Another Book Bomb!

Well, if you've been reading around here the last 6 months or so, you'll know I'm a fan of a formerly obscure man, Michael Bunker. His most recent book, Surviving Off Off-Grid; has served to sharpen the focus & direction of our family & marriage. It has done the same for some other friends & family of ours & made us more aware of God's working & Sovereignty in our lives.

The reviews on Amazon are overwhelmingly positive; the last book bomb moved it to #26 on the best sellers list & #2 on the Movers & Shakers list.

Since this is so, we're very pleased & anxious about the follow up companion book, Modern Religious Idols coming out July 8th. It goes more in depth exploring the personal blockades people put up to excuse their disobedience before God. If you are grateful when a brother or sister can point out sin & disobedience in your life (this should be everyone), this book is for you. If you are thankful for the Holy Spirit making you uncomfortable during a sermon when it hits too close to home, this book is for you. If you strive to get & be into the habit of working out your salvation w/ fear & trembling, this book is for you.

Unlike Surviving Off Off-Grid, I've not read it prior to the book bomb; I'm as excited as everyone else! This Friday, July 8th, get it at Amazon!

A Humbling Fieldtrip

I don't think many people have ever taken their children to a Holocaust museum & were surprised at what they found. I kind of did that by taking a field trip 2 weeks ago to the town of Valdese for their Trail of Faith celebration. Have you ever heard of them? I had heard that they were persecuted but due to my lack of exposure or background, I was thinking more like Richard Wurmbrand; the Catholic church made Nazis look like kindergarten teachers. Valdese was founded by the Waldensians, a little known Christian remnant that God was gracious enough to preserve until the reformation came about. This post, like most of my posts was getting unwieldy, so it shan't be as thorough as I'd have liked, but check out this link for eye witness accounts of the times; turn the pages.
They immigrated to America to start a new life after the atrocities inflicted by the Catholic church ended & the land would no longer support their numbers. Quite a few reproductions & original pieces are included in the year-round display we visited. My camera was on internal memory mode for some reason, rather than memory card so I didn't get the number of pictures I wanted. We started at the end of the trail because the children were not as initially enthused over the field trip as I was & the entrance & engines were at the end of the trail so that's where we gravitated.

The actual beginning was their seminary, much of it was locked up. They did have the illustrations from the above link however. We are not big criers at our house, maybe on an annual basis for me, depending on if I'm carrying at the time. Reading all of those descriptions in the olde engliſh & their illustrations was more than enough to make me tear up. I know a lot of people like to change the subject or only think of happy things or the bright side or whatever it takes to stay in their comfort zone & keep their sensitivities anesthetized. For my part, I think that's a grave mistake, as bad as over exposure & callousing them. People never change & are always capable of these things. Total depravity is total.


Charlotte is a week or two away from her 3rd birthday in this picture. Can you imagine being an old man, or pregnant woman crawling in to worship on your hands & knees? Or crawling to fresh air to be shot coming out. It's not a smooth wall either but as this was a reproduction, a door was put in on the side for convenience.

The ceiling.


This picture is taken from the platform where the preacher would stand.

So, they left. If you click on the picture it ought to be readable.


The 26th NC Regiment was present & handing out Stars & Bars. The sesquicentennial is big here.




There was another model of house w/ walls 3' thick & the stable underneath for warmth. They didn't realize that winter in the Carolina's isn't nearly as severe as in the Alps. So enough untreated lumber for a 15x15 house for each family was allotted for the winter no matter how many members came over. This is the original half, another 15x15 section was added on later. These little houses can still be seen dotting the area. A deal was made to the group to give them a huge tract of land & a sawmill to sell lumber to other settlers & so pay for the land. They turned out to not be very good w/ the sawmill however & got into debt.

A hit & miss engine, kind of like a huge table saw, but w/ the intent to cut wood like a chainsaw. That nice man was sawing off thin rounds of cedar for free souvenirs to keep in the closets. This was our second stop after the old timey tractors. A LOT of older farm equipment was around & I was pleased that I was able to tell V& C what 90% of it was. Since I couldn't get pictures of everything, that cement structure w/ the spire was the gift of a fountain to the Waldensians from King Charles Albert, so pleased was he w/ their hospitality when he visited. The field stone building is a little one room school & the untreated building is the Tron House, which is pictured above.

V&C holding their rounds watching the sawmill in action. Victor is thrilled, Charlotte nervous because of the noise. Victor is definitely more mechanically inclined.

The original sawmill still in use!

Their church building. Steeples at the time were outlawed. I'm not a big architecture geek but I love the simplicity & thought it was neat to see the Italian influence. A sign out front claims it to be the oldest Protestant church in America. I don't remember if I read that means it was brought over or what.





So, all in all, they ended on a good note after centuries of persecution which, from what I've read the Catholic church has yet to apologize for. I encourage you to look a little deeper, it was a pretty moving field trip & should it still be going on as the chickens grow up, we'll definitley return. They do guided tours throughout the year if you call ahead. Some links:

Their heinous "crimes"

Atrocities inflicted

Inquistion Info.

