Spring Catch Up Posting

The Women’s Ministry of First Baptist once again offered a spring ladies Bible Study.  Instead of the usual Beth Moore study, we decided to do Ann Voskamp’s, “1,000 Gifts.”  It was a great blessing to me personally.  Ann encouraged us to count our blessings and keep counting right up to 1,000 blessings and beyond. 

  I started a gratefulness journal as a result.  It makes me much more aware of all the many gifts God has blessed me with from small to large and everything in between!  I’m up to almost 300, so still have a long ways to go, but I try to write something down every day and to pursue a grateful, thankful heart!

 

  The ladies of our church make a yearly trip to the Extraordinary Women’s Conference in Tulsa.  It’s always such a fun and inspirational time for each of us.  This is our group that attended.  I was especially blessed to have Rachel go with me this year.

 

We love it when we get a call from out of state friends and learn that they are coming for a visit.  Such was the case when Jerry & Christy Clifton and David and Brenda Mahan came one weekend.  We enjoyed a delicious meal with them on Saturday evening at Red Lobster and then they joined us for worship on Sunday morning.  Jerry went with us to the Holy Land in 2008 and then Jerry, Christy and Brenda went with us in 2011 (along with their friends Robert & Linda Arnold who have come to see us before).  These wonderful folks are active members at Springhill Baptist Church in Greenbrier, AR and are such a blessing to know!

Jeff has been preaching for several months through the book of Revelation. Satan has not been happy! He has attacked Jeff in many ways, especially in his health. In January, he was on his way to a Galena/Seneca high school basketball game, having stopped just a block from the hospital to get a quick bite of supper. But he was overcome with such a sickness, he couldn’t move. Thankfully, a husband and wife saw his distress and came to aid him. Fearing he was having a heart attack, they called for an ambulance. Jeff was able to call Paul Mooney and myself and we both arrived right before the ambulance. The EMT’s also thought he was having a heart attack and did transport him to the hospital, but once he was evaluated in the ER at Freeman Hospital, it was determined to be vertigo, most probably caused by an inner ear problem. After several doctors appointments, several tests, including an MRI, many bouts of extreme vertigo attacks, and then finally seeing an Ear, Nose and Throat Doctor, Jeff was diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease. His ENT wanted to do surgery, which happened on March 20^th.

The nurse had Jeff mark his neck on the side of the surgery...so the X is that marking, not the spot where the surgery actually happened.  The doctor implanted a shunt behind Jeff’s ear to drain the fluid into his stomach and also put a tube in his ear drum.  The doctor wasn’t sure this surgery would be successful.  He really preferred to do a second surgery first, but the insurance will not pay for the second surgery until they do the first surgery.  It will be 90 days before we know for sure if it worked.  The first couple of weeks, we were very doubtful as Jeff still had dizzy spells and has lost almost all of his hearing in that ear.

However, this week has been a great week for him, with no dizzy spells!! Praise the Lord and I’m sure it’s due greatly to lots of people praying for him.  The hearing loss is still present but we are so thankful that the dizziness has not been there.  As you see from this pic from last week in Branson with the granddaughters, he is sure feeling better!

  We were so pleasantly surprised one afternoon when we were leaving the Northpark Mall in Joplin to run into old friends, Donna and Reid Fairchild.  We came to know the Fairchild’s when we were members of Cross Church Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, Arkansas when we lived there.  They hosted the small group in their home that we were a part of and Reid facilitated.  We quickly became good friends and enjoyed both the home group and many Razorback basketball games and evenings of eating together and playing games – along with mutual friends, Hollis and Gilda Stanbery (the first picture below is the Fairchilds at the Mall and the second is Hollis and Gilda and Jeff and I when they drove up for Jeff’s mother’s funeral).

 

  We are really excited to reconnect with the Fairchild’s and Stanbery’s and are looking forward to a couple of days with them in Branson later this summer!

 

While we were in Branson last week, we were greatly blessed with new kitchen tile and entry tile being laid!  We love it and it is such an improvement over the old tile that was there!  Thank you to those responsible for making this happen. 

 This is the step into the office.  A different tile was used here as well as the entryway into the living room.  Love it!

 We were told that the men laying the new tile had such a difficult time getting the old tile up….it was like concrete. They had to use a sledgehammer and great manpower to remove it. Consequently, there was LOTS of dust everywhere. So I spent the first of this week, thoroughly cleaning house. Since this is Spring, I guess it was a good time to do some spring cleaning. Sure felt great once it was all done!

 

After working hard on my house, then Mom and I went to NWA to clean Rachel and Jonathan’s new home.

 

  We are very happy that God has provided the kids with their first home.  It’s very cute and is going to be a great home for them and baby Copeland.   This picture was of the kids on Easter Sunday at their church.   Next Easter, they will have their baby boy in their arms!!

  Not very long now and Copeland will be here – we are so excited!  He is due on May 14^th.  I will be going back to NWA tomorrow for a baby shower for Rachel and Copeland.  That is going to be so fun!

This is the Easter picture of Andy’s family.  Great picture!

  Mary Mooney and I joined Weight Watchers the first of January.   I have had a constant battle with my weight since reaching adulthood.  I’ve been on every diet conceivable and have lost and gained weight numerous times over the years.  I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in 2009 so it’s even more of necessity that I get my weight under control.  Medicine helps but it’s not controlling it, so I knew I needed help.  The picture below was taken last summer and ashamedly, I am overweight!

  So far, Weight Watchers has been a big help to me.  I have lost 19 pounds thus far and my blood sugar numbers have averaged in the normal readings for over a month now.  This picture was taken last week.

  I also purchased a treadmill from some church members and that has definitely helped in getting the weight off.   I still have 5-6 pounds to go to reach my goal but could always stand to lose even more.  I would love to get to the point that I don’t need to take the medicines anymore!

  Jeff and I are watching the old movie, “The Birds” as I work on this posting.  This is the 50^th anniversary of the movie, so they have enhanced the color and have been airing it a lot lately.  Whew…..quite a scary movie! I always think of this movie when I see a row of birds on a telephone line, etc.

And so that is additional bits and pieces of what has been going on in our lives.  As I’ve posted before, most of what I put on my blog is really of no interest to anyone but Jeff and I but I just like to document such things for memory purposes.

 God Bless!