For those of you studying or interested in the Roman Empire:

Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome

Labels: Homeschooling, News

Yoo-hoo! Calling Cindy Sheeeeeeehaaaaaaan.................



Without Bush, media lose interest in war caskets

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

Mark Steyn recalls:

Half a decade or so back, I wrote: "It's a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice cream and a quart of dog feces and mix 'em together, the result will taste more like the latter than the former. That's the problem with the U.N."

Now read what he's saying today:

Sorry, but U.S. and Libya are different

Labels: ObamaNation, Political Observation, Social Observation

Our youngest grandson, Judah, delighted when he spotted the moon...

Thanks to the photographer, Beth Warren

Labels: Grandkids

And this week, my youngest child becomes a teen. I don't know who got permission for that to happen, but it didn't go through me. No more phonics, no more picture books, no more potty-training, no more kids-eat-free meals, no more tooth fairy quarters. Just young men looking down at me from where the little boys used to look up!

I don't know, do all families have to keep an Excel spreadsheet to know who has to be where when, in what vehicle with what driver? I'm tellin' ya, this is the craziest it's ever been!

Maybe I'm just slow, but what am I missing? Read this story, and then this one. I guess you have to be famous in order to be excused for being degenerate (and to avoid the drastic consequences).

Had to have my PICC line replaced this week after three weeks of "issues" with it. I was nervous enough about having a redo of the procedure, and even more so when evidently the line got close enough to my heart to cause palpitations. I'm grateful to have this method of staying out of the hospital, but it won't be gone a day too soon.

Yes. Christmas shopping. This week. For sure.

Go figure. I have physical therapy in my home three times a week and Tricare covers it 100%. If I drive to the outpatient clinic, I have to pay $12 a visit co-pay. Staying home looks pretty good.

Saturday, practically all my children and grandchildren will be involved in yet another "Psalty, the Singing Songbook" production. I don't know if I'm going to be able to go, but I've sure enjoyed hearing all the beautiful music during rehearsals here and I will look forward to seeing the video when it's all done. Kudos to all the young adults and teens who have shouldered the responsibility of making it happen!

Snip, snip, that's all folks!

Labels: Family, Grandkids, Health, Kids, News, Social Observation, Sundays

Growing in the gospel means seeing more of God’s holiness and more of my sin. And because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we need not fear seeing God as he really is or admitting how broken we really are. Our hope is not in our own goodness, nor in the vain expectation that God will compromise his standards and ‘grade on a curve.’ Rather, we rest in Jesus as our perfect Redeemer — the One who is ‘our righteousness, holiness and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30).

- Bob Thune and Will Walker, The Gospel-Centered Life (World Harvest Mission, 2009), 6.

via Of First Importance

Labels: Devotional

Considering NOT opting into mandatory health insurance? Fuhgeddabahdit!

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold." [emphasis mine]

Health Care Incarceration Insurance

Labels: Health, ObamaNation, Theater of the Absurd

hat tip: Trish P.

Labels: Health, ObamaNation, Social Observation

When we can't be content with God's natural order, even when it hurts, we invite all manner of confusion and unintended consequences. Now a precious baby will have the hurt of a history that will be impossible for him to understand...

Pregnant mother forced to give up IVF baby after doctors gave her wrong embryo

Labels: Sanctity of Life, Science, Social Observation

Oh but still, let's get ourselves a system like this:

One in six NHS patients 'misdiagnosed'

Labels: Health, Social Observation

The week was long and difficult. Nearly every day I was at one of the two hospitals taking care of issues from bone density scans, flu shot, pain management, and blood draws to troubleshooting my PICC line. These trips out exhaust me since I have so little stamina, and all I can do when I get home is fall in my chair and drift off to sleep. The good thing is that the week ended well--great report from the doctor who saw me on Saturday and 24 hours nearly pain-free. Maybe I've turned a corner!

Reading has been slow going the past few months. You'd think with all this time on my hands I'd have read twice as much as last year, but instead it's more like half. Time is not the problem; motivation sometimes is. Pain, disappointment, drugs, and schedule disruption are, for me, the enemy of a desire to read. With the sweet encouragement of friends who are still recommending, bringing, or sending me good reading material, I have managed to keep my mind and soul fed with the very things God knows I need. This week, Lyric sent Parting the Waters: Finding Beauty in Brokenness by Jeanne Damoff, and as much as I might have resisted another "brokenness" book, her explanation of why she sent it grabbed my heart and I devoured it in nearly record time. Now it's clear why God had this on my list...and I can say that it is second only to Carol Kent's When I Lay My Isaac Down: Unshakable Faith in Unthinkable Circumstances in the quality of the story and the storytelling. And as far as illustrating a vibrant and authentic theology, Parting the Waters is superior. Put both of them on your list.

