52 Weeks, 52 Verses--Week 21 & 22

Hi Everyone!

I know, I know.  I just kind of dropped off the face of the planet last week.  I "thought" things were going to slow down after our graduation celebration was over, but what I underestimated on was CAMPMEETING!!!  Our local Christian college, where my hubby works, hosts the area Campmeeting every year.  I remembered it was always busy during that time, but in years past I had not taken Alison to EVERY single meeting for her age group simply because I wanted her to get more sleep and the meetings go quite late each evening.  Well, this year she was older, and absolutely begging to go to ALL of the meetings--so I gave in and took her.  Of course, THAT meant that I was gone for much of all the days including the evening.  We would get out of her morning meeting right at lunch time, rush home and try to find something to eat quickly as we had the next meeting starting at 2:00 p.m.  That meeting got out, and you had enough time to run very quickly only to the closest grocery store, rush home to supper, and then off to the evening meeting that did not get out until 9:00 p.m.!  Next day, do it all over again!  This has been the pattern of the past four days, so I have barely had time to even sit down and eat let alone get on my blog!

But, campmeeting ended last night.  It was good, but we are ALL tired and ready for not so many activities!    Unfortunately, last night Alison started throwing up--twice!  So that nice sleep with sleeping in this morning that I "thought" I was going to have did not materialize!  Poor girl!  I felt so sorry for her. The good news is that she is feeling MUCH better this morning, so it appears to be "only" the 24 hour flu.  We'll see.  She is taking it easy today, and hopefully she will keep down her applesauce that we let her have for breakfast.  If all goes well today, I will assume her better by tomorrow.

BUT--in spite of the busyness, I did not want to leave a Bible verse out for last week.  Even if it may be more of a "meditate on this verse" instead of a "memorize word perfect" sort of thing.  I am still happy for even meditating on a new verse each week, so this week I will just have two lovely verses to be thinking about! :)

So--since I am behind one week, I thought I would chose two partner verses to "cover" last week and this week.  I am sure most of you have read or heard this verse before, but have you ever stopped to really THINK about it?  About what it REALLY means???  I have to confess that I most likely have not.  I know I do not follow this instruction like I should. . . but our lives would be SO much more peaceful if we only obeyed this!  Take a look at the verses I chose:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."  Phil. 4:6,7

Be anxious for nothing.

I have to ask myself, "What part of nothing do I not understand???"

Be anxious for nothing.

So simple, but so hard to do.

Why?  Because it means I have to let go.  I have to give up that mirage of "I have everything under control" that I like to THINK is true, and realize that I cannot handle or keep running anything.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.

Which is a very scary thought for someone who LIKES to have everything under control.

But the GOOD NEWS is that things ARE under control.  God's control.  And He does a MUCH better job at things than I do.

Deep breath.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.

God's got it covered!

Have a wonderful week!

Susan

Happy Graduation Austin!

Well, today is a day that I can hardly believe is here.  After fourteen years--that's right, fourteen--starting with Kindergarten, adding in a year of Pre-First, then going from First grade on up to Twelfth grade we are graduating our son from our homeschool.  This was not a sprint.  This was a marathon!

 This afternoon Austin will walk down the isle and receive his diploma at our church, where a wonderful graduation ceremony has been planned.

Let's back up just a minute.  There is something here that should not be overlooked.  Austin will WALK down the isle.  WALK.  Something that most of us take for granted every single day.  We don't even think about it.  But there are many children and adults that can not walk.

Austin could not walk for years.  He took his first step at a hospital between his physical therapist and myself--after hours of physical therapy.  Even then it was just one faltering step--and with a cane to assist.    But it was a beginning.  Hours more of physical therapy and he could finally walk more than one step.  When he was eight, God moved us just down the road from a therapy riding stable--the exact thing that his previous doctors had said that he needed--so the horseback riding could teach his brain what a "normal walking gait" felt like.  Still more years down the road, and two very talented doctors preformed two separate foot surgeries to help keep him walking--one of those surgeries was a total foot reconstruction which involved removing bone from one place and inserting bone in a completely different place.

Somewhere mixed in all of that there were also countless hours of occupational therapy as well as speech therapy.  And fur.  LOTS and lots of fur, from his absolutely beautiful service dog Lauren.  The dog who taught Austin how to slide down a slide.  No, I'm not making that up.  The dog who gave you motivation to go outside to play when you did not want to because you always fell down.  The dog who went with you to all those therapy sessions, and somehow made them more fun.  Yes, even though she died several years ago, I will never forget Lauren, because now she lives on in my heart.

And so here we are.  The boy whom the doctors did not know what he would be able to do.  They did not know if you would be able to read--now one could hardly KEEP you from reading.  They did not know how you would do academically, due to the massive stroke your brain suffered.  Yet you scored much higher on your ACT test than most teens in our state.  That is, teens who have no stroke to overcome, who have not had to spend countless hours in therapies.

