so far...

My Mom has been here since Sunday. We have had a very eventful week. On Sunday after church, I drove approximately half-way towards my parent's to meet my Dad and pick up my Mom. When I met her, I gave her this pillow top that I made. It was meant as a Christmas gift but wasn't finished on time. It is made from some of the girls' old jeans.



When we arrived home, she got to choose between these two pincushions that I made. The other will go to a dear lady from church.






On Monday, we made some more potato heads. We planted wheat that Mom brought with her in one and beans in the other (both are sprouting nicely). We also finished the apple head dolls that I had started with the girls last week.







On Tuesday, Mom stayed home with DramaQueen while I took Stinkerbell downtown to Children's Hospital. She had had a UTI and they wanted to run some follow-ups (this is standard procedure around here for any child under the age of four - that way they can catch any kidney malfunctions early on or prevent them altogether). I got lost twice on the way there. The exams are rather traumatic (DramaQueen had them when she was about Stinkerbell's age too). I came home and we turned around and took DQ to school. Stinkerbell is fine. (The preceding statement sounds simple but I must admit is a great relief).

On Wednesday morning, I went to the public school next door to DQ's school (she goes to a Christian school) to discuss DQ's need for speech therapy. DQ's teacher, the speech therapist, and myself are the only one's who know DQ and the speech therapist has only observed her in class twice. Somehow during the discussion, the psychologist on the panel decided she needed to be tested for autism.

Now you have to understand DQ does have some characteristics that are traits that are strong among autistic children. I am not in denial. She is also intelligent and friendly. The freaky thing is that I simply went there to discuss speech therapy and come out with a stranger who has never observed DQ suggesting DQ is autistic which was startling not only to me but also to her teacher and the speech therapist both whom have taught many autistic children. It is a bit strange. I have been doing a lot of thinking and will do a lot more as well as doing some praying.

I talked to the Christian School's on site teacher for special needs and she thought it was strange and quite possibly unnecessary. We decided to postpone any idea of tests until she has a chance to observe DQ in class.

Today has been quieter. There was nothing unusual until this evening. DQ went to a birthday party (She brought her gift in this basket I made) and Mom and I went to book club where we discussed When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin. It is a provoking book but easy to read. It is a bit predictable but Martin's skill as a writer makes it worth reading. Our discussion was fun.


Tomorrow afternoon, I help with DQ's class and Mom will stay with Stinkerbell. Tomorrow night Dad shows up and we have a weekend left.

Despite everything, Mom and I have managed a few small projects. :) (Ironically, my Mom didn't come to be a babysitter and helper we were hoping to do loads of crafting. Just the same I am very glad she has been here - this week would have been a lot to handle without her here).

crafty things

Another hanky pocket. I really, like the colors of this one and how the pattern folded together. Instructions are at Suite101.


cat


flower


snowman


Fourth of July fireworks



I also finished three other projects that I can't share until my mother has seen them.

the nature of discipline

A few weeks ago, our pastor said something that I didn’t quite agree with (I really dislike disagreeing with my pastor but I know there would be something wrong if I didn’t find myself disagreeing, we are, after all, both human). Our pastor is doing a series on the book of I Timothy. On this particular Sunday (I can’t remember the reason but there was a good one), he explained a grammatical analysis he did of the Greek in the book of Timothy (he also did it on the rest of Paul’s letters and said that they almost all followed the same pattern). He compared the verbs to determine if they were imperative, suggestive, etc. Most of them were suggestive.

In other words, they weren’t commands they were suggestions on the right thing to do when walking the Christian walk. They were suggestions on how to make decisions and do the right thing. He suggested that if we were disciplinarian parents we should consider how God speaks to us in the books of Paul and be less imperative with our children. My mind instantly revolted. I should say that after giving it thought I realize that since he is the parent of college age children he is probably thinking more in the teenage mode in which case he is right. Teenagers need guidance but they also need to be allowed to make their own (hopefully) wise decisions.

However, in the case of children the ages f DramaQueen and Stinkerbell, to make suggestions and allow the child to make decisions about issues of life and death and health and illness is to ask for a disaster. Even to allow your child to always decide what they are going to eat is to invite a disaster when they are old and pay the price for a life of poor quality food with heart disease and diabetes. Children need to learn to obey and they need a firm understanding of cause and effect before they can make their own decisions.

I once heard it suggested that the need for children to learn to obey isn’t just a health issue and the command isn’t really about obeying parents. Children who learn to respect and listen to the God-given authority of their parents are much more likely to hear God’s will in their life and listen to it and to make good decisions because they’ve learned the habit of listening and obeying.

I was mulling the above for the rest of that Sunday and the following Monday. That Tuesday I was given the foundation that my ideas were wanting. The scope of the Bible shows us the nature of growth and the movement from the need to have strict rules and an enforced adherence to those rules to the time when freedom is given and decision making is allowed.

