I saw at Dawn’s and Bet’s that March is National Craft Month. I should let that inspire me to actually DO some crafting instead of just dreaming and wishing! One of the things I need to do today is just to sit down and have a planing session for the next few weeks, especially for our Ladies’ Luncheon at the end of next month. Maybe I’ll look over my craft things then, too. According to Dawn it is also National Frozen Food month (now that I can celebrate in style!), National Nutrition Month, and National Umbrella Month.

• I see humorous posts sometimes about weird search engine terms that have led to one’s blog. Most of the ones that I see on mine make sense, but this one the other day threw me for a loop: “how to put classic clothing together.” I don’t think I have ever written about that….because I don’t know anything about that!! I’d be curious as to what post came up with that search!

• WordPress employs Akismet as a spam filter, and it does an excellent job. Just every now and then, though, a legitimate comment gets caught in the spam folder, so from time to time I take a quick look in there to rescue any of those. I say a quick look, a very quick look, because most of what is in there is vile (don’t people have better things to do with their time?) A great number of them want to advertise products to enlarge body parts I don’t have to abnormal proportions. I don’t appreciate those or the ones who want to advertise any products through my comment section. But some amuse me by trying to grab my attention by either effusive praise or by baiting. One frequent spammer whose address seems to have to do with various home and garden products (does he not know I can see his ISP address for all his variations?) started out with nice comments but now is trying to raise my ire with comments like, “What if i say that you where wrong and you need to do your research better, would you belief me?” No, I wouldn’t “belief” you, but a better grasp of English would help. 🙂

• One of the cutest posts ever: Medical case study: Big Blue Ted at disdressed.

• Terry at Ornaments of Grace has an excellent post titled “Freed to Love…Me?“

• I don’t write much about politics here, but I have been greatly dismayed with the election process so far. One reason Obama scares me is his stance on abortion.
• 
• (HT to Jungle Mom)

But Hillary scares me, too. Yet I am not thrilled with McCain, either. I was so surprised when he took SC. Everyone I knew personally or heard on the local news was for Thompson, Huckabee, or Romney. Maybe that was the problem — the conservative vote was too fragmented.

But I found an interesting post at a new blog to me, Findings. I found this blog via Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, and I love the writer’s style in her reviews. I was delighted to discover that she is also a conservative Christian, and I thought her post about the quest for political power quite insightful in Gandalf for President, though I am not as disappointed in Bush’s administration as she is.

• One last note: many of you know that Susanne at Living to tell the Story broke her hand last week and is having pins put in it today. She runs a daycare from her home, so not only dealing with pain and recovery, she’ll be dealing with a loss of income and all her parents will have to make other arrangements, hopefully not permanently. I know she would appreciate prayer as would Barb for her daughter having a C-section today.

Have a great day!

I’ve seen the “Pay It Forward” contest going around, so when I saw my friend Alice hosting one, I joined in and won. Here is how it works:

1. Anyone with a blog can join.
2. The first three people to leave a comment on this post will receive a handmade gift from me.
3. I will send the gift in the next 365 days.
4. In return you have to pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

In addition to the above, I’d like to ask you to share your favorite colors in your comment so I can hopefully tailor the gift to your tastes.

I welcome international participation.

Update: Comments are now closed since I have my three. I’ll be contacting you shortly for your mailing addresses. Thanks for entering!

My leg is doing better — I think we’ve turned a corner.

Super what? Am I the only person in the country totally uninterested in football? I’ve never understood it, but I have never wanted to. It doesn’t make sense to me that big burly guys are paid mega-bucks to knock down other guys, take their ball, and run away with it — when I would punish my pre-schooler for doing that. 😛

Free lovelies. I have been a fan of Karla Dornacher since I first saw her work. She has some free downloads at her blog for Girlfriend Gatherings: candy wrapper, place cards, name tags, a devotional. etc. They are available through the month of February. She also has free stationery downloads and coloring book pages at her website.

Awards. Some sweet blog friends have been very generous to me with awards recently. I’m embarrassed it has taken me so long to acknowledge some of them! My apologies!

Carolyn at Talk…to…Grams is a sweetheart whose blog name just fits: she seems like the type of person I could easily have a chat with over a cup of coffee. She passed on to me the Spread the Love award:

Cindy at Kaleidoscope has passed on to me the Excellent Award:

I’ll pass this on to:

Barb at A Chelsea Morning.
Elle at A Complete Thought.
Lizzie at A Dusty Frame.
Laurel at Laurel Wreath’s Reflections.
Kelli at There is no place like home.
Dawn at 4:53 am.
Sentiments by Denise.
Anita at My Country Cottage Garden.

