¡Bajo cero!

I'm working on my Spanish. I took Spanish in Junior High (middle school), High School, and College but I haven't used it in a while. I'm functional but no where near fluent. In the course of my week, I have about 30 or 40 contacts who speak predominantly Spanish. I let them practice their English on me; I practice my Spanish on them. It really is fun.

I had a very funny conversation this week with one of my friends. After the all to common "hace muy frio" (It's very cold), I continued to tell my friend that the temperature that night was predicted to be "veintinueve grados bajo cero" or 29 degrees below zero. Incredulously, he asked "¿bajo cero?" "Sí, bajo cero." Over and over the rest of the time, he just kept muttering "bajo cero" and shaking his head.

All day the next day, every time I looked at my desktop thermometer, all I could say was "bajo cero."

It is finished (I think)

Right out of high school, I left for Bible college. I didn't finish the first semester because I couldn't find a job and my parents had some unexpected expenses that limited how much they could help.

So, I entered a "career path." I say that sarcastically, but it really was good for me. At 19, I moved 300 miles away from home and took a job as a paste-up artist at a company that produced school curriculum. I learned a lot on that job. Eventually, with on-the-job training, I became a typesetter and that skill still comes in very handy today.

I also met my Hero because of that job. I looked for and found a church home and there he was. We started dating 8 months later and married 10 months after that. So then I was not only on a career path, I was working on my PHT (putting hubby through). He was in Bible college at the time and we chose to make his training a priority with the idea that I would go back to school after he was finished.

And I did. Well, sort of. When we had been married for 6 years, I went back to school. This time I went to community college and I was a math major. I did great. I made good grades and I enjoyed my classes. However, one day, sitting in Calculus class, it occurred to me that while I was good at math, I did not want to spend the rest of my life in a career that required derivatives.

So after three semesters, I concentrated on family and career again for a while. Then, when my Hero actually began to pastor, I quit the workforce to become a full-time wife and mother. (For anyone who thinks that full-time homemaker is a leisurly job, think again. I was busier than ever.) I homeschooled as many as nine kids over a period of 16 years. I played church secretary in between teaching science and grading compositions. I loved every minute of it.

Then the inevitable happened and my kids grew up. I had time on my hands and in the spring of 2005, I went back to school to get my degree. This time I was an English major. I have stories to tell and I wanted to learn to be a better storyteller. I went to the local community college for 3 semesters and earned my Associates of Arts in English. In the fall of 2006, I transferred to the University of Illinois Springfield where I could finish my BA completely online.

The very first semester, I was sicker than I ever remember being. I almost died. Really. I wound up spending the entire month of December in the hospital at the University of Iowa and had surgery twice. As bad as that was, I was bound and determined not to let it interfere with school. (Looking back now, I must've been crazy but I perservered.)

In the spring of 2007, I took a full load again even though I was still recovering, was house bound, and had a visiting nurse every day to tend to me. In April, I went back into the hospital for another surgery and had a heart attack. Now, at this point a sensible person would have probably decided to take a break. If you've read my blog at all, you are probably aware that I am not necessarily a sensible person. I kept going.

I even made decent grades. Today, I finished my last class for my BA in English. If my grades for this semester hold up, I should graduate with honors and maybe even high honors. It's an accomplishment that has been 30 years in the making and I am so glad to be done.

Oh, the "I think" in the title: I'm never sure until I see my final grades. I'm funny like that.

If you think about it

Pray for me. I don't know how much of it I chronicled here in my blog, but between June of 2006 and June of 2007, I was very sick. Actually, I've had endometriosis since at least 1982. That led up to the major health problems I had in the time frame mentioned. I spent 4 days in ICU, required 7 units of blood, and 5 days in CCU.

I thought that the surgeries fixed everything and I had a few things that needed "cleaned up" but other than that, the endometriosis adventure was ended.

I might have been wrong.

I've had some pain in the past few days. It's an all too familiar pain but I kept thinking "it can't be." Then tonight I read that 15% of women who have a total hysterectomy to treat endometriosis still have a reoccurence.

I think I may cry.

I'm making a doctor's appointment tomorrow, but can I tell you that the medical professionals really shuffle their feet on this one? I don't know what God has for me, but He's brought me this far.

I'll just have to keep trusting.

Saturday Already?

Here it is the weekend and I haven't blogged at all since Monday… you probably didn't even miss me. The first couple of weeks of any semester are always a little more frantic for me. This semester I have a professor who is, well, a little different than most I have had. In fairness, she is not originally from the United States and so it is probable that the difficulty I am having grasping her expectations are a cultural communication gap. I'm figuring it out but I've had to devote a little more time that I expected just to setting up the assignments.