People often complain of the harshness of the Old Testament God. The Ten Commandments are without a doubt imperatives and often when people disobeyed the rules set forth in Exodus and Leviticus the result was instant death or at the very minimum very painful. IN the New Testament, we are told in James 1:25 that freedom is found within the law and Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments into two laws that are all about love, “This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:38-40

Why? Most people think God changed. He didn’t. The penalty for sin is still death, only now if we confess our sins and repent we are forgiven rather than punished by instantaneous death. So why are the rules gentler? It is simple. In the Old Testament, God was working with an infant nation that needed to grow physically and spiritually. It needed to be preserved until the day that Jesus was born. Parents do the same thing we are preserve our children until they reach maturity. Until they are mature, we must protect them and sometimes protection is a strict rule.

After Christ died, the nation of Israel no longer needed preservation they were grown up and their role as Jesus family had been fulfilled. God now allows his Church to come to him. Until Christ, God’s people were a small tribe in a vast world of temptation and needed to be preserved but still they were unfaithful and wandered away. No longer does God hold His People tightly. He sets them free and allows them to come to Him and allows them to suffer the results of their poor actions. They are teenagers. Like the prodigal son, we screw up but we are always welcomed home. God does not tie us to His apron strings any longer.

Someday we will be adults and will join God in our celestial home.

I love how complex the Bible is and how it resonates and means and supports so much in our life. It is a complex document and to think that it could be written without divine oversight is absurd. I am always amazed at how if one starts thinking about the choices we need to make and start using Jesus’ summary of the law to make a decision, we soon discover that the right decision (made in love) always falls into the obedient side of the either/or of the Ten commandments. How profound that those seemingly harsh and excessively strict laws actually teach us the mature and right way to Love!

Graham Green: The End of the Affair

The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.

Graham Greene

Hatred seems to work on the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?

Graham Greene


If I stopped loving Him, I would cease to believe in His love. If I loved God, then I would believe in His love for me. It's not enough to need it. We have to love first, and I don't know how. But I need it , how I need it.

Graham Greene


Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. Penguin Books, 1999. ISBN 0-14-029109-1

My review of this thought-provoking book.

what my life looks like and other things that matter to me

this self-portrait is several years old and comes out of a time of depression...

Recently, I've been frustrated by the feeling that I can't do something for more than ten (twenty minutes maximum) in a row without being interrupted if not by outside force by outside needs. It occurred to me that there is a reason for this. This is what my life looks like.

7:00 Wake up with the girls. Make sure Stinkerbell goes potty (Stinkerbell is not potty trained and doesn't seem to think that toilets are a wonderful invention). Because she is not potty trained I try to make her sit on the toilet about every hour and a half to two hours.

- During this time I try to get the girls changed and myself somewhat coherent.

8:00 Take the dog out. We have a geriatric greyhound (nearly thirteen years) who has problems with incontinence so I must take her out about every two hours.

- Wake up hubby. Hubby sets his alarm clock to start ringing at six and lets the snooze go until I get him up. Hubby is addicted to television and usually doesn't get to bed until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. during the week and later on the weekend.

- Make hubby's breakfast and put his lunch in his cooler (he packs it the night before).

- Feed the girls breakfast.

9:00 Start the car so it warms up.

- Hubby leaves for work sometime before 9:30.

- Get at least one of the girls to take their bath.

- Prepare supper (if I don't get supper going in the morning, I can't cope with my day).

- Do whatever cleaning I can fit in and listen to DramaQueen read.

10:30 Feed the girls a light lunch.

11:15 Take DQ to school.

- Do whatever errands I need to do.

- Come home. Pack a snack for the girls for when I pick up DQ.

- Do a ten-minute stint at paperwork (bills, filing etc) I've discovered if I don't do this a little bit everyday a disaster occurs because I put it off longer than I should.

- Clean. Set the table for supper.

1:45 - Go to school to pick up DQ

2:30 - The girls should be changed for naps and ready to read by this time. Read stories to the girls.

3:00 - The girls go to bed for naps.

- This is my time to blog, write, craft.

5:30 Take the dog out, wake up the girls, do last minute supper things.

- Give the other child a bath if both of them didn't get baths in the morning.

6:00-7:00 Be ready for a phone call from hubby saying he is coming home so the very last minute stuff can be completed.

7:00 Eat supper.
-Last straightening up of the house for they day.
-Get the girls ready for bed.

8:00 Memory work, Bible, storybooks, prayers.

- Girls are in bed by 8:45

9:00 Take a shower.

- read, craft, watch television with hubby.

In between all this are all the routine things that have to get done. And all the other little demands that never fit on a schedule but have to be squeezed in.

It is not that I have a super busy schedule with all sorts of appointments like some people do. It is that I have a routine because it is helpful to me and the girls. The problem is that my life is so interrupted I feel like I never get to complete a thought because I have so many things that need be done by a certain time or accidents or frustration occur.

However, all this seems to prohibit a clean house.

