Prayers Needed...

A seventh grader was hit by a car this morning on his way to school. They Life Flighted him to Toledo, his injuries are mainly in his legs. We are asking for prayers for his family and for him, for his doctors, the driver of the vehicle, and the friends who witnessed this horrible accident. Pray for peace, knowledge and healing power, but most of all pray God's will be done.

disclaimer: this is all second hand information, and is of course subject to change.

Huge Compliment!!

I love love LOVE my house! I do! Our first house was a farm house...an OLD farm house (IRL friends can vouch) it left a lot to be desired (no exaggeration) it had a lot of potential that I could never make it live up to, the house was huge and wood work was breath taking, but it was cold, the bathroom was UGLY and the orange shag carpet was starting to wear thin, so we sold it and bought our new home, which is beautiful! So when the local specialty shop approached me about shooting parts of their commercial in my house....well that just made me all-a-flutter! So tonight, they will choose between my bedroom (red twall) or my living room with the most beautiful wooden shudders you've ever seen...I think they'll go with the living room and shudders...either way, I'm having a commercial shot at my house...and the actress is none other than my neice...she'll be doing all the local specialty shops commercials, there are at least 7 different shops using her! Go Hailey, she was made for the camera! She has deep brown eyes, fiery red curls and olive skin, and a natural beauty mark under her right eye! Gorgeous! I'm so terribly excited!!

When you take Christ out of Christmas

I have family and friends (no names - no judgement) who don't believe in God. I'm scared for them and worried for them. But I'm also bothered by them. When they give/get Christmas gifts...why? It's just another day, nothing special, just a day, just a cold day. What right do you have to celebrate a holiday you don't believe in? To benefit from the birth of my Savior, who you don't even believe in. You should be at work (if it falls on a week day) You should be treating it with no more grandeur than any other day, you should not be eating feasts, shopping and making up Christmas lists. But Christians as a whole are too polite to tell you to go home, you are not welcome at our Christmas celebration, because you do not believe in Christ. I do love my neighbor, treat him as I would want to be treated, but Christmas is one of the many perks to being a Christian...I feel the same way about people taking Good Friday and Easter off work. Those are not holidays for non-Christians. The thing is, non-Christians don't respect Christians or Christianity enough to care that they are disrespecting God and Jesus by celebrating, they just want the gifts.

Funerals...Reserved for the Revered?

I had a client in a few moments ago who had lost her husband last week...a week ago today. It was unexpected and a tragedy. I am sad for her loss, but also for the loss of yet another of this great nation's great veterans. They had his funeral on Saturday, and I'm sure many came out to honor his life. So many showed to give last respects and say good bye to my Dad. Why do we go to funerals? The person has passed on, and we're sad, we go for the family, to show support and love. I regret having such a large funeral for Braden, I didn't mean for it to be that big. I wanted close family and friends, I didn't put an obituary in the paper, just the death announcement. My boss e-mailed all my co-workers around Ohio, and in my building, anyone that might know me. My Mom called the Schweiterman and Clementz families, Todd called his family, I didn't call anyone. I expected at most my sisters, my parents, Becca, Rachel, the Schwietermans and the four of us. Instead the church filled with family and friends wanting to say good-bye instead of hello. Would they have come to his baptism? Not most of them. But they did, they came and they grieved, they knew my loss, and loved my son, who they never met. But I regret it. Why did he get as big a turn out as some people who have made an impact on this world. But Braden had an impact on my world. My sister and I were brought together through Braden, she knew what I was going through and was able to grieve her own losses with Braden, my cousin experienced a similar loss just months later, and was able to identify with me and with my loss, we have been brought closer in spirit thru this, and Rebecca went to Bible study with me. If I had Braden, a happy healthy bouncing growing boy who never slowed down long enough for a diaper change let alone a good nights sleep, I wouldn't have gone to Bible study in the first place...no time, no energy and Bible studies are for old ladies...But I didn't have those things, instead I had hours of unfilled emptiness, days of grief and I needed to fill my head, my mouth, my spirit and my soul with God's unending love, mercy, grace and peace. And I needed Rebecca beside me. But Braden didn't have the impact that a child who had lived would have, he didn't have the impact that an adult would have, so why was he honored with as much attention as those people? Did his funeral provide closure for me? Yes, but I feel like I was the conductor of a three ring circus "Come One Come All, See the dead baby and his grieving family!!! Its like nothing you've ever witnessed!!" Yuck.

Creation Museum

This weekend I was NOT kidnapped after all! Instead we spent Friday night with my mom, then instead of going camping, we just stayed home, Saturday morning Todd got us all up for breakfast at the IHOP, followed by a quick trip to the mall (Ethan seriously had three pairs of jeans so we had to buy a few more), after that Todd took Ethan camping in a friends woods while Lane and I went to a friends 13th birthday party, it was fun but reminded me all the reasons I would never do 13 again! It was torture watching the birthday girl make eyes at the boy that she likes and he likes her but they're friends and it would be akward and Daddy doesn't allow dating (neither would I, just for the record) and the friends all saw what was going on, so it made it even more akward...thank God I'm thru all of that. Then afterwards we went and played cards at the H-ers...Todd drove over on his ATV to join us (we needed a fourth)...the next morning Lane and I went to church...by the way, life is EASY with one child! WOW! Then when Todd got home from camping, he took us all to the Creation Museum. There was the most beautiful botanicals garden there, so we took pictures of the boys on the bridges and next to the waterfalls...or brooks, whatever they're called....I'll share the pics on Thursday when they get delivered! Overall it was a good weekend, then on Monday my office was closed for Columbus Day, so the boys went off to school while my Mom and I started painting her new bedroom! Good times all around!

I'm being Kidnapped...

Todd had planned to take his boys camping this weekend, give me a free weekend and them some good bonding time...but no, instead we are all going to spend the weekend bonding with the dinosaurs. I'm not sure where or why, just that we are. It should be a great photo opportunity and lots of fun for the boys! There's also an Oktoberfest this weekend that we'll have to make an appearance at...it should be fun! I'm a bit of a homebody, so we all know where I'd rather be...but I will pack up some cute outfits and spend as much time as possible getting cute pics of my family....they're getting so big so fast...it won't be long before they will be embarrassed to be seen with us! After all we are a third of the way to driving! So at least maybe I can get a little schnokered at Oktoberfest! tehehe! shhh, don't tell DH! He'll never see it coming!

The Good Ole Days

Germany was great, I did a lot of traveling while I was there...we went to Switzerland during the fall and the first day they gave us a wake board and sent us down the rapids, it was fun and dangerous and I'd do it again in a heart beat! The next day we went canyoning (we were jumping off water falls into the pools at the bottom) it was so great! We got about 1 mile into the 2 mile course, and someone (just playing around) pretended to push me off the waterfall...except I actually fell and broke my ankle, the waterfall was about 12 ft tall so I was pretty lucky that it was just my ankle, the guide offered to have me medi-vaced out...but I didn't have a pass to be in Switzerland, so if they found out I was in Switzerland when this happened I would get into trouble, so instead we took off my wet suit shoes and put my foot in the water to slow the swelling, then we finished the course by lowering me down the water falls on a rope seat, thank God we had three really strong guys with us! Then at the end we had to climb a HUGE hill 89 degrees (I swear) so the female guide told me to start climbing on my hands and knees and no matter what, don't stop, I got a few feet up and she put her shoulder against my hip and seriously pushed me up this hill, I was trying to help but I'm sure I was completely helpless and she has just carrying me, it was hysterical, she was so tiny and there were lots of men she could have had help but she just did it! It was awesome, I ended up breaking my ankle pretty bad...that was in late August 2001, I walked in my brothers wedding September 3, 2001 and on September 12 I had to have the cast removed so that I could help pull guard duty, the doctors shot my ankle full of steriods and pain killers, gave me a gun and put me to work, my unit was the only unit on the installation and we were a detachment, we had a total of 35 people in our unit, take out the Commander, Chief and 1st SGT, the pregnant females and crazy or profile males and what you're left with are slim pickings, we didn't get relieved until November and even then they didn't send enough soldiers to cover us! We had General Meigs in Heidelberg, and they found out our Class 6 girl (very good friend to everyone on post) and our barber (nice enough guy) were terrorists...Class 6 even had letters of Osama Bin Laden in her apartment and pics and supplies to bomb the installation, very scary stuff! But because of having the cast taken off so soon, my ankle never healed right, so now my ankle hitches when I run, walk, squat, do stairs, it doesn't hurt that bad, just hitches...Did 9/11 directly affect you?