25 thoughts on “Rants! and Raves! 6-15-13”

  1. 😦

    It didn’t happen to me, but a strange confluence of events has cost a couple thousands of dollars. They are members of our Lions Club and he was Elvera’s SS teacher for several years. This event was last week. I learned of it yesterday.
    They went to Savannah on Sunday to celebrate their anniversary. While they were away, a valve broke inside the upstairs toilet and water started running into the toilet. But it was clogged and water ran onto the floor. It ruined the floor and downstairs walls and floor. A neighbor came in on Thursday to check on the cat and discovered it. But it was too late to avoid much damage. They had to stay in a motel four days while the mess was cleaned.
    Strange that it happened while they were away. Strange that the toilet was clogged at that time, and they didn’t know it.
    I had a difficult time understanding what they were telling me at first because I had an interior valve break once. It was similar to their event, but I was home, and when enough water ran into the bowl, it would flush, and start filling again. I turned off the water to stop it. If their toilet hadn’t been clogged, they would have had a $100.00 water bill, but that’s all.

    Like

    Reply

  2. After making the above post, I picked up my SS book to study this week’s SS lesson. It’s on Job, various verses. Title is “Who Said Life Would Be Fair?” The book of Job is strange in that respect. Some months ago, our pastor preached a series on Job. It was called, Why Me?, and he wrote a book on it.
    But Job doesn’t answer the question. There have been other books, like When Bad Things Happen to Good People. But none of them answer the question, “Why Me”?
    Sometimes things, good as well as bad, happen for no apparent reason.
    I’m supposed to teach for Dr. Jones next Sunday. It will be difficult. Job isn’t my favorite book. The lesson title is “Whom Can I Trust”. Job doesn’t answer that either.

    Like

    Reply

  3. 🙂 Had a wonderful 10 day trip out East. Now I see why Charles Kuralt said, “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” While driving through much of the country East of Indiana, all we saw were trees along the Interstates. Every once in a while I would get off and drive along the old roads parallel to the freeway, just so I could see something else.

    🙂 On the trip, I finally got to take Mrs L to Niagara Falls. We wanted to on our honeymoon, but didn’t have the money then. Of course, at times I think the honeymoon isn’t over, so we just delayed the honeymoon trip.

    🙂 Enjoyed seeing D3 enjoy the trip. I was concerned since her cousin that we invited couldn’t go along. D3 got to spend time with her friend in Connecticut without the cousin who is more outgoing than either of the other two, so they got to know each other better. (It was the cousin who originally introduced D3 and the friend.)

    😦 While visiting a cousin on Long Island, she got a call that her brother-in-law (my other cousin’s husband) was taken to the hospital with cancer problems. 58 and in excellent health, yet cancerous.

    Like

    Reply

  8. 🙂 Great 2 weeks of holidays – canoeing, fishing, reading – I’ve read 7 books in the last 6 days! Haven’t done that in a long time.

    🙂 Son is visiting again

    😦 He’s still hurting from his break up

    🙂 5 inches of rain 😦 2 more expected today and tonight

    😦 A bit of water in the basement – fixed some flashing on the eaves – no more water 🙂

    🙂 Ordering the new siding for our house this week.

    😦 Prepping the house for the new siding – removing vinyl, stucco, old shingle type siding (all layered up) scraping and painting window trim, replacing the fascia and eaves troughs. Going to look good once it’s done 🙂 😦 Lots of hard work until then.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Back from camping, had a wonderful time of course. It rained some, sunned some, it was all good. The children got to go fishing as my camping buddies love the children and fishing. So, with ten fishing and a six per day limit, we had a lot of fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still brought a lot home in the freezer.

    Like

    Reply

  11. One of the women with whom I was camping, learned that her forty plus year old son was run over and killed by a tractor while she was out there. Well, she learned he had been injured and life flighted out of the area. He was not thought to be a believer, she is.

    Like

    Reply

  12. Mumsee! 🙂

    That sounds like fun, the camping/fishing part anyway. 🙂

    Yours too Kare. 🙂

    My camping trip starts next weekend. 🙂

    We’ll really be roughin’ it in a “cabin” that sleeps 12 though. And a fireplace, Jacuzzi, and deck and grills. OK, we’ll be hoteling it I guess is more accurate. 🙂 My wife’s whole family is comin’ too. 7 lakes, and 1 reservoir, in 7 days. 🙂

    Now this is my idea of a vacation. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  13. We will be spending a week in a cabin that sleeps 12, though it will probably need to sleep 13 if we all go. With a fireplace and a jacuzzi and deck and grill and all that. But we will spend most of our time playing tennis and swimming and biking and visiting relatives as it is my family reunion. Every three years for one week, generally changing locations but we all liked the place last time so much we will be going back again. But it will just be us in the house.

    Like

    Reply

  15. AJ, that’s my kind of camping 🙂 Last night we had a campfire out in the yard and it was so nice knowing I could go into the house and sleep in my own comfy bed!

    Like

    Reply

  18. only a day and a half of school left. Report cards are done 🙂
    realized that I wanted to give each kid a laminated page of pictures of themselves, spent the whole day yesterday going through all my pictures. I will be taking my camera to church this morning to get one more of the child who spent a lot of time in the village with his translator parents.
    I know for my village kids, this will be a very special gift.

    Like

    Reply

  19. 🙂 Got the cable equipment turned in, just waiting for the close-out bill.

    😦 Feeling under the weather all day, though, took a nap this afternoon. Maybe a late-day shower will help.

    Like

    Reply

  20. 🙂 What an amazing morning we had. We all went to the nearby resort town for breakfast and on the way home we saw a bear. But not just a bear, she also had 2 cubs – so cute. We needed to turn around to head back home so we went back up the road a ways to a driveway to turn around. On the way back we got to watch the mother bear take down an elk fawn twice! Then we watched as the mother elk attacked the bear and rescued her fawn and allowed it to run away. The herd then came and stayed between the bear and the mom and her fawn as they ran across the road and into the brush. Pictures are up on my FB page if anyone wants to see them!

    🙂 To top off the morning we climbed the tower at the viewpoint and when we reached the top we could hear some wolves howling – far off and very faint, but the first time my kids have ever heard wolves!

    Like

    Reply

  21. 🙂 God worked out a situation I was facing yesterday, relieving me of some stress, & making me smile. 🙂

    🙂 Emily & Chrissy took us all out to eat for Father’s Day. Forrest was so cute in his excitement that all of us were going together to a “reddaunt” (restaurant), & we were all going in Papa’s car.

    🙂 After dinner, we stopped at the local supermarket for ice cream sundae “fixins”.

    🙂 To start off our day, though, Lee & I went to church, where our pastor began a new series called “Warrior”. It was challenging & encouraging to men, & Lee was encouraged & inspired by the message. (But it wasn’t a “Father’s Day message” per se.)

    Pastor Kris believes that men have to be reached for Christ, & that in reaching the men, he’ll reach their families.

    Like

    Reply

  22. Kare, that sounds like something to watch! We saw a mother bear and two cubs on our honeymoon, but Mama was only “attacking” a garbage can.

    😦 My sister’s huge loss. They had a very close marriage (I don’t know anyone with a closer marriage), he was so young, she is very dependent on him (both her personality and her belief system have her put her husband on quite a pedestal), and she is left with five young children (5-14), so on multiple levels it is a devasating loss.

    🙂 God gave the family grace in having ability to “be there” for her: one brother and his wife were traveling to have supper with my sister and her husband that very night, and apparently planning to have supper with them. They were traveling (work-related) and might well have had appointments they could not cancel, but instead the “appointment” was already my sister’s family, and they were able to be there through the furniture; three of their grown children came as well (traveling separately). My next oldest brother travels a good part of the year (40 weeks or more), but in God’s providence he was home that week, and only three or four hours away, so he and his wife (and one daughter) were able to come over and spend several days as well. Since he and his current wife each lost their first spouse, they were able to offer practical help and some comfort. My husband is a very detail-driven man, and we had the freedom to go for two weeks (though we “played it by ear” in terms of how long we stayed); my husband was able to make the phone calls, fill out the forms, run many errands, go with her on the hard, hard “errand” of signing up for social security, and so forth. (He and I went with her and had someone come to be with the kids.) Since he also lost a spouse, he could help with such things as telling her what to expect at the funeral home, helping her pick a gravesite, and encouraging her in the Lord. She found his ability to stay one step ahead in knowing how to help her a great comfort. In the early days, I washed laundry, made lunches, and so forth, and then the family stepped in and started doing those tasks, and I stepped back to let them. But we continued to play with the kids, run errands into town (often taking one to three children), and otherwise do what needed done and what might overwhelm her emotionally, financially, etc. By the time we left she was past the worst of feeling absolutely overwhelmed, and we felt OK leaving her. And I will say her two oldest are extremely well taught young men, and the oldest is an especially great help. At 14, he can see what needs done and do it, and guide the younger ones when needed, and overall take huge levels of responsibility, much more than most “teenagers.”

    🙂 We had gone to visit my sister and her family for a bit over 24 hours in March, and that visit proved to be a tremendous blessing. In the first place, my sister had barely met my husband (my husband-to-be, our girls, and my sister and brother-in-law were all in town for my bridal shower and our wedding–but with many people around, the actual interaction was minimal), so my husband got to spend time with her husband. That helped because her husband grew to respect my husband, and that helped her feel comfortable with him on this visit. Also, he was not a stranger to the children, but already a beloved uncle.

    🙂 I finally got some mockingbird photos, and not distant blurry ones. I’ve wanted mockingbird photos all my life, and I finally have a camera that can take them, but where we live they don’t come in our yard. But I got some wonderful ones on this trip.

    🙂 I got to see the South in June (magnolias and mimosa in bloom, and several wildflowers).

    🙂 I feel like I finally “know” my only sister’s only daughter–one of the shyest of my sister’s children until she warms up, I finally got to know her well enough she’d sit on my lap, play with me, giggle with me, and otherwise be the little girl I’ve wanted to get to know.

    😦 It was, overall, a very hard two weeks. We were short of sleep (staying up past midnight multiple times with a sister who is hit hard with grief at night, and then sharing a full-size bed with a tall husband), it was emotionally intense, and it was an awful lot of driving. (They live many hours away, and they also live quite a few miles “from town.”)

    🙂 God gave us grace, God is giving her grace, and it’s good to be back in our own bed. (I slept nine hours last night–a rarity for me–but was only half awake in church and we took a long nap after today’s family lunch.)

    🙂 The girls cleaned while we we gone–I can see evidence of mopping (kitchen and laundry room), vacuuming (rugs), and clean dishes, and they said they cleaned out the fridge. (We have yet to see how much they spent on groceries; they put the receipts in a baggie on the fridge. We’re hoping they practiced budget-conscious shopping!)

    🙂 The man we lost was a strong Christian, and a great husband and father; the fathers in his church are shaken by his loss and seeing the importance of the legacy he left, and their own need to be the husbands and fathers God has called them to be.

    🙂 God is good, even in sorrow and hardship.

    Like

    Reply

  23. Cheryl – My heart goes out to your sister. Thank you for updating us on the situation.

    Does she yet know how she is going to make a living for herself & her children? The thought of that must be so daunting & scary. We know God provides, & that He leads us in the way we need to go to obtain that provision, but the scary part is getting from here (not knowing) to there (seeing what God is doing).

    Like

    Reply

  25. Karen,

    Neither she nor her husband believed in a mother of young children working (nor do I). They had life insurance, and financially the family will be OK. They have numerous other challenges, but will be OK in that area. In addition, people have been generous to them, and immediate needs have been met. (They got a free burial plot and friends dug the grave, another friend came and took their van to get four new tires, they got a large gift from a church whose members had heard of her husband but had never met her, and so forth.)

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment