Staying Positive

Well, everything has been okay lately. Not perfect, but at least I am not calling the police every day to break up fights between Todd and Tate. My college classes are going well, and I am thankful for all that God provides.

Judy

It's been a long time since I have written anything. I have been ... occupying my time with stupid games and things, not really accomplishing anything.

Judy died. I can't even tell you her last name, but she lived six trailers down from us, and she was a wonderful person. She used to work with special needs kids like Graham at the school, but she had to quit her job because she had MS.

Judy was sad about not being able to work anymore, and that is why I think she and Graham hit it off so well, because he needed help with school and she needed to help someone.

I can't begin to list the things Judy did for Graham. She took care of him when I was at school, or just... distracted. And she loved Graham, she loved him. She loved him. And then she moved away, because she got into an assisted care building. I never took Graham to visit her there. Why didn't I take him? I was near the building so many times. It would not have been hard to stop in, but I didn't. There was always something else, something that seemed more pressing. Something more important. And so much time goes by. And I can't believe she is dead now, and I can't take him to see her. I can't believe she is gone. She was only a little older than I am. And I feel like I am drowning in this pain I feel.

I am so sorry, Judy. Graham always loved you, and so did I. I could never thank you enough for all that you did for him.

Not Much Happening

Well, things have been relatively boring, which is a good thing.

Todd is sleeping better. He's still not sleeping the whole night through, but since they put him back on Vicodin he is no longer having those violent muscle spasms, so thank you to those of you who prayed for him.

I am going to sign up for summer lit classes, and I am going to use part of the financial aide to send Tate to New York for the summer. It will keep him and Todd seperated and also be a good experience for him. I emailed his cousin Ashley to see if he could stay with her. If not, I guess I will have him stay with my friend Therese. I would have him stay with his Grandma Sharon, but not for the whole time. I think she would drive him nuts.

I am going to see if Graham can visit my sister in Phoenix for a couple of weeks too. He has never flown in an airplane before, so I think he is over due. I think he will have a grand time with Matty and Mouse.

The new Doctor Who with Matt Smith was on today. I must say, I don't hate it. I do miss David Tennant though.

That is about it for now. I am really tired so I will write more later.

Back in the Saddle

I haven't been posting much for a number of reasons. The first reason is that I have been busy with school work. My Christian Worldview class has been more of a challenge than University Success was. I enjoy it though, but I d0n't agree with a lot of it.

The second reason is that the kids are on vacation and Tate is on the computer all day long, so the only time I have to work on my homework is after he has gone to bed.

The third reason is that I have been having a lot of fun playing the game Sorority Life on Facebook. It's like virtual paper dolls, and I used to love paper dolls. I remember when we first moved to New York, there was a woman named Thelma Borden who lived next door, and she had always wanted a girl, but she had two boys instead. Well, she had some paper dolls that she let Shana and me play with, but only at her house. We used to go over there and play for hours. I remember that one of the paper dolls was named Lilac, and I thought that was the prettiest name. Thelma eventually adopted a 10 year old little girl named Dana. I wonder how Thelma is doing these days?

This morning I heard Todd cry out in pain and I came out of the bedroom to find him on the floor and Tate standing over him. Tate tried telling me that his father deserved to be beaten up, but I did not listen to him. Tate is constantly trying to agrivate his father, and Tate will never just be quiet when he is told. He has to keep picking at things. Well, I did not know what to do with him, so I thought about it and decided to make him clean as punishment. So I told him he was going to clean the house from top to bottom, but he said he would rather go to juvenille hall, and he picked up the phone and called 911. I didn't try to stop him. I figured either the officer would tell him to listen to me or he would take Tate to JH, but either way, Tate would have called the police on himself.

The officer told Tate to be more respectful of his parents and left. Tate went into his room and told us not to wake him until school. What he does not know is that he is grounded from the computer for a month, or until he cleans the whole house, whichever comes first.

So anyway, I am back in the saddle, writing for my blog. Now if I could just get to some poetry writing.

Pulling Teeth

Have you really thought about that expression, "It's like pulling teeth" ?

If you stop and think about it for a moment, pulling teeth is the worst thing that most people can think of, that is why they compare other bad things to it. Well, our trip to the dentist yesterday was like pulling teeth.

Tate was supposed to be getting a root canal, or so we were told, and it was Graham's first appointment with this dentist. Our prvious dentist did not have an orthadontist, and both boys need braces, so I switched to Western Dental.

We got there a little late (only 5 minutes) but they weren't ready to see us anyway, so it didn't really matter.

First of all, their chairs in the waiting room may be comfortable for the average sized person, but you get someone a little over weight and the arms of the chair start cutting into your thighs. I tried to ignore the pain, and thankfully, my thighs went numb before too long.

They took Tate back first and put him in a chair... and there he waited. After an hour, they called me back and told me that the doctor was doing another root canal and that we had to wait another hour for him to even get to Tate. They asked if I wanted to wait. Since they still had not seen Graham, it wasn't like I had a choice. So Tate sat there waiting for another hour.

When they finally called Graham back and started checking him in, they brought Tate to me and told me that they had made a mistake and he did not need a root canal, so they did not do a thing to him, except keep him in a dentist chair for two hours.

After Graham was checked in they took us back to another room, and the chair for me in that room was even more uncomfortable than the waiting room. It killed my back.

Graham and I sat and waited, and waited, and waited. All they ended up doing was "sealing" some of his teeth and cleaning his teeth. They did take xrays. He has been having pain in his neck and shoulders, and since his pediatrition, Dr. Alverez can't find a problem, I am sure that it is because he does not have enough mouth to hold all his teeth.

I stayed with Graham most of the time in the waiting room, but I got to be so uncomfortable that I went to the van and sent Todd in to sit with him. All together, we were in that dentist office almost four hours. It was like pulling teeth!

If you have never had a tooth pulled, let me tell you, it is no picnic! I had one split when I was pregnant with Graham, and they had to pull it. I thought my jaw would break before they got it loosened!

After the dentist we had to take the van back to my mom. We were at her place about an hour. We stopped at the store on the way home, and it was nearly 7 pm when we got home. I immediately got started on cooking dinner when there was a loud banging on the side of our trailer, then my friend Sandy walked through the door.

Sandy said she was my leprechan and said she was taking us out for drinks. I left Tate in charge of dinner and we went with her down to Big Bubba's where we finally got to meet this guy that she moved in with after only knowing a day. His name is Craig, and he is a very nice, very mellow, fun guy. Him and Sandy are very cute together.

Sandy rode the bull at Bubba's. She managed to stay on quite a while, but she eventually got thrown. I bet she is sore from it today.

Todd and I had two drinks with Sandy and Craig and then came back home.

*****

School

Some of the people in my Christian Worldview class are acting very ignorant in our class discussion. Last week the teacher asked us just to consider some of the flaws, or holes in the theory of evolution. Two of the people from the class posted that they would not even think about evolution because it was so far from their beliefs...

HELLO!!!

Forgive me, but I can't tolerate minds that are that closed. I honestly am not an evolution basher. When I took anthropology I discovered that a lot of the things Jehovah's Witnesses taught me about evolution were wrong. For instance, the fossil record does contain fossils of the intermediate stages between modern humans and lesser primates, and the reason the fossil evidence is so spotty is because the odds of something becoming a fossil are very high. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence is the midochondrial DNA. I won't try to explain it because I am so not qualified. Here is a link that has good info on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

I tried to reason with people from my class by bringing up how the Catholic Church persecuted and imprisioned Galileo when he declared that the earth was not the center of the universe. We know now for a fact that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. Will people be looking back at us in another four or eight hundred years and wondering how we could have ever rejected the idea of evolution? It does Christians no good to deny science. True, science does not have all the answers, and that is where faith comes in. I hope that made sense.

This week people in my class are just science bashing. One person stated that science experiments were "just that" experiments, and that scientits only conducted them for research money. Another person who posted that science experiment is the only way to gain knowledge. Talk about two extremities, LOL.

Progress and Anger

Well, I think there has been some progress with Tate after we recently grounded him from the computer and his ipod for two weeks. Twice he has apologized to me for things. That is unheard of. I think we are back on the right track. Thank God.

There is a woman in my Christian Worldview class who is infuriating. She refuses to address half the assignment because it is "too different from what she believes." People like that are the reason there is so much misunderstanding about beliefs in the world. They are the reason propaganda and hatred can be perpetuated.