Austin, many people have invested much time and energy into helping you succeed.  I hope you will always remember how much you are loved.

But as you graduate today and enter this next phase of your life, I want you to know that it is not your learning how to walk or your high academic performance that pleases me the most.  I am the most proud of you because you are kind and thoughtful, and because you love Jesus.  Hang on to those things--for they are what really matter.

I love you, Austin.

Happy Graduation!

Mom

Bedtime Math Problem

Hi Everyone!

Life is currently in a super-busy mode, so no time for anything fancy--but I did want to pop in here and let you know about a really neat web site I ran across today! :)  Maybe you have already visited this site, but I just learned about it today--Bedtime Math!  This is simply something that one family started doing for their own children--giving each of them their own math problem at bedtime.  I don't know for sure if I will use it exactly the same way--I'm thinking I might instead just use it as a fun math problem sometime during our homeschool day.  But anyway, I did want to share the site with you.  They give variations of problems, some geared for preschoolers, some for K-1st or 2nd grade, and the highest level for 2nd grade and up.

So----go check out this site!  http://bedtimemathproblem.org/  I think you will have fun reading some of the back problems they have listed on there.  You can also check out their facebook page, where sometimes they have posted videos of things they have mentioned in their math problems.

Have Fun!

Susan

52 Weeks, 52 Verses--Week 20

Good Morning!

Can you believe this is the twentieth week of this new year?  Almost half way through already. . .

We had an AMAZING thing happen to us this past week, which has led me to the verse that I chose for this upcoming week.  Background information is that we have been working with Vocational Rehab to try and get some services for our son.  Voc Rehab is a wonderful office--filled with hard working, dedicated people who are all trying to help provide needed services for disabled people.  The problem is that they all have probably ten times the amount of clients that each Voc Rehab counselor can realistically take care of.  Therefore, things can sometimes move v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y as you are waiting for services.  Sometimes, even too slow and time passes when you really needed that item.

Well, our son has been waiting for special driving instruction.  He cannot drive the same way that a non-disabled  person would drive, but he CAN learn to drive--just needs some special car adaptations and a specialized instructor who is experienced in teaching the disabled.  Unfortunately, all this costs a LOT of money.  We have been given the estimate of between $3,000-5,000 just for the driving lessons, and this does not even include the car adaptations.  Our son has met ALL of the qualifications for Voc Rehab to pay for this special driving instruction, yet here we are still waiting for it to actually happen.  It has been MONTHS that he has been waiting.  Many phone calls have gone in to his Voc Rehab counselor.  He has done everything he has been told to do.  Yet nothing has happened to start the lessons.  For the past month and a half I have called in to his Voc Rehab counselor every single week--and I do not even get my phone calls returned.  I do not feel like she is avoiding ME in particular--I think she is simply swamped with clients and cannot possibly serve them all.  Yet they are ALL given to her on her case load.  It is frustrating, to say the least.

The first of May, our son had a regular neurology appointment.  This is nothing new--he sees his neurologist ALL the time, mainly to monitor his seizures and seizure medication.  Well, the one thing that was different THIS time is that there was a student intern who also saw and talked with my son.  This intern asked my son if there was anything that he needed, and we told her just a very brief nutshell version of how everything was going fine but we were just waiting for the services from Voc Rehab to happen.  We walked out of that office and never gave this conversation another thought.  BUT--the intern did not forget.

This past week, we received a phone call from this intern.  She told us that she had talked with the hospital's social worker, and had then followed up with phone calls to the Rehab Hospital that handles the special driving instruction.  THEN she called and talked with my son's Voc Rehab counselor--she actually got through to the REAL person, instead of only the message machine like my phone calls go to. When talking with the Voc Rehab counselor, this young doctor says "Well, what is the hold up?  He qualifies and has done everything that he was told to do.  Is there anything else that I can help with to make this happen?"  Anyway, the doctor was just calling us to let us know what she had done, and that she was hoping this would help get my son's file on top of the pile--literally--so that he would finally get the services he needs.  Within ONE HOUR, my son had an e-mail from his Voc Rehab counselor, saying that we needed to get this driving instruction happening!!!!  I couldn't believe it!  After months and months of waiting, this one phone call from the doctor made it happen.  Or at least, started the process.

I couldn't help but think of how the doctor had been an advocate for us.  She had ended up pulling strings, so to speak, that we could not pull.  No matter how hard we had tried, we just could not make things happen that needed to.  But our advocate could.

So this is the long story leading to my choice of verses for this week.  Jesus is our advocate.  He does for me, what I cannot do for myself.

"Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high."  Job 16:19

Jesus is my advocate.  Beautiful, wonderful Jesus.

