A word (or two) from Luther

We've been studying the book of Romans on Sunday evenings at our church. I can't study that amazing book without thinking of Martin Luther and the freedom he enjoyed when he embraced its teaching of justification by faith in Christ apart from works. What a glorious salvation and a wonderful Savior!

In the bulletin this morning, our pastor printed the words from a hymn that expresses that great grace, "I do not come because my soul."

I do not come because my soul
Is free from sin and pure and whole
And worthy of Thy grace;
I do not speak to Thee because
I’ve ever justly kept Thy laws
And dare to meet Thy face.

I know that sin and guilt combine
To reign o’er every thought of mine
And turn from good to ill;
I know that, when I try to be
Upright and just and true to Thee,
I am a sinner still.

I know that often when I strive
To keep a spark of love alive
For Thee, the powers within
Leap up in unsubmissive might
And oft benumb my sense of right
And pull me back to sin.

I know that, though in doing good
I spend my life, I never could
Atone for all I’ve done;
But though my sins are black as night,
I dare to come before Thy sight
Because I trust Thy Son.

In Him alone my trust I place,
Come boldly to Thy throne of grace,
And there commune with Thee.
Salvation sure, O Lord, is mine,
And, all unworthy, I am Thine,
For Jesus died for me.
~Frank B. St. John

Christie's word of the day: Voluble

Agatha Christie's turn:

"Immediately Miss Marple received a confused and voluble account from Bunch and Miss Bunner." (A Murder is Announced)

My turn, courtesy of Seth to whom I turned when I couldn't think of a sentence myself:

"I become highly annoyed at your voluble ramblings whilst I am trying to watch this movie."

Your turn . . . .

What's in a name?

When Seth was born, his sister Katy excitedly announced to her elementary schoolmates that she had a new brother named Seth. Her classmates heard her wrong and wondered, "Beth?!? You have a brother named Beth?!?"  



Apparently, one of those classmates now works in our county treasurer's office. Seth went for jury duty a few weeks ago and received a check for his troubles in the mail. It was addressed to "Beth McKeener."

I'm not sure why but I found the mistake hilarious. That is, until Seth/Beth remarked, "You know, that makes you Mrs. Beth McKeener."

A banana a day . . .

. . . keeps the leg cramps away.

When I was pregnant with Kieran, I frequently got leg cramps in the middle of the night. I would wake up clutching my leg and trying not to scream so that Seth could continue snoring blissfully beside me as I writhed in agony. (Seth wants it noted that he doesn't believe he snores.) They went away after Kieran was born but started again a few months into this current pregnancy.

While in Florida, my mom suggested adding a banana to my diet to help prevent the cramps. And so I did. And it seems to help -- with the banana, no cramps; without a banana, cramps.

Those of you who know Seth and his intense hatred of bananas may be wondering how he's handling all the yellow fruits I've brought into the house. Since I keep them in a bag, I like to think they don't bother him. However, he turns up his nose and moves as far away as possible when I'm actually eating one.

Usually, I cut up the banana and dump it in milk with brown sugar. Tonight, I changed things up a bit and had it with a bowl of peanut-butter-and-waffle-cone ice cream. We'll see if it still has the same effect.

ER visit

Sunday began like Sundays usually do. We got up, checked on the chickens, made breakfast, and went to church. On this Sunday, Kieran seemed a bit more clingy than usual. And the nursery staff said he didn't do much in the nursery. When we got home, he was really fussy and wasn't interested in eating lunch. After checking his temperature (it was 99.5), we decided to put him down early for a nap, which he seemed happy about.

Four hours later, he was still sleeping, and when Seth went to get him up, his temperature was 103.5 and he was miserable. The last time his temperature spiked like that was two years ago, when he had the first of two UTIs. So, I figured he had another one, and since the urologist had mentioned that it was best to get a UTI treated within the first 24 hours to prevent damage to the kidneys, I decided we needed to head to the ER to get it taken care of.

After we arrived and were registered, we sat in the waiting room for quite some time, while Kieran bummed french fries off someone and Seth watched the Steelers game on the TV. (Don't ask me how Kieran came into possession of the fries -- he was in Seth's charge at that point. I can only hope that the people from whom he got the fries were not there to be treated for tuberculosis or leprosy.)

After quite some time, we were finally given a room in the ER and the tests began (the room also had a TV so Sethw as able to keep tabs on the Steelers game in between tests and visits from the doctors and nurses). To make a three-hour story short, Kieran did not have a UTI but instead was suffering from what appeared to be the initial stages of pneumonia (based on the chest x-ray). The diagnosis surprised me since, although he's had a runny nose for the past week, he hasn't been coughing or hacking or wheezing. At any rate, after getting a prescription for an antibiotic, we headed home, where Seth was able to finish watching the Steelers game.

Today, his fever was down, but he was still rather listless and tired.