Bloggy friend Jen has passed on to me the Spreader of Love award and the Forever Friends award:

I’ll pass this to:

Alice at Hello, My Name is Alice.
Barb at A Chelsea Morning.
Diane at Tomato Soup Cake.

And the:

I will pass this to:

Hello, My Name is Alice
Mama Bear at Bear In Exile.
Susan at ByGrace.
Barb at A Chelsea Morning.
Bet at Dappled Things.
Jewel at Down In My Little Valley.
Ann at From Sinking Sand.
Rita at The Jungle Hut.
Laurel at Laurel Wreath’s Reflections.
Kim at Life in the 10/40 Window.
Susanne at Living to tell the Story.
Jen at My 3 boys and I.
Carolyn at Talk…to…Grams!.
Diane at Tomato Soup Cake.
Janeen at Our Story.

And Bloggy friend Alice has given me the You Cheer Me Up award:

I’ll pass this one on to:

Melli at Insanity Prevails.
Linda at 2nd cup of coffee.
Carolyn at Talk…to…Grams!.
Kelli at There is no place like home.
Diane at Tomato Soup Cake.
Dawn at 4:53 am.
Anita at My Country Cottage Garden.

Thanks so much to each of you! I am always honored when anyone thinks of me in this way. The hardest part is passing them on because I could literally pass each one on to all of you! But I tried to narrow it down a bit.

Hope you all have a good Monday!

It’s funny, I felt like I had been away from my blog for several days — I was surprised to see it had only been since Thursday! I did miss out on a couple of my favorite weekly memes.

I had our ladies’ ministry newsletter due out this week plus our church has had revival meetings all week. The special meetings were great, but the combination of a busy week and being out several nights in a row left me feeling like I could sleep for a week. I just feel really tired today. Sleeping in til 8 felt like pure luxury.

The cellulitis I mentioned earlier is still there. Sometimes it looks better; sometimes it looks worse, so I am not really sure how it is doing. The doctor told me to keep my leg elevated, which has been a little hard to do with everything else going on. She didn’t say to go on bedrest, so I haven’t been sure just how much I needed to keep it up. I brought a chair next to the computer to prop it up in, but because of the angles of everything it just isn’t comfortable for very long.

So, to try to get this thing in hand I plan to pretty much take today “off” and keep my leg propped up. I have some laundry to do, but that’s about it. My dear, kind husband took care of the dishes and is making a grocery store run for me, and we’re planning on take-out pizza tonight. Thankfully last weekend I went on a cleaning frenzy, so things are in fair shape in that department. I am heading off to the couch with a book and the TV remote. Sounds like a lovely way to spend a Saturday!

I wanted to mention also that the little baby girl I asked you to pray for is doing really well, though she had some major scares along the way. She’s off the ECMO machine and ventilator and is getting some oxygen through a nasal cannula though her lungs still aren’t at full capacity yet. I think the next big hurdle is eating: she’s been fed through a tube so far while they worked on the breathing situation, so they will start trying regular feeding some time soon to see if she can learn how to suck. She’s still in the hospital but was moved to one closer to home, which is a tremendous help to the family.

Thanks to those who prayed for her! If you feel led, please continue to pray for her progress — and for healing for my leg. 🙂

A week ago I banged my shin on a shelf, leaving a dime-sized wound, which I thought was no big deal and would go away shortly.

Sunday night the area around and several inches below that wound was bright red — not a good sign! It looked a lot better Monday morning but was still reddish, so I called the doctor after lunch. She couldn’t see me til this morning and could only try to work me in as she had no openings.

Funny thing was, I was prepared to spend the better part of the morning there with a book, but I was in and out in an hour — that’s never happened even when I had a scheduled appointment. But I’m not complaining!

I do have cellulitis (my spell check is trying to change that to cellulites. Well, I have that, too…) It must not be too severe, because I am not having any of the other symptoms listed and it doesn’t look as bad as the pictures. But it’s nothing to play around with. I am on an oral and a topical antibiotic and am supposed to keep my foot up (I did have it up while typing til just now, but the angle at which I have to sit and type like that is awkward and not very comfortable).

