Hello all!

Well, I had a great weekend at the retreat.  My two sessions of
teaching went ok, I think.  I was nervous doing the 1st session
Friday night, but on Sunday, I felt very much at peace doing that
session.  

We got up there and it was raining on Friday -- Saturday it was
supposed to rain, but we woke up to beautiful blue skies!!!  It
was cold, though -- for us Southern California beach galz -- going to
the mountains!!

God revealed something to me during the first 10 minutes of the retreat
- and as I pondered it and meditated upon it during the weekend it just
kept expanding.  I was seeing that I was so desiring just a
moments peace -  a break - especially with all that has gone on in
the last year and a half with my cancer and chemo and surgeries, as well
as Gracie's leg, Steve's immune problems and the issues with my in-laws
all the while dealing with the battles of everyday life and my
children's emotional health as they tried to comprehend and deal with
all that was going on with me and Steve and Grace as well as their own
issues.

And I saw that during my day, especially after  schooling in the
morning, I so desire just a moments peace, but I don't ever really get
it.  It has become such a big idol and a stumbling block to loving
others in my family at times.  But as I began to think of other
things I had gone through/am going through and I saw that for each of
those things, I just wanted to run away -- find a moments peace away
from it where I wouldn't have to think of it, etc.  And then I
finally get my chance at the retreat - my much looked to moment of
peace -- and it was so unsatisfying.  The is because I realized
that what I needed wasn't a moment of peace, rather I needed to see the
bigger picture and trust God for His timing of things. God is
orchestrating my
life and the circumstances of it -- He know exactly what I need and
when I need it, and I need to trust in Him and His timing for my
moments peace and not when I think I need it.  I hope that makes
sense...

Well, gotta run - Hope you are all doing well!
~me

Hi!!!!

I'm sorry I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth...  Our
women's retreat is next weekend and I am the coordinator and it is
taking up all of my time right now.  But I wanted to say thanks to
those new people who have come by and who have subscribed!  I
subscribed back to you, but I probably won't be able to comment until
after next weekend on your sites!

Gracie went to the dentist last Thursday.  He said that the tooth
looked good -- no fractures or anything.  So, it should be
ok.  However, he did mention that the trauma could take from 6
months to 3 years to show, in which case, the tooth would die and she
would need a root canal.  BUT I am focusing on the positive that
it looks real good now!

Looking at her today, you'd not even know that she did anything. 
All the swelling is down. PTL!!!  She's a real trouper, that one!

Well, I'm signing off until after the retreat.  Thanks for all
your notes of concern and prayers for Gracie!!  I really
appreciate all of my xanga friends!!

Have a great week!
~me

Well -- it is a new week! Yeah!



Last week was a most difficult week.  As most of you know (who
subscribe to me) I left two messages here this week (I've deleted them
since) one that said on Tuesday that this day sucked and then on
Wednesday I commented on me thinking that the day before sucked
when it paled in comparison to that day.  So, it started on
Tuesday never really stopped.  I'd finally get past one thing and
then the next would happen -- literally right on top of one another,
with maybe an hour or two in between.  Unfortunately, my responses
to most of what happened this last week were in anger, and we all know
where that leads! Sin - sin - sin...  I'm humbled by my flesh, but
so thankful for a merciful and gracious Savior that lifts you out of
the muck of sin and makes you white as snow in the presence of the
Father. Amen?  Amen!!!  Where would I be apart from His
grace???  Praise be to God, indeed!!

I don't want to go into most of it, but I will talk about what happened
on Saturday (yesterday).  My youngest, Grace, who's 7 1/2 pictured above, hit her
mouth on the sidewalk putting her two front teeth nearly through her
lip.   Had to take her in and they did some minor surgery
cutting away ... on second thought I won't go into that in detail
-- I just jump forward to -- and then stitching her up.  Poor thing has a HUGE fat lip -- so
much so that she can't even close her lips -- so talking, eating, even
swallowing saliva is very difficult.   The swelling is even worse than
it was yesterday.