My coworker at the clinic was on vacation all week so that left me (almost) solo for the first time. Some other things have come up in the course of the week.

All of the absence excuses aside, I have a question (or two) for the couple of you who read here. My main purpose for finishing school has been that I really think God is going to have me write a couple of books. One will be a memoir of sorts of my mother tentatively titled My Mother was a Pigeon. She was mentally ill but life was never boring and there are so many things to learn from her.

Beyond that, I have a couple of ideas tumbling around in my head. (It's a wide open space up there so there is plenty of room for ideas to move about.) Of the following ideas, which one(s) would you read?

A book for pastors' wives: Big Hair and Piano Playing not Required (encouragement for those of us who don't fit the "image")
A book for parents: My Kid's in the Far Country, What Now? (how to cope when your child goes astray)
A book for everyone: It's Too Far From Your Heart to Kill You (The difference between a mishap and a sorrow)

So what do you think?

Today is

Today is the first day of my last semester at the University of Illinois Springfield. I'm taking three classes, 12 hours, this time: Technical and Professional Writing, Greek & Biblical Motifs in Literature, and Early American Literature. I don't think it will be a really hard semester but my blogging may be a little more sporadic. We shall see.

My Computer Journey

I am a Mac Geek! Yep, Apple all the way since 1989.


This was what our first computer looked like. It was an Apple SE with 1 mb of RAM and, get this, a 20 mb hard drive. We were screeching fast! I did publish, print and distribute a homeschool record-keeping system with this thing and we ran all of our church records on it.

The day came when the SE was just a little too sluggish. If you had a computer back then, you might remember clicking to open a file, going and doing a load of laundry and coming back to check if the file was open yet. That was fun. So we upgraded to this little baby — an LCIII otherwise known as the Performa 476. We had color and AOL with a portal to the World Wide Web. And boy, we had a 28.8 external modem. A new age had dawned.


For a little bit anyway. Then the Internet was starting to catch on and Steve Jobs gave us the iMac — one button access to the WWW. It was so popular that other companies started making toasters and curling irons in Bondi Blue. I still have a Bondi Blue scanner in a closet somewhere.


That little computer was my right arm for several years but eventually, it graduated to a designated church computer and I got the white wonder for my personal use. We lovingly named this guy Petrie because he reminded us of the baby pteradactyl in The Land Before Time. He could bob his head ever so cute.

Then last year, I moved up to the BIG time and I mean big — 24" screen. It is so cool for working in Photoshop. I can have two or three pictures open side by side and do all sorts of things. This is the computer I am using today to type this. This computer is not being replaced but rather I am adding to my collection. Any day now, the friendly delivery driver will pull up in front of my house and bring me one of these:
A MacBook Pro. And I am excited. For the past 10+ years, my Hero has forbidden me to have a laptop. He said it was for my own good because I needed to get away from my computer and my work sometimes, but he has finally consented. I can't wait to see the things I will be able to do with this new jobbie! I can sit in my recliner and watch Food Network and surf all at the same time… oh, yeah, and study and work on school, and do my church duties, too.

I start my new job tomorrow!

Last week, I submitted my resume to this company. Yesterday, I interviewed and tested. Tomorrow I start working. Did I tell you my head is spinning? I think I like it though. Remember when you were a kid and spun round and round until you got so dizzy you fell down? And then you did it again? What?! You didn't do that? Okay, must be just me. But that was fun.

Sometimes, when life seems to spin out of control, I just close my eyes and enjoy the ride. I know I am safe in the hands of my Saviour. Even when I fall down, I get up and do it again.

I'll be gone

Until at least Sunday, I will be traveling with my Hero. We are going to see family and friends over the holiday.

But, I'll be back!

The floods in Iowa are receeding

The waters are moving downriver on their quest for the sea, the next stage in the never-ending water cycle. The media cameras have followed and are covering the scramble in Missouri to shore up the levees and move possessions to higher ground.

Left behind is mud — mud and the pieces of lives that will slowly but surely be put back together. I can't watch the news at night without hurting for those who have lost their earthly possessions but with one voice echo the thought that "we have our family, and that's what counts."

It is the people around us that ultimately matter. I wish we, as Americans, were more aware of that when we aren't facing disaster.

Video of the flooding from the Quad Citites Times

More pictures of flooding: Davenport, IA June 2008

Here are more pictures I took in Davenport of the second flood of 2008. All of these were taken on Saturday, June 15. The Mississippi actually crested on Monday, June 17.

The cars in the background on this first picture would have been under water at the crest.

Flooding in Davenport, Iowa June 2008

The red line on the far right in the picture is the usual bank of the river.


Just a guess, but I think the trains will be running a little late today.


I didn't know the name "River Drive" was a literal term.


The name "Levee Gone" might be more appropriate.


Exit to where?


I think the detour signs are a bit unnecessary, don't you?


Aw, why not?!


Maybe Jetski parking!


Where's his snorkel?

Again and again

This is getting to be way to common. We have storms and then a break and then more storms and on and on. The weather forecasters keep promising a break but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe in a few weeks we will be sweltering and wondering where the rain went, but I'm not so sure.

Rain is good. We haven't had to water the grass at all. On the flip side, it's funny to watch everyone scramble to mow the ever growing grass in between the downpours. My flowers are doing great! They love the rain and I keep them protected from the strongest winds and they repay me with their glory.



Too much rain is not so good. Some farmers are still waiting to get the equipment into soggy fields to plant. The corn that has been planted is struggling. Some entire fields have been washed out. Others are sitting in standing water — good for rice, not for corn. As if the price of corn isn't inflated enough due to ethanol, now there won't be enough corn because of the floods.

Right where I live in Iowa, we've been spared much of the storms' furies, but there are places all over the state that have not been so blessed. I hurt for them.

I know that this, too, shall pass. I do ask that you pray for all those who have suffered from the storms and floods.

Emma is here!!!

She was born at 10:01 am weighing 6 lbs. 2.9 oz and 18.25 inches long with a head full of brown hair! Momma and baby are doing well. I will post pictures as soon as I get them.

A New Car! (And other stuff)

This weekend, we did something we have never done. We bought a new car. We bought a 2008 Suzuki Forenza and I love it. For the past 15 years, we driven either a minivan or a full-size van and now we've graduated to an empty-nesters' car!

So, of course, when you get a new car, you go for a ride. Here is what we saw on our ride:


This coy little goose was kind enough to pose for us.


And do you know what this is?


It's the underside of the I-80 bridge over the Mississippi River.


And finally, we have the most glorious sunsets in Iowa.

My granddaughter is on the way.

At 9 am this morning, they prepared to wheel my daughter in for a C-section. It is ripping my heart apart that I can't be there with her. She is 1400 miles away and with the current price of gasoline and air travel, it's just not possible.

Sometime later today, my precious Emma will enter the world already loved beyond measure by her Nana and her God.

And then the sun came out

We had a toad-strangler! It rained buckets almost all day yesterday, but then the clouds cleared and here is what I found.







It's always so fresh and clean after the rain!

My New Neighbors

Meet my new neighbors! I saw him in the neighborhood earlier this week and wondered if he was just visiting or if they had moved in nearby. I knew if I saw his woman, that they were probably here to stay. Yesterday, I saw him again and he was chasing some unwanted visitors away. I knew then she couldn't be very far away.

This morning, there they were.


She's a little harder to spot, but she was only a couple of feet away from him.



Welcome to my neighborhood!

Back Door Visitor

I've been thinking about all of my friends and family that I keep in touch with primarily through the Internet. Many, if not most of them, I've met in person and we have real-time relationships. But almost all of them live too far away to visit often.

I wish that were not true. I wish each one of you could make your way up my back steps and knock on this door. I'd welcome you in and laughingly apologize for the few dishes in the sink. I'd move my quilt materials to one side on the kitchen table so we could sit down and enjoy a big glass of iced sweet tea, or we could make our way into the living room and sit down and chat.

I know we'd laugh. We could talk about our families and our lives without worrying about spell-check. All too soon, it would be time to part again, but both of us would treasure the memory of an afternoon spent with a friend.

Back door friends are best.

Looking for my Blogging Voice

As I've worked over the past several months to hone my blogging skills, I've struggled with my "blogging voice." I mean, what is it I want to concentrate on. In thinking about this I decided to start a sister blog: Grace & Salt. Grace & Salt is actually the name of our Ladies Fellowship at our church. On the sister blog, I will blog all of my devotional thoughts. On Nana's Faith (this blog), I will blog more about my crafts, my photography, and funny things I think about. I will probably post things about my family and our family history here, too. (I'm still considering starting a third blog, just for my genealogy stuff.)

I hope these changes work.