Well, so much for promises. Right? But this is the first chance I've had to actually sit down at the computer and write. Hubby has kept us hopping. His neck needs surgery and we have been having tests run with various doctor appointments. We had to go to Sonora yesterday to see one of the doctors at the Northern California Spinal Institute for an EMG. Hubby was not too happy having needles inserted into all his muscles on the right side. I told him he was lucky that he only had to have one side done. When I had mine done it was for both sides. It is a very unpleasant test, I'll give him that. With the test done we left the office with orders in hands for another MRI and an epidural at the hospital scheduled for the 14th. Also we had orders to schedule an appointment to see another one of the doctors who specializes in the cervical spine. We are hoping to have the surgery ASAP. Hopefully the epidural will give hubby some pain relief until we can get the actual surgery done. Last time we went over and saw the doctor he was given some morphine for the pain but was unable to keep it down so he's back on norco which helps some but he remains in a lot of pain. I'm really hoping that we can get his surgery over and done with before the fall. When you live up in the mountains, things take time. I will keep you posted and I covet your prayers for my hubby. That the epidural will alleviate his pain and that his surgery can be done soon.
We are in the middle of a heatwave here. Yesterday we drove over to see the doctor in 110 degree heat. When we got back home our thermometer showed that our high here had been 113 degrees! That's really too hot for anyone. It made for a hot trip over to Sonora and back. At least it cooled off a little last night. Night before last I had the intake fans in our bedroom window blowing across me and still I slept on top of the covers, too hot even for just the sheet. Last night was much better. It is supposed to be hot again today but not as hot as yesterday.
I made the painful decision to have my dog Pepper put down. I don't know yet when I'll have it done but probably before too awfully long. There are dozens of reasons for doing it, not least of which is his sudden tendency to snap and growl at everybody. Even me! And he worships the ground I walk on. The problem is that I love him in spite of his personality. I won't try to find another home for him because of his biting (and a few other flaws). I would just be putting his new owners at risk for being bitten. But I really do love this dog. Or I guess more accurately I should say that I love the dog he could be if he didn't have all these things wrong with him. It's a lot like being in an abusive relationship. Women stay in those relationships because they love the man that their man could be, if he just wouldn't beat her up all the time. It's like that with Pepper. I love the dog he could be if he just wouldn't bite and misbehave. But the facts are that he does bite and misbehave and he's getting worse. It will break my heart but I've decided that it has to be done. After he's gone we will bring Mama (our feral outdoor cat) inside (Pepper would never stand for us bringing another animal into the house). She is the sweetest thing and hopefully she'll get along with Mario and Punky (the cats we already have) and I won't have to worry about her being outside all the time. It's always a struggle to get her into the garage at night but there are too many animals up here that prey on domestic cats to leave her completely outside. That will still leave Little Mario outside but he is still very feral. I can stroke him once or twice when I put the food out but he hisses at me when I do it. Hubby has never been able to touch him. He is really truly wild and I am not attached to him like I am with Mama and I have no plans to get attached to him. Anyway, it will break my heart to put Pepper down but I've made up my mind to do it. Just not sure exactly when. Pepper is always close to me. He follows me from room to room. Sleeps curled against my side at night and beside me on the couch when I'm knitting. If I go outside, he goes outside. He follows me everywhere so it will be like severing me from my shadow.
I am busy reading the Bible. Since the first of the year I have been reading through the Every Day Bible which is the NIV divided into 365 sections to take you through the year. So far I've stayed faithful to that. Then a couple weeks ago our pastor challenged us to read through the Bible in 90 days and I have a schedule to follow that will get me completely through it in 90 days. So far so good on that one but I've got a long way to go. It takes about an hour maybe an hour and a half to read using that schedule. I'm going to really try to keep up with both of them but some days it really is a challenge to read through all that material.
My Bible study of the various disciplines of the Christian life is on hold until I get the 90-day reading done. Because that usually takes an hour by itself and that's just too much. I do miss it though. At least each chapter stands on it's own. I'm not going to suffer by taking a break from it. I can just pick it up right where I dropped off.
We have had a family of Gold Finches visiting our hummingbird feeder the past couple of weeks. My they are such beautiful birds. All that bright yellow flashing around. They can really drain the nectar out of the feeder in a hurry I'll say that much for them. But they are so pretty.
I'm still knitting. I've started a new afghan after finishing the white one last week. It is a pale yellow. I don't like the stiffness of the yarn but it's yarn that I've hung onto for 20 years and I'd like to get it used up and out of the way. What am I going to do with all these afghans??? I have the yarn for one more and then I will move on to something else. Oh, and I've learned to knit in the round! Yea for me!! I don't like it though. I just don't find it fun to work. But I'm currently knitting a pair of wrist warmers in the round. I've taken the first one as far as I know how to take it. I will need to have my teacher show me how to do the next step and she and her hubby are out of state right now so it's just sitting in the spare room until she gets back. That's why I went ahead and started the yellow afghan. I needed something to work on.