Our 25th year of homeschooling has begun almost without me. The Papa and the girls have stepped into the significant gap left by my injuries/surgeries and have made sure that Shelley and the boys are not lacking in any of what they need this academic year. Together we've cobbled together a mixture of online classes, local co-ops, music lessons, college dual credit classes, and a few things here at home, ensuring that their transcripts will never reflect the craziness and uncertainty of the past few months. This isn't exactly what I wanted for our silver anniversary year in homeschooling, but it's very much in line with how God has helped us get through many years when it looked like things should fall apart. So maybe this is only fitting...our brokenness, His faithfulness!

I was able to order Christmas cards this week and get started on a few tasks that look forward to the coming holiday season. I had to do some things to get me "unstuck" from thinking that since I didn't really experience much of summer this year, it was somehow still here!

Several things conspired this year to make our annual International Talk Like a Pirate Day a day later than usual. So as we speak, Granny's House is full of pirates and wenches and outrageous costumes and happy kids :-)

Did you catch that Obama is now open to a newspaper bailout? So now we're not just going to bail out industries that have fallen on hard times as a result of recession or mismanagement; now we're going to bail out industries that are dying of their own weight...no longer really wanted or needed by the vast majority of Americans. Next we'll be bailing out the slide rule industry. Oh, wait...

I'm researching exercise equipment, something that will allow me to get a good non-impact workout here at home once I've exhausted my home physical therapy benefit. My outpatient physical therapists make great use of the Total Gym and so I'm considering that but also open to alternatives. Let me know if you have used something similar and are aware of a good source to buy these, used or new.

As the weather finally cools a bit and we drink in the first bits of rain to come our way in two years, I'm thankful for the onset of fall. By far my favorite time of year, it's truly delicious this year since it sweeps away what has been a painful season. May God be glorified in whatever the next season brings...

Labels: Books, Health, Homeschooling, Kids, ObamaNation

Another voice in the ongoing discussion about the importance of practicing, and especially teaching, the art of cursive writing. (I say art rather than skill, because I come down pretty firmly on the side that as nice as it is, it's no longer a necessary skill in today's world and to insist on its mastery only takes time away from other skills that really will contribute to the education of a useful citizen. Nothing wrong with teaching it, but teach it for what it is: an elective.)

Cursive writing may be a fading skill, but so what?

Labels: Education, Homeschooling

Well, here I am.

I try not to overwhelm this space with news of my health and medical drama, but maybe today I'll just give in, since I don't have enough brain cells functioning to address much else.

When I came home from the hospital one week ago, it was with a PICC line, enabling me to get twice daily IV's of vancomycin to treat the infection in my hip joint. To make a long story short, that has created even more drama and headache but I was hoping we were getting past that.

Today, I had an appointment with the infectious disease specialist. What I thought would be a quick in-and-out visit turned out to be much more, shall we say, interesting than that. Several of my numbers from the latest labs aren't good (CRP, ESR, neutrophils for you medical geeks) and it appears the infection is not yet under control as they had hoped. So, instead of the treat of being tethered to an IV for four hours a day, I will now have the pleasure of just staying hooked up to it 24 hours a day (here at home, thank God), changing drugs to see if we can get a better handle on the infection. The pain has improved a little but I'm still needing a lot of "support" for that as well. (Read: continued fog.)

I told my pain management doctor today that I'd almost lost the ability to imagine myself ever flitting around a grocery store again or even standing to cook a meal...he was very upbeat and said, "Of course you will!" Silently, I wonder if it's really true and try to stay as upbeat as everyone else, but there comes a time after eight years of pain and immobility all due to hip and leg issues that it gets really hard for me to see any light on the other side.

When I was a little girl, I used to hear my grandmother say she couldn't wait for heaven so she wouldn't hurt any more. I always thought of that as something that old people say.

Guess I'm getting close to old.

Labels: Health

I don't always agree with John Stossel, but I have immense respect for his integrity and courage in standing up to the MSM for so many years. I am anxious to see what kind of show he'll host at FOX and I hope he's a lot more comfy there...

Stossel moving to FOX News

Labels: News, People

Well, after perhaps my longest absence ever from this space, I'm finally feeling like writing a little, although this week's Snippets will be a bit threadbare ;-)

I arrived home Thursday after ten long days in the hospital and two surgeries and was never so glad to see my own home. I was well cared for, in an institutional sort of way, but without the tender care of my husband and daughters there's much that would have fallen through the cracks and the time would have been nearly intolerable. The food was bad enough on its own to bring on some of the diseases and disorders to which I'd previously checked "No" upon admission!

