Today is just a day
just like any other.
There are many more to come I think.
Do laundry? No don't bother.
Today is just a day
Few worries with the weather.
It's just too cold to stand beside my kitchen sink.
Better wrap up in a sweater!
Today is just a day.
By the fire is better.
There's a dirty sock, oh it must stink!
Nah, later it will be less wetter.
Today is just a day,
time I can just borrow.
I know I'll get it all done in a wink,
if I just wait till tomorrow.
Today is just a day.
It's cold, but with bright sun
But tomorrow with the kids at home...
won't doing those chores be FUN!
©2006
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
A Movie Recommendation
This is by my favorite author, Francine Rivers. Her stories are absolutely awesome! It's a Christian story. Please support it! I think you will find it well worth it. Not to mention that when we support Christian movies, it paves the way for more. While Christian movies in the past have kind of left a little to be desired in quality, they just keep getting better all the time. If the movie industry sees that they have a market, they will put more money into them. This is a wonderful read too. If you get the chance, pick up the book at your local Christian book store (I believe in supporting them too.)
I AM SO EXCITED!
Check out the movie website.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
This is more of a Megan story-but with Russell in it
*Before I start this one, I want to officially post that Baby Joy is home and doing well. Thank you to those who prayed for her. Continue to keep the family in your prayers as the bills come due. Not sure what hospitals cost in the Congo, but they sure pack a wallop to the wallet here in the U.S.*
During those years, my husband was going to school and working a full time job in the evenings. Megan (almost 5), Russell (almost 2), and I spent alot of time home alone. I didn't mind. I loved the little house we lived in. It was an older home with a closet turned into a bath. So tiny, yet cozy, comfortable, and, with good neighbors nearby, it felt safe.
It was one of those evenings when my husband was at work. I was getting the kids ready for bed after supper. Megan having just had her bath and in fresh pajamas, was playing in the hallway next to the bathroom as I gave Russell his bath. Since I had a toddler in the tub and didn't want to leave him, I asked Megan to answer the phone when it rang.
Just a minute or two later she came back and resumed her playing like nothing had happened. I asked her about the call.
Now my son, Russell, is named after his dad. He is a "second". My husband, however, went by his middle name to everyone who knew him. All of his school and financial records have him listed as Russell. In his classes, they would call roll and use Russell. He used Russell on all his papers. Being an adult in a class with kids fresh out of high school, there wasn't alot of chuminess going on between him and his classmates. They all knew him as Russell.
So the conversation on the phone went something like this:
Megan-"Hello"
Classmate who missed the homework assignment and was calling to see if my husband had it-"May I speak to Russell?"
Megan-"Mommy's giving him a bath right now."
During those years, my husband was going to school and working a full time job in the evenings. Megan (almost 5), Russell (almost 2), and I spent alot of time home alone. I didn't mind. I loved the little house we lived in. It was an older home with a closet turned into a bath. So tiny, yet cozy, comfortable, and, with good neighbors nearby, it felt safe.
It was one of those evenings when my husband was at work. I was getting the kids ready for bed after supper. Megan having just had her bath and in fresh pajamas, was playing in the hallway next to the bathroom as I gave Russell his bath. Since I had a toddler in the tub and didn't want to leave him, I asked Megan to answer the phone when it rang.
Just a minute or two later she came back and resumed her playing like nothing had happened. I asked her about the call.
Now my son, Russell, is named after his dad. He is a "second". My husband, however, went by his middle name to everyone who knew him. All of his school and financial records have him listed as Russell. In his classes, they would call roll and use Russell. He used Russell on all his papers. Being an adult in a class with kids fresh out of high school, there wasn't alot of chuminess going on between him and his classmates. They all knew him as Russell.
So the conversation on the phone went something like this:
Megan-"Hello"
Classmate who missed the homework assignment and was calling to see if my husband had it-"May I speak to Russell?"
Megan-"Mommy's giving him a bath right now."
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Urgent prayer request
I wrote here, the other day, about my namesake, JOY-LOÏS KAJ A KEY born on January 12. She has come down with paludism or malaria. She has been very sick. Please pray for her and her family's ability to pay the hospital bills.
Here is the e-mail I recieved from her father yesterday.
"Let us return glory to God in any thing like us says his word.
How are you my sister?
About us, we are little well. My wife left maternity since Monday, but arrived the night the child had cried too much, and the morning, Tuesday we led her to the hospital (at the maternity), the temperature was of 39.50°c. After the care and the regulation of drugs by the doctor, we returned to the house, but the night again, the child always cried, and this morning, we decided to go in a great medical center of our town, and since 10h of the morning, she is hospitalized and was perfused. She has the paludism, because her mother suffered from it when she was pregnant.
