Fun Times

It's been awhile since since I've been the cook in the house for more than a day or two at a time. Last night marked the third evening in a row that I've fixed dinner, and I'm going for more! The other chef in our house has needed a break and is pretty happy about it. It's not that I've forgotten how to cook, it's more that I've forgotten the timing. Well, I suppose I should acknowledge that "time" has and probably always will be a challenge for me. But, in my defense, I'll say that I made it through 38 years of teaching with very detailed lesson plans and always juggling time, trying to fit in as much as possible. That adaptability made me able to accomplish more than the average. So I'm going with that thought as I try to juggle meal planning, cooking, caring for and doing errands for my mom, and seeing those grandbabies (and their families!) whenever possible.

The kids all came over for dinner last night, and in my opinion, our main course was good but not great. Perhaps if I didn't get distracted so easily and thus left out 2 of the ingredients, it would have been better. But I made up for it with the smoothies I made for dessert.  Strawberries from our garden, with blueberries and bananas added to some---YUM! Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it. It's quick and even good for you!

                                          1 C. frozen fruit (or more if you like)
                                          1 C. plain nonfat yogurt (or regular)
                                          3/4 C. milk
                                          2 T. sugar
                                          1/2 t. vanilla
Just toss it in the blender and mix. You may have to scrape the sides and stir it a couple of times. When it is mixed, you can stick it in the freezer for awhile or just start sippin'!

Last evening was also perfect for the cousins to play outside in the sprinkler and have their smoothies out where they could drip wherever.  

On my fav list...

 I was very excited to capture all 5 grandbabies in 2 pictures!

                                      

Waiting

"Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." Ps. 27:14


Most of the time I'm pretty good with waiting for the LORD, not great, it comes and goes, of course, but my patience is most of the time a gift. BUT...

Boy am I glad yesterday is over with. At the hospital at 8:45...waiting with Jen in the "holding room". Jen is now trying to convince the nurses that, no, she is not pregnant even though her HCG count is still elevated, (It's a Catholic hospital and they are not going to proceed if she might be pregnant.) and she is trying to explain PSTT because they have never heard of it. Move with Jen to the surgery prep center...more waiting. The Dr visits, then the anesthesiologist, the nurses prep her, and now we're waiting for the results of the HCG test they've given her. 10:30 and the results of the HCG test come in at a down level of 9.6, and the xray from yesterday showed her lungs to be clear, so we know nothing has spread to her lungs. Woohoo! That was God's gift of encouragement before she went into surgery! So the nurse gives her a "Happy Juice" shot. Kisses and hugs, and they wheel her away at 10:50.

The knot in my stomach tries to return as Steve and I walk down to the waiting area, check in with the Pink Lady at the desk and find a spot to settle in. Now for the looooonnnggg wait. The Dr. had estimated 1.5 to 2 hours and the Dr finally appeared again at 1:40. It was nice visiting with Steve (blessing) and I had remembered to bring my bible so I had my quiet time (more blessing). Mike joined us about noon and we continued the waiting. 1:00 and I now have my eye glancing constantly down the long hallway watching for the Dr. to appear and I'm getting antsy. I said I am usually patient, but I'm not good at sitting still for very long. Finally at 1:41 the Dr. begins the long walk down the hallway toward us and we're trying to read his face before he reaches us. His face does not look sad and worried. (Yes! I think. But I'm wondering if he is just good at not showing expression, since he has made this long walk out to many families in the past 30 years.) He has good news for us! Albeit, not THE best news, but definitely good. Jen is doing well, he did not remove the mass; he took 4 biopsy samples; he still does not know if it is TSPP, but is suspecting that it is a well disguised fibroid. And... he brought pictures. Pictures?? I wasn't expecting that. It was so much easier understanding everything as he explained each picture (about 20 of them). But, whew, so much to remember! I definitely heard the part about the mass not having penetrated the uterine wall, and that Jen was under no threat of anything right now. There was something about her fallopian tube; something about seeing another specialist (reproductiive endocrinologist, RE). He also said Jen would be in recovery for about an hour.