Well this hasn't been much of a blog but I've got to get busy around here. I don't even have my bed made yet. I woke up just before 5:00 this morning and hubby was still asleep. And then I started my Bible readings, then I moved to this blog. Hubby is up now so I'm going to close and get it made. Oh and I guess I should get dressed sometime today too! I feel like my blogs are boring now without writing a devotional but it has been a nice break for me. Maybe sometime in the fall I will get back to writing one occasionally. In the mean time stay close to the Lord. He's the best friend you'll ever have. And I praise Him this morning and give Him the credit for anything good in me. On my own I am like filthy rags, but with Him I am dressed in glorious splendor. He is my righteousness. And I praise Him for all the things He's doing in my life. He gives me strength and the will to continue during difficult times. Some days are just hard, let's face it, but we can make it through victoriously if we will cling to Him. His hand is always out-stretched toward us. All we have to do is take hold of it. Praise God!!!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I'm Sorry
I know this is way over due here on my blog site but I'm going to have to let it say so many things I want to say and have no time to say them. Hopefully I will get to it really soon. I had planned on writing this with plenty of time but my time got away from me and here I am too rushed for posting. I will VERY SOON write a real blog. I promise. Right now I see that blogger is down anyway. Don't know how long it will be before I can post. But surely as soon as I'm ready to blog, it will be up and running. Who would have thought that I would get too busy to blog! I'm not sure when that will be but I am hoping not more than a day or so. Sorry for the confusion. Love ya...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
It's Been A While
...since I've posted but it doesn't look like anyone has missed me. Honestly I just have not had the time to blog. I've got so many irons in the fire. Something happens or I see or hear something and I'll think "I need to save that for my blog" but then I don't find the time to blog and when I finally sit down at the keys to write, my mind goes blank. I don't do well when I am overloaded with things and I've really got myself laid bare. Nothing seems to be happening to talk about. I have my Bible study on the Disciplines of Christian Living and then I've got two Bible reading projects going. I know. You'd think one would suffice, huh? Well, I have been using the Daily Bible since the first of the year which is an NIV translation divided into 365 segments with a few devotionals thrown in (not nearly as many as I had hoped for, but oh well!) and then my pastor challenged us to read the Bible in 90 days over the summer. So I've continued with my first plan and just added the second plan to it. At some point they will meet in the middle but the 90-day plan is much faster having many more Bible pages to read every day. But I am using a new translation I got for Christmas last year. It's the New Living Bible and I really enjoy it for reading. I'm glad I decided to use that Bible for my second reading plan. The NLB is a very good translation (paraphrase) for just sitting back and reading the Word of the Lord. I wouldn't use it for a Bible study. I prefer the NIV for that. But it's very, very readable.
So I've had all this going on in my life and have had meetings and meetings and meetings and of course I'm still knitting up a storm although I confess I've eased up a bit on it. I don't need to knit as much as I was there in the beginning. It's nice to have settled into a schedule that is more relaxing. When I first went back to knitting last year I almost knitted 24 hours a day! Day after day!! I knitted afghans and throws and shawls and baby hats (which by the way is about time to knit another one). Now I'm pretty well down to just one project at a time. I'm working on a white baby blanket. The pattern calls it an afghan but it's more of a blanket to me. Much tighter weave and a little on the small side for an afghan. I'm using white worsted yarn for it. But I picked up a pattern the other day for another baby afghan that I'll use my lavender (sport?) yarn to make. This one has a much tighter weave and looks and feels more like a blanket than an afghan which I think of as open and loose. This white one will be much warmer than any other afghans I've done. I have plenty of worsted yellow yarn left over from when I was knitting years and years ago (I knew I was hanging onto that yarn for some reason) and I think I will use it for an afghan too. I'm ordering some yarn and patterns today for future projects. I had hoped to order them online but couldn't figure out how to navigate their "store," so I'll do it snail mail. One of the projects is the yarn and pattern for adult jacquard wrist warmers that I think my granddaughters will like to have. The second project is for me. It's the yarn and pattern for yoga socks and yes, I plan on going back to yoga again. I have my DVD and I'll just do it here at home rather than going out to a class. I really need to be doing something. Anyway, I thought they were great looking socks and they don't have heels or toes so there aren't any tricky places to knit (I hope). These may be knitted in the round and if they are, that will give me the opportunity to learn how to knit that way. I do want to learn but I'm secretly hoping that they aren't designed to be knitted in the round because I'd like to just knit them like I know what I'm doing, lol!
[Hubby just took me down to the yard and showed me that we have two tiny cherry tomatoes on our vine now! Yippee!!! That is as close to having home grown tomatoes as we've been in years and years!]
I still have yarn coming out my ears and I'm buying more??? Shame on me! But I don't have any sock yarn around so if I'm going to be doing socks, I need more yarn. I've been thinking about making myself a sweater but I just can't get myself to do it right now. I'd rather knit things! I'm thinking about knitting some place mats too if I can find an interesting pattern. But then, most of those will involve working with more than one color and I'm not ready to tackle that issue yet.
Our weather has been so strange lately. Very cool and overcast for the past two weeks. Yesterday's high was only in the 70s. This is June folks!! We're supposed to be dripping in sweat by this time! I'm not in any way complaining though as I simply do not like hot weather. It just seems weird to have such mild temperatures this time of year. I could go for this temp all year round. The biggest problem we've had going for the past couple months is the wind. We've had an almost constant wind whipping the pollens and molds around activating all those nasty little nasal problems.
One of my blogging friends sent out the cutest chicken pictures today. She and her hubby ordered 27 chicks from somewhere with I think 3 roosters. But her little chickies are absolutely adorable! Harriet is the winner hands down for today's vote. She's got so much personality just standing there in the pic. Looks like she could rule the roost if you ask me. I sure wish I had 27 chickies to play with until they matured into laying hens. They are just so cute. We always had a pen full of chickens when I was growing up. It was fun to go out and gather in the eggs, to count them and see how many you got for the day. Anyway they just bring out the little farm girl in me. I always liked our chickens and I didn't like it one bit when mother would cook one for dinner. That didn't stop me from eating dinner but it made me sad. I would have turned down the fried chicken in a heartbeat if my doing that would save the chicken but I knew that would never happen so why not eat what the Lord has provided? I am not a vegetarian but I would be if I had to kill my food before I could eat it. There are too many vegetables to pick from before you start killing animals to satisfy your hunger. Or that' s the way I look at it anyway.
Well, yes, I know this is a very short post but I've got things I need to be doing before it's time to take hubby to the doctor and see if he can do anything for hubby's nausea and vomiting. As if he doesn't already have enough to handle what with all the pain he's dealing with and then to have this stuff heaped on top of everything else, it's kind of rough around here for Mr. Hubby. But I do need to get some things done. I wanted to vacuum but don't know if I'll get around to that or not. I have gotten the bed made and all my Bible reading is done for the day. There's about an hour's worth of reading every day for me to get my two different Bible reading plans fulfilled. And that's hard for me to sit still for that long. But I think my biggest problem is that I keep falling asleep. I need to do my reading before I start my day and I am constantly fighting the urge to sleep. I must have fallen asleep a dozen times this morning before I got all my reading done. But I can't read during the day (I've just too many things to do to spend my time reading) so that leaves mornings or nights and I end up battling the sleep issue regardless of which one of those I choose.
This hasn't been much of a blog but I keep trying. You have to give me credit for that, I do keep trying. I want to take out the time this afternoon before we leave to get my Bible Study done. I think this discipline is on prayer if I'm not mistaken and we can all use help with prayer in some way. Prayer is such an incredible gift from our heavenly Father and yet most of us get prayer so far pushed aside from our daily activities that we never seem to get around to it. I know that I could improve this area of my life greatly. I just never seem to take the time for it and a brush up on that discipline will do me the world of good. And then I do want to get more knitting done today too. I've got my bed made and the dishes done and that's as far as I've gotten. So anyway I'm going to let this be my blog for today. I know it's boring and I don't even know if anyone out there is still reading it but I keep trying. I think it may be time to put my blog to rest, permanently. We'll just have to wait and see how that works out. In the meantime, stay close to the Lord and improve your prayer time, it can't hurt!!!
