Free Comics!

May 3rd was free comic book day. Every year on the first Saturday in May participating comic book stores will give away free comics. This was our first year attending. Bradley was quite excited. We were all expecting to receive one comic book each and hoping that the one we got would be a good one. It turns out that "Free Comic Book Day" is an event used by the publishers of comics to expose many readers to their new lines of comics. Instead of one comic a piece we each were able to pick out one of each kind available. I was able to come away with all the comics you see in the picture. What a fun and exciting event!

What Am I Doing?

Looking forward to summer. I have so many books I want to finish and so many I want to start.

Watching my illness. I've had two pretty good days this week apart from some pretty pretty bad pain in my right arm.

Enjoying Classical music.

Learning to play piano. Who knew? You can teach an old dog new tricks...

Trying to finish Emma by Jane Austen. It's not my favorite of her books and it's long. I'm ready to finish and move on. I'm going to try and challenge myself with Wuthering Heights.

Reading poetry. Really homeschooling provides so many opportunities for me to learn and grow. I hope my kids are getting something out of it too.

Thinking and researching and praying. We are looking to the future and wondering what God has for us next. What is the best next step? Nothing is clear at all. I wish I owned a donkey...I do have a wall.

Hoping to hear from the Lord. About anything. I just love hearing from the Lord.

I am still here

I am still here. Still looking for opportunities to blog, ideas to share. I am still here fighting a disease I don't respect but should. I am still looking to the uncertain future. Wondering. Wishing. Hoping. I am still here mourning the things that I've lost. A child. A life of activity. Sanity. Pain free days. I am still here adjusting and accepting and rejecting and struggling.
I am still here but my ideas for blogging seem to be far away. I find that as I work through the acceptance of this debilitating disease I have become more selfish in my thoughts. It is hard to think of others and outside when inside I am exhausted and worn down with pain. I feel like apologizing collectively to those people I know who are tired of hearing about my new symptoms or the struggles of my week. But this is who I've become. While others are discussing the things that concern them about houses, cars or homeschooling, I am untying the knots of making my body work. I am fighting against a heart and soul that long to run and experience because I no longer have a body that can keep up. I am learning to reject the "I should"s in my head and replace them with "It would be nice if..." If.

Children

Yesterday was my foster son's birthday. I hope he was celebrated well and appreciated. After we lost him we struggled with whether or not we wanted to "try again". We even asked others to pray for us. The ordeal of caring for Gage and then losing him was traumatic for us. Still the grief stalks us and hounds us. It's a pain that lasts forever, I'm afraid.
In my heart, deep inside, I still ache and long for more children. Deeply, deeply. Now I've become sick. And I wonder if this is it for me. Are there to be no more children in my life? Why, then, does God not take this burden and longing from me? I wish He would do one or the other. Take the ache from me or give me hope of more children. Having the ache but no hope is torture.

Windows

I've heard a woman's brain compared to a computer. We can have many windows open on our desktop at once. But we can't exit any window unless the task is complete or the crisis dealt with. We can minimize some of the windows but they have a tendency to "pop up" on us. And even when they are minimized somehow they are still using up our energy and our "disk space". When you lose a child can you ever exit the window? Or can you only hope to keep it minimized? Does it ever begin to use less energy?

March 11

The day is swiftly approaching. Gagers will be three. I haven't seen him in over a year and pictures have not been forthcoming. I check every morning. I wonder how his face has changed. I think of what my older two were like at three. Is he talking up a storm? Beginning to ask the whys? Is there someone there to answer? Does he feel loved and cared for? Does he remember us? Does he still love music? Does he still love to dance?

Oh Lord, I have placed him into your hands. The hands that
no one can be snatched out of.

Keep watch over him. Pour out your love upon him.
Surround him with people who will

care for him and all of his needs. Woo him to You and Your
Word. Protect him from the

enemy. Never leave him or forsake him. Hug him for
me. Sing songs of comfort over him.

Amen.

Buyer's Remorse?

