Three cheers for a miracle

Not that this miracle happened to me, mind you, but as I prayed for it to happen, I feel entitled to do a little celebrating.

Late last week, my mother's best friend P.'s husband D. suffered a massive heart attack. The lower half of his heart was gone. He was living off of machines, and there was no hope of him returning to his previously active life. He had been a farmer, a brand inspector, and an all around helpful sort of person, so sitting at home and being taken care of wasn't a pleasant prospect.

Well, Mom launched all her prayer chain connections, and I'm sure other friends of the family did too. We saw little bits of hope in facts like P. could get insurance through her work, and there might be openings for some of their kids to move back home.

The latest update has D. in a private room and up and about. He walked three laps around his hospital room without getting short of breath. His blood pressure is normal. The doctors think he might be able to return to work in as little time as 6 weeks if he takes his medication.

Praise the Lord.

I've been tagged.

I saw my name as a tagged person on Alicia's blog. I guess that means I've been tagged.
First, I'm supposed to add my name to the bottom of a list of blogs. Does that mean I'm supposed to visit these blogs? I don't know.
alifetime
Pieces of Me
The blog. Yep, the blog.
Slave To The Mommy Trade
Busy Until He Comes

Next select five people to tag:
I only know three bloggers at the moment, but I know people with other sites. This sort of stuff can go up on Facebook and MySpace, right?
1. Mom A. (I know you've been tagged once already, but these are different questions.)
2. Laura
3. Elly
4. Leslie (oh wait, she doesn't know I have a blog.)
5. Mom B.
This isn't easy for beginning bloggers.

What were you doing 10 years ago? Ten years ago, I was a sophomore in highschool. I was probably trying to find a way out of the end of the year picnic. No, wait. Sophomore year is the year I actually went to the water park. Not bad, but not all it was cracked up to be. Elly's pool was infinitely more fun.
What were you doing 1 year ago? Signing papers to buy our house. And then painting as rapidly as possible so the carpet layers could come in.
Five snacks you enjoy
1. ice cream
2. graham crackers and frosting
3. dried pears
4. dried mango and pineapple
5. soft molasses cookies
Five songs that you know all the lyrics:
1. Awesome God (with verses. Yes, it has verses.)
2. The Hallelujah Chorus (but I would have to think about it for a while).
3. How Great Thou Art
4. The Battle Hymn of the Republic
5. numerous praise songs -- I'm a worship leader at my church. I memorize songs. They kinda go together.
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire: Not necessarily in this order.
1. Pay off debt.
2. Add a second story to our house.
3. Set up funds for all my favorite ministries.
4. Set up funds for my kids' education.
5. Set up funds for my parents' retirement.
Five bad habits (Do I have to?):
1. Ending a story with a self-deprecating laugh (totally ruins the punchline)
2. Talking too little among strangers
3. Talking too much among acquaintances
4. Picking my nose (you didn't really want to know that, did you?)
5. Second guessing myself
Five things you like doing:
1. cleaning house (sometimes it just feels good to be clean)
2. hands-on projects
3. day dreaming
4. reading a good book
5. being with Seth
Five things you would never wear again:
1. skinny jeans (although there was a time when I swore I would never wear jeans with a flared-leg too).
2. florescent pink
3. florescent green
4. a bionator (orthodontic device -- essentially a mouth full of plastic)
5. satelite bangs
Five favorite toys:
1. imagination
4-way tie -- paint roller, gardening gloves, needle and thread, crocheting needles

Still going.

O man am I sore! We have been so busy this week that it makes my head spin. What a week!

Seth is home. He had the week off. Well, technically, he's on stand down, which means he has the week to himself as long as he drops in on appointed days and notifies the command that he's still in the area. It's not the same as a vacation, but if you don't mind getting up early twice a week, it's just as good. We were thinking about doing some touristy things in the local area, maybe finding a bed and breakfast for a night or checking out a couple of small towns that we haven't seen yet, but Saturday morning, we bought some stuff for the yard, and we've been at it ever since.

We started with the area around the deck, which was desperately in need of weeding. While I weeded that area, Seth mowed the yard and cut down most of the tall grass on our slope. We seeded that area with wild flower seed. Then he joined me in the bark. We pulled half the weeds and sprayed the other half with Round Up. (Of course all the pictures are of Seth because he doesn't think to take pictures for blogging. Not that I should talk. I've never taken this many pictures before in my life. )

Then Seth got an idea for the back yard and went off to work on it, and I remembered that with all the long grass on the slope, we couldn't see the beautiful climbing roses that the previous owner had planted. So Seth put in this neat little path that you see here, and I began pulling a small haystack out of the roses. Note to other amateur gardeners: always wear gloves when working around roses. I had so many scratches that I looked like I got into a fight with a cactus.

On Monday, Seth and I finished pulling up the weeds that the Round Up didn't kill (and it didn't kill many. I didn't realize that I would have to saturate each plant completely in order to kill it. ). We added more bark to the flower gardens. Then Seth went back to put rocks around his path and began a new project: a wild flower garden near the driveway. I didn't expect him to take out quite so much dirt, but it covers a bare spot in the yard and removes a spot that was difficult to mow.

Nothing is sprouting yet. All the packages say two to three weeks. We keep watering and waiting. At least the roses have bloomed, and the bleeding heart hasn't died yet. My transplanted pansies look very healthy, even though Max decided to dig up one of the tulip bulbs I planted in their garden .

On top of all that, I've subbed twice this week: once for elementary P.E. and once for high school math. Seth is looking at online master's degrees in computer science ( I thought he wanted to do military history.) We looked for fabric for Seth's medieval costume but had no luck -- I really have no idea what I'm looking for. And today we took a walk through the Clear Creek Nature Preserve that runs through Silverdale. It's no national park, but it is a very pleasant place to walk. When you come visit, maybe we'll make time to take it in.

Love to you all.

Jennifer

He's back.

That's right. My one and only dearest husband is currently sitting in the back room playing Titan Quest on the laptop. He got back late Monday night and turned the boat over to the other crew yesterday. Today was just a matter of picking up his mail and moving the boat staff into their offices. I got him home by 1:30. How about that? Next week, we're hoping to do a little adventuring in the little time he has off, so I may post some "vacation" pictures.

My most pressing distraction while waiting for Seth has been gardening. I'm not usually that concerned with plants and arrangements, but every now and again, the fit takes me, and I spend half an afternoon out in the yard making things look nice. I transplanted a bleeding heart plant a couple of days ago (and it's still alive). Monday, I went through my flower gardens and pulled weeds like a fury (morning glory is a beautiful flower, but it is also a pernicious weed), and today my neighbor brought me a bunch of pansies and bulbs that her Temple (Mormon) pulled up, so I spent the morning putting together the front flower bed. It doesn't look like much now, but I'm eager to see the tulips when they come up next year.

The backyard also got a dose of gardening treatment. I'm planting a small herb garden by the laundry room door. At present it only has mint and crocuses in it, but I add more as I find them. The pots have garlic in them. I have no idea how to plant garlic, so I just stuck my sprouting cloves in the pots, and now I'm waiting to see what happens. I've never had much of a green thumb, so I won't be too disappointed if it doesn't work, but I would like to have fresh herbs for Seth's food. He likes fresh herbs. The little bits of color on the end were provided by I. (4) and E.(3), my neighbor's oldest daughters. I invited them over to help me grub in the dirt, and they "planted" some flowers from the yard in my garden.

Max has been enjoying all this time outdoors. He prefers to have company when he runs outdoors. And he was overjoyed to see Seth again.

Gotta go get washed up. Today is the National Day of Prayer. Christians from all over Kitsap County are meeting at the fairgrounds to pray together. Hope to join you in prayer.

Love to you all.

Jennifer