Kimchi, not for me

Go here to find any events in your area.

Reading about this hurts my heart. It has literally kept me up tonight. I've been praying, or trying to pray, but I don't really know what to say.

But I know that feeling overwhelmed and doing nothing isn't the answer. So, however meager and tiny my actions may be, I'm going to figure out what I can actually do.

Daive is fine, by the way. I'm sure you all figured that out by now, because if she wasn't, I wouldn't be, and you'd probably all know. It's the most remarkable thing, though! She doesn't have death breath anymore! It was just pathetic when I picked her up from the vet. She was still majorly drugged from the anesthesia, and spent the entire ride home fighting against her eyelids. Her dog instincts were instructing her to look out the window, but her body just could not keep her eyes open. When we got home, I set her down in the backyard so she could pee before I took her upstairs to sleep off the rest of the drugs, and the poor dog just had a rough go of things. Her back and front ends were trying to go in different directions. At one point she actually ran into one of the poles on the trampoline. I eventually had to send Seth out to pick her up and bring her to me.

Then maybe two nights ago I was talking to Ellie about how uncomfortable the bed in my room is. It made me feel horribly ungrateful, because the room I'm in was basically furnished for me. Anyway, she immediately volunteered to swap beds with me, to see if I might like hers more. I actually slept on hers when Bethany and I were here back in August. It's really comfortable, but sort of has this hammock-feel to it, because of something with the frame. So when you lay on it, you roll to the middle, and it sort of turns into this wonderful heavenly cocoon. Absolutely has changed my life. Never mind that it is almost impossible to get out of in the mornings, what with my brain being encompassed by a fog of grogginess. It's just awesome.

And I'm kind of sick right now. Mrs. Debbi had the same thing. It's like the flu, with the all over body aches, but I don't have a fever or a cold really. I'm coughing some, but I've been coughing some for weeks now. Anyway, I just feel gross. Gross, achy, sore, whiny, and kind of old (even though I know I'm not). Then, as I was trying to get out of the bath tub last night, I slipped. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, but it just reinforces this idea that, in some ways, times, and situations, I am my very own worst enemy. No...that's overstating it. I'm just clumsy. And Lord knows I come by that honest. (Ahem...cough, cough, JEN, cough, cough, ROLLER-SKATING, cough, ahem.)

Speaking of Jen, let me just tell you that I miss my sisters. Both of them. A lot. I need to come hang out, figure out some way to kidnap Val so I can actually spend some time with her, let us all laugh (until I gag - cause that's just how I roll), and then go get some nachos at McGuires. THAT...that would be awesome. It'd be even more awesome if we could go to McGuires when NO ONE has died. That would be a change for us, huh? Let's work on that, okay? I love you two.

So Daive is at the vet right now. She's having her teeth cleaned today. For those of you that don't know, that is in the category of surgery for animals, because it requires full anesthesia. I have her going to a Banfield (the same kind of vet I worked at over in Dothan) and I know they do a full panel of pre-anesthetic bloodwork to make sure the dog is healthy enough to handle the anesthesia. Still. I know she'll be fine. I know I'll be fine. But I'm still really rather looking forward to picking her up at 3:00.

I just ate rolled-up lunch meat that I dipped in hummus. I ate that a lot in Israel. My friend Mary was doing this no/low carb thing, so instead of dipping some kind of bread in hummus, we would dip meat. Sounds kind of...well, disgusting, now that I go back and read it, but trust me...it's quite yummy.

Sorry for the delay in posting. My life has been rather hectic and a tad bit stressful these days. I'm working on settling into a routine here with the kids, but it's been rough. I just had an amazing time with God, and feel really quite energized and ready. I made a list of goals to strive towards over these next few weeks, both with the kids here and personally. I'm excited. This place I'm at right now, it's definitely not where I expected to be, but God has done so much and is providing so much for me right now. It's really amazing.

