Quickly saying we're back. The trip was awesome. More later, but I am nutso busy. We got back Sunday night, left for MI Tuesday night, got back Wednesday night, I had to just lay around Thursday. Now I have only today, after forever of not being home, to get us ready for the weekend. But we're back.

I added a link on the right. Century-Old Photos. Enjoy. Look out though - it's addictive.

Goin' to CA

Thanks to the friend who wrote the post "'Pink Grace' Re-told":

This is a link to someone's explanation of the sparkles (aka Glory Dust). It has pictures and mentions oil. There is some scientific info thrown in. I acknowledge that the fact-based parts do kinda read "Fact. Fact. Emotion presented as fact. Fact. Theory presented as fact. Fact." Nonetheless, the facts are in there, and I know some of you are gonna be curious.

Sparkle Link
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We leave for California on Wednesday morning. We get back Sunday night.

D has a conference to attend Thursday and Friday. I've decided to spend those 2 days alone in the hotel room kinda doing a spiritual retreat thing. (Those of you that have talked to me just lately know I need one! And to you peeps; I sure wouldn't mind some prayer cover. Focus on my trust in God. Thanks.)

Saturday, we will have some version of CA Fun - by some method we have not yet decided on. There is a nifty desert park nearby. The opportunity to get some tick-less nature might be too good to pass up. Um, deserts don't have ticks, right?

Saturday night, we plan to go to Harvest Rock Church. Sunday might be better (like more people), but we leave fairly early for the airport. (On second read-through of this, here: Thuh Churchy Wurchy.)

And Sunday, we think we're gonna get to see some of D's family in the Denver airport during our 3 hour layover. Hope so!

By the way, we have a total of 5 hours in planes 0ne-way. I happen to know the trip to Japan doesn't take more than 12. How far is California anyway?!
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I've been sewing on the apron. I've got about a half dozen words/phrases done. It's kinda cool. The words are in my cursive handwriting - sans the bumps that are included because I can't line up each stitch perfectly. Some words are thin for the first few letters, then switch to thick because I didn't realize I had 2 thicknesses of thread to deal with - it's like changing pens in the middle of a word. As to how great I thought it'd be to be dwelling on the words as I stitched them - not so much. I have to keep my focus on the stitches. Very relaxing though. Too bad I can't take a needle on a plane.

The leaders of our Friday night group gave us a bookshelf. It's 3 1/2 feet wide, 1 foot short of the ceiling, and solid wood - even the backing. Suhweet. Same peeps we got the couch from, and a book, and a picture that's now in our living room. Maybe they should move in. (Thank you, Lovely Peeps.)

Oh, and I can do the laundry now! I avoid it on days I hear neighbors screaming at each other and such. Wouldn't want to bump into a Grump. Nonetheless, I can do it! Helpful to D and I both - especially D.

FYI. The Lyme Doc appointment that was for last Wednesday got moved to Wednesday the 27th.

Ooooh! Ooooh! And I got a new purse! I walked into the 3-5 year old class yesterday morning (12 kids!) and my purse handle busted. So, I got me a trip to Penney's. Would you believe D picked it out? For serious. The man picked out our living room curtains too. He's got an eye.
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Now if you will excuse moi, I have a 4-Day Party to pack for, World Vision kiddos to write, 847 loads of dishes to do (dishes on weekends - yeah right), and about 2 hours of homework I should've already done for my counselor for tonight. I'll be back here next week. Toodles.

Dee-LEC-tuh-buhl!

So I'm in the second bedroom for some reason I forgot, and movement at the dumpster catches my eye.

Good thing. Maybe he can get those lids to close.

(I probably weirded out the guy walking his dog. I don't think he saw the squirrel.)

Craig's List

Check out this Craig's List posting. Click on it. It might get nice 'n' big for ya.

Eleven cats is TOTALLY worth $300.

Regularly Scheduled Thurs Post

Monday night we were cooking dinner. Heard thunder in the distance. Five minutes later, the wind was howling, lightning was 3 seconds apart, rain was pouring, and the tornado siren was blaring. And like THAT'S not crazy enough, I wasn't even modestly dressed. No matter. I yanked Molly's 12 pounds of lard off the floor and ran down the stairs while D grabbed a cell and keys. We were down there just a couple minutes when D realized we left the stove on with something greasy sitting on it. Ensuing train of thought: "Fire worse? Tornado worse? Fire worse?..." D raced upstairs, turned it off, and was back in less than a minute.

