I just got a call from Randal. There are 15 people in the hallway in the hospital here in town where they want to transfer him. In other words...no beds available. They need the bed where he's at for someone else, so they are discharging him home and having someone come here to do rehab with him. This is not exciting. I'm exhausted and stressed....the thought of looking after him is...well...a bit overwhelming. Not that I don't want him home...it will be nice...I'm just worried about him not getting the care that he needs. He's going to need dressing changes on his back..and I don't know what else...But I guess we'll see about all that when he gets home. I guess this is a symptom of our health program in crisis.
Randal's mom is also coming home today. She'll go to her sister's in town here, as she shouldn't be staying alone. Will update later when I know more.

Today is Monday....first day after a very busy weekend. Like I've already said..Randal and his mom both had surgery in the past three days. Randal on Friday night and then his mom on Sunday night. She was supposed to have her surgery on Sunday morning, but the nurse didn't follow dr.'s orders and put blood thinners into her I.V. bag. Which caused her to have a long nosebleed and her blood was much too thin to be able to do surgery. She spent the afternoon/evening coughing up the blood. Then the other thing the nurse did was give her food on Sunday morning. She figured she should feed her because Florence is a diabetic and her blood sugar was really low. She should have put dextrose or something of that sort into her I.V. This made it impossible for them to do surgery for 12 hours. When her dr. came in he was furious! He went up one side of the nurse and down the other...right in front of Florence. She was quite amazed...she said she'd never seen a dr. do that before. Can't say that I'd blame him though. If the clot in Flo's leg had gone to her heart/brain and she had died before surgery because of these mistakes...it would have been very bad, obviously. So it has been quite the weekend! Hope you're all well.
So here's my devotional today... I thought it was an apt subject after the experience I just described.

Fellowship Without Forgiveness: Impossible
by Jon Walker

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

Fellowship without forgiveness is impossible.

As believers, we’re called “to settle our relationships with each other.” (2 Corinthians 5:18 MSG) We need to consistently forgive others and receive forgiveness from others, or we’ll “give up in despair.” (2 Corinthians 2:7 CEV)

Whenever we’re hurt by someone, we have a choice to make: Will we focus on retaliation or resolution?

The Bible speaks candidly about settling the score: “Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15 NIV)

In God’s economy, it’s not enough to say we won’t seek revenge; we’re to press into the very heart of forgiveness, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave us. (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

The Bible is very clear that forgiveness is not optional for the Christ-follower. God sets this high standard because he knows how much is at stake in your life: Bitterness and unforgiveness are a cancer that eventually will destroy you from the inside out. Forgiveness is the scalpel that removes the tumor.

This doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to immediately forgive and be done with it. As you become more and more Christ-like, that will become possible, but for now you may have to work at forgiving someone who has hurt you in a particularly painful way. In other words, you may forgive this person but soon begin to feel a root of unforgiveness growing in your heart.

When this occurs, you can go to King Jesus and ask him to help you with this cycle. He will help you release the offender, and the Holy Spirit will guide you in your effort.

A major point here is that forgiveness is a choice you can make. The power of God, working within you, means you no longer have to remain a slave to unforgiveness or bitterness.

In Colossians, the Apostle Paul provides the basis and motivation for forgiveness: “You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13 NLT, italics added). When we remember the price Jesus paid to forgive us, how can we not forgive? (Romans 5:8)

What now?

· When you forgive, you’re not pretending it didn’t hurt – Forgiveness means you no longer hold the offense against the offender. It means you’ve pardoned the debt, and you’ve intentionally chosen to release the one who hurt you. We’re to love deeply, because “love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 NIV)

· Stop right now and talk to God – Have an honest conversation with God about someone you need to forgive. Our heavenly Father knows that it’s not easy to let go of our hurts, but he will give you the grace to forgive.

· Be honest with God – Cry out to God; tell him exactly how you feel. He won’t be surprised or upset by your anger, hurt, insecurity, or bitterness.

© 2007 Jon Walker. All rights reserved.

UPDATE

Randal is doing quite well.. the surgeon is happy with the surgery. It looks pretty good. I don't think there will be any permanent nerve damage..he was up and walked with a walker to the door of his room once today and sat up twice. I've been away from home for 2 nights and the kids farmed out to some wonderful friends.
The kids were brought to the hospital tonight to see Dad and then I brought them home. So we're all at home tonight except for Randal.
I stopped in at Randal's mom's place on the way home and she was having strong symptoms of a blood clot in her leg. So I made some calls and had her other son "convince" her to go to the hospital. I don't think she was very pleased with me, but you don't mess with this! She has already had 14 leg surgeries with life and death implications, in the past couple or three years. So anyway..this is not good but our God is and He is very capable and willing to take care of her and to see her through this as He is with Randal...
So....please add Florence to your list of people to pray for.
thank you so much...and please pray that nothing else happens around here!
♥Heather

M.I.A.

I just wanted to let you all kn0w that I may not be around for a few days.
Randal hurt his back and the last several days have been bad for him. He has been having a LOT of trouble walking. He's needed support to walk. So he ended up falling quite a few times this week. We figured it probably happened on Tuesday as that was an extra bad day. When I say "it", I mean the ruptured disk. His disc between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae has ruptured out and into the spinal canal. It is compressing the nerves that normally hang in that space and he has next to no control over his legs. Why didn't we go to the dr. sooner, you say? Mmmmm... well mostly because he's hurt his back before and going to the chiropractor and resting has fixed it up. So Wednesday and Thursday he saw the chiropractor and he told Randal that this looks very serious and to go see his dr. So yesterday morning we went to our dr. and he sent us straight to emergency to meet the neurologist. He had several tests done. Once the results were back the neurologist came back and explained to us that Randal has a ruptured disk and that they want to operate right away last night. The hospital here doesn't do that kind of surgery so they want to transfer him to the next city where the neurosurgeon is. There weren't any beds at the hospital where they do the surgery, so they ended up keeping him overnight where he is. So right now I'm waiting to hear from them as to when they will transfer him. The neurologist did say that they want to do this surgery pronto so that there isn't permanent paralysis in his legs. So sometime today. Please pray for him today.
Thanks alot.
♥Heather

Unprecedented Wind Storm

Today we had an incredible wind storm. It started last night and continued through the night and throughout the day. It was awesome to watch but had sad results for many inhabitants of our fine city. The winds were gusting up to 65 mph/105kmh! Very high winds..maybe not for those of you who live in hurricane country but this is unheard of in this area! We went for a walk down by the lake where the wind was gusting in off the lake.I was SO annoyed that I didn't have a camera, but I did find some pictures on the internet. So here you go......


One of the many broken pine trees in the park.



Uprooted trees by the dozens! I heard that about half of the pine trees in the park are down.




The waves were roaring up onto the beach..I don't think I've ever seen such large waves on a lake..although it's hard to tell how big they are in this picture. On the news they had footage of someone surfing and the guy disappeared under the curl of the wave!!



The water is normally about 20 feet to the left of that sign.
While we walked along the sea(lake)wall the wind was almost blowing us off our feet. It made us weave as we walked along. The sand was whipped up and we felt like we were being sand blasted at times. Why, you say, would you go out in this?? Well...for no good reason other than to feel the sheer force of the wind and be out in it experiencing natures amazing force!
They said on the news that this is the worst wind storm that our city has ever experienced.
photos courtesy of Goog*le.
(Peter...I can't comment on your new blog...can you contact me via my email on my profile? thx)

Remembrance Day.

Today we paused to remember those who gave their lives in honour of their families and their countries.
Since today was Remembrance Day our church service was rescheduled to start at 9 am so that we'd all have lots of time to get over to the cenotaph for the ceremony.
We got there and I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge crowd! We couldn't see anything that was going on until we walked around to the other side of the crowd and then we were able to at least peek around and through the crowd. I found it an emotional ceremony. All our lives we've heard about these men dying for their country.(now women too) Today it really hit home for me. I suddenly had a revelation of just what these people actually sacrificed for! They did NOT do this for themselves, really...They did it for the generations coming after them. Generations that they would not see, even if they did manage to survive the war! What an incredible sacrifice...it's mind boggling really..and I have to really think about it to grasp and hold onto that "aha!" moment that I had today. I was also contemplating and wondering how many generations after would we remember...would it really have any meaning for. How many....one, two, maybe three...It's really sad how forgetful we are. It's our responsibility to remember.

I found it a sober day today thinking about this all. Especially now that we have a current conflict going on that we're involved in.
I'm so thankful for those that have sacrificed and continue to...Many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice..and to all of them I say THANK YOU!

National Bring Your Grade Nine to Work Day.

Last week it was National bring your Grade Nine to Work Day. So Randal took Courtenay with him out in the bush. She got to have a look and experience a day in the life of "Dad at work". She's decided it isn't something that she'd want to have as a career, although she does enjoy going out in the bush with Dad. Here's the report she wrote to send to Daddy's boss. She also took a copy to school and is using it for credits for school. Kinda nice to spend the day out driving in the bush and have it count towards school!!! Well I'll leave you with it then...Enjoy!

Bring Your Grade 9 To Work Day

November 7^th 2007

Ministry of Forest and Range

Compliance and Enforcement

The three sites that I went to today with my Dad were:

******** Bros. Mill

Logging sites

Several range pastures.

At ***** mill we visited the scale site. I learned that the logging trucks park their full load on the scale, go and unload it, and then come back and weigh it again to find the difference.

They categorize the different kinds of wood to find out how much they should be paid according to the weight of the logs. A cubic metre of logs is worth from $50-$200 depending on the type of wood. They put all the information into their computers and send it down to Victoria. The mills that don’t have access to computers store their information in booklets

The logs are unloaded either few by few by a front end loader or by a big electric machine called Letourneau that picks up the whole load at once. It is electric because it is more efficient than diesel powered Wagners because it can go uphill with a load and it has the ability to brake coming back downhill. After the logs are unloaded they are either taken to log decks or directly to the mill. Before they take it to the mill they mark and chop the logs every five meters to make sure it isn’t rotten on the inside.

After we left the mill we drove up to Jack Creek area and drove around looking at piles of logs and logged areas. Here I learned that loggers cut down the trees by hand with chainsaws. I also learned that if you want to log an area you must have a license to cut, unless it is your own private property.

We stopped in a few clearings and I was taught about the mountain pine beetle and how to identify a “MPB” attacked tree. The bark has squiggly indents in it from the beetles burrowing around and laying eggs, there is usually spots of pitch on the bark from trying to push the bug out, and there is a blue ring of fungus on the butt of the tree. Here I also learned a little about how GPS works and that if a moose were to ever charge you to climb a tree and call for help.

The third thing we did was go to Brownie Pasture area and looked for cows that were or weren’t supposed to be on certain property.

You can tell who the owner of the cow is by the brand on the cow. The brandings are either right or left, hip, rib, or shoulder. The ones we were looking at were RRC, right rib cow. We weren’t able to make out any markings on any of the cows though because they were all either too wet or too old and faded. The cows eat basically the same thing as deer or moose: grass or small green plants, though sometimes when they are desperately hungry they will eat twigs. Ranchers place salt blocks in the grazing area for the cows to lick. Putting the salt block somewhere ungrazed will help move the cows into a new area. You can tell that an area has been grazed by the height of the grass and whether it’s been trampled down. In the whole day we saw approximately thirty-two cows.

In conclusion, I had a good day today. I enjoy trekking through the bush and looking at stuff. The positives were just the whole day in general. The only negatives I can think of were getting up, the cold weather in the morning, and trying to write notes on the bumpy bush roads.

thanks for reading. Have an awesome night/day.

A Giveaway!!!

Hey you all!! Sue over at Praise and Coffee is having an awesome giveaway!!! Go take a look!
See ya tomorrow. :D

Today was a tiring day. I woke up with a headache and it progressed from bad to worse. I hate taking migraine pills so waited for too long to take it. Why do I do this?? It never goes away!! Just take the pill and get it over with. I ended up taking it but had to take more because I waited too long-DUH! Some day I will learn...either that or go get my neck/back worked over!! I'm tired so am just doing a quick "hi how are ya? how was your day" kinda post..so take care and we'll talk again tomorrow.

ps. I have an interesting post with pictures that I'll probably do tomorrow..or possibly saturday.
:)

The Janelle song!!

This song is not really about Janelle, but it could be written for her word for word! As I'm sure all you parents can attest, it is a very truthful song. :D I'm sure most of you have experienced the things listed in this song. It's very painful and extremely frustrating...annoying..need I go on..when your child(ren) won't STAY in bed!! Hope you enjoy the video!

Not your typical Tuesday.

oh Nooo... I see that there is a scheduled outage for RIGHT NOW!!!
I started to write this post and noticed that Blogger just went offline! I nearly had a panic attack!! That's not a good sign! :P Obviously it came back on within a minute or so.
Well today was the funeral that I was telling you about prepping for on Sunday. It went really well and the family was so happy with the decorating that we did as well as the food. It was really good to know that they were happy with the results.
At one point during the service they had an open mic. I decided that I would go up and just say a few brief words. Now you have to understand that I'm the person that used to look for the nearest hole in the ground if someone spoke to me from the pulpit, at one time. Well I'm much better than I used to be about that, but still find it hard to speak in front of a crowd, but felt that I really wanted to say a little something. So I rehearsed in my head what I was going to say and as soon as the first guy finished talking I jumped up(almost literally!) and headed up to the mic. I adjusted the mic and tried to open my mouth to speak...well my chin started to quiver and there was no way that words were going to come out of my mouth! I tried a couple of times and thought I should just go back to my seat. Then thought-'no...I need to do this'. So I sucked it up...took a deep breath and started talking. What I said was really not what I had planned on saying and am a bit disappointed in that but ...oh well..at least it was something. Some people(that KNOW me)were fairly surprised when I stood up, because, like I said...NOT something I'd normally do voluntarily!! One lady said to me she couldn't believe it and said to the lady beside her.."HEATHER is going up there?!? But anyway.. it really isn't as bad as you think..well actually it was worse than I thought, because I didn't count on getting all emotional!! Anyway...it was fine in the end... It was a lovely remembrance of an amazing lady! I count it a privilege to have been able to serve in honour of her today.
Hope you all have a great night...or day whichever it is when you read this!!
take care...
ps...
we didn't see Maude nearly as much as I would have liked in the last year and now am regretting it...so don't forget to take time for the important things in life...People!! Not activities, things or events but *people*.

Wow...5 days in a row..

This could actually end up being good for me!! I'm not very good with doing the same thing very many days in a row! Well since I've signed up to post everyday for a month....I'm thinking that blogging could actually force me to form a habit!!
How many days do they say it takes to form a habit?? Well I googled that. I came up with a few answers, 30 days, 21 days, 90 days...but the consensus seems to be 21 days. So...after this month of blogging I figure that I should have a habit formed! Hmmm we shall see. I am so NOT a creature of habit. How about you? Are you one of those people that drives the same route every time you go to the grocery store...or take the kids to school..go to work? Yeah..not me....I take a different route...one of many...each time, whichever strikes my fancy, so to speak. But I do tend to avoid main street in case you cared haha. I have to say though that becoming a bit more of a creature of habit would be a good thing. I've always liked change though, so this is a long habit in the making. I've tried before to form some good habits but gave up too soon... Blogging...hmm I'm not sure that this is the BEST habit to form but I'm hoping that any habit will help!! :P
But then one could look at it from another point of view! It could be said that I am very flexible!! :)That is a very admirable quality is it not?!? That's the way that I prefer to put it. So I think we'll leave it at that! At the end of posting for a whole month(30 days), we will be past those 21 days..and I will be one habit less flexible than I was at the beginning of November 2007!

Our Sunday

Today started off with church. We go to a small church of around 100 people. We've gone there..well I have...since 1989. Randal grew up in this church. The neighbour lady took him to Sunday School there and eventually his mom started going too. So when you're taking that next door kid to church or just under your wing...don't think it's insignificant...it can change the course of that person's life! That church is the center point (after God of course) of our lives. Randal's brother met his wife there. It's been really good. Alot of people have come and gone...There are some that we've been friends with for a long time. They've almost become family..mine doesn't live nearby(until this year)and some of them have become family away from family. We experienced weddings together...we've had children together...we've held each others babies..had showers for each other...had some really fun and good times over the years. Some of them helped us through a tragic funeral...well the funeral wasn't but you know what I mean...we've watched our children grow and begin school...and some of them have almost reached graduation already...The crazy part is how fast this has all happened! Before you know it we'll be helping each other with our kids weddings!

This afternoon a friend and I spent a couple of hours getting the fellowship room at our church set up and decorated for a funeral. One of our good friends lost their mother yesterday afternoon. So Lorraine(my girlfriend) and I are getting things in order to have the funeral on Tuesday. Maude was 89 yrs old so this isn't really too sad a funeral..well they're always sad..but it's not so bad when they're this age. You know that they've gone to a better place, where they are no longer in pain, and their body parts all work again...well actually better than they ever did!! It was great to get together and do this for a mutual friend! There's just something special about being there for those people in your life that have been there for you when you needed it! :)
so now we're home...eating a late supper and watching Evan Almighty...good end to a good day. Well I hope you all had a great weekend too!
♥Heather

Saturday...the THIRD day!

Today was Saturday...and we spent the whole day home...It was really nice. It seems like we rarely do that...especially with all of us here! Randal was outside cleaning up leaves and finishing off winterizing the pool. That kept him busy all day because he also put away the deck furniture and I don't know what else! But it looks great out there...other than the fact that everything is either dead or dying :\
We're doing an experiment with the potted plants from the pool deck. The girls and Randal brought them all in. They're sitting down in the workshop for the winter. We're hoping that they'll survive and we can put them back out in the spring. Annuals are SO expensive. It's really easy to spend a couple hundred $$ on flowers! Although it's also very painful. This year I waited until everything was clearance priced....One downside to that, is that then everything takes so long to get big. By the end of the growing season it all is looking just beautiful! So hopefully the little experiment works.

Courtenay and I spent the day painting. We got the kitchen and the livingroom finished, well almost! The trim still needs doing, but at least we got those tall walls done! Once we finish the trim (tomorrow, I hope)the next challenge will be to reach the ceiling in the entrance! It's about 10' going up to about 14'...I'm not sure where we'll find a couple of ladders tall enough to get that done!? Oh well..we'll figure that out when we get to it.

Hope you all had a great Saturday today, and we'll chat again tomorrow! :D
ps... I see this is technically after midnight... but it's still the same day for me! especially since I haven't gone to bed yet!

Charts and Rewards~Ideas anyone??

Okay well here we go...the second post in as many days!! Wow....shocking, I know!
Well today was just another average day. Janelle and I did school for the morning which we ended off by baking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. She loves baking. When we finished that, we headed over to Tim Horton's. I treated her to a hot chocolate. This is a huge deal to her, as it isn't something that I do often...I think maybe 4 times total for her! She was so excited. I talked to her about doing this weekly as a reward for completing a certain number of tasks. Of course she thought this was a great idea!! So I'm going to put together a reward system of checks for certain tasks completed. When she gets so many checks than she can cash it in for a trip to Tim Horton's with Mommy...or Walmart with a few dollars for some sort of reward. I'm thinking that this is probably the best way to motivate this child. I was trying to find something that was really important to her. I racked my brain and couldn't really think of anything that she REALLY likes to do or have, etc.. Then I realized her favourite thing to do is spend time with me(swelled head I know!)and even that much more so if we're going somewhere fun, or if it involves hot chocolate or shopping. So now I need to do a chart of some sort for her. IDEAS anyone???? I'm not very good with charts...I like them but I really have to work at it to keep up with them! So hopefully we can stick with this chart this time. If you know of a good chore/routine chart, please let me know! Thanks :)Have a super weekend! ~Heather

And time keeps marching on.....

Well here it is Thursday night. Tomorrow is the last day of the week already! I can't believe how fast the time is flying by! Only 53 days until Christmas! That scares the heck outa me! I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet...Shopping is something that I don't enjoy, so I guess I procrastinate doing it...Not a smart strategy!! Oh well...I guess I still have time if I get my butt in gear right away. In the meantime I have lots that is keeping me busy right now.
As you may already know, I'm homeschooling Janelle. I'm still trying to figure out where to place her in all her subjects. We've been working on CAT tests for the last few days. She doesn't mind doing them, it just takes SO long to get them done. She's not doing too badly on them so far, but I won't know the official results until I send them in to be scored. This should really help with getting her set up and going on the rest of her subjects. We've been working on science, socials studies, cursive and a bit of math so far. We've also been working on a novel study entitled, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". It's a great book that she seems to be enjoying. I remember that book from elementary school and loved it! Our teacher read it out loud to the class and he substituted students names for the characters in the book. It must have mad a huge impact on me because I still remember that and that was back in grade 3! That's 30 yrs ago!! yikes...and we're back to time flying!
I've also been wanting to get the painting finished. My daughter and I have been painting for several months off and on. We started with the livngroom. It has a vaulted ceiling, so the wall is 8' on one side but goes up to 10' or 11' on the high side. It also has one wood wall that has grooves that go up and down. They're about a half inch deep...so they are a total pain to paint! Well first off we painted the primer. Then the first coat of paint. I then went back and got a second can of paint to do the second coat, since it hadn't covered very well. We put the paint on and then realized that it was the WRONG colour!!! GRRR! Ya know...the $$ of the paint wasn't the hardest part to swallow (altho that was big too), it was the fact that we had to get back up onto that ladder that I had to stand on the very top of to barely reach the top of the high wall! I struggle with having enough energy just to do the regularly daily stuff, so this was reeeaaally frustrating! Anyway...this put me off for quite awhile..not that I was sitting around...there is always LOTS to be done with a family of6!!In the meantime we painted Courtenay's room. It looks great. I should post some finished pictures. It went from being a plain white room to lime green on three walls and the end wall is black and white vertical stripes with a wavy mirror going across it. She picked the colour herself and did a good job of it. Anyway, we got back at the painting in the livingroom and diningroom. We didn't finish but I'm hoping that I can talk her into painting this Saturday with me and finishing the job! She's a huge help, actually if truth be known, she does most of the painting. That's the way she likes it. She wants me to be her "go-fer".So anyway I'm hoping to finish it this weekend.
Randal put up the new light fixtures in the diningroom this past week as well, so I'll post some pics of those too. I got the light fixtures on sale for a great price. I walked into R*ona one day for some small thing and ended up walking out with new light fixtures for the main floor. The store was having a garage sale in their empty green house. They had matching fixtures on clearance priced at about 70% off! I was so pleased and they look great with the new paint colour. They didn't look as nice along the former (pink)wall colour!! Anyway must get off to bed. Hope everyone is keeping well.
take care and pop in again sometime...I'll keep you posted on the painting/light fixture installation progress!