Afraid...

It is so easy to be afraid.

The story in a nutshell...
January 6 -- Barry falls on the ice at work and hurts his shoulder.
January and February -- The doctor sends him to physical therapy to see if it will mend on its own. He makes progress, but not enough. Doctor schedules an MRI.
March 8 -- Doctor says MRI confirms a full-thickness tear of the distal supraspinatus tendon. He will need surgery and is referred to an orthopedic surgeon.
March 9 -- Barry picks up the MRI films from the radiologist to give to the orthopedic surgeon, since that doc prefers to get the films and not a CD. Enclosed with them is the printed copy of the radiology report. Snoopy me, I dig it out and read it. I discover that there is also a partial tear of another tendon the doc said nothing about. I am also chagrined to see that the insurance doc also did not mention that the radiologist saw a "heterogeneous marrow lesion" in the upper arm bone that he thought needed to be checked out further with x-rays. He even said that a "marrow infiltrative neoplasm" could not be ruled out by what he could see on the MRI...
March 10 -- Barry gets a set of x-rays of his upper arm (at the radiology office recommended by our chiropractor), and he leaves the MRI films so the radiology doc there can compare the two and assess the problem. He brings the x-rays home on CD which my computer obligingly opens up for me... Yes, we can see what they are talking about--a wispy whiter area inside the upper bone just below the shoulder joint.
March 11 -- No news.

So today I was waiting.

Barry left for a very early meeting this morning. Coral stays home on Fridays, so she was still in bed. I was whisking around the house, full of anxious energy, wishing we would hear something before the weekend. The phone rang. The radiology office. They had sent the report to our chiropractor...

For some reason, the kitchen sink is one of my thinking places, and as I worked on the dishes, a familiar verse kept surfacing. I often repeat this verse, so the fact that I thought of it today was no surprise. "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." (Ps 56:3) A sort of statement. An act of the will. A decision today.

But then my conversation with God continued. Me talking, Him listening. I think He is used to that. I tend to talk more than I listen, not often a good thing! I told him how many things in my world scare me. I am afraid of pain, afraid of losing my loved ones, afraid for Coral's future, afraid of suffering... afraid of things that happen and things that might happen...

Quick as a flash, I stopped talking and listened, because He answered me! Not an answer I was searching for or thinking up. One that came and interrupted me. "Don't be afraid! I have overcome the world!" (I looked it up--Jn 16:33)

Worship is not just for Sunday mornings!

I called the chiropractor's office and wanted to make an appointment. He said he could talk to Barry over the phone. Over the PHONE?? So when Barry came home, he called. It is a benign tumor, not attached to anything, just there. And it appears to have been there for some time. We just have not had a reason to know about it.

"In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart!
I have overcome the world."
--John 16:33

5 months off is long enough...

For the last month or so, I've heard a little voice calling me, a little blogging voice. I've taken a very long break from blogging, and here's my confession: I have been spending a lot of time over on {whisper}... Facebook. I love the way it connects me with my family far away and with friends whom I have not seen in more years than any of us would like to remember. We can even play Lexulous together on Facebook (like Scrabble) even though we are thousands of miles apart and can't sit around a board game.

But somehow I am not totally happy with little snippets of this and that. A thought here and a thought there. A tiny peek when I really want a long visit. One sip of coffee when I long for a whole cup. My blog lets me write so much more, not just a little paragraph that goes zipping down and out of sight in the news feed. I can drift off into memories of long ago, tell a funny story, post a song I love, appreciate my family, cry a little, or feel thankful.

So back to my blog I have come. There is a new header picture, another one of Trent's. And I'm hoping to be back often.

See you soon...

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"I Would"

The Singing News Fan Awards are over for another year, and I'm not surprised at the results. The Booth Brothers (Ronnie Booth, Michael Booth, and Jim Brady) have done wonderfully well. Look at the awards they got!

Favorite Baritone Singer -- Jim Brady
Favorite Lead Singer -- Ronnie Booth
Favorite Tenor Singer -- Michael Booth
Favorite Male Singer -- Ronnie Booth
Album of the Year -- Room For More
Trio of the Year -- Booth Brothers
Song of the Year -- What Salvation's Done For Me
Favorite Artists of the Year -- Booth Brothers

For quite a while now, I've been watching YouTube hoping to find a good rendition of "I Would." It is one of my favorites, and I'm pretty sure you will agree!

The miracle at our house...

Yesterday I was looking through stacks of CDs in our basement trying to find one that Barry needed to play at a memorial service.

Isn't it funny how just looking at the sleeves on our favorite music from the past can make lots of memories come flooding back? I never did find the one I was looking for, but out of the piles, I pulled several CDs that I wanted to hear again, and this song is on one of them.

Coral
(Our blessing, no longer in disguise...)

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Saturday mornings...

Sometimes I wish I were the Saturday-morning-bright-and-early-hit-the-road-running kind of person. How much I could get done! My closets would be in order, bags would be taken to the Goodwill, the laundry would all be done, the back porch would be clean and inviting, all the weeds would be pulled, all the vegetables harvested, and all my transcription work would be done!

But that doesn't seem to be me. On Saturday mornings I snooze a little later than I can on the weekdays, and then I putter around quietly in the kitchen, trying to keep the clatter down so that I won't wake Coral up.

Usually this is our morning together with no real pressing agenda. Barry comes out and starts making coffee. While it perks, we make toast and eggs and sometimes bacon or pork chops, too. We sit across from each other at the dining room table. The newspaper is right side up to Barry, upside down to me. And that is the way I like it. I figure out the upside-down headlines and ask him about the ones that interest me. He reads what I want to hear and gleans other little nuggets of interest to share with me. He figures he is a little old-fashioned because holding the paper and ink right in his hand still seems so much better than reading the news on a computer screen! We chat about this and that and whatever comes to mind as we sip our coffee and take all the time we want.

And yes, my house could be gratifyingly organized and sparkling and always ready for company... but I'm pretty sure that someday when we are holding hands in a nursing home, this memory will be the one that lasts!

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Our world stopped turning...

This morning I awoke to the sounds of our favorite local radio station, just as I always do, and slowly into my consciousness came the memories of that day 8 years ago. On the radio there was a moment of silence -- dead silence -- as if someone had flipped the world's switch off. And then came Alan Jackson's song...

It might be that there are hundreds of posts like mine today. I haven't even checked. I remember exactly where I was on 9-11 -- what I was doing, why I turned the TV on, and then why I could not turn it off again.

Here is the song, just like I heard it this morning.



(For an excellent video with the song, click here.)

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Never to be forgotten...

This evening I drove to Wal-Mart. Nothing new or strange about that.

But it was new and strange all the same. I couldn't help it. I drove carefully, a mile or two under the speed limit. People behind me probably thought I was Grandma Putt-Putt. My eyes were keenly alert, scanning the sides of the road for pedestrians. Just a few days ago, I had driven the same way, admiring the mountains in the distance and thinking far-away thoughts, automatically stopping and starting at the right places without concentrating on what I was doing.

What a difference an instant can make...

Yesterday morning, we were sitting in the Perkins Restaurant near our home, our booth overlooking a stoplight on the busy street. Suddenly, the man in the next booth gasped, and immediately we looked out the window. A woman lay on the asphalt in the far lanes of traffic, thrown a good distance in front of the vehicle that had hit her as she was crossing the road.

The scene is frozen in my mind. Her motionless body except for the hand reaching to her head. The slim middle-aged man jumping from his SUV and running to her, kneeling down and stretching his arms towards her desperately.

One police car and then another and another... it almost seemed as if they had been waiting around the corner for just such a moment. A man knelt on the ground beside her and seemed to be quietly talking during the eternity before the ambulance and fire truck came. And I...the one who looks the other way when we drive by the site of an accident...I could hardly bear to look.

Through the big window, I could see the officers and the firemen and the rescue personnel calmly and carefully doing what they are trained to do, and I thanked God for them. What kind of amazing person does it take to be a first responder?

I'm not sure if driving will ever feel quite the same again...

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Zzzzzzzz...

I'm planning now what to do in my spare moments for the next 2 weeks...

So if you call and I don't answer...
If you email and get no response...

That's right! I'll be at my desk...and I just might be snoozing!

In June, Barry and I spent 2 weeks away from home. First, we spent a week in New Jersey where we helped to provide special music for our church's annual convention, and then we drove up to Toronto, Canada, to visit my mother and sister and her family. (We had a great time, by the way!)

I wanted to work while I was gone, but as the time got closer, reality set in, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all. So... I kept up with the dictation from the internal med doctor who is my client close to home, and I took 2 weeks off from the work I do as an independent contractor for a transcription company in Missouri.

Other transcriptionists covered my work while I was gone, and now it is time for me to return the favor! So I have promised to put my fingers into overdrive and take my turn. (Thank goodness I don't have to type on a clunker like this!)

I'm in for a difficult and busy 2 weeks, but I'm thankful for my job, a job I really love (well, MOST of the time!)

Snow on the Mountain!

I was driving to an appointment yesterday morning - driving west on the street next to ours, straight toward the Rocky Mountains. A little jump over the houses down below, and I could be right there! Usually by this time of year, all the snow is gone from the front range, melting quickly in the hot weather, running down the ditches, and spreading out on the plains below. But not this year! It is the middle of July, and there is still snow on the mountains.
When I was a little girl growing up in Africa, I could not remember seeing snow. I remember one time we somehow got an apple. I wasn't used to apples, and I didn't much like them. But I remember my dad wished he could figure out how to grow an apple tree, and thinking to help him along on that, we carefully dug out the seeds from the core of the apple and planted them in a little can. After a while, a little green shoot came up, and we carefully watched and tended it until one morning, to our great dismay, we discovered that one of the cats had snacked on it overnight! This was a huge disappointment to us, but Daddy did not seem too upset. He said it would not have made apples anyway, because apples need frost.

I puzzled about "frost." Even though I had seen lots of pictures of snow and people wearing coats, I could not imagine it. The coldest thing I knew was the little tray of ice cubes in the little freezer compartment of our kerosene refrigerator. This is the same refrigerator that struggled and groaned and smoked its little kerosene wick trying to freeze one little tray of sweetened powdered milk into ice cream! I thought surely one little exposure to those ice cubes, and an apple tree should definitely be as cold as any apple tree needed to be! So I made the helpful suggestion to my dad that if we grew an apple tree and wanted apples, then we could take the tray of ice out and spread it around the bottom of the tree so that the tree could make some apples. I still remember the grin he gave me, just like it was yesterday!

If you had asked me what "snow on the mountain" was, I would have told you it was the hedge outside the bathroom door! Most of the little round leaves were a mottled green and white, but all the tiny young leaves on the top were delicate pink. Remembering it now, it was one of the most beautiful hedges I have ever seen.No apple trees for me. But if I had the seeds and a can full of dirt, you know what I would be trying to grow! A "snow on the mountain" hedge of my own!

(I look at this picture of me, and I can't recognize myself in that face. I don't remember that red dress except for seeing this picture of it. But I know it is me because of the hair! Check out those waves carefully coaxed into shape with a comb dipped in water! But the real giveaway is the end of my braid. My mother never let loose ends hang down. She always wrapped the end of the braid around and clipped a barrette on it to hold it! And that is how I know this is me!)
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Making ends meet...

I know you must be wondering. Has Jeanette disappeared from blog world? Is everything okay?

No, I haven't quite disappeared...not quite! Yes, everything is okay, but it would be my longest post ever if I were to explain why I feel like this rope! So I will give you the bare bones.

New Grace, the quartet Barry and I sing with, traveled to New Jersey in June to provide the special music at our church's annual convention. This required significant practice time prior to going, as we have not really been singing together for the last year, so for quite a while before we left, my stress level was high as I tried to cover work, Coral's normal care, extra practice, working out the details of Coral's supervision and care during our absence, and then actually packing and remembering everything to take with us. Aunt Paula took charge of all Coral's care for the 10 days we were gone, and Andrea arrived from California and was able to help for the last week or so.

The convention went well, and besides that, we were able to see Barry's mother and actually stayed at her house the whole time we were in New Jersey. This was great, as I have not seen her for quite a long time, and it was wonderful to catch up a little bit with extended family and friends. After the convention was over, we (Barry, my brother Gord, and I) drove north from New Jersey to Toronto, Canada, where we spent two days visiting my mother and Carol-Ann and her family (which, as you know, is one of my VERY FAVORITE things to do!)

All in all, the time away was a blessing and refresher for me. But, as with most of my little jaunts away from home, there is a price to pay when I get back, and this time was a doozey. We jumped right into work catch-up, arrangements and funeral services for our friend Warren who passed away just before we left home, and helping with Gord and Paula's departure for a 5-week trip to Liberia.

It seems like each day I get up at the usual time and hope I can get a good start on my work. But then the time gets eaten up by other very important things, and I arrive at the evening with most of my work still to be done. I have been working until 2 or 3 a.m. and getting up again at the usual time each morning with less and less "oomph" for what has to be done.

So I have been a little shadow in blogland, but I hope -- oh, how I hope! -- that things will soon be back to normal! I may never totally catch up, but as soon as I can, I will visit you!
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