Valdese site

The movement

Timeline1

Timeline 2

Wikipedia

Milton's poem & synopsis

Of the Sects of Modern Heretics, 1254

Wild Fare

We have been blessed to get some old timey, local knowledge from my mother in law's neighbor & it has changed our menu (considerably, I think) for the better. She was gracious enough to come & walk our property w/ us, pointing things out to us explaining what they were good for & how to prepare them. Meet our new green, the poke-weed.

Now, I'm not big on greens. I like raw spinach & being located a little more southernly than I was raised I've tried the local fare. (Livermush w/ Cheerwine, anyone?) I'm not big on kale, collards, turnip or mustard greens. I'll eat them but I won't relish them like this Poke-weed. It's delicious! Seriously! It has the consistency of canned spinach which I've also never liked, but w/a nutty asparagus flavor. There is one small drawback, & that is that it's poisonous. If you try this, please use more than my paltry blog post to guide you & get a field guide (the human kind, that will literally guide you) to verify. But it's so good!

With any plant you harvest, use a sharp knife. Poke-weed can grow tall & has large leaves but you want a newish plant & the newer smaller leaves off of the crown. It has a thick, fleshy stalk that is light purple when new & darkens considerably as the plant matures. PURPLE=POISON. Avoid cutting the purple altogether, as the plant grows, the purple travels up the stem of the leaves.
This is wild onion & it's starting to be at the end of its season on our property & beginning to go into its reproductive phase. It is small, strong, pungent, & replaces both garlic & onion when you cook. If you do pull it all up, it won't reproduce as there are no cloves, just the single bulb. Leave some for next year.

A tiny scape. Besides the weedy appearance of a patch, scapes are a good indicator of allium maturity. In my domestic garlic patch, I had no scapes last year which is why I thought my garlic all died when I transplanted it from Va. Now I have twice the amount & a goodly harvest waiting for me. Scapes & stems can be chopped & used in any dish where regular green onions would be used, just wash first. I have also heard that you can pickle scapes, but I've not got any experience w/ that.

The bulb.

A poke-weed of advance maturity. They put out purple berries in the fall which are also poisonous but from what I've read, make a good dye. See all of the purple? I did harvest the leaves & cut the stalk back to extend our harvest, but watch for that purple. For the record, we didn't die.

Now to cook! Take your greens, wash & rinse well.

Next boil for 10-15 min. There is death in the pot! Or maybe just some stomach cramps, probably more in elderly, very young, or people w/ compromised imune systems. I'm not offering medical advice, just showing what I did.

DRAIN YOUR FIRST WATER. Then boil it again for another 10-15 min. A second picture would be redundant, so see above again.

DRAIN YOUR SECOND WATER. Repeat glance at below photo if necessary.



The wild onion, cleaned up. I'm throwing in store onion w/ it, I need the garlic flavor.

Squeeze into your garlic press, you ought to have olive oil or bacon grease (hey, we like both) warmed up in your skillet.

Saute. Yes, those are hamburger buns & they were delicious, but not made w/ as much love, they are a bread machine product.

Pick a lot of poke-weed, it does cook down considerably after 2 boilings.

Fry it all up, I threw some lemon pepper & salt on there.

A yummy supper & enthusiastic children! Mine did not eat this batch because of the diced onion as they hate onions & felt deceived & let down when I served it. They both ate all of Mike's who made his w/ just the wild onion. I did eat 2 batches in a 24 hour period once & had some stomach cramps. If you have regularity problems, this will do it for you. We've had it 3x this week w/ no problems, excepting my greediness.

The lowley dandelion is another great green & I've read of ways you can cook all of its parts as well, but here's a simple salad. The plant below has flowers, so it's no good. You want the serrated toothy leaves that haven't budded yet. You also don't want plants where fertilizer has been applied.

Here's a big bunch, just to show the taproot. Dandelion is good for your kidney's & packed w/ vitamin C.

My thumb is on a flower bud so this plant is suspect. The salad from this bunch was heading towards the bitter side, but that's not anything blue cheese can't fix.

Clean & rinse your leaves very well. It's a low plant, so all of the rain spatter is goin to join itself to the underside of your leaves.

Drain it out & repeat until the water washes clean. No, I'm not actually doing that here, I'm playing w/ my photagraphy skills.

Add whatever vegetables you have & use like lettuce! If you've gotten it early enough, it's pretty sweet. I'd give up after June though.

I haven't tried this one yet, but I'm pretty sure that it's lambs-quarters. I plan on washing, cutting & steaming it this week, I'll let you know how it turns out.

I can't tell you how excited we are to see & use God's provision of our land in ways that we've never heard of. My mother-in-law's neighbor is another wonderful blessing & we're thankful for her wisdom & lore in local woodcraft.

Don't Run for the Cure, Educate

I'm waxing political again but when everyone learned of the dangers of smoking, the tobacco industry was crippled. As a user of the pill for 7 years this information was fairly new to me & I'm thankful for the renewed mindset that kept me off. How many people do you know involved w/ pink ribbons were never informed of this?


Surgeon: birth control pill a ‘molotov cocktail’ for breast cancer
by Kathleen Gilbert
Mon Dec 06, 2010 18:32 EST



Dr. Lanfranchi speaks at the HLI conference this past weekend. Related Stories
Breast Cancer Link with Abortion and Hormonal Contraceptives Featured in You Tube VideosStudy: Abortion, Hormonal Contraceptives Influence Breast Cancer RiskMajor U.S. Study Shows Oral Contraceptives Increase Breast Cancer Risk 44 %WASHINGTON, D.C., December 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - How often do doctors in America prescribe a Group One carcinogen - one recognized as a “definite” cause of cancer - to otherwise healthy patients?

Answer: as often as they prescribe the hormonal birth control pill.

This little-known fact about the pill was presented by Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a breast surgical oncologist and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, who shared her expertise on the drug at the “50 Years of the Pill” conference in Washington, DC on Friday.

“When is it ever right to give a group one carcinogen to a healthy woman?” she asked the audience. “We don’t have to take a group one carcinogen to be liberated.”

Lanfranchi offered a wealth of statistical data from various sources to support a fact that is known by the medical community to be true yet is rarely acknowledged: use of the pill has been strongly linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. The pill is also believed to increase the risk of cervical cancer and liver cancer.

“This stuff is not new, it’s not magic, it’s in the literature,” she said, linking pill use to the 660 percent rise in non-invasive breast cancer since 1973. “Women want to know, and women have a right to know, what researchers have known for over 20 years.”

She compared media treatment of the pill’s cancer risk to that of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which was found to be carcinogenic in 2002. Once word got out, 15 out of 30 million women in America taking HRT stopped; by 2007, invasive breast cancer in women over 50 for estrogen-receptive positive tumors dropped 11 percent.

Meanwhile, she noted, hormonal contraception - essentially the same drug as HRT and with a similar cancer risk, about 25-30 percent - continues to be touted as harmless and even healthy. And yet, the International Agency on Research of Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified hormonal contraceptives in 2005 as a group one carcinogen along with asbestos and radium.

Unlike the HRT discovery, “I don’t remember one six o’clock news report about that information,” said Lanfranchi.

While even medical textbooks attest to the 30 percent increase in cancer risk, Lanfranchi noted a pervasively dismissive attitude: one British medical textbook she cited said that, “Considering the benefits of the pill, this slight increased risk is not considered clinically significant.”

Not clinically significant? “To whom?” Lanfranchi asked, showing a sobering photograph of one of her own cancer patients, Suellen Bennett. While breast cancer caused by the pill is often caught early, she said, the pill’s “benefits” are hardly a reason not to mention its dangers.

“This is what you have to go through when you’re cured. You lose your hair, you lose your breast,” she said. Had Suellen been told of the risk, Lanfranchi said, “she would very well have been one of those women who would have chosen not to take the pill.”

The surgeon explained that the extra estrogen received by taking the pill not only encourages excessive multiplication of breast tissue - usually a normal occurrence in the menstruation cycle - but, when metabolized, can also directly damage breast tissue DNA.

Because breast tissue remains susceptible to cancer until it undergoes a stabilizing transformation in the childbearing process, said Lanfranchi, the pill is particularly dangerous to women who have not yet had their first child: perhaps the most popular demographic among pill users in the U.S.

To show just how much of a threat the pill posed to young women, Lanfranchi pointed to several statistics, including a 2006 Mayo Clinic meta-analysis that concluded that breast cancer risk rises 50 percent for women taking oral contraceptives four or more years before a full-term pregnancy. In 2009, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that women starting the pill before 18 nearly quadruple their risk of triple negative breast cancer. Even more shocking, Swedish oncologist Hakan Olsson concluded that pill use before the age of 20 increases a young woman’s breast cancer risk by more than 1000 percent.

“It’s like you took this molotov cocktail of a group one carcinogen and threw it into that young girl’s breast,” said Lanfranchi. “Is this child abuse?”

In a world where 50 percent of teenagers are on the pill, Lanfranchi lamented that publicly controverting the deep social dependence on the pill has become nearly impossible - even though the message would save countless women’s lives. She sympathized with doctors who would find the information hard to swallow.

“It’s hard to talk about this because you’re changing a culture ... I want to think that I did good, that I helped my patients, that I did better because of what I did,” she said. “25 years down in my career, when I hear that I’ve been handing out a group one carcinogen for the last 25 years, I’m going to be resistant to that.”


http://www.bmj.com/content/334/suppl_1/s15.short/reply

Oddments

We've been very blessed by our church this last weekend, all of the men came out w/ their chainsaws & helped us clear up some of the mess the loggers left. It was the first time that most of them had been here & we were able to offer free firewood & dirt bike trails to some. We had good fellowship & were really blessed by the body of Christ in action. We had a giant burn pile that kept going all night until God's next blessing...

So far, we've received about 1 & 1/2" of rain, the first in nearly 4 weeks. My fall garden & the fruit trees have been struggling but the forecast is to continue on until Tues. I hope so. It finally got out of the 90's today & is starting to feel like Fall. We live where there is something called "Leafers", a pestilence (say the locals & the Weather channel) that is due in a couple of weeks, clogging the roads so city people can look at trees. Poor city people, I can't feel too smug, wasn't I there last year? No, it was the year before. There but for Grace, etc.

The baby weight is gone & I'm down to my pre-pregnancy numbers of 140. Cheers! (That might be off, I still had Charlotte's baby weight at 145 when I conceived Miranda.) Unhappily, fewer numbers do not equal my clothes fitting; to celebrate I moved my skirt buttons to the very possible ends of their respective tabs. Boo, hiss. I can only take this to mean I burned off all of my under utilized muscle instead of fat storage. I might get it back, I'm certainly not puny. Hauling babies, baskets of wet clothes, buckets of water (the handle broke today :( ) & my new favorite, splitting the wood might put some muscle back on me. I've got the biggest build in my family. Wait, pictures! This is myself, mom & my younger sister. Aren't we fine?

I'm terrible w/ pictures, I didn't get any until the day they left. I need to take a new one of the living room, we've rearranged the furniture & mom brought some things that make it look so homey. Looking at pictures, check out my sisters children, we stacked them w/ mine & decided that they look less like cousins & more like siblings. Our helpers...



Our blondies...

And our babies. There is 7 months between them.

My baby is a vampire, I've not seen this teething order before. Check out her fangs!

Mom also brought a milk crate of books I used to have, like 15 of those Great Illustrated Classics. Victor loves those, we check them out at the library whenever we find one, but I think we've exhausted their supply. Victor asked to read "Swiss Family Robinsonhood" so we've started that. Every time Mike walks by us I am reading a part about the family killing another animal so now we're reading "The Swiss Family Murderson."

And lastly we ran out of jelly this week. Not something to normally blog about, but Victor will eat PB&J every day for lunch if I let him. I usually do let him too, it's easy to balance out & he simply would not believe me. He burst into tears, bargained, threatened fasting, acts of disobedience, canceling our date night & the list goes on for 10 stormy minutes, but no jelly appeared. I was grieved to see this rebellion in him until he quieted down & calmly & forcefully w/ his finger pointed at me w/ this ultimatum, "Mommy if you don't give me peanut butter & jelly to eat, I will throw 3 unkind cats at you & they will scratch your arm!"

Oh how I wanted not to laugh & to be sadder at his rebellion! But I was done for, I've never had unkind cats thrown at me much less 3 of them. He got yogurt & Graham crackers instead.

Prayer Closet/ Quiet Time

One of my favorite privileges as a housewife are the unexpected pockets of prayer. Right now, I am not up to waking up at 5:30 to read & pray. When I did do this I would usually fall asleep & feel angry & disappointed at myself. To escape the negative feelings, I pretty much just gave it up, this being before my conversion. Ironically enough, the more time saving inventions we've done away w/ the more time I have to pray. I have seen some people take literal closets & rooms & convert them for the sole purpose of prayer. I need all of the closet space I can get so I have not one, but two main prayer spaces. See top & my favorite:

I'm seldom alone out there as the baby seat testifies but she doesn't mind as long as I throw in a song, lol. And I'm sorry, the top picture means that any prayer time is prayed away & scrubbed up; this is what is usually going on if there is any praying to be done:

Have you got a spot?

Goats & Trainings

Part of our wanting to move out here was to become more self sufficient; we've got our little garden plot & later this month we're going towards phase II; the goats. Mike & I don't know a whole bunch about goats other than what we've read & that they've got weird sideways eyes. We do know we'd like a dairy/ meat mix & as it happens God has graciously moved my brother & sister in law to just outright give us 2 of their newest nanny kids.

They are some kind of Boer/Nubian mix. Their dam had 4 kids in all, which she is having a hard time nursing & one of the females is the runt so even if not alot of milk comes out of it, we feel blessed to have practice goats. We hope to get a billy next year for breeding & brush. I named the smallest Abigail (I love that name!) & Mike followed up w/ Annie for her sister. Abigail will take the bottle from me & is the runtiest, though the most lively. Annie would have nothing from me except my hair. They both tried to eat my hair & Mike's beard. I'll have picures when they come over to stay.

Apparently we'll have to babysit them quite closely initially. From what I've read they'll break out of anything, eat my garden, laundry, flowers & jump on our vehicles. But they are trainable. (Please correct me, anybody who knows anything about goats!) We hope to train Victor to be the goat master & turn the feeding & watering over to him by the time he's 5 in Jan. He's been so faithful in feeding the cat since he started 2 years ago, I've taken that job from him & am helping Charlotte to do that one. She takes forever to do it w/ her tiny scoops, but she's diligent in picking up each piece that might fall.

Victor's new job is the compost pail. A little red pail sits on our counter & it holds our kitchen scraps to go into the outside pile. Since he's older he gets to choose when to do this chore which pleases him to no end. I was suprised at how jealous he was over keeping his position as cat feeder; I read the story of the 3 servants & the talents to them & he got to it much more cheerfully & dare I say eagerly? He checks it sometime during the day, empties it if it's close to full & rinses it out in the stream so I don't have eggshell bits or coffee grounds in my sink when I wash it.

He is older after his road trip, but a lot more fun. The connections he makes & the way he jokes is just funny. He's alot of fun to just hang out w/. As a bonus he didn't have a single accident at night over at Grandma's & has continued to stay dry all night. I can say HE HAS COMPLETED HIS POTTY-TRAINING, HOORAY! Charlotte since our concentrated training time is also doing much better w/ only 1 or 2 at the most panty changes during the day. I've been able to switch to diaper washing every 2-3 days instead of every night.

It's a girl!

I've not been on for awhile, but you know how it is w/ a new baby. Ha, yes! We welcomed Miranda Pearl to our family last Wednesday. Our homebirth fell through w/ the midwife cancelling on us very late so we did go the hospital route. I met the nurse midwife who attended only 2 days before & out of the 3 at this particular practice, she was my favorite. Maybe because 2 of her 3 children were homebirths? Anyways, she gave us a lot more freedom at the hospital than anyone else would have done since we had done so well w/ Charlotte. It was not as good as a homebirth, but 10x better than our first hospital birth.

Miranda is beautiful & the softest baby I've ever had. She sleeps all through the night & eats all day which sounds great but isn't. My backside goes numb from all the sitting & admiring her I do while nursing. I don't mind waking up to feed her but she won't cooperate so the house isn't quite where I would have it. HOWEVER. We're being blessed by my wonderful mother in law who is here for 14 days so the house is splendid compared to where it would be w/out her. Also, the church ladies from the church we've been visiting have been bringing us some meals so we've been very blessed.

God has shown Himself & our supreme dependence on Him throughout this entire pregnancy & birth. Almost w/out exception, every time we thought we had something planned to a science, every plan we made fell through & had to be rerouted. Very humbling, especially when we had to rely on someone else. And it always turned out for the best; we're very grateful.

Anyway, I've no pictures yet, but she was 7 lb. 15 oz., 21" & born 15:44. No hair, like the other 2. I think she looks like Victor did, only slightly less monkey like. She is surely the prettiest newborn of the 3. Charlotte was the ugliest, so red & splotchy, but she's a little beauty queen now that she has hair.
Anyways, we thank everyone who has been thinking & praying for us, I hope to have some pictures soon.

Jan. Adventures

These have been such happy busy days, made all the more interesting by the trials & setbacks that have come up. To sum up the first half of the month:

Our midwife will be unable to attend our birth, (I'm about 34 weeks or so) so we're looking into a better hospital w/ nurse midwives on staff a bit further away. This is a very male dominated area in regards to female specific health care & I want nothing to do w/ that. The new clinic is very accommodating.

I was robbed for a day at Aldi's. My billfold fell out of my pocket after I paid for my purchases & a gentleman behind me turned it in. I know this because I saw the security tape. This was on one of those 20 degree windy days when we were finishing our shopping into nap time having passed lunch by. Victor & Charlotte were better than I hoped as I unpacked, searched & repacked the groceries several times out in the wind & unharnessed all of the carts in two's & three's (the chained quarter carts) thinking perhaps it was wedged in the seat top. No avail. The cashier hadn't seen it the first I asked her, the second time I asked her no one had turned it in. I was in a panic, we've taken a 70% loss of income w/ retirement. I didn't know how I could face Mike w/out the debit card or remaining cash & especially w/out my military dependent ID. There's no place to get a replacement around here & it doubles as an insurance card. The wonderful manager took me into the back to check the security cameras & we watched it all on tape. The gentleman handed it off to the cashier as it was the the proper thing to do & she put it on the counter. The manager sent me home & said he would watch to see if anyone took it off of the counter. I borrowed the store phone & called Mike to cancel the bank card. He was predictably unhappy. After feeding the children & laying Charlotte down the manager called to see if I could come to the store as they had it!

I did & was welcomed by the police, manager & district manager. Apparently the employee (Jennifer Crump, 27 yrs old, beware of her!) had palmed my billfold & got nervous when they kept looking & threw it in the trash. It probably helped that I called Mike & had him cancel the card right in front of her. They had discovered that not only was she guilty of petty theft in my case, but had been pilfering money from the store for a long time too. The police escorted me to the magistrates to file a complaint & Aldi's (I love you Aldi's; where but you can I feed a family of 4 for $60.00 a week?) comped my fuel in the form of $10.00 off my next grocery bill & gave me a free gallon of milk besides. Anyway, nothing was missing & I had a very rare opportunity of being in town w/out children so instead of going to the library by myself (what I really wanted; what does the adult section look like I wonder?) I went to the bank to see if I could still keep my card. No, they had cancelled it promptly which I really enjoyed knowing. The banker very speedily hooked me up w/ a temporary card & said my new one would come in the mail. All in all it was a happy report to take home.

Mike started school this week & his first day away the house sort of fell apart. The toilet clogged & I had eggs boiling on the stove. I realized that if Iwas going to the hospital I should pack a bag. I had no idea what to bring, only that the list in What to Expect When You're Expecting was entirely too long. So I got lost on the internet looking things up & let Victor pick out coming home outfits for the baby. We were in my bathroom packing toiletry thing when I kept hearing these weird pops & saw the cat come streaking around the corner. I figured she had done something & started to check it out when the smell hit me. Had I cooked something?

I totally forgot about making eggs. The memory had to be searched for, it was weird. Is this what they call mommy brain? I've heard of (& experience) absentmindedness all of the time, but this was a whole different level. Egg was everywhere. 5 half eggs burned to the bottom of a very dry pan & exploded egg on all of my condiments, coffeepot, vent hood, cabinets, floor, etc. It was very cold outside, but the windows had to be opened to get that smell out. I opened them & started some hot chocolate on another burner & the smell increased. I played musical burners, but I guess egg &/or egg water had gotten down into all of them. Victor & Charlotte very nicely ate their lunch while chanting "Eggy, eggy, eggy!" I can't explain it, they have some kind of Eggy game they play that involves running.

Today (the 15th) was Victor's birthday & though we didn't have the party he was expecting, he thoroughly enjoyed the day. I think he thought he was getting a party because he attended his cousins birthday last spring & it left an impression. He & daddy went squirrel hunting & I guess Mike did some kind of land nav w/ him which he excelled at. They chopped wood for a fire that night & as they did their outside things Charlotte & I made a peanutbutter cake. It was very gooey in the middle, like a melted Reeses Peanut Butter Cup.

Disclaimer: I have permission to mention this.
I had cookies in the oven after that. I used a different recipe & figured that that accounted for the extra crispiness, I just couldn't bake them gooey how I like them. The bread followed suit, very brown & done on top but when I flipped it out of the pans it wasn't cooked through at all! I flipped the loaves on their backs & asked Mike to watch it while I ran to the store. He assented so I left. However, he had to unexpectedly run to the bathroom & being a responsible man turned off the oven first. Right as he realized that we were out of toilet paper in our bathroom he was assaulted by a burning smell from the kitchen & was forced to make a mad dash across the house to the other bathroom for the toilet paper to take care of himself before rescuing my loaves which had gone up in flames. He had accidently turned it to broil instead of off. They are right next to each other. He sawed off what he could, a raccoon or possum has been eating the burnt pieces at night. I've been drying out the rest & making bread crumbs & croutons out of the remainders.

We did a thorough investigation after that & realized that the bottom heating element had completely melted through & burned in half; praise God that our house has been spared & all we've had to put up w/ are crispy goods & skillet meals! We like skillets, it just took some rearranging of my menu for the week. Today (the 25th, I never finish a post when I start) we got a new element & I could bake again. I had my first appointment at the new clinic today too, they operate out of a magnet hospital w/ a very low c-section rate which is very reassurring.

We've had alot to be thankful for this month so far; I've got more to say but will try to get another update in this moth.

A Busy Time of Thanks

Last week was so busy it's taken nearly all of this week to recover from it!
Mon. morning I had an appointment & in the afternoon we had a playdate Mon. w/ some other homeschoolers at the park in town & it was great. 5 boys, between 8 & 10. Charlotte was having her naptime in the van & Victor was understandably shy, but I walked him over & encouraged him to play so I could go talk to their mommies. He played by himself close by the others until he saw I had been in conversation for about 5 min. & then he just jumped in. He was running & yelling & throwing the rubber shreds (kind of like mulch but recycled tires. Very springy & pleasant to walk on.) about & generally just acting like a knucklehead all around. You could almost see him burst w/ pride when a bigger boy would dump rubber down his shirt or on his head. There were dogpiles & races & they helped him get up the equipment when he needed assistance.
The moms were very nice too; one was a Minnesota transplant from Aug. the other had been here for about 5 years, so she got us mostly caught up to speed on the area & its offerings.
Tues. Mike started building a shed because he got a phone call saying the movers were coming Wed. He got the floor & back wall done before dark & Victor helped w/ that quite a bit while I moved some things around.
Wed. was just a very busy day what w/ movers to direct, & children to chase. They showed up about 9 & were finished around 3. Mike had to check everything off the list as they called it out & I was in charge of telling them where to put it. Afterwards he started right in to fit all of our shed/garage items into our lean to/ under the deck shed which is about 1/4 of the size of our old shed. I started unpacking the kitchen because the next day was Thanksgiving & I had alot of prep work to do. We were having supper on Fri. because my SIL's mother was coming up from Ga.
Thurs. Mike finished the shed but for the door & I spent the day making my pie, trifle, deviled eggs & cranberry sauce. In between all of these, feeding everyone else & unpacking I never left the kitchen! Space is more of an issue than we had thought. We got rid of ALOT before we moved, but we're finding it wasn't nearly enough. Our old house was smaller, but it did have a pantry, 2 attics a garage & shed. There are 2 sheds outside, but one is an old metal building on a slab which could really work except that a tree has fallen on it in the past & the roof is ripped open in the back. The other shed is a mostly rotten plywood lean to w/ 3 waist high walls. It's standard height, kind of like a dutch door, but I don't know what you call half walls. Mike saw my space dilemma when he came in & Sat. he & his brother built me a pantry. Isn't he wonderful? Darrin is the creative type & figured out the best use of the space & cut it all out while Mike assembled it. This was a sacrifice for him because I know how much he wanted a stand up freezer.
But I got ahead. Thurs. was a busy day. The children & I arrived at the family's house around 8 & I set them up w/ cereal & started in on peeling the potatoes. Carrie had been up for awhile & was steaming the sweet potatoes. The turkey was prepped. We figured out the stuffing together & she made that. She left for some errands & I made the greenbean casserole & took a break. Her mom soon pulled in w/ the gift of some furniture so we set that up, the tables & finally ate. It was good!
I don't think I've ever had more to be thankful for than this past year. SO much has happened & alot of it was not when we wanted or how we wanted it but always & w/out fail we have been taken care of, usually at the 11th hour when we were close to despairing. Almost out of money, one day until rent was due, no shows, unexpected acts of benevolence, etc. I love how God does this, reminding us that He is the One in charge & showing us how perfect are His ways & how humbling it is so that we can't take credit for any of it.
Sunday. A week of ignoring Charlotte had decidedly taken its toll on her, my poor girl. Early Sun she cried & came into our room to sleep which she has never done before. We hadn't even done any potty training & she'll say when she needs to be changed. Sun. was a day of lots of cuddles, fewer boxes, more books. This time w/ them is so short & fleeting, I hope to never take it for granted. The family came over to cook supper & visit & plans were made to visit a neighboring attraction an hour away.
Mon. I called & cancelled our involvement; Charlotte was just too clingy & needed more mommy time than a new & exciting destination & w/ all of the activity neither child had been bathed in 2 days. We had a very unusual after breakfast bath & Mon. was another day of more play w/ mommy & very leisurely unpacking. Mon. & Tues night Charlotte was waking up & calling for me, crying, which she has also never done before. Victor wasn't nearly as affected, I think because he's old enough to help or at least play by the men as they work & he has his imaginary world to sustain him for longer. I was able to play w/ him more in the afternoons too when Charlotte was asleep. We would take our wooden rifles & go shoot bad men, bears, lion, copperheads or blood sucking bats from City Hall. He cracks me up. Tues. I unpacked books & they were lost in revisiting their old friends. Most of them were new to Charlotte who has really gotten into books & asks for stories continuously. Story time is cuddle time :). I think I do average 5-10 stories a day. Charlotte gets one every time she's on the toilet.
Wed. Mike has been hunting & shedding. He made the walls on the lean to full height & added a door to our under deck shed. Today is Thurs. I got all of the living room boxes emptied & one of them, though it wasn't marked so, contained toys. Victor & Charlotte have been delighted to play by themselves the entire day as I unpacked. Mostly pictures & frames. They won't all go up & we haven't decided on what to where, but the box maze in the middle of the house is at last gone.
So my friends, those are our goings on & I hope you weren't quite as busy & got in some good togetherness time in your corners of the world. God be praised!

RVing Experiment Days 2 & 3

Mon. was a vacation from hell sort of day by most standards, but a wonderful opportunity to have our faith & family tried & tested for which I'm thankful. The adventures began at 5 in the morning. The day before, the water hadn't been draining, so we had pulled the RV out again & ramped it up on one side to make it tilt towards the drains; the whole camper is tilted to the port side. Victor is a thrashy sort of sleeper, & him being on the top bunk he fell right out, shaking everything. That isn't saying much, a walking cat shakes the camper. But this was a very big shake. He was hysterical & not making sense, though I didn't try, I just put him to bed again next to daddy & climbed up myself to finish sleep in his bunk.


He slept late, which was good. Charlotte woke up at 5:30 so I nursed her & went to shower. After that around 7 as I was beginning breakfast & I noticed it felt like I was peeing, though not. It ended up being blood & not having any feminine products I used a one of Charlottes diapers. I soaked it in 5 min. I hollered to Cid that I was miscarrying & by the time he had waken up & gone to the store (in record time!) I had gone through 2 diapers. When everyone was dressed & fed I had gone through 2 heavy flow overnight maxi's. Victor did not want to wake up & cried alot when getting dressed; fairly atypical for him. I had decided his shoulder was broken, but he could move his arm in all directions fairly easily; we decided that he could stay back & go fishing w/ everyone else while I went to the hospital in Ashville.


We got there around 10:00 & it was a long 6 hour procedure, mostly w/ waiting. Every one was so nice, I have never had a more pleasant hospital staff experience in my life. They gave me an ultrasound, honored my wishes to have a female OB & were just so nice & compassionate. During the ultrasound I saw the baby still moving around very vigorously heart rate at 140 bpm, I was so happy. But, though the baby is healthy, it looks as if there is a blood clot on or under the placenta & my cervix is dilated a bit; so it could be the beginning of a miscarriage. We have a follow-up on Thurs. for another exam & ultrasound. I'm typing this on Wed. & still bleeding, though not nearly as heavy. I'm nervous of what we'll see, but thankful to God for the 2 bessings I do have & the 2 days more I've gotten to carry this little life. The doctor said that while it isn't usual she sees it enough to not call it unusual. She does work at a big research hospital though. She wanted to keep me there overnight in case I did miscarry & bleed out; it's a 30 min. drive from where we're at. That would have driven me crazy; nothing to do but think & stare at the wall or curtain. I'd rather swat flies out at the RV, so that's what I opted for.




When we got home Victor was asleep & my niece said he'd been quiet all day & not talking much except to refuse ice & tell everyone I had given him Tylenol. When I walked in he was awake on the couch laying down. He lifted his arms & said in his sweet little boy voice "Oh mommy I'm so glad you are here, I was waiting for you!" I melted.



His shoulder really was bugging him, so the next day as Charlotte & I did laundry & caught up, he went to the emegency room to meet a Dr. Vladimir who declared his collarbone completely snapped & separated the width of Cid's pinkie. He said had he been an adult they would have had to perform surgery. They were mostly worried about his lung being punctured, something which, I confess had never entered my mind.



Again, I was impressed at the staff at this (another) hospital. 10 x-rays had been ordered, but the xray tech took a look at Victor & said he wasn't comfortable giving such a little guy so much radiation. Maybe he saved my grandchildren. He took 1 picture at a time & carried it to the doctor who approved & ended up being satisfied w/ 4. I felt terrible, my brave little guy. Cid had gotten him doughnuts, his usual reward for staying dry all night (2 nights in a row!) & he had gotten a race car from the x-ray tech, so he was perfectly happy.




He has to wear a weird harness thing to keep his arms back, it looks like he's standing at attention. But, praise God, he's doing much better, just changing colors like a chameleon.

I've had so much to blog about it overwhelmed me & never got done. Last month in a nutshell...

-Our house is on the market.

-My sister had her 3rd baby in the car.

-We are likewise unexpectedly expecting #3, about 11 weeks now.

-Husband has been outprocessing & has officially been a civilian for 3 & 1/2 hours now. Victor is trying to persuade him to grow mutton chops.

-Lots to do to downsize & vanilla up our yard. We have a rainwater collection system in place, the main garden is down, & the children & I have slowly but surely getting the raised beds down. The homeowners association finally noticed my clothesline after 4 years & spoke to me about it. I knew it was illegal, but the dryer was eating Victors diapers, so up it went. They asked me to make sure the next owner had no access to it. Appliances convey on our listing, I had thought about adding solar clothes dryer, but I guess not.

Victor is going to start some kind of schooling routine this year, I ordered the Rod & Staff pre-K. It ought to suffice for K too, they don't seperate them. I got him some little Jewel Bird books too, we borrowed some from a friend & we really enjoyed them. That's all for now, some pics & we're off to the library.

If anyone know how to post pics where you want them I could use help. I upload them & they kind of just land wherever they may, but not w/ out a lot of frustration.

A Shower of Grace

I have never ceased to be amazed at God's provision & grace, but everything is happening all at once hand over fist, Cid himself says he feels as if his head is going to explode & has referred to Providence twice. I had to go out between the sheets to shed a happy tear.

We have the camper, it is BEAUTIFUL & everything in it works great. The last owner is a fireman & head of the union, a very meticulous sort. Much like Cid, but more so. He hand details the engine heads of his 3 fire trucks every week. I don't know if that's regs or not. Mr. D- said he wouldn't have sold it to us had we planned to do cross country trips all of the time, (it is a 92') & he had offers coming in left & right. He had never used Craigslist, & turned a lady away who was coming to pay for it right when Cid was standing there since her husband had called & said maybe not the week before. So Mr. D- wouldn't sell unless I was there, otherwise he didn't feel comfortable. Anyway, he had it pulled out, hooked up, awning spread, everything. A very nice man. Then since we didn't have a truck, he hauled it to our house, in the side yard (no easy feat, only 12' wide) teaching Cid & Victor how to hitch & unhitch. He showed us how to level it, hooked up the water, lit the burners & stove for me, showed us how the AC & fans worked, when to use them, all of the alarms, the tv antenna we don't plan on getting a tv for, the outside shower... I'm tired. It's so much. It really reminds me of living on the LSV-6 (The James A. Loux, Logistic Support Vessel) in Kuwait, leveling jacks instead of ballast, the water system is the same, everything must be in Tupperware, shorepower, etc. My in-laws are visiting over the weekend & they will be the first to use it; I need to get some amenities out there.



The Truck



The truck is a whole other story. Cid sold the Jeep last week, & we were considering selling the mini-van. Except (don't laugh) I can't drive a stick. Cid has the 94' Tacoma I can't drive, & it can not haul a 30' trailer. Before we were looking at campers Cid saw truck/camper combo in Craigslist (again) & called it in. I've not yet ridden in it, but he took us over to meet the people & test drive the truck. They are a nice retired military couple in a ton of debt. Their camper was big, but no bunks or a tub. They said they would sell the truck alone to us, it's an 05' Chevy 3500 diesel crew cab, which is way more than we need to haul a trailer, but Cid is looking at keeping a bunch of tools in there too, an air compressor, generator; heavy stuff. The truck is ridiculously huge. Mr. S- says he paid $48,000 for it & $10,000 of that is easily in added on bells & whistles. We are a cash based family though & while we could pull $6,000, $24,000 is too much. But praise God! Mr. S- is a numismatist & goes to coin shows as a consignor. We had put all of Cid's $16,000 reenlistment bonus in gold & silver when he got back from Kuwait when it was selling at $640 an oz. Cid consigned our boullion &... only 1 coin sold, for $1100. At this rate we would never get the truck before the camper & Cid had set his heart on the truck. It has less than 50,000 miles. But as it turns out, my cashed in IRA (losing alot of money this last year or two) was enough to pay off what Mr. S- owed on the truck & softened him up. He took the gold for the rest of the payment & the truck is ours! W/ enough left over to buy the extra tools.

This is all happening SO fast, I can't belive how God is working it all out so smoothly & letting us walk in obedience toward being separate from the world & relying on him. Also, just for fun, what I thought was a cucumber turned out to be a watermelon plant!

Happy in Va.- Vanessa