Lastly, I am out of my mind angry because I just found out that Liz, my mother’s husband’s son’s girlfriend, is a child sex offender. My children have been around this woman for the past three years. Tate even told me that he felt like she was flirting with him a couple of times. I just shrugged it off. I didn’t think he knew what flirting was. Now I wish I had listened to him. The Megan’s Law website says she was convicted of “penetration with a foreign object” and that the victim was under 16. That is all the information it gives about the crime. The picture is a new one. It looks like a driver’s license photo. They probably update the pictures every time they renew their licenses.

I am just sick to my stomach thinking that my children have been alone with this woman. I am going to ask them and make sure that she has not done anything to them. If she touched either of my children, she is going to wish she was never born. She and John have moved to another town. They are apparently out in the desert, miles away from anyone or anything. That is a good thing. If she was still here, my children would not ever be around her again.

Because I was molested as a child, I tried to be hyper-vigilant to make sure nothing like that would ever happen to my kids. I feel like I fell short in this case. I disliked Liz from the moment, the very moment I met her. Now I don’t feel badly about it anymore. I need to trust my instincts more. My instincts told me she was no good the moment that I met her. I remember that the first thing she said to me was a slam about John, while John was sitting right there.

John told my mom about it when he called her the other night. He wants to break up with Liz. I am not sure why he called my mother. I think he was trying to get her to talk to his mother so she would send him the money to move out of Liz's place. He also told my mom that he was sorry things did not work out between her and his father. Personaly, I think John is sorry that he can't sponge off of them anymore.

Harry is in Arkansas now, living with his brother, at least until he can get on his feet. I hope that he finds what he is looking for there. He is a good man and he will make some woman happy, if he can find a woman who will appreciate the attnetion he wants to give her.

On another note, Todd has been having violent muscle spasms. His entire body shakes and his pain is so great that it scares me. Please pray for his pain to be lessened. Thank you.

Love of Money

These are the questions we were asked to address in our online class this week, and here is my initial response to them:

Questions:

1. Jesus taught, "You cannot serve both God and money"(Matt. 6:24, NIV). How do you respond to that statement? How does your response correlate with your worldview?

2. Describe any important issue concerning human origins that evolution fails to explain. Discuss your perspectives with your classmates. What would change in your occupational decision if you were to approach it from a purely Naturalistic viewpoint?

Initial Response:

The scripture in Matthew made me think of another scripture, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things, and by reaching out for this love some have been led astray from the faith…” (1 Timothy 6:10 NWT). Some Bibles translate it as “the love of money is the root of all evil.” So earning money or having money is not wrong, but it is the love of money that causes problems for Christians.

Getting back to the scripture in Matthew, I think the majority of the people in the United States serve money. The act of acquiring it is the most important thing in their lives. We need to ask ourselves what is more important to us, God or money? Initially, it may easy to say that God is more important in our lives than money, but it is not so black and white when you really think about it.

You don’t have to have money in order to worship it. If your desire for more money, or more material possessions interferes with your service to God, then you are serving money. It is really difficult to find balance because money is necessary to live. Money seems to rule my life at times. My husband was injured a year ago and has not been able to work since. Because of this, we have to consider money in every decision we make. We can’t go to visit friends because we can’t afford the gasoline to drive there, we have to make due when things break because we can‘t replace them, and we had to have a beloved cat put down because we could not afford an operation she needed, which still absolutely breaks my heart.

I have to admit that money is on my mind more than God. It makes me think of a German film I saw called Wings of Desire, where angels are portrayed as being among humans. While traveling through the city, the angels hear the humans’ thoughts. Most of the humans are thinking about money, how they will pay for things, etc… it makes the angels depressed. I don’t think the American version of the film, City of Angels, portrayed it as well.

As far as the Naturalistic Worldview is concerned, I found the Carl Sagan quote quite profound. Maybe I am looking at it in a way he did not intend, but in a way, I think he is right. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says that “there is nothing new under the sun.” I think that could be extrapolated to include the cosmos.

I am not sure that having a Naturalistic Worldview would change my choice of occupation. I could find a job right now that would bring my family more income. For a long time I tried to do it all, work, be a mom, a wife, and write, but my writing was always the casualty to lack of time and energy. Now that I am in my 40’s I realize that if I am going to write, I have to do it. Writing is something that I am very serious about. I have stories in me that are aching to get out, and I can’t hold them back anymore. It is the same with my education. You don’t need a college education to be a writer, but I value knowledge more for the sake of knowledge. I am a perpetual student.

Christian Worldview

I started a new online class and decided to post my first essay for the class.



Worldview

A worldview is a philosophical system that endeavors to explain how the facts of reality fit together like a puzzle. Whenever I put a puzzle together, I always end up putting the outer frame together first. The outer frame is easier find because one side of the puzzle piece is straight. Once the outside of the puzzle is framed, it is easier to fill in the center pieces.

The frame for people’s worldviews begins forming in childhood. The things that frame it are the things we are taught by family, clergy and school teachers, the things we see on the news, and movies, and the things we read and observe in the world around us. Our worldview provides the perimeter for the decisions we make. James K. A. Smith wrote that “worship [is] the matrix from which a Christian worldview is born.” (as cited by Eric Miller, Christianity Today Online, February 24, 2010).

People’s worldviews are constantly being reshaped as they gain more knowledge and life experience. I think the oldest component that frames my worldview is my belief in God. The second thing that frames my worldview is my experience within society. The third thing that frames my worldview is my education.

I believe that God created the universe. I accept this as a fact, even though I respect most of the scientific theories about how the universe was formed. I don’t see the two things as incompatible. However, while the mitochondrial and fossil evidence regarding man’s evolution from other life forms is compelling, I do not accept the theory of evolution. In order to reinforce my disregard for the evolution theory, I reference the Bible and some other writings I am familiar with that are even older, such as the play Antigone and the book Plato’s Republic which show how marvelously complex the human mind was centuries ago, and has always been. Knowledge keeps multiplying and the human mind is able to keep pace because God designed it to hold enormous amounts of information.

I once had a person ask me why God would he create the dinosaurs just to become extinct. After some thought on the subject, I had the thought that God knew mankind would eventually need fossil fuels. I know that science could probably find a million things wrong with my reasoning, including the fact that most fossil fuels are the remains of ancient bacteria, not dinosaurs, but I don’t claim to have the answer, just one plausibility that allows me to combine my respect for science and my belief in God.

Another time a friend asked me if I thought God had ever intended man to travel through space. After some thought I came to the conclusion that if God had not wanted mankind to venture into space, then we would not be able to. I think the fact that we can launch satellites into orbit, send probes to other planets and have walked on the moon proves that God intended us to do so.

Most Christians believe that God defined what is right and wrong. The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of morality. According to Genesis 3:5, the serpent that spoke to Eve said that knowing the difference between good and bad was what made humans different from God:

For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your
eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God,
knowing good and bad.

Adam and Eve were given free will in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent came to Eve with the challenge that God was withholding something from her, something that would make her like God. The idea of being like God must have been appealing to Eve, because through her and Adam, “sin entered into the world and death through sin.” (Romans 5:12). Thus, the Christian worldview holds that mankind is born inherently sinful, but humans still have free will. We are free to decide how we will live our lives, whether we will serve God or not. I think that the most important thing that a Christian worldview gives us is the possibility of redemption.

Everything is Going to Hell

Things keep going from bad to worse.

I had to call the police the other morning- it must have been Saturday, because Todd and Tate nearly came to blows over a television show while I was still sleeping. I can't leave them alone in the same room together at all.

This morning I over slept and Tate missed his bus. I had to give the neighbor ten bucks just to take him to school. If he had stayed home, I am sure a fight would have erupted.

Tate had a counselling session today. My mother picked him up from school and took him, and he told his counselor that he did not want to change and was not going to do anything to make conditions better at home, so she closed out his case. Now I really don't know what to do. I think maybe I have been slacking off in my prayers. I need to be more ernest and remember to talk to God daily.

Tate's report card arrived. He got 3 D's and 3 F's. I wish he understood that this will effect his future. He just has no idea, no idea at all, and he is wasting so much time being angry and miserable when he could be happy.

My friend Tiffany called me tonight and made me feel a little better. She always does that. Everyone needs a friend like her.

I still have no idea about what to do about Tate. Please keep us in your prayers.

