The Sovereign Hand of God

God was watching over my kids and me today.  You see after church I was going to go shopping for a new camera.  I was going to take my kids with me in the van, and take a 45 minute drive, most of which would have been on the freeway at 60 miles an hour.  I told the kids to go to use the restroom at church because we would be driving a while, and then suddenly, really without thinking, I changed my mind.  I decided it would be much easier to shop if the kids stayed at church with their dad and came home with him when he was ready to leave church.  So I took my husbands pickup truck and left him with the van to take the kids home.

He had many fewer miles to drive, and no freeway driving, but neither of us knew that would be significant.

After we were both home later we made a grocery list and I was going to take the van to go grocery shopping.  My older daughter and I climbed in and drove out of our driveway, we drove about half way down our little country road with no trouble, and then "BUMP-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP!"  I wasn't even driving the 25mph hour speed limit, and it was still hard to keep the van going straight.

I stopped and got out to see what was wrong, and I saw this:

We turned around and drove slowly back home.  I have little doubt that if I had taken the van to go shopping for my camera today, this would have happened at 60 mph, and at that speed would probably have been a total blowout.  I don't know why it happened, we didn't add air to the tires recently, but it almost looks like it was over-full.  They are Goodyear tires, I think I remember a few years back of a recall?  These were on the van when we bought it last spring, I wonder if they were part of the recall.

At any rate, I am praising God today that He was watching over my kids and me.

Very Frustrated!

About a month ago I called an educational psychologist and made an appointment to get my son officially evaluated for dyslexia.  I remember the  conversation very well, I asked if it would be covered on my insurance and the doctor wasn't sure, and asked me if I wanted to wait and find out first.  I said, "No, because even if its not covered my son needs to be tested, so I'll just set up the appointment now, and if insurance doesn't cover it I'll pay out of pocket."  From there the doctor proceeded to set up an appointment with me.  10:30 on April 16.

So yesterday I got up, got all my kids ready, and went to catch the 9:25 Ferry across Puget Sound to go to this doctors appointment, only to get there and find out that the doctor never put me in the appointment book.  I came all that way for nothing.

That might not seem that big a deal, but the Ferry tickets are not cheap.  It cost $11.85 on the way over, because passengers are free going that way and you only pay for car and driver.  The way back was a different story, the kids are $5.55 each so that came to $16.65, plus the cost of car and driver again which brings the return trip price to $28.50.  So the round trip to go over there and waste my time cost me $40.35.  On top of that, there was the gas driving around the city looking for an office that was very hard to find with the directions given me, stopping to get food at lunch time because we didn't have time to pack a lunch (we were concerned about "being late" for our vanishing appointment).

The doctor asked if I wanted to reschedule.  I said, "No, I'll find someone else."

So now I have to try to find another psychologist trained in diagnosing learning disabilities.  I may have to do another Ferry trip to get it done, and that is okay with me as long as they keep the appointment.  It certainly won't be at the same office though, if they aren't competent enough to write down the appointments they make, I don't think I want them being the ones to diagnose my son.

Since by the time we got home we had wasted our homeschool day, we decided to go to the park for a little while and let the kids play while my older daughter and I took photos.  Of all the ones I took, this is my favorite one.  The rest are posted HERE. 

 After all of that, we still had to drive into Bremerton, which is over 28 miles in the opposite direction of the Ferry, to get my daughter something to wear for the Homeschool High School Formal.  So I had a pretty busy day  yesterday, and a frustrating one at that.

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"Get -R- Done!" How?

Okay, I lead a pretty busy life.  I homeschool my three kids, pulling together my curriculum from a wide variety of material, which takes PLANNING.  I work up to three days a week outside the home, usually only for half days, but sometimes longer.  I teach Sunday School.  I teach a class at a homeschool co-op.  I am taking a distance education course in Small Engine Mechanics, which requires me to study about 1 hour a day five days a week.  I try to work out for about an hour and a half at least five days a week, and I have recently been convicted that I need to set time aside to quiet myself before God and read His word each day.

So how does this play out in real time?  How can I possibly get it done?

Well, this is what today looked like:

The alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning, but I hit the snooze button twice, so I got up at 5:30.  Then I had a mug of homemade chai, put a status on my church's Facebook page, and one on my own, and then went to my room to read the Bible and pray.  I got into what I was reading, and instead of just reading a chapter, I ended up reading seven chapters, this used up most of my time, so the actual time spent praying was kind of short.  Oh well, its more important for me to hear from God than for me to tell Him a bunch of things He already knows, simply inviting Him to be with me on my day and asking for His help to walk in obedience is probably all of the prayer I really need.  After this worked out on Wii Fit Plus for 41 minutes, 30 minutes of which was spent running in place on "Free Run".  Then I took a shower and made myself some oatmeal, and drank another mug of homemade chai.  I packed my lunch, put on my makeup, and did my hair. 

This all sounds like I was moving incredibly fast, but in reality, it was almost 10:00 before I left for work, and the only things I had accomplished was my quiet time, breakfast, workout, and getting ready for the day.  Fortunately, my husband got the kids to do their math lessons, and had them do their daily reading out loud, so there wouldn't be as much homeschool when I got home from work.

I started work at 10:20, and finished at 1:30.  It was a short day, only three hours.  I usually work around four hours at least.  It was 2:00 when I got home.  I was tired so I sat down at the computer to rest, and ended up wasting an hour.  Then, just as I was about to get started on the homeshooling, my oldest daughter reminded me that I needed to reinstall virus protection on her laptop, which had been reformatted after encountering some problems.  I had to get on the phone with Norton and have them help.  They took remote access of the computer and installed it, but I still had to sit at the desk with a phone to my ear for another thirty or forty minutes.  I also remembered I needed to back up my computer, so I started before I left the computer area.

Finally I started the younger kids on their Phonics lesson.  It took a long time, but its vital for my son that we don't skimp on this area.  He needs the review of all the information.  After Phonics, the kids were tired so I let them have a short break.  Then we did Learning Language Arts through Literature.  While the kids did their copy work, I studied my small engine repair course.  When they finished the copywork part of their lesson, I put my studies aside to help them with the rest.  Then when we finished their lesson, I let them take another break while I finished studying the section I was on.  When I finished it was around 8:00 at night, and we hadn't had dinner.  Fortunately my husband had started a soup in the crock pot before he left for work.  So we ate dinner, and I read to the kids from their History book and asked them questions about it while they ate.

After dinner, I studied a bit more.  When Lost came on I had  to watch it, the younger kids were sent into their room to watch kids shows and my older daughter and I watched Lost.  For the first half of the show I sat down and watched, and studied on commercials.  Then during the last half of the show I did Free Step on the Wii Fit Plus while I watched.  When Lost was done, put the kids to bed and did my daily exercises for bad knees.

Then I updated my weight loss blog with my daily exercise and calorie information.  And now, at 11:50 I am writing this, and tomorrow I will get up between 5:30 and 6:00, and start it all again.  Except that tomorrow, I also need to get the kids to Awana and my oldest to Youth Group!

HE IS RISEN!!!