The Doxology, My Story

I grew up in churches that regularly sang The Doxology during the worship service. 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host:
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


It is a simple song, with powerful words of praise that God deserves.

Years ago, when we lived in Southeast Asia, we took a family trip to Thailand.  We visited many tourist attractions including the Grand Palace in Bangkok.  It was the official residence of the kings starting in 1782. Currently it is used for royal ceremonies and state functions. And tourism. We were on a guided tour of the palace (which included strict dress codes: arms covered, legs covered to below knee) when our tour guide directed us into a large room that was The Temple of the Emerald Buddha. We had read that we could not sit with our legs crossed or our feet out in front of us (because it's rude to point the bottoms of your feet at someone), so essentially we were to kneel in front of the Buddha statue. The four of us walked in there, saw people kneeling before the idol, looked at each other, shook our heads "no", and walked right back out. Our tour guide had the most puzzled look on her face. Shortly after that we were amongst a bunch of people who were walking around with incense and praying to Buddha, I started singing the Doxology to myself. I felt such an evil presence there. I think we all did because we all agreed that we didn't need to or want to visit any more Buddhist temples while we were in Thailand. 

Since that trip, I often think of that day when I have sung that song in church.

Now I have even more memories associated with that sweet little song.

Before every meal my dad sings that song and my mom hums along and sometimes mouths the words. It gets me every single time, because since September 6, 2013, my mom has not spoken. A stroke is a cruel thing. It takes away so much. But my mom HUMS the tune to that song. So awesome!

Hubby and I gave this print to my mom and dad for a Housewarming/Christmas gift. It hangs in their new kitchen. I just love it!

We have attended a church here that sings an interesting version of the Doxology at the end of every service. They call it The Gospel Doxology. Here are the words:

Your perfect law exposes me 

I feel my sin and desperate need 

My best good works are powerless 

To satisfy your righteousness 

But there is One who lived for me! 

His life, my only victory 

His death, forever sealed in time 

That I am His and He is mine! 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow 

Praise Him all creatures here below! 

Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost Amen

I am often a puddle of tears when I sing this, in part because of the magnitude of the words and in part because I see and hear my mother humming along and mouthing the words.

The power of music amazes me.

A Few Thoughts on the House

This is the house that I moved into when I was eleven years old with my mom and dad and brother a one of my sisters. (The other sister had graduated from high school.) It was painted white, had black and white striped awnings over the windows and had a single car garage with a flat roof and a deck on the roof. The first night we were there in June of 1972, us kids slept in the dining room because it was the only other room in the house besides my mom and dad's that had a window air conditioner. 

This is the house where I grew up. This is the house where I celebrated around forty Christmases, probably ten birthdays, a high school graduation, a marriage (a dinner for out of town family and friends after the church reception) not to mention the celebrations of my other family members. Mom called it the party house. She hosted a LOT of parties there. This is where I learned how to be hospitable. My mom was very good at having friends over and throwing parties. 

This is the house where my son celebrated his second birthday where my daughter learned to use a fork and where she hid her peas in a glass of milk. This is the house where my nieces and nephews and my kids put on their epic Christmas play. (We still watch the video and laugh our heads off.)

In other words, this is the house where I have an abundance of memories. 

After almost 44 years, my parents have packed up the majority of their stuff and moved to North Carolina to live with my sister and brother-in-law. Huge move for them. Big good-bye for me. As the youngest of four, I lived in that house longer than any other of my siblings. 

This past New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, Hubby and I spent several hours walking through the house and going through the things that my parents left behind. I even got my dad on Skype and walked through the house for an hour looking over the things that Dad wanted me to set aside for him. I found several things I wanted to take home. 

I also spent a lot of time just remembering.

In one room hung two pictures that my parents have had on their walls for longer than I've been alive. I wished I could have put them in my suitcase. I contemplated leaving them at my daughter's house to get at some later time. 

This is the Matterhorn in Switzerland.  Hubby and I traveled to Switzerland twenty years ago and this was on my list of places to see because I had seen this picture in my parents house for my whole life. 

This is my room. I had a trundle bed that sometimes got pulled out, but mostly the room was too small and after I got a desk in there there wasn't room for the trundle to be pulled out. I have sooo many memories in this room. So many talks with God, so many dreams, so many books read, so many letters written, so many tears cried. (I was/am a dramatic person and tears come easily to me.) As I stood in that room for the very last time I had a very vivid memory of my last night slept there as a single woman. One of my best girlfriends (Laura) from college slept on the floor and we talked late. I don't remember everything we talked about, I just remember the excitement and anticipation. It's a sweet memory to me.

Can you see the hooks hanging on the fireplace? These were up year-round. They held our Christmas stockings for forty-ish years. The stockings that increased in number from four to six and eventually to twenty-nine. (If I counted right.)


Good-bye number 2531. The memories will always be with me.

Lasts

Years ago I read an article about Lasts. The article pointed out how we don't always know or notice when the last something will occur. The purpose of the article was to encourage its readers to savor the moments.

Sometimes lasts are a welcome relief. The last winter we had to live in Minnesota. The last day I had to live in that small town that was so lonely for me. The last day on a job that was so hard to go to everyday. The last day of college classes because you are finally done studying and can get out into the grown-up world.

Some times the lasts are bittersweet. I don't remember the last time my little daughter reached out to hold my hand. I don't remember the last time my little son wanted to watch me put on my makeup. When did my babies last crawl or call for me in the middle of the night? When was the last day they went running to the door when their daddy got home from work? I kept a calendar the first two years of their sweet little lives and wrote down their firsts. Their first tooth, first bottle, first steps, first words, etc. I don't have a calendar of their lasts. Those lasts sneak up on us and go by unnoticed as time marches on.

Maybe that's a good thing because sometimes those lasts can be super painful and if we knew they were coming it would be unbearable.

Like what I've experienced lately.

My parents are in the process of moving to North Carolina. They have lived in Iowa their whole lives except for a few years in the Air Force when they were first married. But now they want to be closer to my sister's family.

I've come to realize that the last time I was in Iowa, two plus weeks ago, was the last time I will see them in the house they have lived in since I was eleven years old. I'm feeling like it's the last time I will ever be in that house and that is very painful for me. I did some serious growing up through my teenage years and college year summers in that house. I lived there longer than any of my siblings. My parents have thrown a lot of parties in that house celebrating graduations, engagements, weddings, birthdays.

The thing with lasts is they sneak up on you and sometimes you don't realize it and you don't get a chance to process and try to comes to terms with it and before you know it, it's done and gone. I thought I would have a chance to do that, but it seems like things are moving along faster than anyone told me, than I thought they would. How did I know that last Christmas was the last one I would ever celebrate in that house? I didn't get a last chance to go through the rooms and see if there are some treasures that time forgot. I won't say I didn't get to at all, because the last time I was there I found a vinyl record of my high school senior year variety show I had forgotten about. How many more of those types of things are there? I'll never know. I didn't get a chance to go room to room and play the memory tapes of the past, of my high school friends hanging out with me in the kitchen, of my date sneaking a kiss in the garage, of my husband and I talking in the basement the day before our wedding, of my son's second birthday party there, of my daughter learning to use a fork or hiding her peas in her glass of milk, of my nieces and nephews sliding down the stairs, of all the kids sledding in the backyard, of my parents at the front door waving good-bye.

Forty-three years of memories. Done. My heart is grieving.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

What I Did On My Abandoned Vacation

Hubby and I managed to be pretty productive after we got home from our abandoned vacation, even thought The Rain That Seemed To Never End came along.  Hubby went back to work for two days, but we still did some fun things.

We managed to knock out several errands which included getting my new glasses adjusted, finding a shoe repair store to fix my favorite purse, finding a new hair stylist and making an appointment. (I really liked her!)

One evening before that monsoon hit, we tried a new restaurant (weren't impressed) and went to a movie. We saw The Intern and really liked it. One of my take-aways from the movie is that I hope I look to those who have walked this road called life longer than me and realize they have much more wisdom and life experience than me and that because of that they have much to offer.

Hubby didn't work on Friday so we spent the majority of the day knocking off the list of stores we've been wanting to explore. We checked out interior design stores, a consignment store, an antique shop, a couple of garden stores, Hobby Lobby, and World Market.

I noticed something at many of these stores that just has me baffled as to why this is a decorating thing:

Why would I want a giant painting of a cow in my house? It's not even accurate because it's not dirty and doesn't have slobber dripping out of its mouth. (In case my son-in-law reads this I realize this bovine may not be a cow, technically, but it is impossible to tell from the picture if I should call it a cow, heifer, bull or whatever else is an appropriate title. Let me use "cow" as a generic term, okay?) I have also seen paintings of pigs in this style. I just don't understand.

Anyway, I loved, loved, loved spending the whole day on Friday with my hubby. I was just telling God tonight that I am very excited for Hubby to retire someday because the older we get, the more I like being with him.

Friday night the rain started here. We spent basically all of Saturday and Sunday at home (while it rained and rained and rained and rained). Hubby worked on a bathroom removing a horrible wallpaper border and painting over the pink and green stripes and hanging up a new shower curtain. It looks sooooo much better!

While Hubby did those jobs, I worked some more on my sewing room. I threw out a bunch of fabric, although if you looked in there you would probably think there was no way I could have because I still have lots of fabric. Thus is the life of a quilter. I also have a ton of fabric leftover from my days of sewing garments for myself and the kids. I started to plow through all of that, but quickly realized it was too much of a scrapbook of memories for me to handle getting rid of too much. There is fabric from numerous pairs of pajamas I made for the kids, the crazy neon 90s shorts, the sweet dresses, curtains...you get the idea. Despite my slobbery self, I did manage to purge quite a bit. 

By Sunday afternoon we realized it hadn't rained for several hours so we decided we wanted to get out of the house and we went granddaughter shopping and out for supper.

It was a good three day weekend for us and I was kind of sad to see it end.

The Weekend in Review

It was a stay-at-home-and-finish-up-some-projects kind of weekend.

Oh who am I kidding? The "projects" are really never, ever finished.  Heavy sigh.

Friday night, kind of at the last minute, we made reservations for dinner and dashed out the door. On the way there, I looked down at my shirt and realized I hadn't changed it like I had intended. It didn't look horrible, but I have kind of designated the shirt for a hang-around-the-house-and-maybe-go-to-the-grocery-store-kind-of-shirt. You know, the type: old, a little faded, a couple of small  holes, but not yet pajama-worthy. I only mention this because when we got to the restaurant and I saw someone come out in kind of nice, business-causal kind of clothes, I cringed. I felt severely under-dressed. I have never been more thankful for low-lighting in a restaurant! ha. ha. Anyway... the food was good, and we'd go back....dressed a little nicer, of course.

When we got back home, Hubby talked me through the things he was hoping to do on Saturday, which included hanging 544 more pictures. In my infinite wisdom, I decided I wanted to hang up ALL the "people" pictures we have. Believe me, after 31 years of marriage, we have a LOT of them! (And of course, I mean I wanted Hubby to hang up the pictures, because I am absolutely not the engineer in the family and would do a horrible job of it and would probably require having to redo all the dry-wall in the house.) And then on Sunday I decided to add six more pictures to the lot that didn't have frames, which of course required trips to Target and Michael's.

Anyway, back to Friday...

Before I got ready for bed I called my dad to catch-up as he had been to the Mayo in Rochester, MN the day before. He's getting some good help for himself and is striving to be in good health so he can take care of my mom. It was good to catch up even if the conversation was cut short because my brother and nephew showed up at my parents' house for the weekend.

Saturday was a pretty awesome day for me. I spent the whole day with Beth Moore and didn't have to leave my house at all! How? I signed up to participate in the Living Proof Live Simulcast. She was in Wichita and the conference was broadcast all over the world. 150,000 people! I just tucked myself in our bedroom with my laptop, Bible and notebook and had a blast. At the lunch break, Hubby asked me if I was glad I was participating and I said I am never disappointed with Beth's teaching.

Beth taught about living with audacity, which means to live with intrepid (resolute fearlessness) boldness. Certainly something I struggle with.

Romans 8:15  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Because of Jesus in my life, who has all the authority and is my Savior, I can have audacity.

I want to stay in the Word and not water it down to be more palatable to the world. (Here are words to a "lullaby" from Satan that Beth wrote: Rock-a-bye Christian lulled by the world. When the wind blows all hell will unfurl. Stay in your sleep distracted or scared so when I wreak havoc you won't be prepared."   Chilling.)
 
I want to pray for astonishing works of the Holy Spirit. 

I want to forgive and live forgiven. 

I want to hold on to Romans 8:18 - "For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us."

I want to walk in humility. That means I have 0% confidence in the flesh and 100% confidence in the Holy Spirit.

I do not want to exude pretense and showiness. I want to exude Jesus.

That's a brief summary of the notes I scribbled down. It was a cool thing to sit and watch and listen to Beth teach over my computer.

By the time I was finished with that, Hubby was in the midst of planting a bunch of bushes outside. Boy howdy, he sure is working hard to make this house look nice! By the time Hubby was all done with that and cleaned up it was time for him to sit down and relax and watch the Iowa State / Iowa football game. How cool is it that we got to watch that all the way out here? Unfortunately, Iowa State lost. Supper involved a little ordering on-line and me dashing to Panera to pick it up. Have I mentioned how much I love that Panera is 2.1 miles from my house?

Sunday was filled with church, lunch out, and an afternoon of putting things away and telling Hubby what stuff to hang up where. Poor guy. He probably doesn't want to ever look at another hammer again. At least he got to watch the Chiefs and the Royals play! A stellar weekend of sports for him to be able to watch all his favorite teams! Now he just needs a TV set up in the basement so he doesn't have to listen to my highly entertaining commentary. And by highly entertaining, I mean annoying.

And now on to this week...

Another Trip

I think I have mastered the art of avoidance. I returned from my two week trip to the Midwest, repacked my clothes (the majority which were dirty) into a smaller suitcase, slept a few hours, and thirteen hours after I got home, took off in my car for the Atlantic Ocean.

I met my two sisters and sister-in-law at my oldest sister's beach house. I wrote about our visit here.

Wait...what was I avoiding? When I was in the Midwest, I was avoiding the house having the floors refinished. Last week I was avoiding painters.

We have never hired someone to paint our house, inside or out, but I am so glad we did this time. We had all the main rooms, a powder room, the master bedroom and the master bath painted. I'm pleased with the paint colors and I am thankful for all the time saved from Hubby having to do all the work. Plus, Hubby not having to figure out how to paint the stair well and the funky angled high ceilings in our bathroom was worth it as well!

Back to the beach....

After the 4.5 hour drive (which was tough since I hadn't had enough sleep), I arrived to this:

 My sisters weren't due to arrive until late that night, so I took the time to wash my clothes. Nothing like arriving on vacation with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. ha. But the time the others arrived, I had it all done!

The main reason we all met there was to organize the closets and clean out the fridge and freezer and organize the pool room. Lots of people stay there throughout the year, especially the summer months, and it needs some maintenance of the spaces. We ended up with three trash cans full of stuff we threw away.  I don't know about you, but I feel good when I sort and organize and throw things away, even when it isn't my stuff.  I even came home with a fleece for Hubby, flip-flops for my daughter-in-law and a pink hoodie for my granddaughter. (Left behind and not claimed by anyone.)

I thought about taking pictures of my sisters and I working, but when I realized that we all still had our pajamas on, I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to take pictures and post on the world wide web. ha.

This is the only photo I took of our "work":

My oldest sister asked me to make labels for storage areas so people know where to return things to. These are all the rejects. We only needed 8 or 9 signs, but I had quite a pile of rejects. It was a collaborative effort; I cut out and wrote the signs, my sister-in-law laminated them, one sister punched the holes and the other sister hung them on the appropriate shelves with zip-ties.

We were there about four days. I think we could have gotten the work done in two days, but then there wouldn't have been time for sun and pool, TV watching and shopping and eating out!

I kind of wanted to walk on the beach, but it was a challenge to get to the beach. The week before we were there Tropical Storm Ana went through Holden Beach and left the dune between the house and the beach looking like this:

That's about a four to five foot drop. My sister, who took this picture, had to climb back up on her hands and knees. I hope it gets fixed for all the beach goers this summer!

I came back home on Saturday and have been busy doing laundry and cleaning and ordering organizing things for my kitchen from The Container Store and getting myself geared up to unpacking some boxes.

Being gone for almost three weeks didn't make those boxes get unpacked. Sigh.

Lately...

Why haven't I written? The short of it is that I have been out of town for close to forever. I find it hard to write when I am traveling.

When we moved into our house we realized the wood floors were in pretty bad condition so we scheduled someone to come in to refinish them. When I learned we couldn't be in the house for six days, I started trying to figure out what to do with myself. Sitting in a hotel room all week didn't sound like the best idea to me. So I booked some plane tickets and took off to the Midwest. I spent a couple of days with my son and daughter-in-law. The first morning I was there I got a phone call from my son asking me if I could come pick him up because he had been in a car accident.

His car was totaled. The other driver ran a red light. When we examined the damaged car we realized that if my son would have been just ONE second faster, he would have been hurt very badly. I am so thankful that God spared him from that. I am grateful that I was in town and able to take my son and keep my eye on him the rest of the day. I am grateful that his wife is a doctor and could ask him all the questions to make sure he was okay.

Meanwhile back in South Carolina... a before picture of the floors:

 If you look in the upper left corner,you can see the not worn part under the cabinet. The finish is pretty much worn off.

Here is an after picture:

So much better!

Back to the Midwest....

My next stop was in Iowa at my daughter and son-in-law's farm. Because this:

This sweet, sweet granddaughter is wearing her mommy's sweater. A college friend knitted this sweater for Megan when she was born. I loved it so much and saved it all these years. Lydia looked so sweet in it!

I had a wonderful long weekend with my daughter and her family. Us three girls spent a day with my parents. I so enjoy watching my parents love on their seventh great-grandchild. My mom has the sweetest smile when she sees Lydia.

My daughter started back to work (only two days a week) while I was there. She asked me if I would be able to babysit Lydia that Monday. I couldn't respond YES quickly enough! Lydia and I had a great day together. She did pretty well with the bottle and napped for over 2 hours in the morning. I loved taking care of her and talking to her and getting sweet smiles. I didn't even mind the spit-up on my shoulder. ha.  But the best part was the snuggling.

All that was only the first week I was gone. The second week hubby had meetings in St. Paul, MN, so I drove up there to spend some time with him. Well, at least the evenings with him.We did manage one dinner with friends the one night he was free for dinner.  I spent my time shopping for clothes since Minnesota doesn't have sales tax on clothing. I also spent a wonderful long afternoon with a sweet friend I met when we lived in Singapore. Our husbands work for the same company.

Mother's Day weekend found us back in Iowa. Hubby hadn't seen Lydia since she was four days old. He was more than a little excited to see her and spent a lot of time holding her and talking to her.

We were able to spend Mother's Day with my mom and dad and sisters and brothers-in-law.

Four Generations

Mom and her girls

Time For Catch-Up

One of my goals in starting this new blog is to document our life in South Carolina. Neglecting to write for more than two weeks is not quite meeting that goal. Let's see if I can catch-up with a list.
1. Two weeks ago I was thrilled to be able to fly back to Iowa to spend a long weekend with my daughter, son-in-law and this sweet baby girl:

So much cuteness!! A piece of my heart is on that Iowa farm with this sweet baby. I know, I know. In 6 weeks I have turned into one of those grandmothers. No apologies. Grin.

2. I was in Iowa for a meet the new baby shower that was attended by extended family.
These are a couple of my favorite pictures of from the shower.

My in-laws.

My parents.

Great-grand parents. Lydia has seven living great-grandparents. How cool is that?

3. We are still in a holding pattern back in South Carolina. We have a lot of things scheduled and lined up for the next month. Things like painting, furniture delivery, kitchen cabinets being customized and hardwood floors being refinished.

4. After those things are done there will be lots more boxes unpacked and things actually organized and the house actually decorated.

5. We intended to spend a long weekend in Charleston, SC, but when the weather forecast was for lots of rain, we canceled the plan and did some shopping instead. We went to Charlotte, NC to IKEA and Crate & Barrel, made a stop in Hickory, NC and ordered an awesome bed for the guest room. Our final stop was in Asheville, NC where we intended on doing some sighting seeing, but I got a migraine and that thwarted plans. We ended up coming back home early. Phooey. That headache lasted three or four days. Yuck.

6. I don't wear makeup every day when I'm at home, but I have been on a quest to find a good full-coverage foundation. I even went to a store and let someone try makeup on me. I bought it and tried it a couple of times, but ended up returning it because it smelled weird. Like an old lady. Couldn't take it.

7. Hubby brought me home a rose yesterday. It's so pretty in this stemmed glass. (I haven't unpacked the box with vases yet.)

9. We made a trip to Lowe's last night. It seems as though any trip to Lowe's is actually two (or three) trips to Lowe's. You gotta look over the options, then go home to think about it or measure things and then go back for the purchases. Then there is inevitably another trip for something you forgot.

10. Gotta end this list with another Lydia picture. My daughter sent this to me last night.

Baby smiles. Eyes lighting up. Be still my heart.

Settled In? Hardly!

Two weeks ago Monday, the moving truck delivered our household goods. Several people have asked if we are settled in to our house. I just laugh because we really are not at all. We still have about 12,876 boxes to unpack.

What the heck have we been doing?

We realized before the moving truck came that the wood floors that are in all the main floor rooms (except the bathrooms) are in very bad shape. It's only a nine year old house, but it's evident that 1) the builder cut corners with finishing the floors, and 2) the previous owners did nothing along the line of upkeep (of anything in the house). (And they left the house filthy.)

We have lined up someone to come refinish the floors but that won't happen until the end of April. In the meantime, we don't want to unpack too much stuff that we have to move again when that happens.

Yes, this is pretty frustrating. No, I don't do well living in chaos. When I fell stressed I like to quilt, but that's not possible right now because my sewing room is still in boxes. Sigh.

Hubby has been working like a madman to clean up and paint the garage. The previous owners smoked in the garage (and on the screened in porch) and it smelled terrible! Every time someone opened the door from the house to the garage, the smell wafted into the house. Ugh! So, dear, wonderful, hard-working Hubby has washed all the walls, prepped with Kilz paint and is now painting the garage. Since the walls are already divided into three areas: drywall, cinder-block base and a molding in between, he is painting it two shades of gray and the molding black. Even though he's not finished, it already looks so much better and the awful smoke smell is gone!

Anyone want to come in May to help me set up the kitchen? I look at all my stuff and I look at the kitchen and freeze. Not my strong suit. It takes me a while to figure out how to make it function.

We left our house in Minnesota on Christmas Eve. It will be more than five months from that point before we feel like we are settled in to our new house. Sigh.

I decided a good way to deal with the stress of a chaotic house is to leave! Mature way to handle it, huh? I'm flying to Iowa this weekend to see my granddaughter (and her parents)! Yippee! Can't wait to hold that precious little sweetie! I hope to see my parents while I'm there, too!

A Summary. The First of Several.

Two weeks ago I flew back to the Midwest to see family and to assist in packing up our house in Minnesota.

After a visit to my full-term pregnant daughter, I spent a few days with my parents. It had been a long time since I had seen them (Christmas). I met them at their Bible study group that they have been a part of for more than 30 years. I know several of their friends and my dad led the discussion. A good study on John 4 and a fun group of elderly people still learning about God's word. That is so encouraging to me to see people in their 80s still seeking to learn about God and His word. I have heard an 80-something year old say that he didn't think he had anything left to learn about Christianity (I even heard him say this when he was still in his 60s). That made me so sad.

The next morning I accompanied my parents to my mom's speech therapy at the University of Northern Iowa. The stroke that hit my mom in September of 2013 took away her speech. While she doesn't talk, she is comprehending two-step instructions (pick up the cup and pretend to drink), matching words to pictures and working on playing UNO. She has one-on-one time and some group time. The group time is for social interaction and is with people with the same type of language disorder caused by damage to the brain (most commonly the result of a stroke). Anyway, I found the whole thing very interesting (and hard) and am so thankful for people who study speech-language pathology.

Another morning I got to see my mom working hard in physical therapy. They have a very good and patient man come to the house three times a week to help my mom with movement. The stroke also took away the use of the right side of her body. She cannot use her right arm or leg. Amongst other exercises, physical therapist helps Mom walk with the use of two different types of walkers. He helps move her right leg. I watched my mom walk across the kitchen floor several times. I loved the look of determination and concentration on her face.

After a few days with my parents, I took off for Minnesota to meet my husband there.

(Can I take a break here to confess how the rental car I had drove me nuts with trying to figure out how to operate it? Oh, I could start it and drive it, but the climate control, radio and even the gas door release got the best of me. I spent a good five minutes at the gas station trying to figure out how to open the gas release thingy. I finally consulted the manual. I just needed to press on the round door and it popped open. Good Grief. Sometimes I just laugh at myself.)

Okay. Back to Minnesota. 

We finally were able to pack up the things in our house in Minnesota. Not only did that house sell, we found one here in South Carolina.

(I must clarify that by "we finally were able to pack up the things in our house" I mean we supervised a moving company packing up the house. And by "we supervised" I mean my husband. Of course. He's the best.)

It took a team of people three days to box everything up and to load it in a moving van. The moving van will unload everything here on Monday.

Whew! I'm tired just thinking of all of those boxes that need to be unpacked. I am so thankful for a husband who has the Gift of Organization. He also has the Gift of Spacial Reasoning and can visualize how our furniture will fit in a house. We spent a good part of today walking around our house trying to figure out where the bigger pieces of furniture will go so we can have the movers do the heavy work.

A Sunday Evening In My Jammies.

The jammies went on tonight before 7pm. Seemed an appropriate end to the week.

We wrapped up looking at houses (I hope) this week with a grand total of 28 houses looked at. Good grief, that's a lot of houses. We looked at so many in part because we were trying to figure out what area of the city seemed like the best area for us. Once we narrowed that down we went back to look at four of the houses for a second time and then threw in a new one just for fun. Ha. We've got an offer on a house in the process. I'm really not very anxious about it. God can work mightily and if He wants us in that house in that neighborhood, then it will work out. If not, then we'll keep looking.

Early in the week I received an email from my dad that made being halfway across the country from the family hard. My mom (who had a stroke almost 18 months ago) had been experiencing headaches and Dad was worried. He ended up taking her to the ER on Friday and she spent the weekend in the hospital. After some tests and adjustments to her meds, she is back home. I was relieved that it doesn't appear to be anything more serious. My dad takes amazing care of my mom. They've been married for almost 62 years.

We were encouraged with the church hunting this week. The previous two weeks were quite discouraging. The church we went to this morning would be a bit of a haul from the house we hope to buy (25 minutes), but could be worth it.

Lately, Sunday nights have been filled with watching public television. I've been enjoying some new (to me) shows. One our daughter introduced us to called "A Chef's Life" it is about a chef in eastern North Carolina and how she learns about and uses local seasonal foods in her restaurant. The other show is "The Great British Baking Show", a baking competition. I just told hubby that I think I'm a pretty good cook, but when I watch shows like that I realize there is so much about food and cooking I have no idea about.

Speaking of cooking, Hubby gave me an electric pressure cooker for my birthday. The only thing I've made in it so far is rice, but it cooked in 10 minutes and that alone sold me on it! I hope to figure out some recipes to try soon. Pinterest seems to have a few floating around out there.

And now it's time for "Downton Abbey".

Toodles!