Deviated Septum and other crooked turns...

Well, since I lost the post I had written about all of this, I will try to remember as much as I can about the original blog.
I have been thinking lately about all the things I have always wanted to do, but for one reason or the other, have put them off until somewhere down the road. Mostly fear has kept me from some of these things, fear of what, you ask...Well just the fear of the unknown, perhaps the fear that my long held dreams won't turn out to be what I had hoped. As long as they are just dreams then they can be great and grand, but once I actually pursue them and make them reality...well sometimes reality has a way of turning out differently than you had hoped. So the fear that it won't be what I thought it would and I would be...well, disappointed. But I am now facing 41 and entering into the second part of my life.
(read: It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age by Barbara Sher) And I have decided on a new theme for my "second life". Living Life on Purpose!
For the first 40 years of my life I have just let life happen to me. I have vascilated somewhere between letting things happen and "allowing God to direct me". I don't say that in a sarcastic manner. I still want God to direct me, but I plan to be more active in life. I believe God has a will for our lives but we also can have free choice in that will, and still be on track. I don't know how to explain it really. I guess you would say that I believed that whatever happen in my life was God placing me here or there and allowing these things to happen. Not realizing that by not taking a more active roll in the decisions of my life, I brought some things about, not necessarily because that was what God wanted to happen, but because He doesn't come down and move us around like chess pieces. We have to take action on what He directs us to do. In other words, He gives us the unction to do, but we have to get up and put one foot in front of the other and do...
Yes, I have to an extent, done that in areas of my life, but in other areas, although I hate to admit this, I sometimes played the victim. Victim of circumstances that I felt helpless to change. Or as I said before, afraid to change. I sometimes felt like the old saying, if you put a cow in the middle of two hay bales it would starve to death trying to decide which one to go to first. Well that was me in a way. I was often times afraid to act on something because I was afraid that it would be the wrong decision. I guess you would say that I had trouble making decisions for fear of making the wrong on. So by now, do you see a common theme for my life so far...FEAR!!! there was a lot of doubt mixed in with it also. Doubt about my abilities, doubt about my knowing what was best. Although I have been very unhappy with myself for many years; unhappy on many different levels; I held to the adage The enemy you know is better than the one you don't know. So I continued on the path of least resistance, although internally, the turmoil I have felt inside has been turbulant. I guess I have reached the point that I dislike the way things are more than I fear the alternative. So I am working on me and trying to capture the life that I have only dreamed of up until this point. So having said all of this...
I went to the doctor yesterday. I decided to quit putting off my dreams, and start making strides toward the place I want to be. So I went back to the otolaryngologist, say what? Yes, the otolaryngologist... and I am going to have surgery either on Oct 18th or 25th. The nurse will call tomorrow with all the final arrangements.
What surgery you ask? Well the septorhinoplasty/turbinectomy of course. Try saying that three times, fast.
What is that? Well, I have what is called a deviated septum, which means crooked nose. The bone in the nose is crooked and blocks one side of my breathing and to make it worse, the cartilage has slid to the side and my nose is crooked from a side view and from the front. It really shows up in photo's. And it has gotten much worse as I have gotten older. So instead of lamenting about it, I decided to face the fear and do it! So I am! I will post before and after photo's and probably give more details than you would like to read about when the time comes. But either way, a month from today could be the day or it could be post surgery by several days. So wish me luck and say a prayer for me.

The next item of news:
As some of you know, Andrew's dad had a stroke several weeks ago. While in the hospital with that, they discovered that he had cancer. He has it on the brain, and in other locations. It is pretty far along. They plan to give him radiation and then just see from there. But they pretty much told him to go home and enjoy his family and friends and gave him about two years. He still has no movement in his right arm and hand, but is able to walk some. So he is planning to sell his home, downsize and move into a senior citizens apartment. So I guess he will be doing that soon. They are going to start radiation next month, I believe. Anyway, please be in prayer for him and his family.

I have had several people ask me about Jewl. Well, I don't know what to say. Andrew gave him a day laborers job working on the building his is building and he worked for a few days, and then he slacked up. He didn't show up one morning, said he overslept. Then when he did come to work...well, he was worried about keeping his room that he was staying in at the motel. Afraid that he would lose it. Anyway, he decided it wasn't working out so he went back to doing what he was doing before. He dropped by a couple weeks ago and told me he had found an older couple that was going to rent him a room. So I wished him well and we haven't heard from him since. But through it all I learned that you can't always fix things, even if you have the ability to fix them for someone. Unless they want it fixed, and maybe your solution isn't their solution. Sometimes the reason people come into your life isn't to fix their problems, but to show the love of God to them. Just to show kindness and concern for them. And then they pass on by into someone elses life. So I feel like that is what we did in this situation. We showed kindness and showed God's love and fulfilled what He required of us to do.