Two Steps Back

My mom came over today and took me to the store, and after we got back to the trailer, I sat in her van discussing what I would like to do for the boys over the summer. I said I wanted to get hold of some of Todd's family in New York and see if they would like him to visit them for a couple of weeks because this is his last summer before he is an adult, and they have not seen him since he was four years old. I feel I owe it to them to let them get to know him a little before he is all grown up and out in the world. I also want him to spend some time with my sister because he sees an example of what can be accomplished through them, if you work hard. But while we sat there talking about Tate's future, he came out the back door and said he had just gotten into a fist fight with his father. He said he was just playing on the computer and his dad hit him, so he hit back. I knew that was not the whole story, but he said Todd was calling the police and was threatening to have him arrested, so I sent him with my mother. I came in and tried to talk to Todd, but he did not want to talk, he was just yelling. So we have taken two giant steps back in all the progress we have made.

The stress has overwhelmed him. I understand because I am overwhelmed too, but I express it in different ways. The past two days I have just been crying. I don't know much, but I know that I am tired of being miserable. I want to laugh with someone. Todd and I need to reconnect or we are going to end up apart. The idea of a divorce just tears me apart. When I married Todd, it was forever in my heart.

I am totally discouraged with myself. I am tired of not being able to do things with my family because I am too fat to walk around. I have got to lose weight. I may start another blog and record everything I eat on it as a way to try and get myself motivated to lose weight.

Dear Lord, I need help to hold this family together. Please soften Todd's heart, and please soften Tate's heart. Please make us into a real and loving family. Please replace the anger and pain in this home with patience and understanding, and love.

I want to pull Tate close and just love him, but he pulls away every time. Please, God, let my son allow me to hold him and love him the way a mother is supposed to pull her children close and soothe their souls. I can't even express how much my heart hurts right now. The pain feels like it is coursing right through my veins and I want to run away, as if I could escape the pain.

I wish I could move in with my mom because for some reason, when I am with her, I feel like I am safe and taken care of, and I don't feel safe right now. Please, God, help me to feel safe again.

Bad Week

It has been one of those weeks where just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

I just started to feel better. I've been able to breathe without the oxygen for three or four days now.

Last week, I was driving our pick-up to the store when I got pulled over. The cop said that he was pulling me over because my license plate was blocked- which was totally rediculous because what he said was blocking it was the tow hitch, and it has been there since the truck was manufactured in 1983. Anyway, our registration was not current on the truck because we have not had the money to get the truck to pass the smog inspection. So because the registration was run out, the cop had the truck towed, and that was Saturday night. Sunday the bank was closed, so I could not get any money out. Monday they were closed to, so Tuesday I went and drew out everything I had which was only a hundred and seventy five dollars- one hundred of which was for my electric bill- and went to try and get the truck from the place that towed it, but they wanted two hundred and ten dollars, and on top of that, we still needed to pay the police a hundred and twenty seven dollars, so we had to just let our truck go. It was a good truck. It never cost us much in labor to maintain, and never left us stranded. I am so sad to let it go. That was on Saturday. Come Monday Todd drove me over to my friend's house to help her mother do some cleaning, and when he was driving back home his Blazer died. He had to walk back to my friend's house, and his friend Ernest gave us a ride home. My mom's husband had triple A tow it back to our house, and there it sits in the driveway. We don't know what is wrong with it, and we don't have any money to take it to a garage. I already paid the electric bill.

Now the weather is all rainy and the ceiling in the bathroom is leaking so my feet get wet when I have to use the bathroom, and I am just too depressed by everything. I am so tired of just barely scraping by. I don't want a lot, but I want to be able to drive to the mountains, or to the ocean. When I get there, I want to walk on the beach, or through the redwooods. I want to be able to go someplace with my family for dinner. I want to see a movie or buy a pair of shoes without having to worry about being short on the electric bill or running out of food by the end of the month. My friend Sandy wrote on facebook that she had gone out dancing. I want to do that without feeling guilty that I am spending money I should be using to pay bills. Is what I want so unreasonable? I don't know why we have never been able to accomplish it. Not even when both of us were working full time. Now with Todd's back being so bad, he will never be able to work again, and I am going to school hoping to become more employable. I have never had a job that paid more than minimum wage, except when I was working as a truck driver. I would go back to that if I could, but my health is not good enough.

Todd went to the emergency room last night. He said he was having a panic attack. He called 911 and went in by ambulance. He is disappointing me so much lately. He acted like a child about the Blazer breaking down. I tried looking up the symptoms online to diagnose the problem, but he would not check anything. I would have had Tate check things, but I was afraid Todd would get mad. Todd is just not the man I married anymore. He never laughs anymore, at least, not when he is with me. He is whiney and childish and angry all the time. I have fantasies about leaving him for someone who knows how to be happy. But I still love him. I just don't respect him like I used to. He has always had an attitude like the world owes him something, and that has always bothered me, but it has gotten worse lately. I think he has lost respect for himself, and that is a big problem, because I won't be able to respect him until he can respect himself again.

Now I have to do a power point presentation for school, and I have never done one. I have to download a trial version of microsoft office to do it, and I can't get the download to work, and I feel like the whole world is caving in on me. This rain has left a chill in the air and I can't shake it. And now I can't stop crying. Please help me, God. Please help me.

How Do I Breathe?

I need to go back to the doctor. The prescriptions he gave me did not help, and I am having more trouble breathing than ever. Just walking from the bedroom to the living room (a distance of about 10 feet) got me so out of breath. It took me about 5 minutes to catch my breath. That is why I have not been posting a blog every night. I can only be on the computer a short time before I need to lie down and rest. I haven't felt like eating either, which is a good thing. I think I have lost a little bit of weight.

Todd and Tate are doing okay. I can never quite relax around them. There is no telling when things will erupt. This morning Tate's bus was cancelled, so Todd decided to drive him to school. Well, Tate gave him a tough time about it, but instead of getting angry, Todd just came to me. I told Tate to get in the Blazer so his dad could drive him to school. Tate complied. When he got back home, Todd said he wished he had not done it. Apparently the visibility was really bad- which would explain why they cancelled the busses, but Tate has already missed so much school, he can't afford to miss anymore.

Here is where I do my little rant about how, if they are going to cancel the busses, they need to cancel classes too. Otherwise, it is unfair to the bus riders. It is like they are missing out on part of their education just because of where they live. Do any other parts of the country ever have just the busses cancelled, but classes still held for those who walk to school? If I had more energy I might write to the school board about it and protest until things were changed, but I don't have the energy for activism at this point.

Something happened that I am very upset about, but it requires a lot of background and explaining, so I just don't have enough energy to write about it at this point.

My mom is signing up to go to an online college. I am proud of her. She wants to take psychology. I will be so amazed if my mom becomes a therapist. I get good grades in psychology, but I really don't want a job listening to other people's problems. Oh, did I tell you last week when I called to talk to Todd's therapist and ended up talking to his supervisor because he was out of the office, the first thing she suggested I do was get a restraining order against Todd. I told her in no uncertain terms that I would not do that to my husband, but can you imagine if I were a weaker person? She could have talked me into throwing my husband out and wrecked my marriage. A lot of times therapists do more harm than good in that way.

Todd has been waking up with very painful muscle cramps in his legs. He could use prayers to ease his pain. Please pray for me to get well, and for the love in our house to continue to grow. Thank you.

Bad Days

It has been a couple of bad days in a row. I am not even emotionally prepared to write about them yet. I just wanted to let you know that Star Trek is home and much better. The vet determined that he had been mauled by a bigger dog. The children down the street brought him a hamburger to make him feel better, and he is on the mend. I will write more when I am not so exhausted.

Please hold my family in your prayers so that we can make it through these trying times. Thank you.

Star Trek's Trek

Well, Star Trek took a trek to the vet today. Mom called and made an appointment at the Redwood vet clinic. I went with her because she did not know where it was. We have taken our animals there from time to time. They are wonderful, but can be very expensive.

They said that they think Star Trek may have actually been shot, or possibly attacked by a larger dog. It is hard to tell by the wounds. It looks like there was an entry wound on his hind quarters, and then an exit wound next to his penis. There also seems to be some other bleeding going on underneith him, but the vet had a hard time because moving his leg out of the way to get a good look caused him so much pain, so they offered to keep him overnight, at no charge, then tomorrow they are going to sedate him, and shave the areas so they can see what is going on, and then they will be able to tell the extent of the wounds and whether any critical organs were damaged. They said they would try to avoid xrays because we really don't have the money to pay for them. I gave Mom the money to pay for half of the services because she is really going to be hurting for money after Harry leaves.

Mom told me today that Harry had been the answer to her prayers. He did not give her any grief about practicing her religion the way Steve had. He was very clean, and he helped her with Grandpa and took care of her, and that was what she prayed for.

The problem is that he wants to take too good of care of her. He smothers her, and he wants her to do the same for him, which she is not willing to do. She wants to be left alone so she can write and do her own thing. He seemed to take an interest in her writing at first, but now I think he resents it. She has finished 4 novels since they have been together, which is only three years. I think he would be less resentful if she got one of the novels published.

I really feel bad for Harry. The whole situation breaks my heart. I like Harry, even though I never got very close to him. I know that he tried so hard to make Mom happy. He isn't perfect, and I know that the fact that he is racist is a big problem for Mom. I don't think that I could live with that either... but I don't blame him for it, I feel sorry for him. I think that he is a victim of his environment in that way. I am sure he could overcome it if he had the right motivation, but when it is something so deeply engrained, it is not easy to do, and I doubt that Mom ever told him how much it bothers her.

Now that Mom and Harry are breaking up, Mom thinks that God is unhappy with her about it, and that is making it hard for her to trust in Him.

Personaly, I am stressed about it too because I know how much income Mom has without Harry, and it is not enough for her to get by on. I suggested she become a foster parent, because she has always been so good with teenage girls, but she doesn't really want to do that. I can't say I blame her, but I don't know how else she will be able to manage to make it. If I could, I would give her some money every month to help her, but I can't even pay my own bills. I will just have to pray for her and trust God to provide.

Prayers for Star Trek

Star Trek is what my grandfather called his dog. He is a long haired Chihuahua mix. Grandpa had Alzheimer's disease, so the dog started out as Bowser when we gave it to him, but then Grandpa noticed that the dog had one white paw, so he changed the name to White Foot, but later he forgot the "White" part and just remembered the "Foot" part, so he changed it to Star Foot. Later, he forgot the "Foot" part and just remembered the "Star" part. Grandpa had been a long time fan of the Star Trek tv series, so he started calling the dog Star Trek, and that was what finally stuck.

Star Trek was a wonderful companion to my grandpa, especially when the Alzheimer's became really bad. Star Trek was always at his side.

It's been 2 years since Grandpa died, and my mom has continued to love and care for Star Trek. She has a fenced in yard, but he is an escape artist. She got him neutered so he would not run after all the females in heat, but it didn't stop him from climbing the fence. Today, Mom said he got hit by a car. He was not killed, but Mom does not have the money to take him to the vet. I don't know how dire the situation is. I hope he does not have internal bleeding. Mom said something about him having a hole in his hind quarters that she poured some peroxide on. She said he walked around and wagged his tail, but she has not been able to look at the under side of his leg to see how bad the damage is.

Our cat, Thomas, was hit by a car a couple of years ago and his hip was broken, and after a 200 dollar vet bill, we were told they could not do anything for him. Fortunately it healed on its own. I took Mom some of Graham's cough medicine to give to Star Trek. It has codiene in it, so it should ease any pain he is in and help him to sleep. The hardest part with Thomas was keeping him still. Mom did not want us to go in the house because she was afraid that Star Trek would get
excited when he saw us and try to get up.

So anyway, I will be praying extra hard for Star Trek to recover from this. He still has a lot of life left in him, and he is very loved. I know it would really devastate my mother if he were to die. He used to go jogging with her like her body guard, and I know she plans to start jogging again. Oh, I am very, very sad. Poor Star Trek. I hate the idea of animals in pain. If anybody out there is reading this, please say a little prayer for Star Trek too. Thank you.

Here is a poem I wrote about Grandpa when he lost his second wife. She was not my grandmother.

Beloved Wife

He sat on his bed,
knuckles like concord trunks
fumbled with shirt buttons,
“Where are we going?” he asked,
for the fourth or fifth time.

“To the cemetery,”
slipped past the swell of sorrow in my throat.

“Oh?” he said, “who died?”

I had to tell him again,
“It was Jessie, Grandpa.”

His mouth opened
in silent grief, eyes dipped
to hide anguished surprise,
“Is the funeral today?”

A conversation replayed
all the way there.

Blue and white painted sky,
the full moon showing through.
Lavender and yellow daisies
cover the casket.

Faces of family and friends
were all new to him.
Each condolence became
a fresh fracture
to blessed Alzheimer’s.

He sat, eyes in the past,
as Beloved Wife was eulogized.
Present slipped in
when her name was mentioned,
and a new mourning period began.

Fragile hearts struggled
to stay strong, but
when he joined the chorus
of Amazing Grace,
it broke us all to pieces.

Still Sick

Graham and I both went to the doctor today. Graham has bronchitis. Poor little guy. He is miserable. I hope that he did not go to school when he was contagious because his teacher, Mr Dowling had menengitis and suffered a stroke due to the menengitis which left him in a wheelchair. He could not teach for a whole year. Now he has to be very careful not to get sick again or he could land back in the hospital.

Since I made my appointment at the last minute today, I could not see my doctor. I was not pleased with the treatment I got from the doctor I did see. He did not even listen to my chest or examine me in any way. I told him I was having trouble breathing and he started writing out prescriptions. He gave me an inhaler, some nasal spray and allergy medicine, but I know I have caught bronchitis from Graham and will end up back in the doctor's office in a few days to get antibiotics. I asked the doctor about antibiotics and he said I did not need them. I don't know how he determined that, since, as I said, he did not even examine me. I do have to say that the inhaler he gave me worked better than any inhaler I have ever used before, but I am still not able to breathe very well.

As I type one of the neighbor's dogs is barking. It is after midnight. I wish they would bring their poor little dogs inside at night. It is too cold for a little dog to be out all night this time of year. I will say a prayer for all the little dogs left out in the cold. God cares about the animals too. Did you ever read all of the laws in the Old Testiment about the humane treatment of animals?

I deposited the financial aide check today. Hopefully tomorrow the bank will let me withdraw enough to pay the back rent we owe. I also need to get a Walmart gift card so I can order the computer I want from their website. The money will not last long enough to do all the things we need to do with it. I need to pray that I have the selfcontrol to do the wise thing with the money.

Our kitty with the hurt eye came home today and his eye looked a lot better. I still gave him an antibiotic pill. He took it without any trouble at all. I think he will be okay. I should not have to run him to the vet.

Tate has been working on crafts lately. I think maybe that has helped him channel some of his energy so that he is not so eager to fight with his father. He has been making wrist bands and things with studs in them. I must say that they look very nice, much nicer than my attempts working with rhinestones and studs when I was younger.

Breathing

Right now my lungs are so conjested, I am kind of scared. I almost called my mom to take me to the emergency room, but I am going to try and hold out. Emergency rooms are no fun. I will try to get into my doctor in the morning. Graham needs to get to his doctor too. He is the one who gave it to me. I need to pray that both he and I will recover from this bug quickly.

One of our kitties has a hurt eye. His name is Nacho and he is a yellow tiger. He must have gotten in a fight with another cat. I will have to get him some antibiotic cream tomorrow. I need to get him and two other male cats fixed so that they don't fight with all the other Tom cats in the neighborhood. I will call Dr. Piel and see if she can get them later this week.

Oh, just in the nick of time, my financial aide check arrived today, thank the Lord. I should have gone and depostited it right away, that way I may have been able to withdraw funds today, but I did not feel well enough to go to the bank when it arrived, so I decided to just wait.

These funds will not really go very far. There is so much that needs to be done. I need to make sure that I don't spend them on frivilous things.

Bugs

Graham and I both have the flu bug. Graham came down with it on Thursday or Friday and had to share. I have a sore throat and my chest is getting more and more conjested. I used the oxygen last night for a while.

Todd's counselor, Larry, called this morning. I am thankful because he seems to be someone who is genuinely concerned with helping Todd. He listens to me, and that makes me happy because counselors usually just work with the individual and in doing that, they can ruin a relationship. Counselors work on healing the individual, and sometimes they advise things that are not healthy for a couple. When someone enters into therapy, their spouce should not be shut out. I could probably write a book on that alone.