Request for us beloved so that God can give us what it is necessary for us for the care, and that He promptly grants the cure to my beloved daughter and your namesake which I live to suffer while they bored the skin with a needle by the nurses who sought the nerves.
That my God blesses you sister, but let us has the faith, because God likes our good!
I return to the hospital, I left there to seek the money to pay. And I have some to benefit from it to write this mail to you.
I know that this news hurts you, but I exhort you to request for us, and God will listen to us. I will regularly keep you of the evolution at the hospital.
Yours Faithfully,
Jean-Luc KEY"
Here is the e-mail I recieved from her father yesterday.
"Let us return glory to God in any thing like us says his word.
How are you my sister?
About us, we are little well. My wife left maternity since Monday, but arrived the night the child had cried too much, and the morning, Tuesday we led her to the hospital (at the maternity), the temperature was of 39.50°c. After the care and the regulation of drugs by the doctor, we returned to the house, but the night again, the child always cried, and this morning, we decided to go in a great medical center of our town, and since 10h of the morning, she is hospitalized and was perfused. She has the paludism, because her mother suffered from it when she was pregnant.
Request for us beloved so that God can give us what it is necessary for us for the care, and that He promptly grants the cure to my beloved daughter and your namesake which I live to suffer while they bored the skin with a needle by the nurses who sought the nerves.
That my God blesses you sister, but let us has the faith, because God likes our good!
I return to the hospital, I left there to seek the money to pay. And I have some to benefit from it to write this mail to you.
I know that this news hurts you, but I exhort you to request for us, and God will listen to us. I will regularly keep you of the evolution at the hospital.
Yours Faithfully,
Jean-Luc KEY"
Sunday, January 14, 2007
The Sacrificial Jeans
*In the late summer of 1990, our little family was the family from the song "Front Porch Looking In" by Lonestar. We lived in a little house out in the country with farm land all around us. I loved that little house and sometimes miss those times when we were young and I was an idealistic mom who gardened, canned, hung my clothes on the line to dry, and even sewed! There was something sweet about that time in our lives. It was before all the crud I would go through later that made me basically miss my younger children growing up, much less do all those idealistic, craftsy, homey things I did back then. This story is mostly for me. I want to begin to write out the stories in my head because I am realizing that I am forgetting them. There was a long period of "insanity" (because for all intents and purposes, the things I did really were insane) that took place in my life between that innocent time and the present that has robbed me of many of my stories. It's time to stop procrastinating.*
I had just come home from Wal-Mart and put the bags on my bed. I pulled out the new pair of jeans I had bought for my husband and laid them on the bed so he would see them. Then grabbing the new boxes of dishwasher and laundry detergent, I headed into the other room to put them away.
My oldest daughter, Megan was 5 at the time and had rushed into the living room to watch Sesame Street. Russell, my barely-2-year-old, had occupied himself in front of the tv as well. He would often occupy himself beside his sister as she watched tv even though he wasn't the least bit interested. I took the opportunity of having them settled to start another load of laundry and bring the clothes from the line in.
Everything was quiet except for the sound of the TV and the birds singing outside the open dining room window. I was enjoying being able to fold clothes in peace without having Russell grab things while loudly declaring, "I elp". He would pretend to fold and then drop whatever he had "folded" in the floor to grab another item...or three. I was sitting by the window, humming, folding the clothes on the dining room table, while occasionally staring blissfully at the sunny field outside my window. Daydreaming really. I know. There is no excuse for that!
Somewhere, out of this fog, I realized that an awful lot of time had passed for a two-year-old to be quiet. I walked into the family room to find Megan, still staring blankly at Sesame Street and no Russell. "Where's your brother?" I asked tentatively. Without even looking up from the tv, Megan gave the standard "I dunno".
Now our house was too small for anything to have happened to him without my hearing it, but Russell DID have a penchant for quietly taking things apart. From the time he was old enough to crawl, his father's large collection of Christian tapes were his favorite targets. I can't tell you how many times we found him sitting in piles of unspooled tape getting ready to pull out another long section. We started putting the tapes in cases that locked and any that didn't fit, we kept on top of the stereo. It wasn't long before Russell learned to stack the cases, climb on them, pull himself up and get the unprotected tapes and this was all before he could walk. For some reason he was absolutely enthralled with the ribbon of tape. (See the pictures below)
I was headed down the hall to peek into the rooms to see where he was, when I heard him. He was in my room. When I stepped through the doorway, my jaw hit the floor and I just stood there with my mind trying to wrap around the scene before me.