I'm thankful for several things:
1. ERs
2. ERs with TVs
3. ER rooms with TVs
4. ER rooms with TVs on which Steelers games can be watched
5. ERs with experienced doctors and nurses
6. Antibiotics which help our little guy get better
7. The Great Physician who superintends it all

Like Mother, Like Son

All the baking Seth has been doing lately with his little helper (they made pizza tonight) reminded me that we have a picture of him baking with his mom. Is that cute or what?

Baby, it's cold outside

Don't let the blue sky and sunshine fool you; there was no warmth in the Holler today. Although my lying L.L. Bean weather center was registering 30 degrees outside, the weather people on TV were certain the temperature was more like 10 degrees, with a windchill of 2. And tonight, the forecast is for 4 degrees, with windchills in the negative digits. Two more months of this . . . ?

Neighborly kindness

Even though we've had a lot of snow the past few weeks, snow isn't enough to keep the cistern filled. On Sunday, we were running quite low, so Seth took the truck, and the 200-gallon water tank sitting in its bed, to get some water. And then it rained on Tuesday, which also helped to raise the water level in the cistern.

The neighbor also has a truck which he uses for water deliveries of his own, but his is larger and carries more water than ours. Tonight, he knocked on the door and let us know that he had filled his well and had some water left over, so he dumped it in our cistern.

Of course, you know you live in a holler when the act of neighborly kindness is filling your cistern with 200 gallons of water . . . .

Christie's Word of the Day

While in Florida, one of the activities I enjoyed while my parents enjoyed playing with Kieran was reading. My main reading materials were books by one of my favorite authors of fiction, Agatha Christie. Besides being an expert storyteller, she also had an amazing vocabulary. I thought it might be interesting (for me, at least) to do a series of posts on some of the words she introduced to me. Using them myself helps cement them in my mind.

The sunshine, the peace, the steady click of Miss Marple's knitting-needles, all combined to produce a soporific feeling in the Inspector. (From A Murder is Announced)

My turn: This pregnancy has been rather soporific; an afternoon nap has become my best friend.

And now, it's your turn . . . .

Hair today . . . gone tomorrow

We put off taming the curls and the cowlicks as long as we could, not wanting to deal with the trauma that accompanies the cutting of hair.  

Today, Seth took clippers in hand and sheared the poor child's head to much weeping and wailing (mainly from Kieran).

Baking with Daddy

There's one thing that I'm good at that Seth isn't (at least in the cooking realm). And that one thing is making pie crusts. I can make a mean pie crust, if I do say so myself (which I just did). And although Seth can whip up a key lime pie, baklava, and peach custard in no time flat, he struggles with making a simple pie crust.

I'm not sure why; I haven't watched him make one throughout the entire process--he usually doesn't enjoy having me hang over his shoulder, making comments about what he's doing right or wrong. Which may be why his pie crusts don't always turn out the best. Seth prefers free-form baking -- no rules, just right. Recipes are more "guidelines" to him than rules to follow exactly. When I make a pie crust, I follow the recipe as it is written. I have a feeling that when Seth makes a pie crust, he adds his own flair.

To his credit, he continues to try to make the perfect crust. Which is why he denied my offer to make the crust for the pot pie he made the other day. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves, put Kieran on the stool beside him for moral support, and went to work.

He wasn't very happy with the end result, but it tasted like a pie crust should taste, which is really all that matters.

Apraxia

A.P.R.A.X.I.A. Apraxia. It's a good Scrabble word.

This has been a busy week for us, filled mainly by a plethora of doctor visits. Today's was to the speech pathologist at the hospital for an evaluation of Kieran. We had him in speech therapy for about 5 months last year and then lost ST when the therapist quit First Steps. A developmental therapist has been coming since September but she works more on helping him communicate with signs than getting him to actually form words.

I set up the evaluation at the hospital because I've heard they have a fairly intensive program that helps kids with a variety of speech and language pathologies. Although he has about 10-15 signs that he uses and has recently started saying "ma ma" and "da da," I want to be sure we're doing everything we can for him and that something other than the known speech delays with WS isn't also hindering his expressive language abilities.

The speech pathologist was very kind and thorough. She spent about 1.5 hours playing with Kieran, asking questions and jotting down notes on her intake form. She'll be sending us her report in a few weeks. At the end, she said that based on what she has seen, it's possible that Kieran has a form of developmental speech apraxia. The good news is that there are several STs at the hospital who specialize in treating apraxia. So now we wait to see if our insurance will cover the therapy and for a therapist to have an opening in her schedule.

I'm very thankful that we live nearby such a good hospital and have so many services available to us.

Maybe it's in the water . . .

This pregnancy seems to be going by a lot faster than when I was pregnant with Kieran. I'm honestly having trouble keeping track of what week we're in (I believe Baby Boy is 23 weeks along). Today was the diagnostic ultrasound with my OB. She confirmed that we are, in fact, having another boy and that everything looked as it should for his age . . . except his left kidney.

