since the week before Christmas he has cut off his thumb, had his appendix removed (it had burst three weeks prior and had gangrene – he shouldn’t be alive), had double pneumonia, blew out his knee, has been bleeding internally with no explanation, and now may have lung cancer.

Please, please pray for he and his wife.

The Power of Prayer

We left home yesterday morning to come to Kearney for a two-day ministers/leadership meeting. I honestly didn’t feel up to going, and ten minutes down the road I knew it was a mistake.  I should have stayed home and rested like my doctor told me to. (But yeah, who listens to their doctor, right Daddy? 😉 ) However, I didn’t want to miss the fellowship of our fellow state pastors and leaders whom I have come to love and appreciate.

I miserably made it through the first two sessions. After the second, one of the fellow pastors gathered others around and anointed and prayed for me. I went to the youth room and slept through the last session and came out feeling better.  I had energy to carry on an intelligent conversation during dinner.  I was able to play my bass for the evening service and enjoy the message. By the time we got to the hotel, I had energy to spare and even walked across the street to get something to eat.  Everyone else was ready to go to bed, and I could have stayed up a few more hours.   I was able to sleep lying flat and didn’t wake up with a 350 pound weight on my chest. Woot!  I sang and danced my way through the shower and am now ready to go for the day!

I am so thankful for God’s healing touch.  I was becoming so discouraged, and Satan was playing on my discouragement.  He was telling me what a burden I was to my husband and kids, what a failure I was to the church because I was never going to get better.  Hmmm, I guess he forgot what I powerful God I serve. 🙂

The value of an anti-virus

For computers, that is.

My son and I came over to the church to get the music notebooks so my daughter can pick out music for Sunday and for our State Ministers Meeting on Monday and Tuesday. The kids will be playing for the meetings and Shannon will be playing the lead instrument, so I have her pick out the music she is most comfortable leading.  Shannon is also the lead instrument for Sunday since our pianist will be out-of-town and my doctor vetoed me going to church. 😛

Anyway…   I needed to get the music for ‘Jesus Messiah’ off of CCLI/Songselect, so I got online on the church computer and I couldn’t go to the site. It said something about accessing the site could cause a breach of security.  I was able to get on the site on my laptop, so I knew there wasn’t an issue. I have noticed that the church computer has been running extremely slow and freezing quite often so I checked to see if there was any anti-virus protection. Nope. 😦  I downloaded some protection and ran a scan. Low and behold, there were severe threats. So I started the clean out process. I have been sitting here for about 2 hours while it goes through all of the files. We are only at 23% right now and it has isolated numerous files that are corrupted or infected.  I’m praying I don’t lose too many important files.  I’m also hoping that it is done cleaning up by tomorrow as I still need to make Sunday’s bulletin and order of service. I also need to do PowerPoint for Sunday on the church computer since my laptop doesn’t have that program….yet.

Moral of the story…. never leave your computer unprotected.

And the fun begins…

I’m not sure I’ve driven my car once since Joel has gotten his driver’s license. Not that I’ve really been up to it. 😉

Yesterday, he and Shan went into town on their own for basketball practice and to deliver runzas.  They *may* have had a mildly paranoid father, but they are his babies, so I don’t blame him a bit. It was actually quite cute.

It has also come in handy as I have been able to give them a list of items I want them to carry over from the parsonage to the new house, and they can do it without our supervision. I think they are enjoying the freedom. 🙂

 

Tim brought the cats over to the new house yesterday afternoon. Smurf took to the house like she owned it. Of course, she thinks she owns the world. The other two… well, it was pitiful. Tickles mournfully mewed for about 30 minutes and then slunk into hiding for the rest of the night. Butterscotch sorrowfully howled and huffed for a good 3 hours, and then went exploring. Today they seem in much better spirits.  We won’t let them out for another day or two. They need to understand this is their home.

 

Mama, to answer your question, I’m feeling a little better. But for the record pneumonia stinks!  I am on antibiotics and have started breathing treatments. The breathing treatments seem to be working the best, and things are starting to break up. I might sound like I’m hacking up a lung, but it’s a move in the right direction. 🙂  Still on the dizzy and weak side, but I’m hoping that will go away soon.  I’ve been told this lasts 4-5 weeks, so it has to be over soon!

Well, I need to go let the kids know what else I need moved, so I’d best go.

Sweet Sixteen

It really is hard to believe my babies are sixteen. I have to say we have been extremely blessed.

I got up early yesterday morning and made them some cinnamon rolls with mocha-buttercream frosting… because I’m so health conscious. (actually, I am, I just have momentary lapses of judgement. 😉 )

Joel passed his driving test, and is now able to drive by himself. (I’m doing the happy dance!)  Shannon renewed her learner’s permit so she can complete her driving hours.  I wanted to take a picture of Joel going out to take his driving test, but I knew I would embarrass him to death, so I declined.

After obtaining their various forms of permission to drive, we went out to eat.

They chose to go to the Hillside Perk in Culbertson.

We ran around town a little bit yesterday, then went to Wal-Mart and bought a pizza. We then went home and opened gifts. Unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures of that either, but they did have a great day.

Today, Joel is helping the youth group make runzas and Shan is playing at a basketball tournament. Tim took Shan and several other basketball players, and I stayed here in town with Joel. Right now I’m at the church office catching up on a few things and the smell of runzas baking is wafting up from the church basement. Yum!

Vets and Birthdays

Veterinarian visit:

Monday morning Shannon and I took Max and Tickles to the vet for their annual check up/vaccinations. I really should have let Shan drive on the way there.  I knew it was a mistake for me to even be out when 5 miles down the road all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and fall asleep. However, we made it to the vet.

Tickles was fine and mellow as ever.

Max was a bit different story. We found out that she has blown a heart valve. 😦  The vet said that she will start to get a smoker’s cough and need to go on medication. Poor baby.  He also said that her treats need to be limited and she needs to go on a senior diet – she has ‘love handles’ 😀

Mom R., she still loves playing with her sock monkeys – she’s gone through three of them now.

We will be taking the other two cats to the vet in two weeks. It should be an interesting trip since they are both ornery little scrappers.

After the vet visit, Shannon had some errands to run. I made her drive. I don’t think she was happy about that, but she had no choice. By the time we arrived at Wal-Mart I could barely move. I don’t remember much, but I’m pretty sure Shan stuffed me in a wheelchair and I slept through the whole shopping experience. I do remember handing a blank check to the cashier – which was the only reason I was needed. 😉  She then drove home, constantly waking me and reminding me that I had to be awake and alert since she just has a permit.  😀

 

Birthdays:

Tomorrow is Shan and Joel’s 16th birthday.  Kind of hard to believe.

We will be going to the courthouse to see if the driver’s license examiners are there. They come to town every other Friday. If not, we will go to another town so Joel can take his driving test.  It will be interesting that he will be taking his test on snow-packed roads. The only aspect I’m concerned about is I haven’t taught him how to parallel park. I don’t do that well, and was hoping Tim would teach that. 🙂  Joel said it wasn’t mentioned in the driver’s manual, and I am living proof that one doesn’t have to know how to parallel park to pass the driving test. 😉  So there is hope. Other than that, he has it made. Shan will not be taking her test, she will just renew her permit.  She doesn’t have all of her required driving hours in, and I’m not sure she’s all that excited to get her license, which is fine.

We are looking to purchase an older pick-up for them to drive.  I would like to get a standard transmission because I think it is important they learn how to drive one. I think Tim’s only requirement is that it runs and a go-kart can fit in the bed.  So, the search begins…

I’m not exactly sure what else we will be doing for their birthday, but I will try to get pictures and share the day with you.