Meanwhile, our neighbors and their baby came to join us. Atleast we met some really nice neighbors! They live cati-corner to us. And get this, they're from Japan. That made for some great, "Cool! Where'd YOU live?" conversation.

When the sirens stopped and the storm eased up, we went upstairs and looked at the weather on the 'net. Turned out, a tornado touched down nearby. The storm had been traveling 55 miles an hour. First distant roll of thunder to sirens was seriously 5 minutes. I'm from tornado alley, and I've never seen it happen that fast.

Half an hour later, we realized the window in the second bedroom was wide open. The blinds were down, but it has no screen. Water covered a fourth of the room. The wind had slung it everywhere. Six boxes that were long-term storage had to be emptied and their contents spread to dry. Five framed pictures were standing in water. Two were paintings my grandfather did. They were face-up on a table and the frames acted like pond walls. Nothing of real value was ruined, though one nice thing got a bit of damage. (If you read my last post, you know we're getting lots of practice spreading wet stuff out to dry.)
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Most of you know, all the pictures with our lovely mugs go on a Flickr account. Like free email, we don't pay for Flickr. However, all in one day, Flickr said my "freeness" will only last another 30 pictures, and Walgreens said I have to order photos or the account closes.

So this got me thinkin'. We've now spent 2 years not doing hard-copy pictures. Makes sense enough. They're just as likely to stay safe as hard-copy, and if you don't print them, you save loads of money! Nevertheless, if we'd have to start paying for Flickr anyway...

We've decided to print off some of our wedding pictures. We have a white satin photo album specifically for them, so we figure we'll use it. I'm also going to go through Flickr and erase most of the non-face pictures. So if any of you want to go through my pictures, run and do it!
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Last Thanksiving, we brought a large green suitcase back from D's parents' house. (Hi, Y'all!) It was full of his kid-stuff: toys, Bible Bowl awards, and Scout uniforms. This week, I finally unpacked it. It was a couple weeks after we returned that my feet clamped and morning sickness hit. I haven't been able to fully catch up since! Sure makes me wish I'd emptied it as soon as we got back - even though I really was busy at the time prepping for my own 'rents to come. Sheesh.
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I've been posting my head off lately. Y'all go review Flickr if you want to. I'll start pulling stuff down as early as Monday. Adieu.

J Would've Been Born

Give or take a few weeks, this is when J would've been born. I think about my kids every single day, so a special month doesn't really make things worse. But I am a bit more sad than usual now. Enough to make it worth posting about.

I really can say though that a lot of good can come out of this. Losing a child makes you a better parent. It's something that has to do with gratitude, and not taking your living kids for granted. It makes you more diligent about truly loving your kids, and wanting to do the parenting job as honorably as possible.

Losing E and J also means that I will always have babies. You hear women all the time say, "Oh, they grow up so fast" or "wish they could stay little." Once I get to heaven, I will have a baby on each hip (oh, maybe I'll share with D), and I'll be the envy of all the other chicks. Sure, I'd rather have them here, but the heaven arrangement isn't bad per se.

Not like losing kids is a walk in the park. But God can pull good out of everything. Maybe that's my main point. Here's a public "THANK YOU, LORD" for pulling good out of grief.

Lakeland, FL

I honestly don't have many pictures that don't have someone's face in them. And since I wouldn't want somebody else to put MY face on the net... They're available on our Flickr if you want to.

The sign picture was taken at the Healing Outpouring Saturday night. The tree one is a random out-the-car-window picture.
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The Reason We Went

Saturday night was awesome fun! The meeting (D said about 3,000 people) started with 2 1/2 hours of worship. Atleast 20 minutes of it was singing "holy." Not bad at all!

And then my memory skips to Hans. There was a man sitting in front of us with a neckbrace. Didn't think much of it - there were people everywhere. But Todd (ie Main Dude) "called out a word of knowledge." (That's what they call it - "word of knowledge" means "somethin' God told ya.") He said that there was a person sitting to his left (our side) who had the bones in his neck broken in a car accident 16 years ago.