I know I am fortunate that the girls take naps. I am very glad DQ can go to school in the afternoon as it works much better for hubby's routine.

Re: Hubby's routine. I've learned after over fifteen years - this doesn't change and trying to change it leads to withdrawal and anger on one side and extreme frustration on the other so it works better for me to accept it and try to work around it.

Good News and Fun News

My Mom is coming up on the 24 and staying for a whole week. I can't wait.

easter eggs and potatoes

I am not sure if I like how the colors on these eggs work together but I am pleased that I managed what I set out to do.


These potato heads were supposed to grow green hair. I didn't have any regular grass seed so I used some ornamental grass seed I had on hand and some bird seed - didn't work so well. These poor leprechauns need Rogaine. Some research indicates that rye grass would work well.

mostly hankies (one button thing)

just the right size for a jumbo egg



a little hanky pocket - going to experiment with this one


I made these before Christmas for my Aunt P (UP's wife) as a commission



this hanky still had the sticker on it and it said the lace was from spain -I think it is lovely...


a quickie button shamrock pin for my coat...




How to make Hanky Angels

mish-mash

The girls made a snow gauge on Saturday.


When we went outside at eleven on Saturday morning, it was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. We were outside a little over an hour. By the time we came in it was 16 degrees. By the time I went to bed at eleven Saturday night, it was -9 degrees Fahrenheit and still falling. When I got up it was -15 F. I think the warmest it got today was -2.


No sun or sand? The girls know what to do.


I have two of these terra cotta frogs, one is sad and one is happy. This one is tired of the snow. Something about his expression always makes me smile.


An old school desk that served as a planter for thyme this summer. It didn't work out how I wanted so this year, I think I will just plant some cheery marigolds.



We got a little bit of snow on Saturday morning before the wind started and the temperatures plummeted. The wind was vicious. The view is of the neighbor's to our left as you face our house.


This is my failed idea that I mentioned on Friday. I won't tell you what the idea was perhaps someone will see it. (Hint: Look at the shape of the fabric container).

That said - I do love the fabric combined with the red chenille ric-rac - might have to find another little project for the remainders.


I felt like I was doing penance yesterday. I decided to buckle down and back-up my photos. I am behind behind - way behind. As of now I am up to May 2007 (that is a lot of photos for those who don't realize how many photos I take). While I was backing up photos I also folded lots of underwear, washcloths, socks, and cleaning rags. After I finished the laundry, I went through the filing cabinet removing all the 2007 files and putting them into storage. Three things that I find dull. But I feel accomplished now!!

Church was wonderful today. The lady who sat next to me is in my small group for my Tuesday morning Bible study. During the worship portion of the service we sang two songs that I love, one of them a hymn. So I sang out. Valerie thinks I need to join the choir (she is in choir herself but the choir didn't sing today). Something to make a person smile. Good church singing and a good music teacher in school make a difference.

This evening, I followed through on an idea I had the other evening when I couldn't sleep. (I have been trying to solve this problem since I first made the hanky angels). I figured out how to make a hanky bunny without any cutting or sewing. After I made three bunnies I came up with a little hanky pocket.

Yesterday afternoon before I started penance, I made a little shamrock pin (out of buttons) to put on my coat - the button flowers that have been on my coat for over a year fell off the other day so I decided it was time for a new one.

I am sure there will photos tomorrow.

egg monsters and butterflies (about Easter)

We made Easter egg monsters. Mine is the yellow one with one eye and a mustache.


StinkerBell's e.e. monster was a kitty


DramaQueen said her e.e. monster was a man


the unicorn is called shiny mane


the dragon's name is popcorn after a book that grandma H had called 'The Popcorn Dragon'


if you enlarge the pictures you will see the worm is sad and the butterfly is happy - the text reads "Easter makes all the difference."



DQ has the day off from school. Since the girls have been very squirrely, I decided I could not stay home with them. So we loaded up a bunch of stuff and took it to my favorite thrift store and managed not to bring anything home but a few books and a gift for the mil . Oh and a shield that we found for 29 cents.

The girls have been listening to Focus on the Family's Radio Drama of The Chronicles of Narnia (we let them listen to everything but The Last Battle) and so they are all about dragons and lost princes and princesses and talking creatures.

I had a brilliant project idea today - it flopped. Oh well, I guess I can't have everything turn out the way I want it to.

lest you think we're skipping valentine's day

or groundhog's day





We made these in December and January - back when my energy was much lower than it is now. I published articles but never got around to sharing with you. In answer to the questions. I am mostly following Heather's advice and listening to my body (which means much more rest than I am used to).

I feel close to one-hundred percent now as long as I get enough rest. During 'certain' times of the month I do feel the achiness so it does respond to hormones but otherwise I am doing well.

We are considering changing our doctor but I don't handle change as well as I would like so I am procrastinating. Thanks to everyone who has prayed. Your prayers, have made a difference.

For those who wonder why we do our crafts so early - remember, I write. I have to publish at least a month and a half in advance of the holiday.