Seriously, try the meat and hummus. But not the crappy kind they sell at Wal-Mart. Try the kind from Publix, or from a foreign food store or something. Night.

to those who thought I had locked them out of my blog. I was tweaking the template, and having a considerably difficult time with it. I managed to screw it up so severely that it would require more time than I had at the time, so I temporarily locked down the blog so I had time to fix it without it looking all wonky.

There's that, and then I had a very sudden and very unpleasant bout of sickness this evening. I was actually on the phone with a friend, and it hit me suddenly. Besides being unpleasant, it was quite unexpected. I am fairly allergic to onions and garlic, but I had neither of those recently, so I don't know what the issue was.

In other news, thanks to MySpace, I've been reunited with an old friend from junior high school. We were best friends for two years, and then I turned all Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. I treated this poor girl horribly. I tried to track down her email a few times over the years, but never could find it. Then I thought I had it about half a year ago and emailed her, apologizing for how I had acted and asking her forgiveness. I heard nothing back, and then today got a friend request on myspace, and we've been exchanging email via myspace this afternoon. It is so refreshing to see how well she is doing, and refreshing as well to know that she has forgiven me. She's actually in Jacksonville, so I plan on meeting up with her sometime. It'll be exciting.

Today was really the first day of work for me. Between yesterday and today, I managed to sit down and figure out a workable plan to get the kids caught up and finished in their schooling by the end of the year. I felt pretty overwhelmed about mid-day, trying to keep all the different schooling schedules straight in my head, along with the chore assignments/schedules, who has youth group when, soccer practice, and whether or not there is a car available to take the children to their specific activity.

But...are you ready for some AMAZING news? Mrs. Debbi is buying a car for me. Like for real, for me...is going to put it in my name (eventually, will stay in hers for awhile to get an insurance discount). We're going to get it tomorrow. It's a 1999 Buick Regal with only 45,000 miles on it. It was a one-owner car - an old man, even - so supposedly everything is in awesome condition. It just astounds me. She told me that she has bought a car for all of her children, and it was really something God had placed on her heart to do for me. I'll be sure to post pictures!

Anyway, it's late, and I need to head to bed here shortly. Love you all! And sorry for the locked-out confusion!

I was out lying on the trampoline in the backyard tonight, looking up at the stars. It was awesome. The stars seemed so close, and the moon was so bright. In Seoul, I could only ever barely see the moon. And I could never see stars. Once I thought I did, and was having a conversation about it with a Korean teacher from my (first) job, and then he said very kindly, "Teresa, that is airplane." I felt stupid.

Anyway, back to the point. I was lying (and I totally had to use Google to figure out if it was laying or lying) on the trampoline, and I was marveling. That's one thing that has really hit me over the past few days: life is marvel-worthy, awe-inspiring, and exciting. For the past few months, really since about last summer, I was just in survival mode. I had hit some sort of a wall in Korea. I wasn't seeking God as I should have been, and I started looking for fulfillment, affirmation, and encouragement elsewhere. Then, once I knew I was leaving Korea, it was my entire focus. And, Lis can verify this, I slept a lot. I really think that was survival too. There were so many aspects of coming back to the States that were scary, and with our work schedule being so strange from mid-January on, I packed, ate, and slept - for the most part, anyway.

So now I'm in Jacksonville. I no longer feel like I'm just surviving. I had a good friend and my sister call me on the fact that I was trying to pretend like a whole lot of big things had never happened shortly after I got back. And while I know I still have a long way to go, I'm really okay with where I'm at in dealing with things. God has brought me so far. I'm looking into the possibility of teaching a 9-week class for girls at a nearby church about emotional purity and depending on God so as to avoid finding fulfillment/purpose/encouragement/affirmation in the opposite sex. And Mrs. Debbi is working with me on biblical forgiveness, helping me to work out some particularly difficult points from the past. I highly recommend the book that Mrs. Debbi and Dr. Dunlap wrote on the topic. You can get more info at their website here - lots of articles there as well.

Anyway, this slightly wordy blog was written simply to say that God, His creation, and His work in my life right now makes me marvel. And I'm happy I can see stars that are for sure not airplanes.