January 19, 2012

Worth sharing

I read many blogs... too many blogs sometimes... it takes time and I'm trying to cut back.  I use an RSS feed to sort through and try to pick & choose things that seem to jump at me.
I'm really glad I read THIS today and would encourage you to do the same.  We need to remember that there are no guarantees in our job description as mom.

Blessings on the journey~

January 17, 2012

Saffron - Broken

Saffron is the little orange kitten we adopted at the beginning of December.  She is absolutely adorable and primarily she is J's baby.  She lives in J's room and J has the responsibility to feed her and clean the cage, etc.  She takes this responsibility fairly seriously and takes good care of her fur-baby.  They hang out together all the time.  Saffron is a big help with Algebra and provides a great deal of amusement all the time with her antics.






Last week Saffron took a nasty fall and managed to break one of her hind legs.  This was traumatic not only for the kitten but for all of us as we made a late night run to the emergency vet and then had to leave our fur-baby for the weekend with our local vet until she could have surgery on Monday morning.  Thankfully our vet (Dr. Kaas at Mercy Animal Hospital) is outstanding and his staff is the best!  We were able to visit Saffy on Saturday for a bit and then bring her home Monday evening after successful surgery to repair the leg.

She is home now and we will be playing kitty-hospital staff for the next few weeks.


She keeps trying to walk, wants to play and climb while her pain meds are in full force and has begun trying to chew her stitches (hence the kitty-version of a cone of shame).  I have a feeling the vet's instructions to confine her for a month are going to be very hard to follow.  She is not buying the idea of just laying around for a few weeks.  Prayerfully she will behave herself enough to let the leg heal before she tries to get too adventurous.

January 1, 2012

Change of Focus

What do you see in focus here?

How about here?

In January of 2011 I read Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts and it started something... something that my kids and I have continued through the year.
We began counting the gifts God gives - not every day, but taking the time purposefully to notice the things God gives us each day that we appreciate... or even the things that are HARD but help us to grow as people and to lean heavy on the One who holds us in His nail scarred hands.
As of yesterday we finished 2011 with 1111 gifts counted.  I hadn't really thought much about that number until early this morning when I wrote this on the top of a fresh page in our journal counting book:
Praying that we will continue to count the gifts that 
God allows in our lives each day.  
Welcoming 2012 with the full expectation 
that we can see God's fingerprints in our lives
each day when we remember to look for them.
Then I began the counting numbers on the page: 1112
That is the first number for our new year on the first day of 2012.  I smiled.

When I went outside with the dog this morning I saw the clothesline on the deck in the sunrise - laced with icy drops.  If I only look at the drops on the line - I can see in the background -hazy - the sunrise firing the dawn through the trees.  If I look past the drops glittering I can notice the leaves of orange still clinging to bare branches and the haze of moisture between the dark tree outlines.  Beautiful in either focus really.
Like my life.
Some days I focus on the drops, the daily routines & errands and 'to-do' lists.  And other days I have the glimpses of how God is using the drops to frame the beauty of His light shining in my bare spots to fire a new adventure.
New Years is a time of reflection and of looking forward.  I wait anxiously to see what new things God will show us this year.

See, I am doing a new thing!
   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
   and streams in the wasteland. ~~Isaiah 43:19

Blessings on the journey~