Well, other bits of new:
The weather has gotten much more tolerable. There is a hint of fall in the air. It has rained more the last couple of week, we really needed the rain. I am looking forward to days when the high is in the 70's, not 90's.

Noah had his 2nd birthday on the 13th of this month. We celebrated with a little party with just the five of us. He is getting so big. He is very vocal. There is very little that he can't say, or at least enough that you can understand what he is saying. He is learning to count. He counts to ten with a little help. And he talks about numbers and letters. He points to the clock and says "numbers on the clock". He loves Winnie the Pooh. No, he is obsessed with Winnie the Pooh. He can name them all and he calls Christopher Robin, Wobin. And he loves Tigger. He says, "Tigger, bounce" and he bounces through the house saying "bounce, bounce". So for his birthday we got him one of those big blow up bouncing things. He really likes it. So my baby boy is two. He is such a joy and has brought so much to our lives. Of course, all three of my children are such a blessing and I am thankful for all three.
The puppies are growing. I will post a photo, maybe later today. They will be two weeks on Thursday. We have three girls and four boys. They will be registered and we will have them for sale in about four weeks if anyone is interested.
I will stop now. This has been a long post. I will continue the theme: Reinvent your life after 40!!! Stay tuned!!!

Thought for Today

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

disappearing post

I just had the most frustrating thing happen to me...
I wrote this nice long blog with lots of updates and information about what is going on here and it disappeared!!! With just a blink of the screen it was gone... all of it every last word! It is to late now to redo it all, so I will have to repost all of it tomorrow. Just to remind myself: "Deviated septums and other crooked tales..."

Also new theme for my life in the making. A peek at future posts; Living on purpose and reinventing your life after 40! Wow, where is this thing called life taking me? Well, stay tuned and maybe I will share some of it with you...

Thought for Today

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Henry David Thoreau

And since I lost my whole post here is another thought for today

"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely."
-- Auguste Rodin

We Have Puppies!!

Well, Sadie had her puppies this morning around 7:00 am on Noah's birthday!! She had seven!!! Wow, I was thinking five, but we got seven. They are adorable. I will post photo's later. Mom and pups are doing well.
I know it has been a little while since I have blogged, but there has been a lot going on and I have to be honest, I just haven't been in the mood to blog. There is a lot I want to write about, but didn't know where to start with it all. I will blog later about Andrew's dad, and more on Jewl, and other things going on here. But for today, it is Noah's second birthday today and we have puppies! I will post photo's of Noah's party and the puppies later today.

Thought for Today

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.

J. Petit Senn

Thinking of my Mawmaw

I have been thinking about my grandma and really missing her lately. She passed away on June 27th of this year. My almost 2 year old is playing with two wooden spoons with long handles and he stuck one in each of his pants pockets. Which brought back a memory of my "mawmaw". She use to sing a little song to me and then to my kids... it went like this:

Have you ever been a fishin' on a bright sunny day

Have you ever seen the fishes just swim and play.

With your hands in your pockets

and your pockets on your pants

have you ever seen the fishes

do the hoochie koochie dance!

I don't know the origin of the song, and have never seen or heard it anywhere else. None of my other cousins even remember her singing the song. If anyone has ever heard it before and knows the origin of it, please let me know. Maybe it was just something she made up, but I don't think so. I wish so much I had asked her where it came from. But like so many things, you think of when it is too late.

Just wanted to share that with everyone.

“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.”
Kevin Arnold

An extra one that I thought was interesting:

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Birthday's and scorchers

Well, the heat has been unbearable! I can't believe as I type this at 7:00pm it is still 100 degrees! Wow!!! Unbelievable!
Things have been crazy here lately. I haven't had a chance to sit down hardly. My parents left yesterday to go back home. I had hoped they would stay longer, but my dad is like an old man; he can't stay away from home to long. My mom would love to stay longer, but if he stays he starts having allergy problems that make him sick, so they go home.
Yesterday, August 12th at 3:46 pm, my daughter turned 18! I can't believe! The years have flown by and now she is grown. So many times I wish I could have all three of my children small again. It was simple then. It is when they start getting older that it becomes complicated.
So we took her out to eat after church, took her to the store and got her the gift she wanted; a 30 GB Zune. We came home and had cake and sang happy birthday to her. After the party we just spent the afternoon before church, sitting together in the living room talking and relaxing. After church she went out to eat with her friends. Now she is at work. She is working two part-time jobs. She works at the library and at a clothing store in town. She isn't thrilled about them yet, I think she really doesn't want to face up to the responsibilities of adulthood. She would perfer to have the benefits of being 18, without all the work! But of course, wouldn't we all! She hasn't gotten a pay check yet, so when those start coming in and she has the freedom to spend, spend, spend...then we will see how she feels about it. Of course, the requirements are, after she pays her tithing and she pays insurance on her car and the gas to do the running she wants to do, after that it is hers to do with what she wants.
I had to work today. I subbed on a different route. It was actually the subdivision that was taken off the route I normally do, plus an apartment complex. It went well. I got to leave the post office early and got back by 12:10. So I missed the hottest part of the day! Thank God! I left work by 1:15- Now I would like to run that route every day. Well, everyday that I had to work. I wouldn't want to deliver mail as a full time job. I suppose I am just doing this "until something better comes along".

I don't really have a lot to say this evening, so I am going to end here and maybe find something interesting to read. So here is the thought for the day---

Elizabeth Stone:
Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.

Jewl

It was Saturday evening, we were having camp meeting services at our church and I was rushing around trying to get ready and get the kids ready so we could make the service on time. Andrew had already left for church, because he was ushering and had to be there early. The doorbell rang and Megan went to the door. I was in Noah's room and saw through the blinds, a young black man standing on the porch with a small backpack on his back. I automatically assumed that he was selling something, and I was not interested and didn't have the time to deal with it. Megan came back into the hall where I had walked into, and said that he had asked if an adult was here. I told her to tell him that I wasn't interested in buying anything and we were in a rush. She didn't want to tell him that, so I stepped to the doorway to talk to him. He started out by saying that he was homeless and was trying to mow the yard a few houses down to make some money to get a room for the night and wanted to borrow our lawn mower if we would let him. Well, what would you think if this were to happen to you? What would you do? Well, I started telling him that my husband wasn't here and we were running late to meet him, and that I couldn't let him use it because we were leaving and wouldn't be there. But if my husband were home and we were going to be there, we would let him use it. In my mind, this is partly true. I would like to think that we would help him out. But then in the other part of your brain, you are thinking, I don't know this guy, what if he is telling a big tell...then I think, what would he do with the lawn mower? Anyway, I couldn't bring myself to say to him that I was trying to get ready for church...I was pricked in my heart...I was trying to get ready to go to church, to worship God...and what? And refuse to help someone in need. I was going to dress in my church going clothes, drive my air conditioned car to church to worship God, when this homeless person without a car or home, needs a place to stay and is trying to work to make some money to find a room, and I can't take the time to help him. Is that Christ-like? WWJD Do I honestly think that God will accept my offering of praise that I offer if I can't even help someone in need. But because of safety and the fact that we were leaving and Andrew wasn't home, I couldn't do it. I apologized to him and said that if my husband were there, we would, but I just couldn't under the circumstances. As I closed the door, he thanked me for opening the door for him. I begin to feel conviction...my heart was not just pricked, but pierced. As we begin to pull out of the drive way an hour or so later, a truck pulled out of the driveway several houses down, and I caught sight of the young man sitting in the back of the truck and he waved and smiled at me as he passed. I couldn't enjoy the service because I felt so terrible about what had happened. After service, I told Andrew all about it and how terrible I felt about it. I said a prayer and asked for forgiveness as I went to bed that night.
Sunday, around lunch time, the doorbell rang. Andrew went to the door and there he was. He had come back... So Andrew filled the lawn mower with gas and told him to go mow the woman's yard. After a while he went to check on him and took him a bottled water. Some time later he rang the door bell again and Andrew went out to talk to him. His name is Jewl, he was raised in foster homes in the area and at 18 was turned out into the world without any help. He had worked several jobs, but was down on his luck and was without a place to live and a job. He had a car, but it broke down on him and it was parked at someone house in North Little Rock. He told of going from house to house looking for work and sometimes having to ask for food. He said that he never asked for money, without working for it, and if someone offered, he usually told them to take him somewhere and buy him food instead. He wanted to be on the up and up and not have people think that he was just looking for money to by alcohol or drugs. As his story came out, my heart begin to ache. I couldn't help thinking how blessed we were, even though we are having struggles, we are extremely blessed. There is an old saying that I always repeat at times like this; "except for the grace of God, there go I"
So, after he finished mowing the yard for the neighbor, I fixed him a big bowl of lunch. And Andrew sat outside with him, while he ate and talked more to him. Since he didn't have a way to go, Andrew cleaned up one of our bicycles and gave it to him to use. He told him that as long as he needed it, he could have it. He also gave him a few items of clothing to wear. Monday morning Andrew picked him up and took him to work with him. He gave him a day labors job. He took him to sign up with a temp agency to hire him through so he could get paid daily instead of waiting a week or more for a paycheck. Here is the thing...he is staying in a motel, he said that so far, he hasn't had to sleep outside since he became homeless. But the cheapest room he can get cost $44.00 a night, and he is making $56.00 a day. And he won't be working on Sat or Sunday, so what does he do those nights? How does he ever get ahead, gain independence and become a part of society again? I am currently trying to find somewhere that he can get help. Somewhere he can stay for a week or so until he can get enough money saved up to find a place to live, get over the hump and start living again. But I haven't had any luck yet. What do you do? How do you help? What are the answers for someone in Jewl's situation? I just know that we must help him, we have to find some solution. He has a job, and is a good worker. But without some other help, he will remain in the same situation he is in now. Just working to have a room by the night. What if you were in his shoes? He is totally dependent on the kindness of strangers. Totally dependent on others help. And if we don't help him, who will? Is that not our mission on the earth, to help those in need. To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help those in need...
If I had the money myself, I would go find a place for him to get an efficency apartment or a room for rent somewhere. A small apartment... but I don't have anything extra myself, we are struggling ourselves, trying to keep our heads above water right now. We are trying to sell our house, Lauren has just started working and we are still paying her car note, and insurance. And believe me, 18 year olds are expensive! So we are doing what we can...food, clothes, bike, job...
Since I don't have the extra money to provide him a place to stay until he can get some money in his pocket to pay his own way, I will have to do what I can to find some place, or some agency, or group that can help him. I am going to make some calls tomorrow to differnent organizations in the area that might know where to direct me. I can't let this one get by. He has no one else to help, no one else to fight for him, and right now he is unable to do it for himself. I just don't know where to start. I have never done this sort of thing before...I don't even know where to look for assistance, information or options for him.
If any of you have any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas, please feel free to share them with me. There is that part of me that says, well y'all have done plenty, don't worry about it, it isn't your problem...but then there is the part of me that says, WWJD? If I don't act, who will? If I don't have compassion, who will? If I don't do everything within my power to help this human being that cannot help himself, who will? If I truly want to be like Christ... I must reach out to people, and do everything within my power to help. I can't come before God with a clean heart, if I have turned away someone in need, if I haven't shown compassion...To feel compassion is an emotion without an action. To show compassion, is to act on the emotion. Jewl and others like him need people to SHOW; and action; a verb; compassion. This means to act to help change their plight. If I were in his shoes, how would I want someone to treat me, what would I want someone to do to help me? If I were living day to day, not knowing if I was going to have a place to lay my head each night, or food to eat each day, what would I want someone to do to help me?
I know that there are all kinds of people out there and you have to be very careful. You can never be too safe. But there are some people that are just down on their luck, life circumstances have not been favorable to them, and they just need a little help to get them back on track. I feel like Jewl is one of those. And he needs our help. So if you would, when you pray, say a little prayer for Jewl that God will bless him and help him out of this situation. And also pray for me that God will help me to remember that our mission here in this life is to share God's love with others and to bless others, in order for God to find my sacrafice acceptable before Him and not turn me away.