It took Hans a while to get up there, presumably because he only spoke German. But when he did, his translating friend said that the neckbrace was from a car accident 16 years ago. So Todd prayed for him, and Hans landed on the floor (while I cringed about the neck). Todd went on to pray for other people. Then all eyes turned to Hans as he got off the floor with a clown-size smile and his eyes bugging. As soon as Todd turned and saw him, Hans starting shaking his head around! Atleast half of us jumped to our feet screaming. The picture of that look on his face is burned in my memory now. That 5 seconds alone was worth the trip! (Really.)

I chased Hans down afterward. I now have a picture of him and his young son. His son is beaming, but due to the fact that I can't count to 3 in German, Hans just looks amused. Like I said though, I'll never forget that smile. Totally worth the trip.

Also very noteworthy were 2 men in wheelchairs that went on stage. The first had MS and came unable to move his arms. He was there to show us that he could now swing them around. The other man was elderly and not able to speak. The woman who pushed his chair up there said that he hadn't been able to move his legs when they came, but now could. Todd leaned over and asked him about it. His reply was to lift each leg a couple times.

And gettin' more personal:

I hadn't been able to curl my toes since December. Neither foot, and not even by using my hands. The muscles on the bottom couldn't contract, and the muscles on top were so tight they couldn't stretch enough anyway. D and I had discussed that they'd be the clearest "test" as to whether I'd been healed at all on the trip.

At one point, everyone who needed some kind of physical healing was asked to stand, and everyone as a group was prayed for. Immediately afterward, I tried to curl my toes. My left ones easily curled half-way, and my right ones can now curl just a bit.

Eight months, one prayer, and BAM - they're starting to move again!

(Sidenote: I have no clue why I and the 2 men in wheelchairs weren't completely healed. None. I also don't understand why God doesn't always answer my prayers with "Sure thing, Kiddo!" But I don't think I'll get in his face about it either. I'm grateful for what I have been given.)
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The Trip Itself

The plane trips were interesting.

(I have to avoid tap water. The Lyme toxins make things like chlorine much more dangerous to me. While we think I'm over active Lyme, I'll still have the effects a while. So, we pack water bottles everywhere we go. )

On the way to FL, I put 3 large bottles in a checked suitcase. One of the 3 burst. We had to put our sopping clothes in a hotel dryer. Far worse, my medical notebook was in there - all my blood tests, symptom lists, medical history, the 2 pages of my current meds, etc. Nice. Real nice. At 1 AM Friday night, we were spreading paper all over the floor of the hotel room.

Flying from Tampa to Atlanta, I saw a ROUND rainbow. Sweeeet! I was looking down at the clouds when my jaw dropped and I reached behind me slapping D's leg. He wasn't able to see it. I could see atleast 4 of the colors, in stripes, in a wheel. In the middle were atleast 2 of the colors in a ball. I didn't even know that could happen! Oh, for a picture!

From Atlanta to Chicago, we sat with a boy who'd just graduated 8th grade and was coming home from his graduation present - an all-by-himself trip to his Grandma's. He was such a cutey! I was slightly disturbed though to see how much more child than adult is in an 8th grader. Reason being, I remember my 8th grade year with a good deal of pride, and truly thought I was more adultish than kiddish. Ahem, maybe no. Atleast I have evidence I musta been cute.

And last, our entertaining cab drivers. From our apartment to the airport: driving down the wrong side of the street, running red lights, and causing a lot of honking. From the airport to our apartment, a Baptist man who was excited to hear all about our trip. Ya just never know with a cab.

Busy busy!

A day in the life of Molly: Have a rude person take a picture of you bathing, sit in a lap watching a cursor, and sleep all over everything.

Clearly her human got bored.

(The doll was drying out after a tornado / open window combo on Monday night.)

My Links

Just pointing out that I've added to, and deleted from, the lists on the right. Surely a few of you look at those!

We're Home

We're home safe. I'll blog the details later, but this week.

Meanwhile, can you believe I took this awesome picture by ACCIDENT?!