When the Dr. left, Mike went home to fix dinner for all of us (minus Jen), and Steve and I discussed and compared what we had heard, and after about 10 minutes, you could see the adreneline withdrawing from each of us as we started looking and feeling very tired. And...more waiting. But, oh, the RELIEF! And my eyes closed with prayers of thanksgiving to our mighty LORD!

At about 3:30 Jen was moved out of recovery and into a room. More waiting...but this time the waiting was easier and more welcomed. Even though she was feeling nauseous, she started looking better as the moments ticked by. By the time I left at 9:00, she was ready to sleep and to come home in the morning.

And now, more waiting. We are waiting for the pathology report. There are not many labs setup to handle testing for TSPP, so that adds to the wait time, as we wait our turn.

God's perfect timing will happen once more!

POSTSCRIPT:
It's now Saturday and the pathology report came yesterday with VERY GOOD NEWS! The biopsy showed NO cancer!!
"I call on you O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer. Show the wonder of your great love." Ps 17:6-7
Praising God for His great love!

Snapshots

I seem to have slowed down lately on taking pictures. so I'm anxious to get back to catching more of those precious moments. So for now, here's just a few snapshots.

But this baby is the one who's occupying my mind. LORD, thank you that she is in your care!

The Good Guy

Helping with the Preschool kids in Vacation Bible School this week has been a treat. 2 of my favorite comments from these precious little ones today were:

• "Jesus isn't one of the bad guys, he's the Good Guy"
• "Pirates don't play with Barbies"

They sure can make you smile!

Making a sun with shells

That's All?

I really thought I'd be to the end of my recent line up of sewing projects by now, but I've only finished one of the 4, and the one that was to take the least amount of time, to boot. Where does the time go?? Maybe I need to spend a little less time looking at all of the great projects on other blogs for awhile...but there are so many great ideas out there!

 Anyway, these are the shoe bags I made for a friend returning to the Philippines.

The window treatment is next....

THAT Peace

I was caught off guard yesterday when my mom said to me, "I wish I was perfect like you." My first reaction was to quickly tell God, "She didn't mean that, LORD!" and "I'm SO sorry for conveying that to her! Please forgive me!" And then it was totally the Holy Spirit who intervened and said, "No, no, that's what He wants her to see!" What?? "He wants her to see THAT Peace in you (His Peace), because that is what she is so desperately wanting and that's what she is missing. Tell her."
Yesterday had been an especially stressful day for my mom. Her Care Giver who comes to take her to get her hair done was rude and unkind to her and told her she's not coming back. Mom is 92 and has dementia and greater and greater difficulty with speaking. Since accepting Christ 2 years ago, she has stuggled with self-centeredness, still trying to do everything on her own as she did her whole life. She forgets to say please and thank you, and to pray, and battles with focusing all of her thoughts on herself and things she doesn't like. So I guess I'm saying that I can see what a thankless job taking care of her can sometimes be, but...the Care Giver crossed the line and fell over the cliff by telling mom that she's the worst client she's ever had, the most ungrateful, and nobody likes her because of it, and she's not coming back.
Looking back on it now, I can see that this was probably the Lord preparing my mom's heart. After piecing much of what happened together since I wasn't getting full sentences out of her, I thought about what to do.
And then the Holy Spirit filled me with words that could have only come from Him. I was able to explain to her about what she see's in me is God's peace, not perfection, and if she truly wants that peace, the key is to place God first and to focus on Him. Pray to Him and give Him thanks for who He is and all that He does for her, instead of focusing on what she doesn't have and what she can't do. I reminded her that everything is about God, not about us. The peace comes from keeping ourselves in that relationship with God and letting Him be in control. It doesn't take away our problems, but we can feel calm and secure in the midst of them. I especially reemphasized how it takes our effort to keep that relationship.
Well that was the gist of it, and I wasn't sure what was getting through at the time. Later that night she called me before going to bed and said that she wanted me to know that she was feeling THAT Peace and thanked me and was even laughing in our conversation. I still couldn't understand all of what she was saying, but that woman has always had a great laugh--one that doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to.

The Line-Up

The projects are starting to line up on my sewing table.... Looks like there's definitely a red theme going

 on, but none of them are related.

The first is a window treatment for the playroom, the next is shoebags for a friend headed for the Phillipines, the third is a cover for a beanbag (loooong overdue!), and the fourth is that beautiful serger machine at the end of the table that I have NOT A CLUE how to use, but I'm really excited to have it. It belongs to my mom, who has made some amazing things with it, but she no longer remembers how to thread it. Anyone know how? It's a Juki MO-34. My plan is to Google the directions, but I'm forcing myself to finish all that I showed in my last post that I dragged out of the closet. IF it was just pictures that I was trying to organize, I might be enjoying it. But mixed in all the boxes are also many misc. papers, both mine and my mom's. Oh I would so rather just put it all back into the closet and go play with my new toy....

But I did manage to sneak in making a quick embellished towel. Ahhh, that feels better!

A Revamped Workspace

I've been wanting to redo my workroom for quite awhile and finally the process has begun. It's shaping up quite nicely. But I say "process" because there are definite stages involved. It began with moving the daybed into what we've dubbed "the playroom", as opposed to the usual label of guestroom. So these are the before pictures:

The daybed was next to my sewing table, but instead of looking like this, most of the time it ended up looking like this:

or this:

But now in place of the daybed, I've moved the table from another wall, added shelves on the far side of the sewing table, cute thread racks and a "God is Good" magnetic banner given to me by dear friends and family for my b'day. Isn't it great?!!

I left it this way, feeling all spacious and neat, for about a week.

 I remember when I was younger (yes, I can still remember that long ago...) and I longed for a space to call my own and organize it for all of my projects. I was SO creative in finding places to stash everything. But each time I started a project, lots of "stuff" came out of hiding and was soon in the way.

Well, admitedly, that stashing syndrome is stilll with me. I've worked on it over the years (thank you, Flylady!  Check her out if your own "stuff" is overwhelming you! flylady.net ), but I'm definitely not to the point I'd like to be---yet.

As I was saying, I left it that way for about a week, and then decided to start the next step, as planned, and add another table for pulling out and organizing all of my pictures from the nearby closet.

Uh oh, I think it's going to take setting up another table. This isn't nearly all of the pictures. What have I started??!!



Cade is Three!!

Cade Michael turned three today!  I called to wish and sing Happy Birthday to him while he was at Disneyland. He was so excited that he didn't hear much of what I said after the song. He just kept right on talking! Every so often I could hear something about his birthday. I can't wait to hear about their day and see pictures tomorrow.
These are some pictures of his family party on Saturday:

 

Jill did a great job making Cade's baseball cake and his other sports-themed cupcakes and cookies. They were yummy!

And this was Sydney's favorite part:

Happy Endings

This was a week of "happy endings". Isa finished her last days of Kindergarten and her Spring season of soccer with FUN (Faith-Unity-Nurture) Sports. Can this little girl really be in First Grade now?  On the day before school was out the kids had a Sprinkler Day. I think they all tried the sprinklers, but not many of them stayed in the water for very long. Mostly, you would see them run through the water and then head for the blacktop where their towels were spread out, and then lay down huddled to the ground to warm up. Who ever heard of 68 degree weather for the last week of school?? In Bakersfield??  But the kids still loved it--especially with popcicles.

Isa's Saturday morning soccer games have been fun to watch. The kids have really improved their skills since they first started. They mostly kick the ball to the right goal now!

Fun on the sidelines, too....

So Peaceful

When I laid Sydney down in her crib a few days ago and saw how she stretched and left her arms above her head, I knew I had to run and get my camera. Then I was sure I could find the similar picture of Isa and Marcus asleep in the same poses and I was going to post them together. But...the photo wasn't where I remembered. If Jill can find it, I will repost it later. So sweet and peaceful!

                                                                    Sydney Lee