Notes from Home

"Take notice not only of the mercies of God, but of God in the mercies. Mercies are never so savoury, as when they savour of a Saviour."
~Ralph Venning, 1620-1673

Loving the Learning : It's that time of year when most homeschool families are excited about summer break. Us? We're thrilled (ok, I am) to be entering our third term and glad to be on schedule. July 23rd is our momentous last day, and then we'll be enjoying a break until after baby arrives.

Ink and Jake have especially enjoyed George Grant's Modernity course and the plan is to go through Christendom next year. Emma and Luke are loving Visual Latin, and Luke reminds me that Ink and Jake would have loved Latin, too, if they'd studied it this way. :)

I'm attempting for the first time ever to plan out an entire school year for all of the children. Mystie at Simply Convivial has been sharing awesome posts about how to do this. If I had a tenth of her organizational skills, I can only imagine what the days might be like. But since that is a haunting ideal, I'm not staying in my imaginary place for long.

Elisabeth's hearing: Elisabeth's green-pellet-in-the-ear adventure is behind us, and she got a perfect report from the ENT last week. I stopped by a hearing evaluation center the doctor recommended and was so grateful when they said they could see her right then. The verdict? Her hearing is just fine! Thanks be to God!

So now I'm pursuing speech therapy methods I can try at home with her. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. :)

Family Time: We've got one last chapter in the Penrod and Sam book. It's such fun having Daddy do this read aloud, and it's a favorite of the children.

We're considering our first family vacation ever to somewhere other than the east coast. The Littles are especially excited, and I love that they'd all rather be able to stay longer somewhere than have a lot of fancy things available to do. I'm thankful for children who love the outdoors, have great imaginations, and delight in books. This makes it much easier when planning a trip. :)

Baby Boy: How gracious God is to bring me thus far in this pregnancy. I'm 22 weeks and 2 days, and my visit yesterday with my OB went very well. My blood pressure and weight are great, and I'm thankful for a normal, uneventful visit.

I'm grateful to be feeling well enough to work out consistently, which is especially important when you already have enough fat for baby to thrive on. Plus, the terror of hearing them say in the operating room, "This lady requires two operating tables!" is quite the motivator. Ha!

My Crohn's is quite subdued most days, and that is a great mercy! In all my years of having this disease, even though I was so sick when pregnant with Ella and didn't know if I'd ever be able to walk normally again, I have never known the affliction of being hospitalized for extended periods of time or losing massive amounts of weight. It is only because of the grace of God, and I've grown more and more aware of how much He's spared me.

Do we have a name? We think so. Are we sharing it? Not yet.

Making it Home: We're eager to have a new roof overhead, but we're still waiting on our monstrous mortgage company to release the money that belongs to us since we've paid those insurance premiums all these years the money we had to send them from our insurance company. They're tyrants I say, and if I didn't believe in God's perfect timing, I think I'd fly to Minnesota and picket their office or something like that. ('Cause that's such a productive use of my time...)

That said, I'm grateful we haven't had major rainstorms, considering we have several exposed areas on our roof. Every time those dark clouds gather but the rain doesn't fall, I praise God for His mercy. (And honestly, I'd praise God for His mercy, though it would be harder, even if He saw fit to have our roof leak. Is it not true that everything God does for us is best and is a mercy?)

The guys painted our master bath, and it's beautiful! I'll post pictures after I finish adding the lovely details.

Prayer Requests: Most importantly, my Mom is having a heart catheterization done tomorrow at 10:00 eastern time. Test results have shown that her heart is very weak, so the doctor is considering a stent or a pacemaker, depending on what he finds during the surgery. Her results explain why she's been feeling so miserable these past months and has been struggling to breathe.

Her visit with a neurologist revealed that she's also been having mini-strokes, with a more significant one having happened in January. This explains her constant falling and the change in her walk.

Heavy and serious stuff, and the hearing those reports put me in a state of panic and worry.  My heart is especially heavy knowing that everything she does is such an effort for her. But I remembered Who I belong to, and Who exactly orders every moment of our days. "...Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." Psalm 32:7

Your prayers for my Mom are greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance for interceding on her behalf.

I'll be away from the blog for the next few days, but I hope to have Ink post an update about my Mom.

With love,
Trisha