I haven't written in over a week...

...because I've just been too tired, and had nothing to write about. Well, that's not really totally true. The being-too-tired part is, but not the nothing-to-write-about thing. I have so many things that race through my mind each day, but finding time to sit down and actually address them in writing is nearly impossible. I would say I've had nothing to write about when I've had the five or ten minutes to sit down and stare at the "New Post" screen. There's honesty.

This week I'm going to try just writing a little bit each day.

Yesterday I was out of the house for most of the day, which I don't like to do on a Saturday. I really need to clean the house! From 8:30 to 12:30 Mary and I were gone to an American Heritage Girls event. We got home, ate lunch, and then I had to go get a few groceries to last until tomorrow afternoon when I can do a big grocery shopping trip. At 2:30 we had to leave to go down to the Historic District so Mary could participate in a scavenger hunt with our homeschool support group's high school group. The mom who organized it used a local company that sets up scavenger hunts in one area of the Historic District. There were about 16 kids there, and they all had a blast. Mary wound up on a team with 3 teens she didn't know, but that didn't phase her. She made three new friends, and their team won!

During the scavenger hunt my friend Cindy, (whose son Aaron is Mary's age and also went on the scavenger hunt) and I went to Panera and hung out having a cinnamon crunch bagel with honey-walnut cream cheese, chai tea, and excellent conversation. She's always so much fun to be around, and we talk about everything together. I usually talk to her on the phone every couple of days, anyway, but it was nice to have about an hour and a half to just sit, have a yummy snack, and discuss life. The weather was gorgeous, there were tourists everywhere, and I was impressed again with what a blessing it is to live in such a beautiful city.

Once Mary and I got home I had to make supper, clean up from supper, and then prepare to make food this morning for our fellowship.

Tonight I still have to write up Mary and Bobby's schedule of lessons for the week.  So off I go.

Still Recovering

In my last post, We Survived Camping, I touched briefly on the subject of my difficulty actually sleeping in a sleeping bag on the ground. Even with two foam pads and an extra sleeping bag under me, I had a lot of trouble getting sleep. Two nights of tossing and turning cramped up in a sleeping bag left me with a considerable sleep deficit and an aching lower back and hips. I'm still recovering from that. Even though the last three nights I've been in my own comfy bed, sleeping seven or eight hours a night, I still feel tired and achy. The older I get the longer it takes me to bounce back from losing sleep. I really need to figure out something different for our next camping trip.

Too Many Things to Do

Yesterday was a much better day weather-wise here in Savannah. It was sunny and breezy, and fairly warm. Last night it went down into the 30s and today is supposed to be cooler, but still sunny.  I can handle this sort of weather!

I really want to make a habit of writing something every day, but it doesn't seem like a realistic goal. I simply have too many things to do each day to be able to carve out the time to sit down and write. Even now, I should be doing other things which I am neglecting to be able to write this. I need to figure out how to have guilt-free blogging time.

Today my to-do list is extensive since Mary and I are going camping this weekend with her American Heritage Girls troop. Here's my list:

1. Homeschool Mary and Bobby, making sure they are prepared for all their co-op classes tomorrow. Grade all of their daily work today, and write lesson plans for next week. I could put off the lesson-planning until Sunday night, but I'll probably be too tired.
2. Prepare to teach my two classes at the co-op tomorrow. This one is mostly done already!
3. Keep the house clean.
4. Cook meals. Assign clean-up duties in the kitchen.
5. Teach piano for two and a half hours.
6. Go shopping for the all the food for the campout, as well as easy-to-fix food for the rest of the family to eat while we are gone.
7. Laundry. (that's an every-day thing!)
8. Get all the camping gear out of the shed and load it in the van.
9. Pack up the food and all other needed items for camping in big Rubbermaid containers.
10. Pack my own clothing, etc. for camping; be sure Mary packs hers.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything. Also, let me admit that my children will help with a lot of these, and Eric will help with the camping gear when he gets home from work. I'm not a one-woman show; my family is wonderfully willing to assist in all these duties. But I'm the organizer and director, so I have to keep the list in mind.

One other thing: my oldest is suffering with a bad head cold. If you read this please pray for her. She's pretty miserable.

Off I go. I'll write later about how it all worked out.

Fighting something off...

Yesterday my husband felt sick all day (stomach issues) and now today both girls and I have been fighting something off.  Not fun.

I'll be back on here tomorrow. Time to get some sleep.

What Have We Been Doing?