Ten days without internet and with very limited TV choices made passing the hours rather hard. You'd think I'd have gotten a lot of reading done, but there's something about IV morphine and books that don't go well together...

As for my prognosis, that's still kind of up in the air. I'm definitely better than I was before I went in, but there are things that make me wonder if we've yet found the real source of the problem in my hip so I'm not holding my breath.

I came home with a PICC line so I can continue receiving twice daily IV infusions of antibiotics. This takes up four hours a day and requires the help of CJ and others in the family, but it's very important to make sure that the bacteria found lurking in my artificial hip are banished for good without me having to stay in the hospital to do it!

By the time I got home the family had already gotten school started--online classes, co-op classes, dual credit classes at the college, and all the binders and fees and supplies these all required. Hopefully I'll be "together" enough to take over much of the detail in another week or so...but in the meantime I'm very grateful for all the young adults who live in this house and can keep the machine running with very little input from me.

One of the delightful things that happened during my hospitalization was RAIN. Upon my return I've been able to detect patches of green here and there, and we've had a couple more days of rain. I can hardly keep my eyes off the liquid gold...our drought has been one of the worst in decades and every drop of water is a gift.

I'll be trying to pop in more now with the eclectic and sometimes silly mix of things you come here to find. Thanks for continuing to check in, and for all the emails I've received asking how I'm doing!

Labels: Health, Sundays

Hello everyone! It's Cathi's favorite daughter again! (CJ, duh!)

You have probably noticed Mom's absence from this blog in the last couple of weeks. As she is unable to right now, let me give you the rundown of what's been going on down here.

Early last week, Mom began to notice a significant increase in her pain levels in her right leg. We thought it might have been from the vigorous physical therapy schedule she was on, so we didn't worry too much about it at first. She tried to stay off of her feet as much as she could and we alternated bringing in ice packs and heating pads to help with the pain. But each day the pain became worse and worse until last weekend it got so bad that she could not stand or walk at all without major help. The weekend got worse and by Saturday she was not sleeping and even millimeters of movement was described by her as the worst pain she has ever felt. (If you know what she's been through in the last 9 years, you know that was a pretty powerful statement.)

On Monday morning Dad realized he had done all he could to try to control the pain at home and since absolutely nothing was working, he took her into the ER. I met them there and we waited a surprising 3 hours to see a doctor. (Surprising in a good way...this is military medicine, after all.) Their first inclination was that this could be some sort of infection in or around her bones so they did some blood work, took xrays, and a few other tests. After 8 hours in the ER with no answers, they admitted her to the hospital so her fabulous surgeon could take over her care.

Over the next few days Dr. Keeney worked tirelessly to get Mom some answers. For those of you who don't know, Dr. Keeney is a strong Christian and an incredible orthopedic surgeon. He has performed the last 3 or 4 of Mom's surgeries and is intent on finding the answer to Mom's ongoing problems. Finally, on Thursday, he came into her room and told us that a few of the cultures they ran from the fluid around her hip implant seemed to indicate an infection. So, surgery was scheduled for the next day.

On Friday they took her into the OR, opened up her whole leg and were surprised to find numerous problems to fix. I am not an orthopedic expert, so I won't attempt to explain everything that they did...I'll let Mom do that when she's back at home. But I can tell you that they cleaned out the infection, tightened up the ball/socket hip implant, secured the shaft's implant to her femur (it's not going ANYwhere), and chiseled off some bone fragments that were causing discomfort. Dr. Keeney said that the surgery was a success and we're all anxious to see if it really did take away the awful pain from the last few weeks.

Even though she had major surgery yesterday, she actually got up out of bed today and walked a few steps around her room--something she couldn't even think about doing the day before the surgery! The plan is to keep her in the hospital until the end of this next week just to make sure the infection is completely gone. After that, we'll move her back home and restart the physical therapy that she's so good at now. :)

It's been a tough couple of weeks around here and even though "we're used to it", it doesn't make the waiting and the uncertainty anymore fun. We like to say that we have plenty of practice in the area of trusting our Lord through fiery trials, and we pray that every trial He has us walk through only serves to strengthen that trust in His plan and sharpen our eyes to see Him better.

Mom specifically asked me to thank you all for praying for her and for us during this. Please continue to pray for her that she have a quick and complete recovery from this surgery and that the Lord would give her strength and energy to start therapy again to regain the use of her legs.

That's all I have for now! Either Mom or I will update you in a few days and let you know about her progress.

CJ for the Warrens

"For I know whate'ver befall me, Jesus doeth all things well!!"