I have moved my blog to www.seekingfaithfulnessblog.blogspot.com.

Please adjust accordingly – I’d love to see you at my new home.  It is very unfinished – just set up, in fact.  There is much customization to be done.  This blog, and my old blog at wordpress (seekingfaithfulness.wordpress.com) will become obsolete and unreachable in a few weeks.

I like New Beginnings.

Wowee.  My site is back up.  That must have been quite the severe technical difficulty! 

Sorry, folks.  My leave of absence was very unplanned.  From what I hear, I will need to find new web hosting within a short while.  I’ll have to get back to you on the plan….just as soon as I decide what the plan is. 

I hope that you are all doing well, that your Christmas was blessed simply because of Emmanuel – God with us! 

I’m so glad to be back up and running, so looking forward to hearing from you.

Be back soon.    God bless you.

Holly

I tried to post a few nights ago, but had a faulty internet connection. The entire post was lost. Since that time, I’ve been so absorbed with the normal business of family things, that I have not really had time to post again. Even now, I’m ready to head out with my little troops (the youngest five) in order to do some birthday shopping. Both Mariam and Emily celebrate their birthdays during Thanksgiving week. That tends to make things a little bit busy!

I don’t have much verbal creativity right now – but I have many crafty items in the works for Christmas. Maybe I only have the ability to be creative in one realm at a time? There actually ARE lots of things going on around our house – things that I would like to share with you – but I think that I will have to resort to a bullet point type of update versus a coherent post for each item.

1) Emily, who turns 14 this week, was recently in for a regular doctor’s visit. We have been fairly healthy over the last two years, so I have not even established most of my children with a doctor. In order to establish a family of ten with a new doctor, that’s right….it takes ten separate visits. It may not seem important, but if you are faced with emergencies (as we were this summer with Nick and Ben) you quickly find that you need a family doctor. So, we’ve been working on that. During Emily’s turn last week, we asked the doctor to look at some large, flat, brown moles on Em’s arms. The doctor was duly concerned, and quickly scheduled a biopsy. The biopsy was done yesterday, and we should know what kind of moles we are dealing with within a week. I do know this doctor pretty well, as she is the one who delivered Mariam two years ago. She’s a incredible doctor, not over-reactive at all, but she was concerned about these moles. She said that it is odd for them to be as large as they are. She also said that Emily apparently has extremely photo-reactive skin. I have had some fear over this, have prayed to God that first of all that all would be well. Second, I have prayed that we would continue to give all things over to Him and asked that He would be with us through every storm.

2) Emily hurt her foot pretty badly while playing tag Sunday night. It has a large bruise and was swollen. The doctor said that she was not sure if was broken or not. If it is worse by Wednesday, we are to have it x-rayed. Emily thinks it is a little bit better this morning, so maybe we will avoid another medical adventure.

3) I am a working woman! Well, not really. (That’s really funny when you think about it. I’ve been a hard working woman for all of my adult years.) But now, I am working two nights for pay. I have a job that involves sitting with an elderly woman (92 years of age) from 8 p.m. til 8 a.m. I feed my family supper, bathe the little ones, do the nighttime routine, then head over where I help my little lady get ready for bed. She sleeps through the night, and calls me when she needs to get up to use the restroom. I am able to work on things such as grading essays and homework and handwork, until I go to bed myself. She has a bed for me and I sleep there. We get up around 7 a.m., and I fix her breakfast and whatever else she needs, and then I come home at 8 a.m. to a full day with my family. After all of our medical bills from this summer, it is a real answer to prayer. God provided a way for me to earn a little extra money in a manner that does not take time from my family. I’m able to “work” all night and still get rest. Isn’t that wonderful?

4.) Jacob, our oldest, has decided to graduate high school this year. We weighed the pros and the cons with him, and fiscally, graduation made the most sense. He’s already taking some college courses, but is unable to get financial aid as long as he is still a high-schooler. He’s ready. Very responsible, juggling work, high school and college at the same time. We’re excited for him, but that throws a few new meetings into the schedule and fastracks some of our plans. We’re looking into having him graduate in a ceremony with other local homeschooled seniors.

5.) Jeff, my husband, is at a point where he has to make a decision regarding his ministerial license. He has to decide which denomination is best compatible for holding his ordination papers. At this point, he is able to preach and officiate at weddings and funerals, and to put the title of Reverend before his name. It’s a time-consuming process to obtain that title, so he doesn’t simply want to let it fall by the wayside even though he isn’t pastoring at this time. His ordination is with the Missionary Church, a smallish but growing denomination. There are several denominations that are compatible – Wesleyan, Nazarene, various Methodist flavors of churches – but we need to make that decision. We have attended our local General Baptist church for a couple of years, but do find enough differences that have made us realize that we are not fully comfortable with keeping his official licensure with that denomination. So, this family of ten is visiting churches again and trying to find a church home that is warm, alive, loving AND compatible with Jeff’s reverency reverendhood ordination.   It’s hard, it’s scary for some of our kids, but it is also good and interesting.  It’s always interesting to try to find a church that fits the entire family!  We do have a sense of hope.  Hope and change and all that jazz, you know. 

That’s it, I guess.  I think that those are the major topics.  Of course there are a million and two minor things that are always swirling around our home.

God bless you, friends and family.  Thanks so much for stopping  by and for reading.

Hello, everyone. Just wanted you to know that we are all fine – just really busy right now! Here’s a few details, though, for those who are interested:

Sammy is doing incredibly well. He still gets weepy sometimes, and just wants to be held and reassured. That’s not like him; he has long been Mr. Self Sufficient. I don’t mind saying that I enjoy the holding times. I know that his fears and his insecurities will leave with time. Tomorrow we go to have his stitches and staples taken out. Yay! The staples cause him some pain.

It looks like Nick may not ever have to testify in a jury trial against the guy that beat him up and robbed him back in July. He gave his deposition in Sept., and word on the small town street says that he did such a good job of testifying and of identifying the attacker, that the guy might very well be deciding to plea bargain in order to forego a jury trial. I’ll tell you what I know when I know it. That might be some time in November.

Julia is having some further testing done. We’ve gone from doctor 1, had blood work performed, and moved on to referred doctor 2, who is a pediatric gastroenterologist. Next up, some scopes. We’ll get back to you on that, as well.

I’ll be back, as I am able!
God bless –

Thank you for taking the time to let me know your thoughts on comments.  That helps me sort through some of my own thoughts in a very low-key sort of way!

I plan to do a mixture of comments on/comments off in the future.  Some weeks are busier than others, some topics are more conducive to conversation than others, etc., so we’ll just practice a little nuance here. 

A little further examination made me realize that facebook fills a lot of the communication gap, so the blog didn’t seem to be lacking without it.  The blog is more a record of thoughts or events.  I know a lot of people don’t like facebook, but I really do enjoy it!  (Not that I get there that often….)  I think it is so fulfilling to have so many friends all in one place. 

What a great day.  Not only did I clean out my husband’s THREE junk drawers in the kitchen, with your help I also made an executive decision about comments. 

Bless you – and thanks again.