The doctor also said to wrap my lower leg in an ace bandage because my ankles tend to swell and the return blood flow isn’t very good. But when I took the bandage off to put the antibiotic on, the area was bright, bright red again and felt very irritated. Sunday night when it was so red I had had knee-high nylons on at church, and I had wondered if something against the skin just irritated it. So now I don’t know whether to put the bandage back on or not. She did say I didn’t have to have it on while my foot was up, only when I was walking around.

I have a lot I need to do at the computer this week — maybe someone else in the house will let me borrow their laptop. 😀 But I’m just hoping and praying this goes away soon.

By the way, I’ve been blessed by a few blogger friends with some awards over the last several days. I wanted to let you know I appreciate them and I am not ignoring them — I will post about them later this week. 🙂

Second update Monday afternoon: Katie Ruth declined this morning with an oxygen rate of 90 plummeting rapidly to 60 (anything above 85 is acceptable). They thought the Lord was going to take her home even today, but He allowed the doctors to find a way to help her. Please continue to pray for this little one and her family.

First update Sunday night: Good news! Katie Ruth was able to come off the ECMO machine! She’s still on a ventilator but may be able to be moved closer to home soon.

The little baby girl I asked you to pray for in an earlier post, Katie Ruth, will be undergoing a trial Sunday morning beginning around 8 a.m. to see if she can be taken off the ECMO machine. If she does well, they will begin to take her off the machine over the next day or two. If not, there’s not much else that can be done for her.

Please pray that her lungs will be healed and able to handle increased ventilator settings, that the rest of her body would continue to do well, that the Lord’s perfect will be done, and for grace and strength for her parents and family.

Thank you.

Update: The mother gave me permission to put the link to little Katie Ruth’s Caring Bridge journal here for those who would like to read more about her progress. 

There is a family in our church whose newborn baby girl is experiencing severe problems. There is a problem with her lungs: it was complicated and our pastor said he didn’t really understand it enough to explain it. There are also some issues with her heart. She is on various life support machines to try to enable her heart and lungs to heal. One of them, an ECMO machine, is only used for a few weeks: I am not sure if there are complications with using longer or what. In addition she also started having seizures, which they are controlling with medication, but they can’t do an MRI until she comes off the ECMO.

I’d appreciate your prayers for this little one’s heart and lungs to heal and be able to live on her own and for grace for the family. The parents and baby are at a hospital in another town while the other two little ones are with grandparents and an aunt and uncle here. The parents are trusting in the Lord.

Doesn’t that sound like it should be the name of a Chex mix frosted with powdered sugar?

We had a forecast for a wintry mix of sleet and snow last night. I had gone to the grocery store about 4:30, and it was incredibly crowded. I’m not usually there at that time of day, so I thought maybe it was the stop-after-work crowd. Then I remembered the forecast. People are famous here for buying out milk, bread, and eggs before a winter storm is coming. Ivman says they must all be making french toast. 🙂 The grape jelly was out, too, so I imagine a lot of people are planning on peanut butter and jelly if the power goes out.

That’s the worst part of this kind of weather — as of 7 a.m. 3500 people in the area were without power.

The school kids, of course, were all hoping for school closings. It was starting to snow before we went to bed, and towns to the north of us were already reporting closings. It would be nice to know the night before so I wouldn’t have to set my alarm clock!

We woke up to this:

And the schools are indeed closed, so Jesse’s happy.

Jason’s college is not, though, and it’s a 35-40 minute commute for him, so I am a little concerned about that, especially with his lack of experience driving in such weather. But it’s already starting to rain and this is the one morning he doesn’t have to go in til later morning, so hopefully the roads won’t be too slushy when he gets on them.

Northerners make fun of us for closing things down in ice or snow, but, really, you don’t want people on the roads who don’t know how to drive in this stuff!

As winter storms go, this one isn’t bad. But I’m staying inside to enjoy our snow day winter slush day. And I am very glad not to live where there is snow on the ground all winter.

My son sent me a link today to a Chicago Tribune’s columnist Eric Zorn’s 50 things he learned in 50 years. Since I just turned 50 myself this past year I thought it was an interesting exercise, though I wouldn’t agree with his perspective on every point.

I especially liked

4. The first person to use the expression “Get a life!” in any dispute is the loser.

and

33. The 10-minute jump start is the best way to get going on a big task you’ve been avoiding. Set a timer and begin, promising yourself that you’ll quit after 10 minutes and do something else. The momentum will carry you forward.

I might do this when my next birthday comes around in August. I’ll have to set aside a file and jot things down as I think of them between now and then — if I try to do it then I know I’ll go blank.