I had a good weekend at work. We only had 3 patients on my side all weekend. There were some in the triage area but I didn't really have to deal with that. So I had fun with the patients. It was really nice, because all of them were really nice and had a good sense of humor and wanted to chat sometimes.
Since there were so few patients, the regular weekend staff was put on mandatory call, which means they were forced to stay home and get no money. I don't think they were too happy about that.
On my down time I did some computer stuff we had to get done. Talk about falling asleep...

Elizabeth is still trying to beat her cough. Jesse has a bit of a runny nose and Edgey has had a headache and is crabby and feeling like he is getting something...... so I get home last night and what does he do???? He kisses me! I don't want the crud. What is he thinking?
We started watching a movie... Gameplan with the Rock. I haven't seen it yet. I got about 20 min into it and passed out in the chair. Edgey watched the whole thing and thought it was cute. I will have to finish it later when I have nothing to do.

Elizabeth's birthday is this Thursday. She will be 9. She is very excited and still keeps asking for a pig for her birthday present. She wants a pot bellied pig. I told her we already have 2 pigs and pointed to Buddy and Sammy who were lying on the couch snoring. :) She said that they were Jesse's and it didn't count.

The ground was finally soft enough to put my bird feeder up. The family bought me the shepherd hook poles (to put into the ground to hang up my bird feeders) and bird feeders for Christmas. It has been too frozen to put them in the ground. Last week I got one of them in. Hopefully will be able to put up the other one this week.
The birds are definitely chowing down. It is fun to watch them. I have seen the cardinals that have been around here for years...

Well, I hear somebody awake, so I better get busy.

Elizabeth woke up with the crud on Wednesday. She whined around thinking it was going to help her get sympathy. I slathered her with my essential oils.... the one I use is called Thieves. It is antibacterial, antiviral and anti whatever. It is called thieves because back when the black plague was around and people were croaking, this small band of thieves put these oils on themselves while they went to rob all of the dead people. They never got sick. So... when they got caught, their sentence was lessened if they shared the recipe/mixture of the oils so everyone else could protect themselves also.
It has some strong stuff in it so I dilute it a bit with olive oil and rubbed it all over her neck and chest and back. Then she was complaining of leg pains so I put one called pan-away on her leg. That seemed to help. That is one that also has helped Edgey with his aches and pains... he asks me for that one whenever he has something going on. We also use melaleuca (Tea Tree Oil) on cuts and scrapes rather than other types of medicines. Edgey uses that regularly too since he is usually the one that gets those injuries.
I diffuse an oil into the air called Exodus II and one called Purification. Exodus is from the biblical formula Moses used to protect the Israelites in Exodus 30:22-31. It is a blend of oils such as Frankincense, Myrrh, Spikenard, Hyssop and others. So far we have been pretty healthy this winter season.
Ethan has always had allergies and asthma problems. Well, the lady that got me into these oils sent an email with testimonies about allergies. I thought, what the heck, I can at least try it on him. Normally his eyes water and nose runs pretty much most of the day and he drives me crazy wiping his nose and eyes and sneezing during school time. I tried one called Valor which was given in the testimony, and it worked. It really worked. He took one drop and rubbed it on his nose and where his mustache is coming in and he didn't have any problems allllllllll morning. We put some more on late in the afternoon and again in the morning when he woke up. I have only heard him sneeze a couple of times in the past 2 days. Yay!! What a difference. He is totally thrilled.
I use Peppermint oil for headaches and anytime I start getting stuffy. I think I am allergic to my job.... LOL I usually start sneezing and eyes watering when I get to the hospital. So I have started using the peppermint there. Our floor at work is doing an aromatherapy study on the patients and the long timers are asking for the peppermint because it helps them with their sinuses. It is great. The cleaning lady bought 4 bottles of the stuff to give to her friends and to help her. I think a lot of her problem is that she has to use all of those hospital chemicals to clean and it is affecting her. She went for a long time unable to breathe and stuffed up until I let her try the peppermint oil. She was shocked but extremely happy.
I use it in my tea or coffee. I also use Lemon oil in my hot tea. I can't remember where I read it, but it said somewhere that it takes more than 200 bags of peppermint tea to equal one drop of the peppermint oil. I could go on and on, but I won't.

When I start feeling like I might get sick, I take a hot bath with Epsom Salts and Tea Tree, Eucalyptus and Peppermint oil in the tub and soak. It usually fends it off.
Let me know if you are interested in any of the oils to try. If I have something, I will let you try some. If I don't have something, I can order it. This is not a sales pitch, but I do sell the oils also... but I only got the wholesale thing so I could get them at wholesale prices. They sell themselves.

Elizabeth was doing better today and was eating again. She still has a cough, but the crud is coming out. Thank God.
My brother has had the crud for 3 weeks now. He finally went to the dr. to get some antibiotics. He is pretty much anti- go to the doctor....so it must have been pretty bad. They told him he had chronic bronchitis. Well they gave him a Z-pac (Zithromax/Azithromycin) to take and he had an allergic reaction to that and ended up in the ER because he was in so much pain in his ankles and wrists and joints that he could barely button up his pants or turn a steering wheel. ER didn't do much for him. Just gave him some Ibuprofen and told him not to take the Zpac again. DUH!! Who wants to pay 100 bucks just for that info. I asked him if he took benadryl to counteract the reaction and he said no one told him to do that until today. Should've called his sister......I could have told him to take benadryl, ibuprofen and not to take the Zpac again.... and I wouldn't have costed him $100. They kept asking him if his throat or tongue was swelling. I told him to make sure he lists that as one of his allergies now. He said he asked them if that was all they were going to do? He wanted to ask them "and you went to school for this?" Today he is finally starting to feel better... he said his wrists are still hurting but at least he can button his jeans again. That is pretty sad. I asked him if he told the ER he couldn't button his pants.... of course not. You have to speak up for yourself when you go to the hospital! Nurses cannot (are not supposed to) diagnose and we can only tell the Dr.'s what you tell us and what we observe. We can also share what we think if we feel led to take a beating.....well that may depend upon the dr. too.
On another medical note: My grandpa fell today and is now in the hospital overnight because he hit his head and has a bruise on his brain. They were coming out of a dr. appt. when he fell. He dislocated his shoulder also. Got some morphine to pop that back into place after an xray. His lip was all bloody and big bump on his head.

Jesse had his first check up after the surgery this morning.... early. The dr. said that everything went perfect. His vision is even a tiny bit better than it was, but they will have him do the patching again to try to build up that left eye. He may get to a point where he does not need glasses. I am still crossing my fingers for that. The only thing I have noticed with his eyes are a couple of red spots that are bulging. When I asked the dr. about that, he said that was where the stitches are and the body is trying to get rid of the stitches (somewhat like a splinter) so they are inflamed and red. We will get to finish up the $75 eye drops for that. Jesse was not thrilled about eye drops for another week. The dr. asked him what he would rather do, get an eye drop or patch the eye for 4 hrs a day...... he chose the patch. That's how much he loves eye drops. :)



Beyond that I have been in a cleaning frenzy... mainly getting rid of things. I went through the homeschool closet and cleaned out 2 large boxes of things to sell or get rid of. I am done with teaching ABC's so there was a lot of that type of thing; workbooks, puzzles, matching games, phonics, kindergarten stuff basically. We are past that!! Yay!! There is a homeschool stuff sale in April that I think I am going to get a table for.... and try to sell most of it.



I also went through Elizabeth's clothes again to get some of the spring clothes out and get rid of the small stuff. It is sad to see certain things be too small. She is growing up so fast. Within a year and 1/2 she has gone from size 6x to 10slim. Wow. She still has some size 7 skirts and shorts and stuff that she thinks still fit and doesn't want to part with yet, but I think she will by summer time. She is so tiny.... and she still only weighs 58 pounds.



I went through some of my things and Jesse's things and have a couple of bags of stuff to send off also. Not sure where to take those.



I am sooooo glad it is finally warming up. It's very windy today, but at least the sun is out and it is warmer than freezing. :) I am so ready for warmer weather.

I had a very busy weekend! Work was like a revolving door..... and it was all the people that you go "duh" about. To explain that... they came in because they had been doing something they shouldn't have been doing... hmmm... you know that song "Things that make you go hmmmm"??

These people should have been in that song. I can't give details, but I would love to.

I am glad it was busy though, to some extent. I was put on call last week because we have had a low patient census for a few weeks. I certainly did not want to be on call last Sunday although I enjoyed being able to go to church. That means I will only have a 1/2 paycheck again. Once in a while we can plan for a 1/2 check, but 2 very close together are not good. :(

Today is St. Patty's day. Ethan went with Auntie this afternoon to meet another homeschooled kid his age... his mom is Auntie's age though (middle 50's). They went to go to some St. Patrick day event at the historical building. Hopefully he will have fun and they can become friends. Auntie and the mom go to church together. He gets to do his school work when Edgey gets home tonight....

Heartfelt Thanks

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who prayed for Jesse this week. He had his eye surgery (strabismus) and everything is well so far. He had a lazy eye, which runs in my side of the family. I have a weak eye and my sister. It seems to run boy, girl, boy, girl.... My dad and his mom, etc... My left eye is weaker about 1 whole number.

Jesse's eye was a little crossed and his brain decided that the strong eye would just take over and he was starting to lose his sight in the weaker eye. So, we patched the stronger eye every day for several months and it did help a little bit, but not enough that the dr. was happy with it.
Monday, he had surgery. They cut the muscles in both eyes so they would have to learn to work together in order for him to see again and hopefully will be able to use both of them from now on.

The surgery went well and was fairly quick. We did have to wait for a long time, but once it happened we were heading home within about an hour. He had a few bloody tears, but not the way I thought.

He slept most of the day on Monday. Woke up and wanted a little bit to eat so he had about a 1/2 sandwich and juice. Watched his sister play the PS2 for 1/2 hour then came running out into the dining room and launched his lunch all over the dining room floor. It was red juice by the way. Then he went and layed down on the couch and fell asleep again (with the puke bucket next to him). I spent the next 45 min. cleaning up and mopping the entire floor and wiping down the table legs. I wonder if he didn't have a touch of motion sickness or something from watching the tv???

When he woke up he was fine. The hardest thing has been putting in the eye drops. Wouldn't want to waste those stinking things.... $75 for a tiny little 3ml bottle of antibiotic eye drops. Somebody is raking in some money for those.
He is getting better about it after 3 days. Only 7 more to go...... :)

more health info

If anyone still has questions about diet pop... you MUST read this. Unbelievable.

Victoria Inness-Brown’s family was addicted to diet soda. After researching the effects of aspartame, she strongly believed the artificial sweetener might one day lead to their illness or even their early deaths.
So she decided to perform her own aspartame experiment -- with 108 rats for 2 years and 8 months. Daily, she fed some of the rats the equivalent, for their body weight, of two-thirds the aspartame contained in 8-oz of diet soda.

For details of Inness-Brown’s amazing experiment, click the link below.

My Aspartame Experiment

Inspiration

Watched a great movie on Sunday night after dinner. It was called Saving Sara Caine. Produced by Michael Landon Jr. Taken from the book by Beverly Lewis called The Redemption of Sarah Caine.
What a great movie. Edgey was tired and didn't think he would be able to stay awake through it, but he really got into it and watched the whole thing.
I let the kids watch it yesterday and Elizabeth wants to buy it now so she can watch it whenever she wants. :)
I went to a homeschool HEED meeting last night. It was very encouraging. The lady that did devotions at the beginning of the night had a great example of how we should be doing our schooling.....

There was a quote from Andrew Carnegie that went like this:
"Men are developed the same way gold is mined. Several tons of dirt must be moved to get an ounce of gold. But you don't go into the mine looking for dirt," he added. "You go in looking for gold."
She was saying that we should adapt our thinking to be this way with our children. Teach them to look for the good qualities and what they are capable of and remove the dirt along the way.

She also had several scriptures that were good to remember. She picked a new one every year as their "goal" and kind of mission statement.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(when we homeschool we have this opportunity all day long )

Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
(we can learn from God)

2 Samuel 23: 3-5 3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 4 And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. 5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.
(this one was for herself mainly because she ruled over her children and wanted to remember to be just and have the fear of the Lord)

Proverbs 9:10 10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

Psalm 119:102 I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.
(she prayed for God to teach them because she was tired of teaching them that year)

Isaiah 54:13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
(pastor prays this over us all the time)

She also talked about a chinese bamboo tree. How you plant, fertilize and water the first year. Nothing grows. You fertilize and water the 2nd and 3rd and 4th year. Nothing grows. Then in the 5th year in 6 weeks it grows 90 feet with is almost 9 stories high. WOW.
We have to persevere and be persistent with our teaching. Someday we will see how the fruit of our labors is worth it, even if we don't see it for several years. :)

Very inspirational evening for me.

I read my last post and have almost the same thing to start out with! Stinking snow. I guess I should just shut up and be thankful. Another 4 inches through the night. It was beautiful out yesterday. I don't know what the temp got up to, but all I needed was a sweatshirt to be comfortable..... and let me tell you, I am sitting in my dining room right now and I have a sweatshirt on and I am freezing!

God has been good to me the past couple of weeks. Even though things have been difficult, I can see things are also progressing. I finished a fast that lasted 18 days. I thought about going the full 21 but I don't think I would have had grace to finish the last 3 days.... it would have been my own doing and not God's. I was fasting for several reasons. I had a healing conference I was asked to sing at on Friday and wanted to be ready for that. I have been feeling my relationship with God is not "up to par" so to speak, and wanted to get closer. I have also been feeling cruddy in my body and just tired of feeling tired and achy, etc, etc.... praying for Jesse...

The healing conference was great. A minister from my class at the college put it on down at the Polk County Convention Center. It was an all day ordeal. I was asked to sing in the morning session. The worship was awesome! Some guy named Randy Bixby led worship the morning and afternoon sessions, then he had a complete band there for the night session. He has a ministry called KHOP (kingdom house of prayer). Layne would have loved the guitar solos.

Anyway, the person had asked me to sing a specific song and said there would be someone there to back me up on it.... well, Mr. Randy didn't know the song..... so I had to do it acapella that morning. That was not fun, but I was obedient.

My college professor taught the 3rd session and another lady, Linda Schreurs who has a ministry called Intimacy with God spoke at the second session. Wow, was she on fire!
I heard my professor's testimony which was great but made me sad at how her life used to be. It certainly changes a person's outlook when they hear anothers testimony.

The whole conference gave me a different perspective of where I am in this time of my life. I don't think I am necessarily "lukewarm," but there are times if I compare myself to some of these other ladies that I see that are "on fire," it makes me sad that I am not like that too. I repented.

My only word for the weekend was..... it's time. I don't know what it's time for or what that exactly means. So now I am just waiting to see what God wants to begin. Time for what?

When I got to work on Sat morning, I had to be in charge.... haven't had to do that for over a year. I kept thinking, "Is this what you mean? it's time for me to step up?" I still don't know.
So if you feel like praying for me, please pray that God will reveal to me what he means by that.