Myrrh-streaming Icon of St. Anna ...

will be at our Church this Saturday! I cannot wait to be in the presence of this miracle. I cannot wait to smell the scent of roses as I walk into the Church. I also cannot wait for my family to experience this truly awesome wonder-working icon. What anticipation I have!

Beautiful Wedding

Beautiful, Moving Wedding in 3 pictures

I cannot even begin to describe the emotion that flooded over me as I gazed at these three photographs of a wedding in a desecrated Orthodox Church in Serbia. How absolutely beautiful and what a wonderful testimony of faithfulness.

In the Spirit of St. Nicholas Day ...

we did something new and anonymous to share with the neighborhood. The idea came from stnicholascenter.org. And I just realized we did not take a picture for me to upload :( Ahh well, you're imaginations will just have to be used for this one :)

I went shopping for a few St. Nicholas Day treats for the children and for a few items to make a basket for a family in the neighborhood. Then while at the library I printed out a little story about St. Nicholas. At dinner I brought out all of the supplies much to the children's confusion as nothing is ever at the table except prayer books, the Bible, devotions and study guides. This is a time that we keep focused on the family which is kept focused on our Lord.

With all of the children looking expectantly toward me with wide eyes (yes, even the teenagers!), I explained that we were going to make a small basket for a family in the neighborhood and then ... play ding-dong ditch! That got their attention!! LOL After they calmed back down I explained that this was similar to how many in the neighborhood play "You've been boo'ed!" by placing a note and bag of candy on someone's porch. Only we were spreading the good cheer of St. Nicholas!

I pulled the small basket I had found in front of me and then the paper I had printed and read the story of St. Nicholas and the instructions to the next family to hang the snowflake (that we were going to make after dinner) on their door or mailbox if the door was hard to see from the road, make a small basket of goodies for another family in the neighborhood with a copy of the story and instructions in their basket, and leave it for them to find the next evening. The kids all thought this was grand fun and had so much fun helping me put the basket together and making snowflakes ... we only needed one snowflake but couldn't decide which to put in the basket so we put them all and will let the family choose which to use!

After we made the basket ~ which had a loaf of bread, some bath gels for the little girls of the house, some butter toffee covered peanuts all wrapped up in pretty wrap and ribbon, some hot chocolate for the little girls, our story and instruction sheet, the snowflakes, and a bottle of sparkling cranberry juice (mainly for the grown-ups) to sit beside the basket - we all bundled up (cause it's still in the low 20's/upper teens here) and headed out the door. We all walked down to the neighbor's house. DD12 and DS10 took the goodies up to the porch while the rest of us hid behind the bushes at the street ... the two children tip-toed up on the porch, put the goodies down, rang the doorbell and RAN! Then we all waited, anxiously shivering, for them to discover our gifts :) It took a little bit but finally Mr. Neighbor came to the door, looked around, looked down, saw the gifts, looked around again, slowly picked up the basket and bottle, looked around again, and turned to go inside. We waited another 3-4 minutes before I finally gave the go-ahead for the youngers to run back home. The older girls and I walked as we're known to do :)

I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I honestly didn't think my children could stay quiet for that long ... or still! The older girls actually want to make a couple more baskets and give to a couple of other families in the neighborhood since it is so close to Western Christmas - therefore not a lot of time to spread the cheer. We just might do that. As it might not sound like all that much but it was fun. I can't wait to start this next year - the day after Thanksgiving AND I want to include more details about Saint Nicholas in the story, so I'll need to work on that.

Tomorrow we're making (yes, I know a little late, but I just discovered it!) a 40-day Advent calendar! I'm so excited about discovering things that make Orthodoxy seem so natural and "normal" to the children. Living in an area of 90% Protestant, 9% Catholic, and 1% Other is sometimes difficult - especially since we are old calendar, we fast, and no one has a clue what Orthodoxy is when they speak of it. So it's nice to show them that it's not as foreign as they may think it is... we're not really that 'different' so to speak.

Hmmmm, I feel myself getting into the spirit of Nativity finally. For awhile there I didn't think I was going to find it this year. I am so glad God directed me to OrthodoxMom.com, The Liturgical Year for Little Ones, and so many more via MyOCN.com (My Orthodox Christian Network). Even though I wish I had found them earlier, this honestly was the best time for me to find them - the ideas and inspirations are really helping me and if I had discovered them prior to entering a depressive period the effect would not have been the same at all. God truly knows exactly what we need, when we need it. Glory to God!

The prodigal blogger returns

Ha, ha, ha, I know :)

Let me give a brief run down of my time since May. Lot of pain, tests, lots more pain, tests, even more pain, tests, all fruit diet as it hurt the least, suggestion from my father leads to otc medication, leads to diagnosis from dr that I have an ulcer... a bad one. Start healing, start the home school year, start the college semester, start getting in good routine and my father lands in hospital, emergency surgery, discharged, back in 2 days later, more emergency surgeries, stays in the hospital for a month, discharged, back in a week later with acute renal failure, cousin's wife diagnosed with cervical cancer, best friend from childhood's father dies on Thanksgiving, finals week, all while dealing with some children issues including a child who just plain refuses to do her work but blames everything and everyone else on why she can't complete a few school assignments yet can clean house, or read, or craft all day long, oh, and a son that joined the Air Force.... ooops forgot husband who had to take another job that takes him out of town most of the week which basically leaves me as a single mother most of the time - but it's ok, cause it's what we have to do in order to make ends meet for the time being - the dealership says it will be able to start hiring back people it let go and soon after that give back everything to those still working there that they had to reduce (reductions were in pay, sick leave, benefits, etc, without reduction in hours - if anything more hours) - so no more than a year before back to "normal," prayerfully much, much, much less.

Soooooo, in a very small nutshell, that is why I haven't posted. I barely had time to sneeze much less post!

I feel so sad, because the majority of my garden died while I was stuck inside in excruciating pain for a couple of months. Of course, no body tried to take care of it while I was down for the count. We did get some tomatoes, quite a few bell peppers, some small watermelons, a few okra, a couple of squashes, a lots of kale (which would have been awesome if it hadn't been for the larva that were all over them... and being in so much pain, I couldn't deal with trying to figure out what they were and do something about them). That's it. Nothing else. Not even enough to can a few cans. That really upset me, too, during everything else that was going on. All I can say is, I can prepare for planting indoors here real soon. Prayerfully, next season will be better.

So anyway, that is what is and can't be changed. Now it's the Nativity Fast and Advent season. I've allowed everything to come piling up on me at once which has led to the depression I fight to rear it's ugly head. So, dear husband took me to the herbal shop so I could get some herbs I've been needing lately. While there he non-chalantly asked me if I needed some St. John's Wort :) Man I love him. He knew it helps me and that I needed it. So I'm starting back on that. Through prayer and this I expect to get control of this monster fairly soon. I am hopeful in that respect.

Now what I'm facing is getting us back on track spiritually. I have not done one single thing toward Advent this year (being old calendar I'm not as far behind as all that). So I really need to sit down and figure out how to get back on track. Just because I'm not "up to it" doesn't mean the children need to suffer. Because of figuring out what has worked in the past, I have given myself today off... no school work, no chores, no anything until time to make dinner here in a little while and take DD12 to Horse Quiz Bowl practice in less than 2 hours. So I will start planning and then start putting into action tomorrow. This means that the first half of the Advent "home services" will be done on weekdays until we are all "caught up" and back on track the last few Sundays.

Pray for me if you are so inclined. Not just for the depression but for some issues and struggles going on between my husband and I. I am praying that the issues simply stem from long hours and days apart.

Thoughts on the brain...

*sigh* I have a lot of thoughts and no way to really express them. They center upon some very bigoted judgmental people that are attacking the Duggar family. I love how they make accusations without knowing the facts. We are a family much like the Duggars and yet we don't have the same fall out they do just because we haven't been blessed with as many children as they have as close together. yes, I have "issues" with certain things they do, but at the same time I have issues with the way most people raise their 1, 2 or 3 kids ... this has nothing to do with family size or following what we believe is God's will for our lives.

I saw several want to know what they do for a living and accuse the Duggars of being supported by the mighty tax dollar. They don't get anything from the government. They own rental properties and live a debt free life and learned how to handle money the correct way -like many other smaller families have done and are doing now ... Dave Ramsey has an excellent "program" for getting debt free and living a very nice life. We have adopted Dave Ramsey's way. The Duggars used Jim Sammons. Not that it matters who a person takes advice from, it's a matter of whether or not you decide to take control of your finances and investments and use self control to make the money you make work for you and your family and your lifestyle. The Duggars have done this and done this well. I won't get into everything they do, as they don't even do everything our family does.

Our family does many more money saving things like growing a good portion of our own food and doing many herbal and homeopathic remedies instead of tons of doctors visits ... yes we have insurance and yes we use it when we need it (traumas, dental work, diagnositics, etc). The Duggars tend to have money to pay for their care outright which means not dealing with insurance companies turning down treatments ... we as well try to plan for that sort of thing while maintaining insurance as well (as they may as well). When one makes wise investments early on, there is a lot of money to be made over time without having to work ones self to death to make a buck as the saying goes.

Someone mentioned if the older kids have gone to college ... well only a couple are even college age. They have the option to do so.
We encourage our children to go to college due to some events that have happened within our own lives, especially mine ......

but I have to go ... lots to do and I've run out of computer time!!!

My oldest girl's poison ivy and then some

My poor baby girl! She just had her 16th birthday a couple of weeks ago ... my oldest daughter ...

Well the weekend after her birthday we went to the ball fields to watch my DH umpire a baseball game. They had a great little playground the younger kids played on almost the whole time. Of course they all discovered a path through the woods that were right there that a church had made as a "meditation trail." We enjoyed walking through the paths and exploring the creek (as the kids had begged me to come look at it with them). Well I finally noticed that most of the edges of the path were covered in poison ivy and my DD11 was walking all through it. So I had them stick to a certain to certain areas by the creek that had none.

Thursday DD16 comes to me saying she had a ton of ant bites. I took a look at them and discovered she had poison ivy! I started her on my herbal remedies that I used for DH when he got it last summer. It was the only thing that worked for him. She didn't like the way it looked etc so she wasn't faithful about it and wanted to try something different. So I indulged her - nothing worked. I finally told her to do a saltwater bath since the ocean clears up almost everything ... it worked on her legs but not her belly, belly button, and bra area. The next morning (yesterday) I asked to see the places that wouldn't clear up. I could tell immediately she had cellulitis. I called the doc and she rolled her eyes... but she wanted the doc to give her a pill or something and make it better so she went along without complaint.

Well we get there and the doc looks at her and says that she has cellulitis! But I caught it early enough not to have IV antibiotics the way I needed them. She had four places. She posted later to her friends online that "my mom knows what she is talking about ... I have cellulitis!" It was nice to be publicly acknowledged :)

She is now doing much better with only residual itching and the four patches are looking much better already.

Headache Answer

I'm hoping to make several posts today about things that are on my mind - it just depends on a bunch of stuff - namely how my neck holds up as my neck and back have been under a lot of tension from the headaches.

So anyway, for weeks I've had a constant headache that never let up ... it changed several times and became migraine strength and also got down to just there enough to make me irritable. For a few months prior to that I had a lot of headaches but not one continuous headache like this go round.

So anyway, I make it to the doc and at first was given meds - no meds worked AT ALL including the shot they finally gave me that should have knocked it out in 20 min. It didn't and by the time I got home it was nearly the same strength it was when I arrived. All the shot did was relieve the neck and back pain for a little while.

I had no evidence of a sinus infection or allergies as my nasal cavity was totally clear thanks to my neti pot use. That has been awesome by the way not to be stopped up and being able to breath constantly and consistently.

So the next day I emailed the doc and updated her so she ordered an MRI to see what that showed. I got one that afternoon and the results the next day ... severe sinusitis in every other sinus cavity in my head but not my nasal cavity!!! No wonder she couldn't find anything ... the other cavities can't be seen visually and usually the nasal cavity will show the same evidence as the other cavities BUT with the regular use of the neti pot, my nasal cavity was clear. Sooooo, since it is so bad, I am opting for allopathic meds for this one. Antibiotics and steroids. Only been taking them for half a day and feel better... of course that's the steroids shrinking the swelling taking pressure off my head and relieving the headache and considering all the stuff I've taken it's the only thing that will help right now until the antibiotics really start clearing it out (which are some heavy duty stuff, not just amox or ceph or pen, etc).

From now on though, I will pay attention to the particular pains I have and start taking lots of garlic and honey as I have for many other things to take care of it immediately. Should we ever be in a position where we can't get to antibiotics I will have to make sure I stay on top of symptoms as soon as they arrive instead of just pushing through like I've done with these headaches.