Larry suggested that my mom take the kids for a day or two so that we could get away together. Normaly that would not be an option, because we would not have the money to do it, but with my financial aide check coming in soon, we may be able to manage it. We really do need some time to gether to reconnect with each other. I will pray on it.

Todd continues to be in pain all the time. His legs and feet are swelling up too. If you have never watched someone you love living in constant pain, you have no idea how helpless you can feel. Women are designed to want to ease pain with their touch. What is the first thing you do when your child is hurting? You pull them close. I keep wishing a hug or a good back rub will take Todd's pain away, but there is no healing in my caress, so I must continue to pray for Jehovah to remove Todd's pain.

I had some trouble with this week's homework. I should not have waited until the last minute to do it. There was supposed to be an example posted, but I could not find it. From the looks of the board, neither could a lot of other people, so at least I don't feel alone, but I do wish I had begun earlier so that I would have had the chance to email the instructor about it.

I really hope that my check arrives today so that I can pay the rent and the electric bill. I paid the cable/internet/phone bill already.

Today is Todd's birthday and I didn't buy a cake or a gift for him. I think I will just wait until the check comes in to do that. He will have to understand. I did get him a card. If the check does not come today, I will give that to him and write in it something about giving him his gift later in the week.

Pounding

I was once awakened by the sound of gun shots, and I've been awakened by civil war cannons going off, but this morning I was awakened, for the second time in less than a month, by my neighbor pounding on her back door because she had locked herself out of her house.

Donna pounded for more than 20 minutes before she was able to wake her aunt to let her in the house. The woman needs to get one of those hide-a-key things and leave it outside somewhere. I don't know why she is even locking the door for the two minutes it takes her to drive her daughter around the corner for school.

I really wanted to go and blow off some steam at her, but God must have seen fit to wake Lily to let her in before I decided to put my clothes on and yell at her. I am thankful for that because it would really not have been very Christ-like of me.

Yesterday the high school was cancelled because of fog. That is rare around here. They usually just cancel the bus that Tate rides, but they still hold classes, which means either Tate misses a day of school or we have to figure out how to get him there ourselves. I think that is rediculous. It is like we are being discriminated against because of where we live. First of all, a school bus is a lot safer than driving him to school in one of our vehicles would be. In New York, when they cancelled the busses, they cancelled classes as well.

The school system here is completely backwards. When I went to school we had 7 classes a day, each class was 45 minutes long, and the schedule rotated daily, so that if someone had a time of day when their ability to learn crashed, they would not have the same class at that same time of day every day. The system worked very well, as far as I was concerned. Here, they have only 3 classes a day, and each class is 2 and 1/2 hours long. A teenager's attention span does not last that long. It is a recipie for failure. I should write to the school board about it.

I still feel exhausted. With Tate home all day yesterday, I had to play referee again; could not leave him and Todd alone together. Still, I am thankful that there has not been a fist fight between them since I started this blog, so if anybody out there has prayed for us, I want to sincerely thank you. Your prayers have made a difference.

I am still praying for our financial situation to ease up. I just want to be able to pay all my bills, have good food on my table every day, and maybe a little something for recreation and emergencies.

Todd's birthday is coming up on the 8th. I don't know what to do for him yet. Valentine's Day is less than a week after that. It will be the 8th anniversary of the day that Todd's best friend, Mike committed suicide. I miss Mike so much. Hard to believe it has been 8 whole years. The pain is still so fresh when I think about it. All the questions his death left unanswered are still unanswered.

My friend Tiffany posted pictures of her baby on Facebook. She is the most beautiful little girl you ever saw! She was supposed to be born by planned c-section on February 2nd, but she made her arrival in the world three days early. Her name is Charlotte Patricia. Someone asked if they were going to call her Charlie Pat, and someone else suggested Char Pay.

February

I can't believe February is here already.

I am exhausted. I still don't feel like I can leave Todd and Tate in the same room together without being there to referee. I really need God's help with these two.

I have not gotten much sleep this past week, and I feel like I am getting sick. I wheeze when I breathe. I tried to go to the doctor today, but the appointment got cancelled, after I had already gone to the office. I have to reschedule.

Since my appointment was cancelled, I went to my mom's house for a while and we watched the movie, Amelia. I was pleasantly surprised that Chris Eccelston was in it. I wish he'd had a bigger part. I miss him as Doctor Who. He was a great Doctor.

I am still worried about how my mother is going to survive once the divorce is final and Harry moves to Arkansas. I am afraid she may get back together with Steve.

Steve is a man who is hard not to like. He has a sort of charisma. The problem is that Steve is bipolar with delusions of grandeur. He wants/tries to be a spiritual leader to people. He has never gotten anybody to follow him, probably because his ideas are just too far out there for people to believe in. He believes in God, but he fancies himself some sort of healer and always has some new idea/scheme to improve people's health. These ideas have included bathing in muriatic acid and ingesting small amounts of mouse poison.

My mom absolutely loves Steve, but they have such fundemental disagreements as far as faith goes that she would never marry him. She did allow him to pull her out of her religion for six years, however, before she broke it off with him completely and married Harry.

One of the big problems is that there are no single men my mother's age within her religion. That is why she ended up marrying Harry outside of her religion. Mom once said she would rather spend her life as a bar fly than end up all alone for the rest of it. I don't know if she still feels that way or not, so I have to pray for her to find a means to survive financially after Harry leaves, and also for her to find companionship so that she does not spend the rest of her life alone.

Rough Day

Actually the past two days have been pretty rough. I don't know what got into Todd, but he started acting like a child, popping off smart remarks directed at Tate, as if he were trying to instigate a fight.

Today Tate's school bus was cancelled due to fog, so I had to play babysitter all day to keep a fist fight from ensuing. Everything culminated when I went to the bathroom and Todd took that as an opportunity to start up with Tate again. I got angry because I could not even go to the bathroom without the two of them starting in.

I tried to reason with Todd, after all, he is the adult. How can I discipline Tate for making smart remarks when his father is doing the same thing? Todd just kept saying that he was going to do it because he was tired of Tate doing it. That does not even make sense. He was completely unreasonable, and to be honest, I forgot to pray and instead tried calling Todd's therapist, but his therapist is on vacation, and the person taking over for his therapist was out of the office, so I ended up calling the crisis line. A crisis worker came to our home and talked to Todd.

I had to leave to get to the bank before 5:00, so I left her here to talk to Todd. I took Tate with me. I don't know what she said to Todd after I left, but at least he stopped trying to pick a fight with Tate when we got back.

I need to remember to pray for Todd to have patience with Tate, and to love Tate. He does not act like he loves Tate at all, but I know he does. I need to pray for Todd to act like a loving parent instead of an angry child.

Todd's dad was not around when Todd was Tate's age because his parents had divorced by that time and Todd was living with his mother. He did not see his father very often for about seven years. I think that is part of why Todd has no relationship with Tate.

I love Tate with all my heart, but he does not make it easy to love him. He pushes us away with every breath he takes. I don't know how things went so wrong with him. I have this tremendous sense of guilt, but I don't know what I feel guilty for. I know I haven't been the best mother in the world, but I haven't been the worst mother either.

The day Tate was born the nurses called him Mr. Mad because he screamed and screamed. He used to scream so hard that he burst blood vessels in his eyes. He used to have the worst temper tantrums too when he got to be a toddler. I don't know where all his anger came from. Could be have actually been born with it? I need to pray for Tate to open up and not be so angry all the time, and also for him to appreciate his parents more.

I haven't been feeling good. I haven't gotten enough sleep for days and days. I need to get to the doctor, but I haven't had any gasoline, so I haven't been able to make an appointment. I am still having a lot of pain in my back, head, neck and shoulders, and now I am having a hard time breathing. I think I may be coming down with a bronchule infection. I guess I need to include my own health in my prayers.

Thank you for getting us through this month, Jehovah God. It has been a rough one and without your provisions, we would not have made it. Please continue to help us, to bring peace to our home, along with love, patience and consideration for each other. Help us to get along and to work together. Please help Todd especially to be more understanding and patient with Tate, and please replace Tate's anger with understanding and help him to have more appreciation for both of his parents. Please grant us love and laughter and let our financial situation improve.

The Pain

I am not being metaphoric. I am experiencing a physical pain that seems to be getting worse. All the doctors want to do is give me pain killers. I wish they could track down the source of the pain and do something to stop it. I know that doctors don't have all the answers, that they are simply human, and most of the time they are simply guessing as to how to treat people for different conditions- okay, they are educated guesses, but I think a lot of the time the doctors would do better by listening to their patients. When I know what is wrong, I tell my doctors what to do for me to save them the trouble of guessing. Problem is, this time I don't know what is wrong. My neck, shoulders, and upper back hurt the worst at the moment, but other times it may be my lower back, my legs, or my feet- even my arms. It seems to travel without rhyme or reason. It's hard to think, or do anything else when you are in pain.

My prayers keep getting longer and longer, which is a good thing, because it is good to spend time in prayer, cultivating a perosnal connection to the Creator, and because my prayers are becoming less egocentric as I ask Him to help other people, but I get so busy asking Jehovah to help people that I forget to tell him how thankful I am for the things he has given; the day I started this blog was the last time I had to call 911 because of my husband and son fighting. Dispite not having any money, we have somehow gotten through this month, and we have not gone hungry or went without anything we really needed. Jehovah has provided everything we needed as we needed it, and I am very thankful.

I saw part of a television program today that was showing the conditions in Haiti. It is so hard to take in. Most of us will never have to experience that sort of devastation, Lord willing. It showed bodies just lying alongside the roads. People covered them up, but they had no place to take them, and no way to get them anywhere if they did. There was a toddler who had to have her leg amputated because she had been trapped in the rubble of what had been her home. There was another infant with a head injury. It just makes me want to cry thinking about it. I wish I could do more than just pray for the people. Some people blame God for natural disasters like this. They even refer to them as "acts of God," but God does not inflict indiscriminate punishment on people via earthquakes or huricanes or any other act of nature. These things just happen. God does not cause them.

When I hear an Amber Alert, I pray for that child to be found, but I always put the condition in my prayer "if it is not already too late," because I know that God will not ressurrect a child that has already been killed in order to answer my prayer. He does answer those prayers though, because the abducted children I have prayed for, the ones I have been able to follow up on, have all been found and returned to their parents. I bring this up because I think we have to be reasonable in our requests to God. As another example, if someone prayed to God to be able to float at will, God will not answer that prayer because He will not defy the laws of physics for someone. God created the laws of physics, and he created them for a good reason, so it is unreasonable for us to expect him to make exceptions for individuals. So then, we have to take responsibility for our actions. If we are going to do something dangerous such as mountain climb, sky dive, bungy jump, etc... and something goes wrong, we can't expect God to stop us from falling. We need to have strong faith in God, but strong faith is not an excuse for reclessness. If we choose to do risky activities, such as mountain climbing, it is our responsibility to take the reasonable precautions to insure our own protection. If you remember right, when the son of God was being tempted by the devil, not even Jesus would throw himself off the temple and expect God to save him. (Matthew 4: 1-11) We must not use our prayers in order to test God.

I guess that got a little preachy, didn't it? I don't want this blog to be preachy. I think God loves us whether we believe in him or not, and I want this blog to be an encouraging place, not a place that lays on guilt or fear.

My friend Tiffany is an atheist, and she is one of the most beautiful people I have ever known. I am adding her to my prayers because she is going to have a baby on February 2, via c-section, and I know how frightening it is to be cut open like that. I prayed fervently before both of my c-sections. I can't imagine going into an operating room without having God to trust in. So, please, Jehovah God, be with Tiffany when she goes in to deliver baby Charlotte, keep them both safe through the operation.

A Little at a Time

Well, the Lord keeps providing- a little at a time, but it is enough.

Last night, our neighbor's car broke down, so he gave Todd some money to drive him to work today, which put gas in our Blazer so that when my friend Jeanette called, I had enough gas to get to her place, because she wanted me to help with some cleaning. She gave me twenty dollars today, so I was able to get some bread and other things we needed. Then Jeanette's mom asked if we could haul some furniture to the dump for her tomorrow, so we will be able to use the money she pays us for that to get some more cat food. Two weeks ago I had no idea how we would get through to the end of the month, but now the end is in sight, we are going to make it, and we did not go without anything we needed. Thank the Lord for seeing us through.

I am sad that the feral cat we were feeding has not been around for five days. I want to go to the SPCA and see if he is there. Maybe they will give him to us if he is.

Yesterday Graham came in the house crying his eyes out and he was holding a puppy. He said that our neighbors had the puppies outside in the cold and their mother could not even get to them, and they were crying.

I took the poor little thing from him and it was shivering so bad. I told him to go get the other one and we turned up the heat a bit. It took fifteen minutes for the poor little things to stop shivering.

Graham thought Ishould call animal control because he thought the puppies were being neglected. I looked at the pups and they were nice and fat, so I knew they were not being neglected. I told him to wait until their owner came home and I would talk to the man.

When the man got home he said he did not know the puppies were outside when he left that morning, and he thanked us for keeping them warm and for feeding them while he was away. Graham felt much better. It was nice having puppies visit for a few hours. They were sooo adorable.

My mother is getting divorced. This comes as quite a shock to me because my mother does not believe in divorce- but her husband does. It has me very worried about Mom because she does not have enough money to live on without Harry. I don't know what she is going to do. I wish I could afford to help her out, but I can't, so I have to pray for her.

She married Harry out of a sense of gratitude because he helped her with my grandfather, and she could not have cared for Grandpa on her own those last couple years. Grandpa could not be left alone, even for short periods of time, and besides going stir crazy from being bound to the house, Mom was so tired because Grandpa would stay up all hours. He was getting to be too much for her to lift when he needed help getting out of a chair or out of bed, and keeping up with his incontinence was a nightmare.

Harry is a good guy. He treated my mother like a queen, but she said that made her feel smothered. The one big thing that she could not live with is the fact that Harry is racist. He hid it from her before they got married, but it came out afterward. Mom hates racism. I think she tried to enlighten Harry, but she realized that she could not change him and gave up.

Mom has written four novels. One of them is a murder/mystery/romance novel, and the others are a fantasy trilogy that could be bigger than Harry Potter if you ask me. They are the kind of thing young adults and adults would both like, and they are like nothing else out there. She has spent years writing them. I hope she can get them published and that they will generate some income for her.

I also need to pray for my friend Anrdea (not her real name). Andrea and I went to high school together. We reconnected on Facebook when it came time for our 20 year reunion. We are both living in California now, but we are about two hours apart, so we have not actually seen each other. We have communicated through email, and then we started calling each other every week to do a Bible study together over the phone. She has been a big source of encouragement to me. The book we are studying is called Breaking Free and it was written by Beth Moore.

Andrea has a ten-year-old son who is autistic. Now there are different degrees of autism, from the little I know on the subject. Her son is more than mildly autistic. He is non-verbal, and she said that he bigger he is getting violent.

Now, like I said, I don't know much about autism, except that it is a devastating condition, but I remember reading a short story about a boy with autism and when he got to be about the age of Andrea's son, his mother ended up having to put him in a group home because she was no longer able to take care of him. I think the mother in that story was a single mother, and so it would have been very hard for her to handle on her own. Andrea has her husband to help, but the stress a condition like this must put on a marriage must be tremendous.

I also have a friend who adopted a boy with autism. He also had cerebral palsy. She spent the first couple of years trying to snap him out of the autism. She thought with proper diet and care he could recover from it. When that did not work out she started taking him to see specialists. They flew all over the country looking for a medical treatment that would cure the autism, and while some kids do have miraculous improvement on certain treatment, her son did not. There were complications from the cerebral palsy too that made things more difficult, and eventually she ended up placing the boy with another family who had the resources to take care of him.

I also remeber a movie I saw about the mother of an autistic boy. The movie was based on a true story. The mother was devoted to her son, but she was forced to put him in a home when he got too big for her to handle and he could hurt people.

I want to tell Andrea, to sort of give her permission to put her son in a home where there are people who are trained to care for him. She needs a serious break. And she wanted to have more children, but did not do it because she knew she needed to devote her time to her son. She is at the age now where she could still have another child, but if she waits much longer she will be too old to get pregnant. She has certainly done her job in caring for her son all these years. I know she loves him though, and I don't want to come off as callous. I know she loves him as much as any parent loves a child, but when they get too big for you to be able to handle, the safety of you, the child, and others needs to be taken into consideration. From what I understand, autistic children are less attached to their parents than their parents are to them. I am sure that depends on the degree of autism. I guess I should pray for understanding before I try to give her any advice though.