52 Weeks, 52 Verses--Week 19

This past week has been SO very busy!!!  Nothing bad--actually quite a bit of good!  Neurology appointment for my son, that I mentioned in my last verse post.  Then we had a technology evaluation at a special place where they have experts to help evaluate my son's personal disability and help make suggestions for different adaptive equipment that may assist him in his next undertaking of college.  THAT was fantastic!  They actually had all sorts of different keyboards, etc. that he could try right there.  SO very helpful!  There was one keyboard that goes along with an iPad that I had almost bought him a few weeks ago--but when he could actually try one out of the box there at the evaluation, the keyboard was not sized right to fit his hand size very well.  I would have wasted my money, and I'm not sure I would have been able to return it!

Then we had my son actually finishing up his high school work.  ALL of it.  That means that fourteen years of homeschooling him has finally come to an end.  I'm still trying to wrap my brain around THAT one!  It has been such a part of my life to always be homeschooling him. . . didn't set out to homeschool him all the way to college, but here we are!  It starts innocently enough with kindergarten and Pre-First, then you start into First grade and POW!  Just a couple of "sleeps" down the road and here we are!  It's a good thing I have younger sister to be homeschooling still, or I would have no idea what I would DO with myself! ;)

The school year is ending for my husband--a teacher--as well.  Graduation ceremonies.  Helping to host out of town parents.  Just LOTS going on right now!  I loved last weeks verse of Psalms 55:22, where we are told to cast our cares on the Lord.  And my verse for this week goes right along with it:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Matthew 11:28

Isn't that beautiful?  I love these promises!

Have a wonderful week!  And don't forget that Jesus offers rest.

Butterfly Time--Update!

Do you remember those little tiny black specks with a white spot that I showed you a week ago?  And I told you they were Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars????

Well, they ate.  And ate.  And ate some more.  It's a good thing my two Rue plants are LARGE plants in my garden, because every day I went out to pick some fresh Rue for these little critters to eat.  And. . . . just look at them now!

Yes, I know it is hard for you to believe me that these are the very same caterpillars.  But trust me--they are.  The little black furry caterpillars eat and eat and eat until they don't fit into their skin any more.  Then they shed their skin, and underneath they look like this!

This is pretty much full size now.  One of the three caterpillars is notably larger than the other two.  I think he ate more!  But even the two "smaller" caterpillars are large enough that they could go into their chrysalis stage any day now.

I "was" going to try and keep them in their large two quart jar for just one more day--as I wanted to take them back to church this week to show the kids who saw the tiny black caterpillars last week.  But last night I saw the warning sign.  Yup.  One of the caterpillars started wandering off of the Rue leaves, and climbing up the side of the jar.  THAT is a definite warning that they are looking for a nice spot to hang their chrysalis.  Eek!  I did NOT want that to happen in the small two quart jar!!!!  Why?  Well, first of all, I didn't have any sticks in there for them to hang their chrysalis on.  But the main reason why is because when they come OUT of the chrysalis they will be butterflies--and will need room to spread out their wings.  The two quart jar is definitely too small for that, and I would have a real hard time getting them out the small opening.

So--time to quickly move those caterpillars out of the smaller home, into a larger one!  I have them in a larger plastic critter container now--just one I picked up at Walmart years ago.  It's nice because when you take the lid off, it is taking the whole entire roof off.  So you do not have the problem of trying to guide a butterfly through a small opening.  It is also much easier to put a couple sticks in it for them to climb on and hang from.  I actually took a picture of their new container to show you on here, but then forgot to get that picture off my camera and onto my computer!  Oh well!  Maybe in the next butterfly update?

Anyway, just wanted to share how our little caterpillars are growing.  Hope you enjoy this close up look at God's beautiful butterflies!

52 Weeks, 52 Verses--Week 18

Eek!  Where is this week zooming off to so fast?  Can't believe I haven't gotten this week's verse up until now!  We have been busy--as always--with a few "extra" non always sorts of things thrown in for good measure.  Yesterday had a neurology appointment for our son.  It's always good news when the doctor looks at you and says "Looks great!  See you in six months!"  We are blessed to have good doctors.  We are blessed to have good insurance to pay for those good doctors.  We are blessed to have good medicines that help stop seizures from manifesting.  I hate seizures.  Probably one of my main "really-big" things that I hate.  Don't hate a lot--I like to live in peace.  But when it comes to seizures, there is only one word.

Jesus knows.  Jesus understands.  And I know that Jesus will wipe away all seizures soon, when He comes again.

And in the meantime, we have this promise:

"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall."  Psalms 55:22

Isn't that beautiful?

So this is the verse I am choosing for this week.  Because while seizures are a super-big problem, Jesus is an even greater solution.