It is the time of year when I go about searching and obsessing over curriculum for the following year. Most of it is pretty easy since I use Ambleside Online. They provide the book lists and I just have to seek out the best possible deals. However, there are a few subjects that Ambleside leaves open--such as Math, and a few that I just don't follow. (I'm such a rebel.) This year's difficult subjects have been math, science, foreign languages, and some electives. For some the problem is that there are so many good choices, so many good treats I want to try. For others there are so few good choices and they are so hard to find. Either way, it seems that I can't make up my mind. Every year I seem to wonder if I have made all the right choices. Or I wonder if I shouldn't have added this or left that out. This year I have decided on my curriculum. It is written out in my notebook...and yet I still find myself perusing, and wondering and wishing. Could I just add one more thing...

Creature Comforts

We are soon getting our tax return. With it we will be getting two recliners. Yay!!! Can't wait for the comfort. It should be a really good purchase for us. Sitting on the couch has become quite a painful endeavor. Dan has his back problems and I have my all over pain. We've been casually shopping for recliners for about a year now. We had hoped that last year would have afforded us the opportunity to buy. But this year it has become a priority. We have been back and forth between styles and fabrics never quite feeling as though we had found the chair for us. We had tentatively decided that the Calvin in leather was a good choice. It is a great price for a leather recliner. But for some reason when we went back to La Z Boy we still wanted to "try out" some more chairs. We split up and wandered the store. Bethany came with me and Bradley went with Dan--advisors--very important job. I sat in the Calvin again but something just wasn't clicking, so I moved on to try some others. Finally I ended up in a chair known as the Clarkston. It was heaven. I felt as if I could fall asleep right there in the store. Unfortunately we had decided to go leather and this chair came standard in fabric. Upgrading was going to be quite expensive. So, I wandered to go and find Dan and let him know that I had found the recliner that I wanted. Surprise! He was sitting in the exact same recliner at the back of the store. We had each separately picked the same chair. We were considering forking over some major cash to get them in leather--you know as a good investment but it turns out that the fabric that our chair comes in is a microfiber and of a very high quality (and ultra super soft as well). Yay!!! We saved some cash and got a great chair. However, it takes 6-8 weeks to get them ordered. And so the waiting begins...

And Loving It

I've been feeling a little better lately. Just a little of my pep and spunk has returned. The pain is still there nagging me and if I'm not careful about pacing, the fatigue that lingers on the edges overtakes me. But I am hopeful. More and more hopeful every week that my meds are going to really help me. I can't wait for them to be able to jack up the dose to where it should be. I'm starting to get cabin fever. I'm starting to get bored with the things that I am "able" to do.

Totally Obsessed With

Once-Soundtrack

The music is so hauntingly gorgeous. The vocals echo in my mind long after I've turned off my ipod. It just won't leave me. Incredible! Amazing!

There you are

Well I haven't been updating this blog...AT ALL. I'm sure that any stragglers that still checked in have long since moved on. I have been consumed lately with a mysterious illness. I haven't been well since June but around August/September things took a turn for the worse. In addition to the bone crushing fatigue I was experiencing I began to suffer from pain in my muscles. I had good days and bad days which eventually translated into all bad days. I don't have any symptom free days anymore. I'm grateful when the pain is something I can "soldier" through. It's tougher when the pain is an 8 or 9 out of 10, or when I can't walk. My family has been really supportive. The kids will fetch water and pain pills, empty the dishwasher, even cook some relatively easy meals when my symptoms are bad. My fatigue topped out one day when I went to Target with the kids (Dan was out of town). We went in the door nearest the Halloween costumes so the kids could look around and get ideas. But I needed some chap stick which was on the opposite corner of the store. As I shuffled along and my kids did their best to slow their pace to mine it occurred to me that I might not be able to make it to the other side of the store. What a devastation! This illness has robbed me of my life as I knew it. I'm not sure if I will get my old life back or if I'll have to continue to learn to live in this new unpredictable body. I am hoping for a diagnosis to come through this Friday. A label, a name for what's happening will somehow make all of this feel more real. It will hopefully help me to deal with my denial. In the meantime, I've become better at driving scooters around Target. I haven't quite gotten the courage to use one at Costco or Home Depot. One step at a time I guess. I'm terrified of going shopping with a friend and having to humble myself to use a scooter. I know that they don't care that I'm driving around; they like me anyway. But still it's hard. I never thought I would have to get used to driving a scooter and dealing with those inconveniences so soon in my life. Plus it's embarrassing when you hit reverse and the machine beep beep beeps to (humiliate you and draw attention to you) warn others. I am clinging to the truism that God is Good. That He works ALL things for good for those who love him. Some days I cling better than others but I am looking forward to getting through the tunnel and embracing the light.

A Young Girl Reading

A Young Girl Reading
Jean-Honore Fragonard

I love this painting!

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

Leah

This is our new puppy, Leah. She is an English Mastiff and is expected to be around 150 pounds when she is full grown. That is more than twice the weight of Hannah. Dan is super excited because he has always wanted a Mastiff. These pics were taken soon after we got her. She is now 3 1/2 months old and weighs over 30 pounds. She has a really sweet disposition and has been really good about potty training. She learns quickly. Leah has really fit in well with our family and even Hannah is getting used to her.

Bradley-isms

Our church meets in a movie theater. A couple of Sundays ago Bradley approached me with something important to say. He looked me in the eye and said, "Mom, look at that poster. See how it says stuff under each thing? See what it says under PG-13? It says 'See it with your kids'." Then he looked at me earnestly waiting for my response. He figured the poster was telling all parents to see PG-13 movies with their kids. Finally someone was telling me to let him see all these movies I kept saying "no" to. I had to laugh. I explained to him that the PG stood for Parental Guidance and that I was the Parental and I was Guiding him away from these movies. I informed him that the "See it with your kids" meant that your kids shouldn't see it alone, if they saw it at all. Too cute.

When Dan was deployed last year I spent a lot of time with my friend Jessica. It was really great to have someone there to go through a deployment with. It was also great to have her witness first hand some of Bradley's Bradley-isms. One of my favorites and I think hers too was the toothbrush incident. Both of my kids had one of those automatic toothbrushes that you put batteries in and the brush spins. I was sitting on the couch with Jessica, having just sent my kids to "get ready for bed." Bradley came out into the living room and informed me that his toothbrush was out of batteries and therefore he couldn't brush his teeth. I smiled and replied that while the brush was no longer spinning it was still capable of cleaning his teeth and that he would have to brush the old fashioned way--moving the brush himself.

My last story is more recent. We rented a movie called Pan's Labyrinth. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film. It was very imaginative and had great costumes. So, Bradley wanted to see it. Because of it's rating I said "no". I also explained that he really wouldn't enjoy watching the movie because, "you can't understand anything that anyone is saying and you have to read all of the words at the bottom of the screen." Bradley just shook his head and said, "Why would anyone make a movie like that?"

O Praise Him

Amazing!

Inca Dove

This is an Inca Dove that Dan photographed in the aviary at The Desert Museum.

For the Birds

The kids and I have been studying birds in science this year. Well, all flying creatures of the fifth day. (Exploring Creation With Zoology vol. 1). It's been really fun. When we first moved to Tucson the newspaper here ran an article on the most popular birds of the area. So we cut them all out and taped them to index cards. The kids had to learn all of the birds before we could go on our first field trip here, The Desert Museum. It was awesome to have my children identifying birds for everyone in the aviary. We have discovered that even if you don't really get into birds, once you start to learn more about them it becomes more exciting. We also have started putting bird seed out in our back yard. This has been the most fun! We've been able to watch and identify all the various birds that hang out in our yard now. We have a family of Rock Doves and several Mourning Doves. A couple of families of House Sparrows with babies, and two families of House Finch. We keep hoping that eventually we will attract some new and interesting birds. We are dying to see some warblers or cardinals. It's been a blast to learn with my kids.

Family

Bradley