I'm not sure what it is with our boys and their kidneys, but the ultrasound showed that his left one was slightly enlarged. The OB said this wasn't uncommon for boys and that it will need to be monitored with another ultrasound in a month. According to the doctor, this type of thing usually resolves on its own without needing intervention. If not, it's nice to know we already have an in with the urologist at children's hospital . . . .

During the ultrasound, the tech showed me a quick peek at the 4-D imagery and printed this picture for us. Can you see his little face?

Weatherman's delight

It's days like these that make weathermen glad they're men of the weather. Days when they can justifiably spend more than two seconds talking about the weather. Days when everyone glued to their TVs hangs on their every word. Days when they become the anchormen.

It snowed today.  

By early afternoon, about 4 inches had made its way to the ground and the snowplow graciously made its way down the lane.

The arrival of the snowplow may be an excitement for Kieran, but it's a travesty for the neighbor who lives at the end of the lane (the one with all the chickens). You see, the lane curves to the right, ending in our driveway and the driveway of our neighbor's. Chicken guy's driveway veers off the lane before the curve and so his driveway doesn't receive the benefits of the snowplow . . . only the remnants. Every time the plow comes, Chicken guy has to shovel the snowbanks left by the plow from the end of his driveway.

Because of the looming snowstorm, we spent last night at SIL Ruth's place. They live about 8 miles (compared to our 40+ miles) from the children's hospital and Kieran had an early morning appointment there. This one was a follow-up with the urologist to check on his kidneys. By the sounds of his crying during the ultrasound, you would have thought the tech was dissecting his kidneys rather than taking simply taking pictures of them. Kieran kept signing "all done" throughout the 15-minute ordeal and I had to keep telling him, "No, not yet."

After it was over and the doctor had looked at the results, he happily told us that his kidneys looked fine, looked like they were growing well, and that he didn't need to see us again for a year. And there was great rejoicing.

HHOA

My parents, like many middle-class Americans, live in a subdivision governed by a Homeowners Association. They recently received their HOA update, which included directions for trash removal, parking cars, and arbitrating HOA policy abuses. Seeing their HOA letter made me wonder what a Holler HOA letter would look like  . . .

Dear Neighbor,

We once again sit down at our typewriters to give you an update on the latest Holler Homeowner Association meeting which was held at the birthday bash last Fall.

1. Trash removal: The garbage truck usually comes on Wednesday mornings. Please place your trash cans outside sometime before Wednesday morning. Or, you can keep them outside all week long. We only ask that, when the raccoons dig through your cans and scatter your trash, you pick up the scattered trash within a week. The garbage truck will take pretty much anything in any condition, so put it out there and if it doesn't get taken the first week, leave it for another week or so.

2. Parking: Cars may be parked anywhere at anytime, except in the middle of the lane, since that would prevent those of us with quads from riding them up and down the lane. Trucks may also be parked anywhere, although grassy areas are especially nice for parking rarely used trucks.

3. Work on property: We're always happy to see new barns built, shelters erected, chicken coops improved (especially if that means it will keep the chickens off our property), and houses enlarged. Because there is no general aesthetic to maintain, we have voted to not have rules restricting the work done on your property.

We appreciate your willingness to diligently maintain compliance with our Holler Homeowner's Association policies. As always, should an offense arise, our .22s will be waiting.

Happy New Year from your HHOA!

The circle is now complete

For the week that Seth was with us in Florida, the neighbor boys took care of the chickens, collecting the eggs, changing the water, and giving them food. I'm not sure if it was their tender-loving care or the light I installed before I left, but whatever is was, the Easter Eggers have once again begun laying and the last and final hen to donate an egg to my collection has also begun laying.

Now I find myself asking, "What in the world am I going to do with 2-4 eggs a day?"

A Tale of Two Trips

Apparently, Seth's goal for this trip to Florida was to beat his previous time while still hypermiling. Due to driving through a massive snowstorm, he didn't acheive that goal on the way down. However, the way back home was free and clear, and he shaved over 2 hours off the 17 hours it took him last year while still managing to make it on one tank, which pleased him.

Trip from North to South (12/25/2010)

965 miles
19 hours
5 of those 19 hours spent driving at 40 mph in a snowstorm (he left at midnight and drove the first five hours through the snow)
1 hour of sleeping at a rest stop
Several stops thereafter to retain awake status
No stops for fuel
Highest speed: 70 mph coasting downhill
Average speed: 61 mph
Number of phone calls from concerned wife: 10
Words uttered by Seth upon reaching destination: "I'm here."
Follow-up words uttered by wife: "Hallelujah."

Fuel mileage: 64 mpg

Trip from South to North (1/1/2011)
965 miles
14 hours and 57 minutes
No snowstorms
1 15-minute stop
16 gallons of diesel (1 tank)
Average speed: 70 mph
Number of phone calls from concerned wife: 8

Fuel mileage: 59.25 mpg