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 20th.
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 14th. 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 50th 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.