So I have a lot of things to be thankful for. Jehovah keeps providing what we need when we need it. And I have a lot more things to add to my prayers.

If you have any prayer requests, please post them. Thank you for reading.

Provisions

Todd left this morning to do yard work for Jeanette, and he came home with cat food, bread and soda. I did not ask him where he got the money, but I have a feeling he borrowed it from Ernest because Jeanette already paid him for the yard work at the beginning of the month.

Eight days until the end of the month and counting. I hope we make it. The bag of cat food Todd got was not very big. LOL- I just got an image of the cat food expanding like the bread and the fish did on the Mount of Olives when Jesus was speaking to the crouds. I know it is unrealistic to expect that, but if we are careful not to put down more food than the cats will eat, it just might last. If it doesn't, I am sure that Jehovah will make some other provisions for us.

The feral black cat we have been feeding and taming has not been around for three days now, and I am really worried about him. I hope he is okay. If he has been hit by a car, all the prayers in the world won't help him, but if he was trapped and and taken to the SPCA, I pray that he was adopted, and if he is lost, I pray that he will find his way back to us.

I have an essay due tomorrow. I have to pray for clarity so that I can understand the material I read and organize it in a way that makes sense in my essay.

Our neighbor came over tonight and asked for help. She said she was having an anxiety attack, and she was stuck at home alone with three children all under the age of seven. Tate went over just to talk with her and try to help her with the kids, and then Graham went over to play with her oldest son, because Graham is her oldest son's hero. Graham came home after about an hour, and Tate came home a half hour after that. He lent her his Ipod. She said listening to the music made her feel better.

I feel really bad for her. She seems like such an easy going hippy-type person, I never dreamed she had an anxiety disorder. It may be due to PPD (postpartum depression). Her youngest one is only a year-and-a-half or so old. When I was going through PPD, I had terrible panic and anxiety attacks. She is a young and beautiful woman, and has one of those voices that makes me think she should be a kindergarten teacher; it's all sweet and sing-songy. I don't even know her name, but I need to add her to my prayers.

I also need to take time to thank Jehovah for the continued peace we have enjoyed between Todd and Tate. It is so easy to forget to thank our Creator for the things he does for us, but when I think back to just a few weeks ago when Todd and Tate were going at each other, fist fights every other day, I am so very thankful that they have stopped.

February Comes Early...

The past two years I have gotten very sick in the month of February. I don't know why, but my lungs get so congested that I need to use oxygen. My feet and ankles swell to almost twice their normal size. I get achey all over, and the worst part is that my menstrual period does not end. I have bled non-stop for up to eight weeks. The doctors have to prescribe the hormone provera to get it to stop. Still, I can be thankful that they do not have to do a d&c.

This year, it seems February is coming early. Here it is, only January 23rd, and my ankles and feet are already swollen, I am bleeding, and I ache more than usual. My lungs have not yet filled with fluid, but I imagine they will with all this water that I seem to be retaining. I don't have the gasoline to go see my doctor, but I am thankful that I have plenty of oxygen on hand. If there is anybody out there praying for me, please pray for my health to improve and for me to be able to lose weight since the weight loss surgery was denied by my insurance.

Todd is handling the situation with Tate's cutting of his arm all wrong. He is very angry about it, and I don't understand why. Maybe the anger is disguising a fear that since Tate is cutting that it will lead to an attempted suicide or something. Whatever the reason, he tried to ground Tate from the computer today until he stops cutting his arm. I handled that all wrong because I yelled at Todd about it in front of Tate, but punishing a child for cutting is the worst thing you can do.

I am afraid now that Tate knows it bothers his dad that much, he will do it even more. I did find out that he does not do the cutting here at home. He does it with his friends at school. As far as I know, he started cutting at about the same time he started ditching school.

I ditched school a lot when I was Tate's age. I never got caught, and I didn't get into trouble. Most of the time, I went to the local community college and hung around the radio station. I don't know what Tate is doing with his friends when they ditch, apart from cutting themselves, but I fear they may be having sex and/or doing drugs. I really need Jehovah's help with this one because I feel powerless to stop him.

There has never been a time in my life when we have been worse off financially. There was a movie night at Graham's school last night, and we could not come up with three dollars so that he could go. It made me just want to cry. I know that money is not the key to happiness, but it sure does make for a lot of added unhappiness when you don't have any.

I have trouble trusting in Jehovah some times. I feel like it is my own responsibility to fix the problems in my life, and I don't feel like I have the right to ask Him for help if I am not also looking for a solution. I think that going back to school is a positive step in trying to improve our financial situation, but it is such a long road. I need to trust Him to provide the things we need in the mean time.

Still Praying

I am still praying for help with our financial situation. I don't know how we are going to buy cat food and toilet paper, or put gas in the truck. I will sure be happy when this month is over.

My financial counselor tried calling me yesterday, but I was on the phone with Tate's counselor, so I just let it go. I tried calling him back afterward, but I could not get through. I am going to try and call him this morning. I hope that it is good news he has for me. COS said my transcripts had been mailed on Tuesday, but I am paranoid that something will go wrong. Jehovah knows we need that money.

There is a new program at school for Tate, and he actually seems excited about it. It is called Reconnect, I think. Anyway, it is supposed to encourage him and help him with his other classes. I think this program may be an answer to my prayers for Tate. Something has to get through to him.

I also need to include my friend Sandy in my prayers. She moved in with a man named Craig after knowing him about a day. She met him at a bar. That is sheer desperation. I know why Sandy did it. Her ex, Richard, blew her entire month's income on New Years. She was desperate for someone to save her financialy, but why would a man bring a stranger into his home so quickly? Sandy said he is caring for his elderly father. I imagine that he was desperate for some help doing that. Does a relationship begun in desperation stand a chance? She is lost. I pray that she finds her way, and that this guy she moved in with does not turn out to be a psycho or a woman beater or something.

Graham is doing well in school. He is wearing his glasses dispite the broken nose piece, and he finished the highest work book that his resource teacher had for him in reading, so now he is reading from the same book as the rest of his class. I am so glad that he has progressed so well. Now I need to pray that he gets the hang of math.

I am still praying that Todd finds some relief from the pain he is in. He slept a little better last night than he usually does, but he still woke up twice in pain.

Oh, there are so many people to pray for. The situation in Haiti following the earthquake should be in everyone's prayers. Just the thought of what those people are going through is overwhelming, but Jehovah does give people strengh to endure.

The stray black cat we have been feeding has not been around for two days. I have known unaltered males to disappear for up to two weeks at a time, but I am still worried about the cat. He has gotten so tame with us, but he is still very skiddish when around others. I am afraid our landlord set out a trap and caught him. If that happened, I don't even have gas to go to the SPCA and see if he is there. If that happened, all the months we put into taming him will have been for nothing. He will be too wild to be adopted, and will end up being put to sleep without anybody who loves him :(

Just as a foot note, I wanted to explain that I use the name Jehovah when referring to our Creator, and I am aware that the name can be offensive to some. I am not a Jehovah's Witness, but I was raised as one, and therefore I still feel the need to refer to God by the name I was taught. I hope that will not stop people from reading.

If anybody has any prayer requests, please let me know and I will pray for you. If any of you would please include me, or any of the people I mention in your prayers, I would be very appreciative. Thank you.

Bumpy Roads

I knew that there were going to be some bumps in the road. We hit one.

Tate had a friend spend the night, then Tate spent the night at his friend's place, then the friend came and stayed at our place again. I knew the boy was not the best influence on Tate, but I felt bad for him. His father is out of the state and the boy is completely alone.

The boys rode the school bus together in the morning, but instead of going to school, they went to the friend's house to ditch.

I called the school to check on Tate, and when I discovered him not in class, I tried calling the boy's house, but they would not answer the phone. I did not have enough gas to go to the boy's house, so I called the police department and had them go to the boy's house to check on them. The officer called me and said that Tate was walking away from the house as he pulled up. The officer said he could not transport Tate, so I called my mother and she went to pick Tate up and take him to school.

I am so lost. I don't know what to do with Tate. I need to continue praying, and praying hard.

Still, things could have been a lot worse. Tate was disrespectful of his dad when he got home, but Todd did not let it lead him into a physical confrontation. I am very thankful for that.

I have been praying for an answer to help out my mother and us in our financial situations, and I got the idea that maybe we should move in with mom for a while. I don't know if that is the answer to my prayer or not. I am going to talk about it with everyone involved and keep praying on it until I am sure.