I haven't written on my blog since July. I've had several people ask me why. I figure the best way to explain is to write about what we are doing these days in our family, since I actually have a few minutes to sit down and write on here.

Eric is working about 65 hours a week at J.C. Bamford here in Savannah. They make skid steer vehicles, and he inspects them as they come off the line for defects. He's exhausted pretty much all the time. And yet he makes the effort to hang out with the kids and me in the evenings, and is keeping a good sense of humor about life in general. We try to keep our evenings fairly free so we can spend time with him.

Caroline just finished her first semester at Armstrong Atlantic State University. She's living at home while attending college, and working her same job at Chick-fil-A. I'm proud to say that she got a 4.0 GPA her first semester in college while working 15+ hours a week. Good girl!

I'm home schooling Mary (9th grade) and Bobby (7th grade); more about that in a minute. I'm also teaching 15 piano/1 voice students. I'm also teaching three classes of Spanish (2 classes of Spanish 1 and 1 class of Spanish 2--how's that for confusing?) at our home school co-operative every Friday. I'm also one of the leaders of Mary's unit in the local American Heritage Girls Troop 2007, which meets on Tuesday nights. This all adds up to not a whole lot of free time. It's all great stuff, and I'm enjoying it all, but it just means that time to spend online is limited.

About the home schooling:  a lot of people don't seem to realize that home schooling by itself, if being done diligently, is a full-time job. It involves selecting appropriate curriculum for each child, creating yearly goals, writing weekly lesson plans, and THEN spending time each day helping each child learn: math, language arts, history, science, etc. After they are done with each day's work it must be corrected and evaluated. These things don't just magically happen. A home schooling mom has to stay organized and persevere so that she and the kids do not fall behind. In addition, we have to plan extra-curricular activities so that our kids have some fun along with their hard academic work.

So why haven't I been blogging?  Well, I have a full-time job home schooling two of my kids, and a part-time job (8 hours a week)  teaching music, and another part-time job (approximately 5-6 hours a week) teaching at the co-op. With all of that and keeping the house clean, doing the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, etc....well, blogging has not been a top priority.  And before anybody comments: yes, my children do help with household chores, and yes, I know that they are not toddlers anymore and can do a lot of their school work independently, and yes, I know that many people have extremely busy lives that are much harder than mine.  I'm not complaining about anything here; I really do love my life as it is right now.

And with  that, I'm off to wrap presents!

Next post:  what we are doing for home school this year.

On How Our School Year is Going...

It has been an eventful August and September, and October is already shaping up to be busy as well.  I love the new planner I bought.  It has helped Mary and Bobby be a lot more self-directed in their work.  We've (I've) also done a lot better staying organized this year, and keeping up with all the corrections and grading I need to do.  Here is our each of us are doing:


I am still teaching all three kids at home.  I also teach piano two afternoons a week, and have more people interested, so that may increase to three afternoons a week.  In addition, I'm teaching two classes on Fridays at our home school co-operative, Kingdom Builders.  The two classes are Expository Writing and Biology; I have a dozen students in each class.   I challenge anyone who thinks home schooling isn't a full-time job to come spend a week with us!


Caroline is working about 15 hours a week now (Chick-Fil-A) in addition to doing her Senior year. At home she's taking Pre-Calculus, Advanced Chemistry, Health, and Literature/Language Arts/Grammar.  Through the co-op she's taking my writing class to supplement her language arts at home, Art, and Yearbook/Advanced Photography.  She is a very busy girl!  She will graduate from high school next May, and is already in the process of college applications.


Mary is an 8th grader this year.  At home she's studying Algebra I, Sonlight Core 7 World History and Literature, Human Anatomy, BJU Grammar & Writing;  through the co-op she's taking Geography, Cooking, and Art.  She's also teaching herself to write left-handed this year by using an elementary-level handwriting book to make herself write left-handed every day.  She draws ALL the time, too.  She has also just joined a local American Heritage Girls troop, and will begin to work on badges for that.


Bobby is in the 6th grade, and he's realizing that school doesn't get any easier as you get older.  He's taking Geography, American History, and Art through the co-op; at home he's doing Math 7, Zoology (Land Animals,) Handwriting, BJU Grammar & Writing, and for Literature (the pièce de résistance) he is doing Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings.  It's a great curriculum that incorporates Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Shakespeare as well as the LOTR trilogy.  Right up his alley.  He is also a Tenderfoot rank scout in Troop 47 and is working on merit badges for scouts.


Obviously, we are all pretty busy.  Our other current events:


#1    My sweet husband will be stepping down as pastor of our current church at the end of October.  He has explained this over at his blog, in the post I linked and in another called "Reasons for Resigning."  We love the people at Chevis Oaks!  We will continue to be friends with them and I hope we'll continue to sharpen and edify one another as Christians.


#2   We were able to buy a nice four-year-old van a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the incredible generosity of my in-laws as well as the dogged efforts of our friend Rickey Tyre, who found the van for us at an auction.  It's such a relief to have an newer vehicle and not be worried about breakdowns, A/C not cooling well, etc. The van is a Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.  Nice.


#3    Bobby is the Honored Hero for the Savannah Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night Walk on October 15th.  Our family has a team, creatively named Team Carpenter, and we'll be walking that night along with hundreds of other Savannahians who are trying to raise money for people with various blood cancers.  Our team page is here.


#4    A month ago we bought a Wii, with Wii Fit Plus.  I'll write a longer post about it later, but we are all loving getting off the couch and playing sports as well as other fitness games together.  I have started to lose weight and tone up, and I feel so much better.  More soon on that.

ENT Visit *UPDATE at the end*

So....I went to the ENT on Monday.  He is going to send me to a sleep center at a local hospital for a full sleep study.  That was the not-so-surprising part of the consultation.  The surprising part was when the nurse practitioner, who did my work-up before I met with the doctor, was palpating my neck area and asked, "Now Alice, when is the last time you had an ultrasound of your thyroid?"  I told her I've never had one done.  She proceeded to ask me a lot of questions about my hypothyroid condition.  Then she told me that I have a "nodule" in my thyroid......yup, a "nodule."  Nice medical-terminology for lump or cyst.  She had the doctor come in and feel it also. He found it right away.  He explained that 95% of thyroid nodules are benign and just need to be watched, while 5% are malignant.  My next step will be to have an ultrasound with a fine needle aspiration (biopsy.)  I love how in the medical community everything has a nice, neat euphemism or acronym:  nodule, FNA.....it enables us to speak about serious things without saying scary things like "lump" or "biopsy."    They also talked to me about the possibility of my thyroid problems actually being Hashimoto's disease, which would explain a lot about why I'm having such a hard time getting my thyroid medicine regulated.

Here is a link to the Google Health page on thyroid nodules.  You'll notice that they say "lump" right away. They also have a link to Hashimoto's if you scroll down the page.

I'm so glad that I know Who is in control of all of this, and that He is the same "Who" who loves me and gave Himself for me, to ransom and redeem me, and who works in me to conform me to His image.  He has taught me to rest in Him and have peace.

UPDATE:  My biopsy is scheduled for next Wednesday 10 a.m.

The More Things Change....

The more they stay the same....

If things go much longer this way I may have to give up the blog entirely. I have so many things floating around inside my head, brewing and boiling, and yet rarely have time to sit down and write about them. Even now, as I'm writing this, there are other more pressing responsibilities that I'm ignoring. If I don't blog, I feel guilty, and if I do blog, I feel guilty. It's time to go somewhere and indulge in a primal scream.

I wrote that in September 2006 before we headed overseas. Here it is 3 1/2 years later and it's still the same story. I think I need a new approach---perhaps just blogging a little here and there about more mundane things, not thinking that I have to expound on a subject and sound smart all the time....


So here goes:


Today we're doing school as usual, and Caroline isn't feeling well.  I think it's allergies.  It's cloudy and rainy, which I'm sure people will complain about, but we need the rain after so many years of drought.  My scarlet amaryllis (which my friend Allison gave me for Christmas) is starting to bloom.  I'll post a picture of it when it does.  Later today I have piano students, and then tonight I have Women's Missionary Union, which should both be worthwhile endeavors.  I'm currently reading or re-reading several books:

Pride and Prejudice (teaching it in my AP Brit Lit course)
Frankenstein (will be teaching it in a couple of weeks)
Pontius Pilate (Christian historical fiction)
The Time Travelers Guide to the Medieval World (just for fun)
David Livingstone (YWAM biography)
The Bedside, Bathtub, & Armchair Companion to Jane Austen
Genesis, Mark, Job and Romans (reading through the Bible in a year using this resource)


So there you have it, all three of you who still read this blog!  More later today....

Do you ever feel like this?

Once again...

we are at my favorite place on earth, Seneca Lake. One reason why I love it here:

My older daughter took that picture last night as we sat around the fire talking, toasting marshmellows, eating s'mores, and drinking coffee.

We're Cool....