Having found the Elmer's glue I had just bought, there he was on my bed. My little red-head was bouncing around in circles chanting "uuhuuhuuhuuh" with each bounce. He bounced one complete circle and stopped. Then he squeezed a long stream of glue onto the brand new jeans.
He caught sight of me, in my shocked state, in the doorway In an instant, he was off the bed, past me, and out the doorway, wearing an absolutely felonious grin. There lay my husband's new jeans-sacrificed on the alter of childhood.
*note* This is now known as the "Uuhuuhuuhuuh, Squiiiiirt" story around my house. It is my kids favorite one to tell and hear. The younger ones tell it like they were actually there and they weren't even born yet. "Sweet, little, innocent", redhead, Russell has been the source of MANY such stories. And every one contains the same felonious grin. It has never mattered much that Russell wasn't a bad kid, (Frustrating and mischievious, yes! Bad, no!) it was just that no matter WHAT he did, he always got CAUGHT! (everyone remembers the redhead, whether he was actually in on the act or not, if he was there, he was always pegged as the guilty one and the fact that he had a tendency to want to find out what would happen if he did ____fill in the blank___ didn't help) Oh yeah, Russell is now 17 and is still giving me stories like this to tell. In fact one of the reasons I'm telling this one and the next few, is to lead up to a more recent one that I want to tell. The pictures are of Russell getting caught about to pull tape and Russell standing on the tape cases. Notice the chin in the second picture!!!! Yes, he was a faaaaaat baby. He was about the same age as the second picture when the story above took place.
I had just come home from Wal-Mart and put the bags on my bed. I pulled out the new pair of jeans I had bought for my husband and laid them on the bed so he would see them. Then grabbing the new boxes of dishwasher and laundry detergent, I headed into the other room to put them away.
My oldest daughter, Megan was 5 at the time and had rushed into the living room to watch Sesame Street. Russell, my barely-2-year-old, had occupied himself in front of the tv as well. He would often occupy himself beside his sister as she watched tv even though he wasn't the least bit interested. I took the opportunity of having them settled to start another load of laundry and bring the clothes from the line in.
Everything was quiet except for the sound of the TV and the birds singing outside the open dining room window. I was enjoying being able to fold clothes in peace without having Russell grab things while loudly declaring, "I elp". He would pretend to fold and then drop whatever he had "folded" in the floor to grab another item...or three. I was sitting by the window, humming, folding the clothes on the dining room table, while occasionally staring blissfully at the sunny field outside my window. Daydreaming really. I know. There is no excuse for that!
Somewhere, out of this fog, I realized that an awful lot of time had passed for a two-year-old to be quiet. I walked into the family room to find Megan, still staring blankly at Sesame Street and no Russell. "Where's your brother?" I asked tentatively. Without even looking up from the tv, Megan gave the standard "I dunno".
Now our house was too small for anything to have happened to him without my hearing it, but Russell DID have a penchant for quietly taking things apart. From the time he was old enough to crawl, his father's large collection of Christian tapes were his favorite targets. I can't tell you how many times we found him sitting in piles of unspooled tape getting ready to pull out another long section. We started putting the tapes in cases that locked and any that didn't fit, we kept on top of the stereo. It wasn't long before Russell learned to stack the cases, climb on them, pull himself up and get the unprotected tapes and this was all before he could walk. For some reason he was absolutely enthralled with the ribbon of tape. (See the pictures below)
I was headed down the hall to peek into the rooms to see where he was, when I heard him. He was in my room. When I stepped through the doorway, my jaw hit the floor and I just stood there with my mind trying to wrap around the scene before me.
Having found the Elmer's glue I had just bought, there he was on my bed. My little red-head was bouncing around in circles chanting "uuhuuhuuhuuh" with each bounce. He bounced one complete circle and stopped. Then he squeezed a long stream of glue onto the brand new jeans.
He caught sight of me, in my shocked state, in the doorway In an instant, he was off the bed, past me, and out the doorway, wearing an absolutely felonious grin. There lay my husband's new jeans-sacrificed on the alter of childhood.
*note* This is now known as the "Uuhuuhuuhuuh, Squiiiiirt" story around my house. It is my kids favorite one to tell and hear. The younger ones tell it like they were actually there and they weren't even born yet. "Sweet, little, innocent", redhead, Russell has been the source of MANY such stories. And every one contains the same felonious grin. It has never mattered much that Russell wasn't a bad kid, (Frustrating and mischievious, yes! Bad, no!) it was just that no matter WHAT he did, he always got CAUGHT! (everyone remembers the redhead, whether he was actually in on the act or not, if he was there, he was always pegged as the guilty one and the fact that he had a tendency to want to find out what would happen if he did ____fill in the blank___ didn't help) Oh yeah, Russell is now 17 and is still giving me stories like this to tell. In fact one of the reasons I'm telling this one and the next few, is to lead up to a more recent one that I want to tell. The pictures are of Russell getting caught about to pull tape and Russell standing on the tape cases. Notice the chin in the second picture!!!! Yes, he was a faaaaaat baby. He was about the same age as the second picture when the story above took place.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
My blog was a year old this week!
And I have been wondering what to write since I have been away from it for a couple of months. But I just recieved some beautiful news that I just have to share!
Last summer, my e-mail box seemed to have become "spammer's heaven" in that I recieved, on a daily basis, many e-mails with the "I am from a foreign country and need to hide money from the government so give me your account number" scam. I had gotten to the point where I barely looked at them before hitting "delete". There was this one that came, that caught my eye and I just happened to NOT delete it. While this man said he was from a foreign country, he did not say anything about money. I didn't answer right away, in fact, I wasn't going to. But something about that e-mail stayed with me. I read and re-read that e-mail trying to find where the catch was. I just couldn't find it. It sounded like an honest request for friendship from a brother in the Congo. Being ever skeptical, I posted this in a not-so-veiled attempt to speak in a code that would reveal little, yet seek out the sincerity. ( I would make a terrible secret agent!) I didn't want to be rude, but I had literally been inundated with the spam e-mails and wanted to be careful. I was open with my husband about it all since at that time there was the case of the woman near here who killed her youth-pastor husband after having succumbed to those same kinds of scams and gotten caught. (still not sure I understand why she had to kill him, but...???) I certainly didn't want to respond outside of my husband's council, but he didn't seem to have any misgivings either.
I never expected to recieve a reply to that post, but sure enough...the rest is history. Jean Luc Key and I have been e-mailing back and forth ever since. He has proved to be a friend and, oh, such a blessing. We have swapped pictures back and forth of our families and have held each other up in prayer for everything from bus fees for his daughter to go to school, to a crotchety old van that we needed to survive a long trip. During this time, his wife has been carrying his fourth child.
I got an e-mail from him just a few minutes ago that the baby was born yesterday, and they named her after me! Can you believe it! I was so thrilled and honored! My husband was with me as I read it and he and I both laughed for "Joy" and, well...I also shed tears, of course.
So it is with great honor and thankfulness to God-only He could have been the arranger of our meeting-that I announce the birth of JOY-LOÏS KAJ A KEY on Jan. 12th, 2007! Now I just have to learn to pronounce her name:-) Praise the Lord! I am so blessed by this.
Last summer, my e-mail box seemed to have become "spammer's heaven" in that I recieved, on a daily basis, many e-mails with the "I am from a foreign country and need to hide money from the government so give me your account number" scam. I had gotten to the point where I barely looked at them before hitting "delete". There was this one that came, that caught my eye and I just happened to NOT delete it. While this man said he was from a foreign country, he did not say anything about money. I didn't answer right away, in fact, I wasn't going to. But something about that e-mail stayed with me. I read and re-read that e-mail trying to find where the catch was. I just couldn't find it. It sounded like an honest request for friendship from a brother in the Congo. Being ever skeptical, I posted this in a not-so-veiled attempt to speak in a code that would reveal little, yet seek out the sincerity. ( I would make a terrible secret agent!) I didn't want to be rude, but I had literally been inundated with the spam e-mails and wanted to be careful. I was open with my husband about it all since at that time there was the case of the woman near here who killed her youth-pastor husband after having succumbed to those same kinds of scams and gotten caught. (still not sure I understand why she had to kill him, but...???) I certainly didn't want to respond outside of my husband's council, but he didn't seem to have any misgivings either.
I never expected to recieve a reply to that post, but sure enough...the rest is history. Jean Luc Key and I have been e-mailing back and forth ever since. He has proved to be a friend and, oh, such a blessing. We have swapped pictures back and forth of our families and have held each other up in prayer for everything from bus fees for his daughter to go to school, to a crotchety old van that we needed to survive a long trip. During this time, his wife has been carrying his fourth child.
I got an e-mail from him just a few minutes ago that the baby was born yesterday, and they named her after me! Can you believe it! I was so thrilled and honored! My husband was with me as I read it and he and I both laughed for "Joy" and, well...I also shed tears, of course.
So it is with great honor and thankfulness to God-only He could have been the arranger of our meeting-that I announce the birth of JOY-LOÏS KAJ A KEY on Jan. 12th, 2007! Now I just have to learn to pronounce her name:-) Praise the Lord! I am so blessed by this.
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