What makes this
particularly gut wrenching (as if that isn't enough) is that when she
was 4, she fell with her mouth open on to the coffee table and as a
result, after many months and trying to avoid it, she had her two front
baby teeth pulled.  So finally, 3 years later, last November she
started to grow her new big front teeth in -- and yesterday she knock
them both loose.  I can't really get in there to look at them
because her lip is so tender and swollen. But we did establish that
they are loose. 

I know that teeth can reseed themselves -- so this
is our prayer at this point!!!  I will take her into the dentist
on Monday.  So, please keep her in prayer.



Well, that's about it.  Sorry I didn't get around much this week to reading your blogs.  I hope to catch up today!



~me

Just when I think life is going to slow down, it seems to excel. This
last week was a busy one. After I finished doing the stuff for the
taxes,  I finished mapping out my eldest's high school years (she
starts 9th grade next year)... I have most of the curriculum for her
9th grade, so I did all the lesson plans for next year for the books I
have.  The other girls will be easy because I have all their
curriculum already, and also easy as far as lesson plans go, because I
already have most of the info from another one of mine having already
been in whatever grade their in - so it's just tweaking dates mainly or
adding one new book or something. 

In California, in order to homeschool, you need file and affidavit to
declare yourself as a private school.  A lot of people in this
state combine and file one affidavit for the families.  I belong to
a group like that.  We have like 12 families now -- but we've had
as many as 21.  I am the administrator for the group.  That
means that my husband and I file the affidavit for our group.

So I do all my lesson plans on Easter break for the next year because I
like having my entire summer off and not thinking about any of it. And
especially now, since the end of my summer is taken up with getting
ready for the new year with our  school group. 

The other two books I need for Elizabeth, I should be getting in a
couple of weeks. So by the end of April, everything for next year
should be planned. Yeah!  Last year, because of my cancer and
treatment, I was not able to do this during the spring time and had to
do it during the summer... I didn't like that one little bit!

I had this funny (?!?!?) dream last night.  Here is some history
of what's going on first to give you some insite to my dream: we are
preparing for our
women's retreat which hasn't gone as smoothly (understatement) as in
years past.  And with some of the little frills that we usually
do, I'm to the point that if someone else can't think it up and do it,
it's not getting done!  We had an idea to give out as favors to
the women, and
I am very thankful to say that someone else that we contacted has a
great vision for this and
has taken it over!!!!  Yeah!!!! Also -- when we were camping at
Refugio a week ago or so (was it only a week ago -- it seems like
forever ago!) and the ranger tried to evacuate us on
that Tuesday night of our camp trip, my husband wasn't there because he
had gone home to work, so I
had no tow vehicle.  And I got upset because he wasn't there and I
had to pack everything up and we spent all this money on this camp
trailer that we rented and now we had to leave, so I was crying that
night.

so here's my dream.....

The group that went to the Refugio camping trip was camping again, but
I don't know where it was. This lady that's going to do the favors for
the retreat had brought all these scraps of material -- so many so they
would have filled the back of hubby's truck! ha! We were to cut
swatches out for the upcoming retreat of the one's we wanted. Well, lo
and behold, it started to rain.  And every one packed up and left, but some good
friends of our and us -- But we were like on two different ends of the
campground and I was stressed because my husband wasn't there and I was
all alone in this area of the campground by myself... and in between us
and this other family was all this wet soaking fabric that this lady
had brought and just left there.  I remember being confused and
running around trying to find this certain fabric, but I was having a
hard time finding it.  And then when I did, I was trying to cut my
swatches out in the rain --  and then the lady showed up and took
them all and said it was too late. And there I was, left crying in the
rain... once again...

I woke up and started laughing! A little suppressed stress, you think?!

I love this icon... my friend sent it to me in an email!!!!

My friend told me that I should spend some time working through with my
feelings about the retreat and our ruined camping trip -- either that
or watch what I'm eating before I go to bed... ahhaha...

Well, have a good week. 
~me

Hello all!!!

 I had to reconcile our bank account with our business general
ledger.  Make sure all the deposited and debits were posted... fun
stuff.  But I finished.  Yeah!

Took Julie back to the dentist for a consult now that she's had her
root canal for her cracked tooth. Get this -- she needs a $550 crown --
Oh, and that's cheaper than the one they wanted her to get which was
$700 something.  Unfortunately because she's only 10, it's not
covered (until she's 12).   Which brings her cracked tooth
cost a total of $1200. Yikes. Elizabeth gets braces on today.  Gracie will be off with a friend to the Discovery Museum (Bubble
exhibit).  Julie's at a sleep over.  Val's just
hanging out.

I will work on next year's lesson plans in my spare (ha!) time today and tomorrow (we're off school this week).

And that about catches you up with me!  Oh and Cissy (love2read)
asked me if that was a rabbit hutch behind Julie in that birthday
picture on the post of the 27th.  Yes!!  We now have 7
rabbits.  5 smaller size ones  (2 gray, 2 brown, 1 white), a
medium sized floppy ear one (that you can barely see in the picture of
Julie between the slats of the chair on the left -- it's colored
like a dairy cow - so we call her "Moo"), and a 7 week old baby white
one with blue eyes (we just couldn't resist!).

We went to the mall and took some easter pictures with the baby bun (we
never really named it, we all just call it what we want).   I
tried to scan it in yesterday to post today, but it didn't come
out.  I'm gonna take a digital picture of it and post it later.

Here's a picture of our newest:

~me

Today is my daughter's birthday --

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!!!!!

She is 10 today!

Happy Easter to you all!!!!!
Praise God for a most wonderful Savior!!!

~me

Hello -- I'm home -- early!

What a vacation!

We went camping on Sunday up to
Refugio.  We finally, after 4 years, we able to procure a
reservation at the group spot with our church -- 16 families in all
went.  It was beautiful and warm on Sunday and Monday.  The
kids swam and did the a bike ride to El Capitan. 

That's my Julie on the left.

Tuesday morning we woke
up to rain, rain, rain...  Steve said that Refugio Pass got 4" of rain!!!!  When we tried to
walk around to anyone's camper -- we were up above our ankles in water.  We all
just went barefoot or in flip flops.  Our poor Pastor's family and and another family (as well
as a bunch of children) were in tents that got flooded during the first night of
rain!! 

That's me in the blue coat! ha!  We were trying to pack up
the tenters who are the two on the right of the picture.
We were all soaked through!  The poor tenters had a
new born (born in January) to boot!

...so we decided to go in to Buelton to Anderson's Spilt Pea and a
walk around Solvang.  However, I skipped the Solvang part and went
to the laundromat to wash and dry some clothing!

When we got back to the campsite (around 6:30 and dark and raining hard),
the ranger informed me that they were evacuating the park because of severe
flooding.  I was upset because we rented a camp trailer and Steve had gone home
to work and I had no tow vehicle. One of the church Dad's talked the ranger into letting us stay
the night and pack up in the morning.  It was interesting trying to get all the
trailers out of the mud.  Not an easy task.

That's my Elizabeth in the blue sweatshirt with the braid by the
wheel.  She was the only girl that jumped in to help push this
trailer out.

  We had rented a camp trailer, so I was pretty happy not to be in a tent. 

All that mud was grass the day before.

The morning we left it wasn't raining any more (although it was
forecasted to down pour again)... just look at the mud we were dealing
with!

It was the kind of vacation that great stories come from. 
Definitely one to be remembered for all we went through.  I had a
good time despite all that was going on.  Just really bummed out
that our vacation was cut short.

Hope all of you are doing well.  I will try to get around to reading your blogs, but I need to go unpack all of my junk!!!

~me

Hello all -- yes, I'm still alive.

I'm checking in real quick -- then out again until after Easter.

I have been sooooo busy.  Not a moment to really sit and xanga or
check up on you all.  I pray that everything is going well with
you, and if not, I hope you are feeling the love of our most gracious and merciful God
during your trial.

I am getting ready for our women's retreat next month (I'm the retreat coordinator) and also getting
ready a camping trip (Sunday thru next Friday) -- and my daughter's
birthday falls on Easter this year.  So I have a lot to do and get
ready for.  Thus, I'm taking this moment to say "hi!" and I hope you
all have wonderful Easter, celebrating our beautiful Savior, Jesus
Christ our Lord!!!!

Love to you all!
~me

I'm sorry I haven't blogged or commented in the last week.  I'm
sick.  Just checking in and hoping everything is well with ya'll.
~me