So I've had all this going on in my life and have had meetings and meetings and meetings and of course I'm still knitting up a storm although I confess I've eased up a bit on it. I don't need to knit as much as I was there in the beginning. It's nice to have settled into a schedule that is more relaxing. When I first went back to knitting last year I almost knitted 24 hours a day! Day after day!! I knitted afghans and throws and shawls and baby hats (which by the way is about time to knit another one). Now I'm pretty well down to just one project at a time. I'm working on a white baby blanket. The pattern calls it an afghan but it's more of a blanket to me. Much tighter weave and a little on the small side for an afghan. I'm using white worsted yarn for it. But I picked up a pattern the other day for another baby afghan that I'll use my lavender (sport?) yarn to make. This one has a much tighter weave and looks and feels more like a blanket than an afghan which I think of as open and loose. This white one will be much warmer than any other afghans I've done. I have plenty of worsted yellow yarn left over from when I was knitting years and years ago (I knew I was hanging onto that yarn for some reason) and I think I will use it for an afghan too. I'm ordering some yarn and patterns today for future projects. I had hoped to order them online but couldn't figure out how to navigate their "store," so I'll do it snail mail. One of the projects is the yarn and pattern for adult jacquard wrist warmers that I think my granddaughters will like to have. The second project is for me. It's the yarn and pattern for yoga socks and yes, I plan on going back to yoga again. I have my DVD and I'll just do it here at home rather than going out to a class. I really need to be doing something. Anyway, I thought they were great looking socks and they don't have heels or toes so there aren't any tricky places to knit (I hope). These may be knitted in the round and if they are, that will give me the opportunity to learn how to knit that way. I do want to learn but I'm secretly hoping that they aren't designed to be knitted in the round because I'd like to just knit them like I know what I'm doing, lol!
[Hubby just took me down to the yard and showed me that we have two tiny cherry tomatoes on our vine now! Yippee!!! That is as close to having home grown tomatoes as we've been in years and years!]
I still have yarn coming out my ears and I'm buying more??? Shame on me! But I don't have any sock yarn around so if I'm going to be doing socks, I need more yarn. I've been thinking about making myself a sweater but I just can't get myself to do it right now. I'd rather knit things! I'm thinking about knitting some place mats too if I can find an interesting pattern. But then, most of those will involve working with more than one color and I'm not ready to tackle that issue yet.
Our weather has been so strange lately. Very cool and overcast for the past two weeks. Yesterday's high was only in the 70s. This is June folks!! We're supposed to be dripping in sweat by this time! I'm not in any way complaining though as I simply do not like hot weather. It just seems weird to have such mild temperatures this time of year. I could go for this temp all year round. The biggest problem we've had going for the past couple months is the wind. We've had an almost constant wind whipping the pollens and molds around activating all those nasty little nasal problems.
One of my blogging friends sent out the cutest chicken pictures today. She and her hubby ordered 27 chicks from somewhere with I think 3 roosters. But her little chickies are absolutely adorable! Harriet is the winner hands down for today's vote. She's got so much personality just standing there in the pic. Looks like she could rule the roost if you ask me. I sure wish I had 27 chickies to play with until they matured into laying hens. They are just so cute. We always had a pen full of chickens when I was growing up. It was fun to go out and gather in the eggs, to count them and see how many you got for the day. Anyway they just bring out the little farm girl in me. I always liked our chickens and I didn't like it one bit when mother would cook one for dinner. That didn't stop me from eating dinner but it made me sad. I would have turned down the fried chicken in a heartbeat if my doing that would save the chicken but I knew that would never happen so why not eat what the Lord has provided? I am not a vegetarian but I would be if I had to kill my food before I could eat it. There are too many vegetables to pick from before you start killing animals to satisfy your hunger. Or that' s the way I look at it anyway.
Well, yes, I know this is a very short post but I've got things I need to be doing before it's time to take hubby to the doctor and see if he can do anything for hubby's nausea and vomiting. As if he doesn't already have enough to handle what with all the pain he's dealing with and then to have this stuff heaped on top of everything else, it's kind of rough around here for Mr. Hubby. But I do need to get some things done. I wanted to vacuum but don't know if I'll get around to that or not. I have gotten the bed made and all my Bible reading is done for the day. There's about an hour's worth of reading every day for me to get my two different Bible reading plans fulfilled. And that's hard for me to sit still for that long. But I think my biggest problem is that I keep falling asleep. I need to do my reading before I start my day and I am constantly fighting the urge to sleep. I must have fallen asleep a dozen times this morning before I got all my reading done. But I can't read during the day (I've just too many things to do to spend my time reading) so that leaves mornings or nights and I end up battling the sleep issue regardless of which one of those I choose.
This hasn't been much of a blog but I keep trying. You have to give me credit for that, I do keep trying. I want to take out the time this afternoon before we leave to get my Bible Study done. I think this discipline is on prayer if I'm not mistaken and we can all use help with prayer in some way. Prayer is such an incredible gift from our heavenly Father and yet most of us get prayer so far pushed aside from our daily activities that we never seem to get around to it. I know that I could improve this area of my life greatly. I just never seem to take the time for it and a brush up on that discipline will do me the world of good. And then I do want to get more knitting done today too. I've got my bed made and the dishes done and that's as far as I've gotten. So anyway I'm going to let this be my blog for today. I know it's boring and I don't even know if anyone out there is still reading it but I keep trying. I think it may be time to put my blog to rest, permanently. We'll just have to wait and see how that works out. In the meantime, stay close to the Lord and improve your prayer time, it can't hurt!!!
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