We are back in normal temperatures in our house, thank God. A nice man came Thursday morning and fixed our AC unit, HALLELUJAH! We got out of here while the house cooled down and took the kids bowling and to Chik-Fil-A for lunch. I haven't posted since Wednesday night because I couldn't get online here in the house and was too lazy to walk over to the church to do it. But this morning the internet is up and running here in the house, also a reason for praise. If it's still on later, I'll post about the great weekend we just had. Right now I have to leave and take Mary to the neurologist for her annual check-up.

For Shannon, Renata, and Chandra: Thanks, my wonderful sisters, for your comments on the last post. I miss all of you a lot! Wish I could teleport and suddenly be with people I miss...but that's a subject for another post.

Vacation recovery, VBS, and Vertigo

We came home and spent a week recovering from our trip. Doing laundry, cleaning the house, finally doing my home school curriculum order, and spending some much-needed time with my husband filled the first week back. Then last week we had VBS at our new church. It kicked off on Sunday night and lasted through Thursday night, averaging 200 people each night. I helped in the Craft Shack, and had a blast. It was fun, if exhausting, to work with the children. I also had a great time getting to know the people I was working with. We are blessed to be at a church with a lot of people who have a great sense of humor and who enjoy laughing together.

The one blot on my week was on Tuesday morning when I woke up and the room was spinning. This condition, which is called vertigo, has plagued me a time or two before, and it comes from my having too much fluid in my inner ear canal. I usually take Zyrtec every day, and had forgotten to do so. Twice before vertigo has hit me in the evenings, which is not really a problem since I can just go to bed. This time it hit as soon as I got up. I couldn't keep my eyes open, or walk around without becoming nauseated. I spent the entire morning lying on the couch as perfectly still as I could. I took decongestant as well as Zyrtec, and by about 2 p.m. I could at least get up and walk around slowly, holding my head as steady as possible. I didn't go to VBS that night. On Wednesday I still felt a little dizzy, but by Thursday I was up'n'at'em.

On a very sad note, I read an e-mail today from my friend Denise, to find out that a little boy I've been praying for, Jair, has gone home to be with the Lord. He was fighting cancer and seemed to be doing great when, after the doctors tried an autologous bone marrow transplant, he reacted badly and became very ill. His parents, Teo and Lety, are now grieving the loss of their little boy. This hits me pretty hard. I can imagine their pain.

Also, this last week I tried to e-mail my friend Hilda in Puerto Rico, whose husband passed away in May due to cancer, and have not heard back. Nildi, I tried to write to you--did you get it? I love you!

I forgot...

to mention that a few years ago my in-laws went on a "small ship" cruise off the coast of New England on a ship named....the Schooner Nathaniel Bowditch. Pretty cool, huh? I'm glad there are still things being named for him. I also forgot to mention his method of learning a language: get a grammar of that language, a dictionary, and a copy of the Bible. Go to John chapter 1 and start translating! After having learned Latin and French, when he started learning Spanish he discovered he already knew most of the words. What a great guy. Reading the book has inspired me to continue with my Hindi studies, and perhaps one day to actually conquer French.

More later today on another book.

Spring has Sprung in the South

Yes, I'm still alive, any of you who have checked my blog and despaired of me ever writing again. We were gone for three weeks, and then our internet wasn't working, and now it is, and here I am. So--what's new with us? Well, we are withdrawing from service with our company as of March 15th, and my husband is job-hunting. We have all had a terrible "flu-like" upper respiratory infection, and are just getting over it. Our son Bobby had a PET scan a few weeks ago that was NOT clear, but he was sick at the time, so he has to have it repeated in a few weeks. The doctor thinks it's a false positive. But I ask myself these days--at what point will I stop wondering if the cancer is coming back? When does life REALLY get back to normal? What is "normal" anyway? As for blogging--I sympathize with my friend Renata--I, too, have so many things going through my head that it's hard to know where to start blogging.

The blessings have continued:
--Time spent with my parents, my brother Jon and his family, and our friends the Irwins.
--Rothwell Baptist Church is still letting us live in their "Chatham House."
--Unexpected financial blessing from some friends who were led by the Lord to send us some money.
--It's great to live so near Eric's parents, and his sister and her husband (and Teddy--let's not forget Teddy!)
--I've been able to talk to my Indian friend Pintu a few times on Skype--it has been wonderful to be in contact with her. And she assures me that if we go back to visit, we are always welcome in their home. What a lovely woman she is!

I've been reading. (duh!) Those of you who know me well know that I'm never without two or three books-in-progress. I'll just list some of my recent or current books, and next post I'll review one of them:
Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham
Culture Shift by Al Mohler
What's So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D'Souza
The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham

Home schooling calls, so I'll leave you with some pictures I took this morning in our front yard. (These are especially for my parents :) ENJOY!!!

Our Hairs are Numbered

So, I haven't posted in almost three months, and several of my relatives--my Dad and Mom, brother Peter, and sister Mary--have all nicely nagged me to get back to writing. I sure haven't stopped thinking....I guess my problem is that I'm always thinking that I need to have something earth-shattering to write about before I can post, or that my posts must be finely-crafted, witty, worthy-of-publication pieces. Well, enough of that. I'm going to start writing several times a week, even if it's utter nonsense.

Lately I've been thinking about Luke 12:7 "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

Our family read the verse last week during family devotions, in its context of Luke chapter 12. But that verse just keeps playing over and over in my head. It has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I've always thought of it this way: God knows us each intimately in every way, even our bodies. But I never really thought of its literal meaning--He actual knows EACH OF OUR HAIRS. This year that means much more to me. I watched my son lose all his hair in April and May, then remain bald for three months. He was devastated, and refused to let most people see him without a hat on his head. His hair re-grew during July and August, first coming back in dark brown and very fine, like baby hair. Today it is back to his normal thick, wavy, beautiful coppery-red. Just the thought that God knows each of Bobby's hairs, and has caused them all to re-grow, is a beautiful thing. It shows us just how detailed our Creator is. It also tells me that God knows every cell of Bobby's body, and is in control of his recovery from cancer. What an amazing God!

No, I haven't lost the ability to think...

I know, I'm delinquent in my blogging...But I have been thinking a lot about many things. Just not writing about them.

Actually, we went on a 3 1/2 week trip during which we had limited internet access, and then came home to messed up internet access. Any internet time usually went to my husband, who has to post on TBNN. Well, he doesn't HAVE to...

Our trip was awesome. I saw all of my siblings all together in one place, which hasn't happened since July 5th, 1991, when Eric and I got married. I saw my wonderful parents re-affirm their vows after 50 years of marriage. We spent two weeks at my parents' house, some of that time with my brother Peter and his family, and then we spent a week at Seneca Lake, my favorite place on this earth. On the way home we stopped at Gettysburg and learned more about the battlefield and the battle itself.

Back at home, things with us have sort-of normalized in that we no longer spend half our time in the hospital. Bobby's central line was removed before we went on our trip, which made things much easier. I didn't have to take boxes of syringes filled with saline and heparin, tons of alcohol prep pads, and dressing change kits in order to care for his line. We just didn't have to worry about it at all! But things are not normal in that we still don't really know what we're doing, future-wise. I find this very unsettling and strange. My whole life I've always had a plan. I've always known what was coming next. Now, I'm just waiting...It's not a terrible place to be, just weird.

I'm currently reading The Roots of Endurance by John Piper, a set of biographical sketches of Charles Simeon, John Newton, and William Wilberforce. It's good so far--I'll write about it when I'm done.

We were really happy last week to find out about an Indian grocery store here in Savannah. It's called Shivam, and, in true Indian fashion, can only be found by word-of-mouth directions, since the storefront doesn't face the street but rather is perpendicular to the street, and nobody would ever know it's there. One of Bobby's doctors who is Indian told me about it. We were pleased to see that they sell most of the products that we had come to use/know/love over in India: besan (garbanzo flour,) naan, Indian-made "biscuits" (i.e. cookies,) vegetable seasoning, Limca (a soft drink,) dosa mix, and some cheater-type seasoning packets for butter chicken, tandoori chicken, etc. So now I can cook Indian food to my heart's content. I do miss some things about India, and the amazing food is one of them. I will never forget sitting with my friend Pintu, eating samosas that were so spicy they could make your hair stand on end. They were wonderful.

Another thing that has made life more normal is that we have started our school year. Caroline is doing 9th grade this year, Mary 5th, and Bobby 3rd. We are excited to get going on the year, and the kids are being really good about it. Bobby is having a little bit of difficulty getting into "school" mindset after the last few months, but he's getting there. Notice that instead of a school book he's holding up a Spiderman folder. That should tell you where his mind is.

I'm going to try to keep blogging regularly now that we have our internet up and running again, thanks to Devin Bell, the pastor at Rothwell Baptist Church. THANKS, DEVIN!!!

More soon....