A Sweet Sound in His Ear

We have all been there.

Sunday morning, settled comfortably in your usual pew. The songs have been sung and the preacher is just getting into the swing of his message.

Then over the heads of the politely hushed crowd comes a sound.

Just a slight fussing at first. Then a little louder, a bit longer. The grunts and whimpers tune up to a full blown wail.
A baby crying in church.

The embarrassed mother rocks and bounces and soothes, all to no avail. The preacher is preaching ever louder and the mother scoots from her seat to do that quick, hunched over shuffle out of the sanctuary.

Finally, peace reigns again and we can get back to what we came here for. 


Except, the more he fussed and grunted, the bigger I grinned. When he started crying, I almost laughed.


Because the doctors told his mother on the day he was born that he would not live to the end of the week. No hope they said. Sorry.


Pick out a tiny casket. Kiss your son goodbye.

But the church began to pray.


His grandfather came to the alter and stood before the Great Physician. We asked for His grace and healing virtue to pour out on this tiny boy.

 At the end of the week, the doctors said he wouldn't make it to the end of the month. And at the end of the first month they said he would never be able to get off the ventilator.  

And the church continued to pray.


By the end of the third month they said, "Well he can breathe on his own, but he will always have a feeding tube."

And God continued to answer prayers.

So when Austin Lane kicked up a fuss in the middle of his first church service, it was hard to believe those lungs ever refused to work.  And he scarfed that bottle like he never knew what a feeding tube was.

So cry loud, sweet baby boy. God is not through with you yet.


It sounds like a cry of victory to me.

CatastroTree

While we were gone delivering our oldest child into the hands of higher learning, catastrophe struck our property. Or, more accurately, catastrotree. Our last remaining peach tree was completely loaded with fruit and fell victim to a driving rain and high winds.

Fortunately, after I got all of the limbs, leaves and tiny peaches cleaned up, I found that a spriglet growing out of the main trunk. It is about 3 foot tall now and obviously shares the same root system. We are hoping to take out the large trunk and seal the stump with out killing the new baby tree. Time will tell if this plan is sound. Or possibly the internet will tell if  can get my husband to Google it before firing up the chainsaw!

Going to Kansas City...Kansas City here I come!

From the KU website.

You can see KU for miles around, its crimson roof lines accenting the wide blue sky. We admit getting to the top of Mount Oread is physically daunting at first. Stairs, sidewalks, streets - they're all a workout. But nothing worth achieving is ever easy, and from the top the vista is endless.

Our older son Michael was accepted into the Duke TIP summer studies program but wasn't old enough to go to the Duke campus in North Carolina. They offer the program at various other colleges across America, all sponsored by Duke University. The closest one with the classes Mike wanted to take was the University of Kansas.

Colin, Mike, and Jon in the dorm.

The boys and I headed North and Colin left work in Illinois headed East. We all got to the hotel at the same time. We had some much needed family rest time at the hotel. The boys had a swim and watched cartoons while we parents took naps. Later we met with some family at a shopping center for dinner and visiting.                                                               Mike will be at the Duke TIP summer camp for three weeks of intense study on Programming for the Web. He was excited to be there and hoping to make friends and learn a lot during his stay.

View from Mike's dorm. 

 

 

 

Pond or Pool?

Back before the broiling heat of summer was upon us, DH and I decided to open the pool. The pool is 70x6x4. Mostly. Roughly 33,000 gallons of water. That looked like this...

I'm scared, Daddy!
So we proceeded to add double the amount of Super Shock than recommended by the good folks at hth and run the pump for 24 hours. The result was thus... Still horrifying!
Let's throw more chlorine at that beast!Thanks, Honey!

And break out the scrub brushes and vacuum attachment.Hubby and brother scrubbing the scum.

This is four or five days after the initial shock. That would be both the shock of how gross the pool was and the actual chlorine shock.Me, vacuuming for the thousandth time!

By the sixth day I was beginning to think the pool was a lost cause this year. The water was still quite cloudy and you could only quasi sorta see the bottom in the shallow end. The deep end was still a murky abyss. I decided to go ahead and put in the ph balancing chemical at double the recommended amount and give it one last shock session.Almost there!

All together we scrubbed, shocked, vacuumed and flocked the pool for nine days to get it even remotely safe for human activity. But it sure was fun on Memorial Day!

Love the lazy blogger.

I stumbled this hilarious lazy blog generator and had to share. It is like a mad lib with drop down craziness to choose from.This is the one I came up with by just clicking random drop downs and then reading the post after.

Holy Snapping Duck Do! I just got a bajillion whiny emails saying I have not updated this since I had to start working to pay the ridiculous food and petrol prices to feed my kids... You would not believe how insane my life has become. Stupid Global Warming!.

I am going ahead with setting fire to people wearing Crocs, spending my husband's money, just generally being the life of the party to the bodyguards of the blogger I am stalking, my day seems to involve the authorities from when the nightclubs close to whenever. I am so tired of my kids wanting me to give them attention and stuff. can't they see I am blogging.

I swear on the bones of my ancestors if one more person emails me to ask why I haven't posted today I will start posting pictures of toe fungus, or fecal murals. One day I will find my magic genie! Cats if you don't..

Everyone should try this thing out!