Long, hot day at work

Today was so hot!!! We have had some route changes at work, and my route changed. I lost one subdivision that I use to deliver to and gained a new one, plus an appartment complex and some businesses and the police station/fire department/City Hall...whatever! Anyway, I don't like the change at all! I just can't get use to it. And although I still have one subdivision that I use to have, the case has completely changed and nothing is in the right place at all!! So I am having to learn the case over again, just like it is all brand new. So it is taking me forever to get the mail put up. On top of that, the sudivision that was taken away from the route; was put on an auxiliary route and I still get a lot of their mail at my case. So I spent so much time dividing up my mail from their mail...Then on top of all of that, a wing was added to my case and not being use to pulling down from a wing, I somehow skipped two rows of mail today. I discovered it while I was out delivering. So after I finished the route, I had to return to the PO and get that mail and go back on the route and deliver that mail!! WOW! I was so burned out by the end of the day. And the heat was almost unbearable. I didn't get out of there until after 5:30.
Anyway, enough griping about all of that. It was just one of those days that you can't seem to get a grip on things, it all seems to just be a little more than you can balance. Well that is how it was for me today anyway. But as Scarlett O'hara once said; "Tomorrow IS another day..."
Well, not much going on here to really write home about. When I am working there isn't much time for anything else. So I will end with this thought...

Saturday's Inspiration

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain