On Suffering

My husband and I went to an ultrasound at the doctor's office last Thursday. It was there that we found out that I was already in the beginning stages of a miscarriage. Apparently our baby never made the transition from fertilized egg to embryo. They call this a "blighted ovum", and we found out that it is possibly caused by a chromosomal abnormality. The first actual pain I felt due to the miscarriage began on Friday afternoon, and now I have completely miscarried (I believe - I don't suppose I could be 100% sure on that), and am beginning to recover.

Thursday night and Friday morning I was scared. I was certainly grieving for our loss of life, but I was also fearful that there would be complications (which is still possible, given the circumstances). Fear, fear, fear. That was what I was feeling. Then Friday morning, a little after 9:30, I felt a warm feeling just in my stomach area. I knew what it was. People were praying for me. From that point on, the Lord took my fear, and replaced it with peace. He was faithful to me, and held me up over the entire weekend.

It is interesting how different people have different reactions to suffering like this. Perhaps I will have a nervous breakdown in the future that I don't anticipate (doubt it), but right now I feel a deep peace that wouldn't be there except for Jesus.

It seems that when most people experience suffering, the question they ask is "Why?". For some reason, this has not been my experience. Maybe I should be asking why I don't wonder why, because I don't know. Got any ideas?

For me, the bottom line is that suffering IS. It exists, and it exists because of sin. If we were doing life on our own, we would constantly be nervous wrecks - fear filling us from head to toe. The strength and peace I'm feeling through this difficult time is not my own.

He's been faithful. :-)

Snow in October?

If you saw any snow falling today, it's probably my older son's fault. He's been cutting up paper snowflakes and taping them to our bedroom doors the last few days. I need to tell him that it is still only October...

Family News Summary

What I'm doing: blogging because I can't sleep

What I'm wearing: a sweater and socks (along with the usual skirt/shirt ensemble) - our furnace is not working and it's chilly

What I've been reading: Future Men, by Douglas Wilson; The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner (with Son #1)

What was for dinner tonight: Mexican - my husband rolled out homemade tortillas for us. I love homemade tortillas, but we don't have a tortilla press, and I don't have the muscles to roll them out myself. Yum! Boy, are they good!

What we've been listening to: Jonathan Park, and Bible Songs (Wee Sing)

Craft-of-the-week: a ziggurat - we just painted it this afternoon. This was to go along with our history lessons.

How many eggs a day we're getting: ONE MEASLY EGG A DAY - certainly those chickens won't be molting forever, will they?!?

What we're doing in school this week: Nothing! No school this week. It's our week off.

What I can't stand the smell of: beef (and we have A LOT of beef in our freezer, too). Maybe I could handle some steak? :-)

What I'll be baking this week: anniversary pie. It's my and my husband's anniversary this week (you might remind him if you see or talk to him this week), so I will make him a pie (our dessert of choice - easy to do with no refined sugar). What will it be? Cherry, peach, pumpkin, or pineapple? I'm not sure yet. We've been married for NINE YEARS! :-)

Oh Well,...

So I was going to do all kinds of blogging yesterday for my blogging anniversary, but then I realized that at the time, I didn't have much to say. What I could have said, I didn't have the energy to put it together. Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln that said that the more a man says the less he is understood? I suppose that applies to ladies, too. :-)

Toddler Has the Answer

When we sit down to read our Bible story each day, I ask my kids if they remember what yesterday's story was about. My 2-year-old daughter's unchanging response, day after day, is, "JESUS!"

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is my one year blogging anniversary. I think I'll celebrate by doing some blogging. :-)

The Applesauce

I had two applesauce days. The first one I did on my own with a little help from my husband. He liked setting up the apple-peeler/corer, and peeling/coring a small sample of apples for me, and after that it was pure charity. Not so interesting - boring, and tedious. I believe the comment was something like, "isn't this a lot of work to do for APPLESAUCE?" But I was grateful for the help. :-)

My second applesauce day was this last Friday. Mom and Grandma helped me that day, and wow! What a difference! They did all the peeling and coring and that was such a blessing!

All together (both days), I (we) did two bushels of apples. Unfortunately, one of the batches (about 3 quarts worth) burned as I was first cooking the raw apples. No one else could taste the burnt flavor after it was sauced, but I sure could. Yuck. Maybe they were just being nice. But my kids and husband are eating it, so...oh well. I didn't can that batch. I just put it in bags and froze it. So aside from that batch, I got 12 quarts, and 16 1-1/2 pints.

It's definitely a lot of work. It may not even be all that much cheaper, especially when you consider the labor involved. But the taste of this applesauce is so much better than anything we could ever buy at the store. It's nice to have the pantry stocked for the winter with at least a few things.

Now if we could just get our chickens to start producing those scrumptious eggs again.

Toy Reform: Update

Last March I posted about our family's toy situation, and my idea on confiscating toys when they are not picked up in a timely manner. I am happy to report that my system is working, and I am now close to being completely toy-stress free. I think anything better than what we have now would be next to impossible in a family with young children. The boys are doing a good job (usually) of picking things up, because they know if they pick everything up before the timer goes off, I will let them pick a different toy to get out of "storage". When I sense that we have too many toys out, I make them trade when it's time to get out something new. It is a great feeling to have the toy situation under control. That's a good thing, because Christmas is coming! :-)

Just Incredible

Here is the incredible story of the man who took the picture of the single man standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The photographer still does not know who the man was or what happened to him. Amazing.

Applesauce Day

Well, tomorrow is applesauce day. My mom is coming over to lend a hand. Hopefully Grandma will too! I'm not sure how it will go considering all I've been wanting to do lately is NOTHING. Give me the couch and a book, and let the dishes wait! (insert sappy violin music here) I'm SOOO tired. Whine whine. OK, so at least I'm not in the throes of morning sickness. Nothing that terrible. Just a little sleepier than usual. But I remember last winter how good the applesauce was that we canned last fall, so I will persevere, and order a pizza for dinner. :-)

I tried a small batch of applesauce with my new food mill. I didn't like it. The sauce was just of such a smooth consistency, yet I don't think I had enough water in it, so it was thick, too. We'll just go the usual route: peel and core the apples with my other handy kitchen gadget (Pampered Chef Peeler Corer Slicer), cook, and puree in the food processor.

File Under Annals of Family History

Doesn't the title of this post fill you with a sense of anticipation? You're thinking, "Oh no, what have her children done now?!?" And that is precisely the correct question to be asking.

Our 2-year-old daughter woke up with a fever and stuffy nose yesterday. Upon further examination it was determined that she had stuffed several small chunks of banana peel up her nose.