thankful. 11.11.09

I’m so thankful . . .

For BOOKS.

I read so many books at the “same time.” Authors are like friends. I just pick who I want to have a conversation with and/or what I want to “converse” about at that time and open up a book that fits. Today I read some from Philip Yancey’s “Prayer. Does it Make a Difference?” and Bruce Wilkinson’s “Secrets of the Vine.” (And “Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2007″ by Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard, but most people don’t like to chat about that book.)

I almost always learn something when I read. Yesterday, while reading Yancey’s “Prayer” I looked up a Bible passage he referred to and discovered that Matthew 17:21 is missing from the NIV, dismissed as a forgery. I originally looked up the passage in my New King James and thought the verse was interesting, so, as I sometimes do, I looked it up in another version to see the difference. In my NIV, Matthew 17 goes straight from verse 20 to 22. No reference in “The Message” either. A quick Google search later and I discovered that some translator decided that he would copy Mark 9:29 to Matthew 17:21 for “consistency.” Hence, the forgery.

I wonder, if I hadn’t looked up that passage because a book made me curious, if I ever would have noticed that. I love books.

THANK YOU, LORD!!!

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

thankful. 11.10.09

I’m so thankful . . .

For my ability to write without pain or numbness in my hand. I’m thankful the arthritis in my neck is not causing me pain or limited movement right now. I’m thankful for the days I forget I even have arthritis in my neck.

THANK YOU, LORD!!!

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

thankful. 11.09.09

I’m so thankful . . .

For music. The music we’ve been leading at church has been beautiful. This week, my favorite was None But Jesus by Brooke Fraser.

THANK YOU, LORD!

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

thankful. 11.06.09

I’m so thankful . . .

So very, Very, VERY thankful that FirstHusband helps FavoriteSon with his math homework. Here’s some of the conversation from last night:

(this was a pretty laid back conversation – there was no “tone” or irritation)

FirstHusband: Please stop whining about Pythagorean theorem, I’m not even sure it’s the way to go.

(what? huh? now I have to Google Pythagorean theorem. Thank you God that Google suggests alternative spellings, cause you KNOW I didn’t spell pythagorean right the first time.)

FavoriteSon: If I had an angle measurement, I could solve it. If I had a perpendicular bisector. But I don’t have a perpendicular bicector. I hate this problem, we’re never gonna have to use it.

FirstHusband: oh, stop whining. What do we know about angle bisectors?

FavoriteSon: They bisect the angle.

(well, I know more than I thought. I knew THAT.)

THANK YOU, LORD for my husband, his freakish math skills, his relationship with his son and his willingness and ability to help and teach. And THANK YOU LORD that I don’t have to help FavoriteSon with his math homework.

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

I couldn’t stop myself.

I tried. I tried to look away. I just couldn’t. I tried to look at the magazines. The candy. The cookbooklets. Even the National Enquirer. It was no use. It was compelling. Like a bad toupee. I know I was staring.

The girl in front of me in the line at the grocery store was wearing a bumpit. Clearly, the LARGE size bumpit.

Now, if you know me, you know I like me some big hair, but this bumpit thing just goes too far. It is just too weird for me. All I can think of is Jane Curtain. And eggplants.

thankful. 11.05.09

I’m so thankful . . .

No one in my immediate family has ever suffered from a life-threatening illness. I’m thankful for my acute awareness that my family’s health is due to the grace and mercy of God, whose reasoning I don’t pretend to comprehend, and not because of anything we have done or haven’t done. I’m thankful that I can express my gratitude to God for this blessing by being obedient when faced with an opportunity to provide help, encouragement and child care for someone who has BEATEN stage IV breast cancer. I’m amazed and thankful for the miracle of her healing. I’m thanking God in advance, that her reconstructive surgery was safe and successful yesterday. (I haven’t heard yet. She’s resting.)

THANK YOU, LORD!!!

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

thankful. 11.04.09

I’m so thankful . . .

Last year, we found an allergist who prescribed a season allergy treatment for my son which left him nearly symptom free for the first time in his entire LIFE. We just got back from his annual check-up with new prescriptions already called into the pharmacy. This is life changing for both him and for our entire family!

From November to February, he takes both Singulair and Allegra every day and after a nightly saline spray, he uses Flonase. Occasionally, he needs to use the neti pot. LIFE. CHANGING.

THANK YOU, LORD!!!

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I’m participating in a month of Thanksgiving hosted by Rebecca Writes. If you want to join in, post something you are thankful for and then link up over at Rebecca’s blog!

search: “hypertrophic scar”

Back in June, in a 7 Quick Takes post, I mentioned (in take #6) that I was developing keloid scarring after my surgery. In my case (thankfully), I should use the term “hypertrophic” scarring. I get a lot of hits on that post and I see the search string nearly EVERY day in my stats, so I thought I’d follow up for those who hit my blog looking for info on hypertrophic scarring and possible treatments. First, let’s clarify the difference between keloid and hypertrophic scars:

“Hypertrophic scars are typically raised, erythematous (red, pink, or purple) and stiffer than the surrounding skin. Over time most hypertrophic scars mature resulting in a scar remnant that appears like that of a normal scar except it is typically wider than if the scar had not become hypertrophic. Note that when an incisional wound heals normally, the resulting scar remnant may be as fine as a simple pencil line across the skin, while the matured hypertrophic scar may appear wider, like that left by a pencil eraser. Hypertrophic scars often are associated with hypersensitivity to touch (like clothing sliding across the skin), and they may itch or be generally painful.

Keloids have been described as hypertrophic scars on steroids! By definition, a hypertrophic scar remains within the boundaries of the original injury while a keloid may grow beyond those boundaries. Also, while hypertrophic scars typically regress over time, keloids generally do not.

Because the distinction between hypertrophic scars and keloids is often unclear, the medical literature and medical professionals often use the terms interchangeably.” (For more info and treatment alternatives, visit the source of this quote.)

The hypertrophic scarring was not a surprise for me. I had the same problem after my two previous abdominal surgeries. My mom has a few hypertrophic scars. Maybe it’s hereditary.

Back in June, my doctor treated the scar by injecting steroids directly into them. There was still swelling and numbness, so I didn’t feel a thing. Then in August, he injected steroids into them again and still numb, I didn’t feel a thing. He also suggested I tape the scar – just apply medical/paper tape directly over the scar, providing slight pressure and support 24/7. There are indications that the application of paper tape reduces the scarring. The paper tape stays on for days, even after showering.

So on Friday, I was back for my six month follow-up and while the scar isn’t worse, it’s still hypertrophic. I admitted to my doctor that I was good about taping it for about three weeks. Then . . . not so much. More steroid injections into the scar. And I’m not so numb anymore. ouch. and again. OUCH. But seriously, that pain? Compared to what I’ve already experienced? nuthin.

I am going to be more consistent about the taping.

Stop holding me a-counter-able!

So says FavoriteSon. Three days after I declared myself the “counter tyrant.”

Every time I see one tiny little thing on the counter, I start asking, “Who left this here?” “Who used this?” “What is this?” “Where does this go?” “Can I get rid of this?”

Then I start calling children: “PinkGirl? FavoriteSon? Come put this away. Come throw this away.” Finally, in frustration, FavoriteSon came up with the protest which titles this post.

I kinda like it.

I couldn’t take it anymore. On Saturday, I cleaned the kitchen counter. I put every. single. thing. away. A conglomeration of STUFF. The tribbles of the kitchen counter.

Today, right now? A clear counter AND a clear kitchen table.

Three days and count(er)ing.

expensive tedium exposed.

I’ve been reading a little C. S. Lewis lately. Today I read the November 1st and 2nd entries from “A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works.” He’s a tough read. I may have mentioned before that I respond to his writing in a number of different ways.

Sometimes, I think he’s a pompous windbag who delights in using words the common man (that’d be me) has to look up in a very old dictionary because the newer dictionaries have already stopped including said words due to lack of use. (This is why I sometimes refer to him as “Jack,” as his friends called him. It reminds me that he’s just a guy and that I need to take what he says with a grain of salt, as the saying goes.)

Sometimes I have to read a phrase or a sentence or an entire paragraph multiple times before I have half a clue what the man is trying to say.

Sometimes I understand immediately what he’s saying and I adamantly disagree.

So why read him?

Because when the man DOES make a point with me, it often resonates. He sometimes states something so succinctly that it hits the core of my belief in a certain area. Thankfully, those moments occur more often than the windbag, re-read and adamantly disagree moments.

One book that consistently hits home is a small work of fiction entitled “The Screwtape Letters.” It’s a series of letters from an older demon (Uncle Screwtape) to a younger demon (Wormwood), advising him on how to bring about the downfall of the human (the patient) to whom the younger demon has been assigned. It’s a backward concept for the Christian reader, especially when Lewis consistently refers to God as the “Enemy.” His assessment of human nature and temptation makes me think. Case in point:

When the patient repents, Screwtape outlines Wormwood’s blunders:

“…you first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed, because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his new friends. In the second place you allowed him to walk down to the old mill and have tea there – a walk through country he really likes, and taken alone. In other words, you allowed him two real positive Pleasures. Were you so ignorant as not to see the danger in this? …

…you were trying to damn your patient by the World, that is by palming off vanity, bustle, irony and expensive tedium as pleasures. How can you have failed to see that a real pleasure was the last thing you ought to have let him meet? Didn’t you foresee that it would just kill by contrast all the trumpery which you have been so laboriously teaching him to value?