Graham broke his glasses today, and I can't even get him a new set of frames until the first of February. I don't know what he will do until then. It makes me so sad. My life is controlled by money instead of the other way around. Jehovah, please help us.

Sleeplessness

Things have been going pretty well the past week or so. Todd still isn't sleeping well, and when he doesn't sleep well, I don't sleep well, so I need to continue praying that he is able to sleep pain free so that he does not wake up multiple times every night.

Tate had a friend spend the night last night, and then Tate spent the night at his friend's tonight. I hope that they are staying out of trouble.

We are running out of everything, gas, toilet paper, cat food, etc... and we have no money. We have some bottles we can return, but that won't buy much. I have no idea how we are going to get through to the end of the month. I really need to pray on it. The uncertainty really discourages me.

So far my college class has been easy -too easy actually, but what is to be expected from a class called "University Success?" The discussions are superficial and really don't interest me very much. I can't wait until I am in a class that challenges me and makes me think more.

I also need to remember the people of Haiti in my prayers. It makes me feel bad, worrying about how I am going to buy cat food when so many people have been hurt and killed or displaced. Can you imagine losing absolutely everything? Let's all pray for them.

My mother looks at every earthquake as a sign that Armageddon is immanent. I lived that way for so long, living in fear that the world was going to end at any moment. I refuse to live that way anymore. An earthquake is just an earthquake. They have been around since the earth was formed, and they will continue until it breaks up and scatters through the universe.

Mom says that Harry is moving to Arkansas. She does not seem upset about it. I don't understand her at all. He bent over backwards to be good to her and she just felt smothered by him. I know he was not perfect, but I think if she had given him more of a chance, she would have been able to work on the things about him that she didn't like. She practically drove him away. It hurts my heart. I really hate to see him go. I think Mom might miss him once he is gone- like the old Crystal Gail song:

Never want a drink of water, 'til the well runs dry,
never miss a real good thing, 'til he says good-bye.

Smooth Sailing

The seas around here have been pretty smooth the past few days. There was even a few minutes of laughter when Tate found a bottle of bubbles and got the cats interested in them. It was nice to hear him laughing as the cats broke the bubbles.

Todd has been in quite a bit of pain because of his back, and so I am praying for him. He wakes up in pain every night, sometimes more than once. He needs to get a good six or seven hours sleep once in a while. Sleeping in shifts is really bad for your health.

Graham wants to be woken up at 5:30. A little girl is here visiting her family, but she is from L.A. She and Graham took a shine to each other, but she has to go home tomorrow, and Graham wants to go help her pack her stuff up and say good-bye. It is so cute.

I want to thank Jehovah again for keeping the tempers in our home from flairing the way that they used to. I ask that things continue to improve; that the anger and pain will be replace with patients and joy. I also need to ask for God's help with our financial situation. We've lost $135.00 a month, and we needed every cent of it. There is absolutely nothing I can cut from our budget to balance it, so we need to somehow replace that money each month. If Todd's SSI were to come through, that would be a huge blessing.

If you have any prayer requests, you can post them here or email me at danna.hobart@yahoo.com

Giving Thanks

Today I am giving thanks for the peace that has begun to settle on my house. Today Todd asked Tate why he spanked the dog, and Tate told him that the dog had peed on something. Todd scoffed and claimed that the dog had not, so Tate replied, "Okay, I peed on it then."

A response like that from Tate would normally send Todd into a rage, but instead he just replied back, "Now that's a possibility."

I had to laugh because I had not heard the playful tone in Todd's voice for so long. I sighed in relief. So, Thank you, God for keeping Todd's temper from flairing today. I am very grateful.

I ordered my book for school today too. I need to pray that my financial aide will arrive in a timely manner so that I can get the lot rent caught back up before we are in danger of eviction.

I am also praying for my friend in New York, Paul Long. His step-father just died and now his father's health is failing. I am praying for his father's health and for his family to find solace in their time of grieving.

If there are any prayer requests, please leave a message. Thank you.

Our Daily Bread...

Today was the first day for my online class. I had to post a bio, read and respond to the bios of my classmates. I was amazed that at the university level, so many of my classmates did not attempt to use proper English or punctuation. I should not judge them harshly. They don't have the experience writing bios that I have.

I need to ask Jehovah's help to do well in school. This first class is really called "University Success," and so far the reading has been very dry. My other class looks more interesting. It is called Christian Worldview. I honestly have no idea what to expect from it, but I am approaching it with an open mind.

I am looking forward to taking some of the lit and writing classes. I am also looking forward to some brush up classes on critical thinking and philosophy. Just going to take it one step at a time.

I also need to ask Jehovah's help with our financial situation. We are a month behind on our lot rent, and I only have enough money to cover this month's rent, but nothing to put toward catching up what we are behind. I have faith that he will help us with this situation because he has helped us in the past. Once when we were out of food and Todd had no gas to get to work, I prayed for help and that very day, on his way home from school, Graham found a $100 bill lying in the middle of the road. It was just enough to get us through.

Often when we pray for things like money, our prayers are not answered in the way that we expect them to be, but that does not mean that our prayers were not answered, because somehow. Nobody starves to death, and nobody freezes to death. We always make it, don't we?

I also want to thank Jehovah God that there has not been any fighting in the house for the past few days. Things have been peaceful, and that is just what I asked for.

As always, if you have any prayer requests, don't be afraid to ask.

Please Help Me...

I start school tomorrow online; Grand Canyon University. I am excited and nervous. I decided to do this all so last minute- I still don't have my classes added. The school still doesn't have my transcripts. I am worried that there are going to be some hang-ups.

I need to pray for Jehovah to help me with all of this because the thought of it all is overwhelming me at the moment. I also need to pray for the anger and hate that fills my home to be replaced with joy and love.

If anybody would like me to pray for them, please leave a comment.

Prayer Requests

I don’t want this to be a preachy blog. I am not going to try to force people to believe in God if they don’t, and I am not going to get sucked into a debate over the existence of a Creator. This blog is simply my way of reminding myself to start praying more often.

Even if you don’t believe in a Creator, you can’t argue with the scientific evidence that prayer does work. (http://www.plim.org/PrayerDeb.htm)

At some point before my grandfather’s death in February of 2007 I stopped making prayer a regular part of my daily routine. Up until that point, I had a daily dialogue with Jehovah. I don’t know why I stopped praying regularly. It wasn’t that I lost faith. I think that I just became too weighed down with other things. Looking back now, it was at that same time that my life started going down hill. Instead of turning to Jehovah for help, I simply became more and more depressed which caused my health to deteriorate and my family as well.

Tonight, Todd started raging over a pair of jeans. How silly. I was on the phone with my mother, thanking her for giving us her old washing machine, and I told Tate to get a load of clothes together, and Todd wanted a pair of jeans washed. Now, if I had not been on the phone, I would have told Tate to include the pair of jeans in the load he was doing, no big deal, but, I had warned Tate not to overload the washer earlier, and I don’t know if he thought that his dad’s jeans would break the proverbial camel’s back or not, but he did not include the jeans in the load he gathered. That made Todd mad, and he followed Tate into his bedroom to try and make him include the jeans, I guess. Before I even knew what was going on, Graham was screaming and I heard Tate say that he was restraining his father. I dialed 911, because I have told them that every time they get physical I am calling 911. I am not putting up with the physical fighting any more, and I don’t have any other consequences to give them, so I called 911, and Graham took over on the phone while I went to try and break up their fight.

I don’t know why Todd was so worried about the jeans being done in that first load. It is not as if it is the only load of clothes that will ever be washed again. His whole reaction was completely unreasonable.

The police came and basically just scolded the both of them.

After the officers left, Todd called me a “cop calling bitch,” and told me not to bother calling him for supper, but when supper was ready, he ate it.

He was angry for hours, told me that he had had it with me and with Tate, and all of his usual digs and insults. So I did something that I don’t normally do; I prayed. I prayed for Jehovah to take the anger from Todd’s heart and grant him wisdom, and almost instantly, he stopped fuming and started talking normally again.

So I have decided to try and remember to pray on a regular basis. I am going to pray for patience and wisdom. I am going to pray for good things to happen to our family. I am going to pray for the things we need from day to day, and I am going to pray for others. Please post any prayer requests you have and I will say a prayer for you.