And that sort of pleasure which the book and the walk gave him was the most dangerous of all? That it would peel off from his sensibility the kind of crust you have been forming on it, and make him feel that he was coming home, recovering himself?

As a preliminary to detaching himself from the Enemy, you wanted to detach him from himself, and had made some progress in doing so. Now, all that is undone.

…the man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books.”

I get it. Thanks, Jack.

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Have you read something interesting you want to share? I want to read it! If you post about it, link up in comments – or just post your quote in a comment. Check out other book quotes I’ve posted by perusing my “therefore I quote” tag.

I can’t believe I’m one of “those” people.

You know, one of those people who sets off their car alarm and then can’t figure out how to turn it OFF.

And I was SITTING in it at the time. Talking on the cell phone to FirstHusband – shouting over the incessant horn:

“Did you know this van had an alarm?”

“No.” (pause) “Do you need me to come help?”

“YES! I can’t figure out how to turn this thing off!”

Finally as I fumbled with the key, the key fob and the door lock, it STOPPED. And I have NO idea what I did to MAKE it stop. I do know what I did to set it off. I got out of the van at the homecoming football game, locked up with the key fob and thought, what’s that blinking red light on the dash? Curious.

I unlocked the van and the blinking light stopped. Curious. I sat down in the driver’s seat and closed the door. Still no blinking red light. hmmm. While still sitting in the van, I locked it with the key fob.

Oh! Look! The little red light on the dash is back. And oh! There’s one on the radio too! I reach for my glasses to read the little words over the blinking light on the radio.

At the exact same time I open the van driver door.

Let the gawking begin.

The little words over the blinking light on the radio?

“Anti-theft”

Good to know.

So it appears there’s one MORE difference between my old van and my new van.

do they make Garanimals for women?

Seriously. Somebody teach me how to dress. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t want to LEARN how to dress, I just want someone to pick out my clothes for me. Jewelry too, please. And I already have a haircut scheduled for Thursday.

Okay. Got that out of the way. (I’m a woman, of course I’m going to critique my appearance first.)

I had an AMAZING opportunity to deliver the message at my church this weekend for all four services (for Women’s Sunday). LOVED IT! Absolutely LOVED IT! It was a rush, such a a mountaintop high, I’m still not back down on solid ground! SOOOOO much fun! I got to lead music at three of the services too. SO. MUCH. FUN. I’m praying about more opportunities to sing and speak. Here’s about 6 minutes from the 11:00 a.m. service:

Three of the services were videotaped, providing me ample opportunity to analyze myself. I need to identify the weaknesses and work on them. I asked FirstHusband what constructive criticism he had and he said, “I can’t think of anything.”

That’s a good husband. But seriously. Stop blowing rainbows and tell me what I need to fix.

“The grey jacket adds ten pounds and the blue suit is too masculine. You shouldn’t wear pants, you should wear skirts.”

Well, that’s a start.

ADDS ten pounds? That’s all I need. I’m already fighting a battle with my badonka donk butt. I have GOT to go shopping. I wear these suits when I work on client site, usually at law firms. And they are “fine.” But seeing them in this context, FirstHusband was telling the truth.

So, I’ll be fixing that. First I have to find a “hip” (and frugal) friend and beg them to be my personal stylist ask them to go shopping with me. I’ll buy lunch. And I’ll be following my own advice on alterations.

Now I need to objectively critique my delivery. After the services, I got a lot of positive feedback. It was really very affirming and when I said “thank you so much” and “I really enjoyed doing it” I sincerely meant it. But this is my home church, where “everybody knows your name” as the song goes. So there is a certain element of “polite.”

I think the feedback that meant the most to me were the people who approached me and told me how what I said specifically spoke to them. They told me stories about something in their life or some experience they had which, when I was speaking, was called to their mind. I LOVED hearing those stories. That’s where I got to see God work!

Overall, I’m feeling that maybe, just maybe, God is prompting me to pursue faith-based speaking more intensively. I’m praying and listening and paying attention to anything God brings into my path. I would love to pursue faith-based speaking, don’t get me wrong – BUT, it’s usually night and weekend work and I’m not willing to pursue it at the expense of my commitment to my family. Being there for my family is my top priority. They come first. I’m not saying I can’t EVER work nights or weekends, but, like everything else in life, I need balance. I’ll be making every decision to speak/sing based on whether it is in line with our family’s goals.

To expand on what I’m saying in the following clips, I’m praying that God expand my territory only as far as I can handle without the middle – the core – collapsing. I need a strong foundation in the middle. That’s God. And family.

Blessings Require Change (Part 1 of 3) 7:34 minutes (Evening Service)

Blessings Require Change (Part 2 of 3) 9:19 minutes (Evening Service)

Blessings Require Change (Part 3 of 3) 3:49 minutes (Evening Service)