September 29 2015

September 29 2015 Greetings My Friend The allergy medicine supplement is drying up my sinus’. My neck is tightening up so I lay back in the chair to rest it and the warmth of the heated throw warms me. My morning slowly is entering into this day. I have Facebooked, loaded my food intake on MyFitnessPal, had my coffee and read the Bible as I write I begin to plan out those things I want to accomplish today. I sense a calmness settling into my being an acceptance of the strangeness I feel with a body that is weaker and I also sense that my life is entering into a new direction and that is okay. I’ve spent time mourning the possible loss of agility, the fear of how to do life in another new way and today I am ready to tackle the world again. A friend and a niece and nephew have given me the pep talks I needed to face the changes that may be taking place. God has heard my fears and I have felt His comfort. Chiari Malformation is a strange disease. I may find myself unable to lift things because my wrists feel weak for months even years and then it seems to be a lot better only to reappear again years later. My weakness as I walk and move around scare me, I contemplate to use my walker not wanting to get dependent too soon and my “pep talks” has shown me it is okay to use the walker for now and later if the weakness subsides I can move about with my walking stick again. If this is here to stay I am okay with this also. Finally I feel the peace of acceptance. I see my doctor soon and I will update her on what is going on. I have decided to wait until my appointment day because more than likely I will need to see more specialists, get poked, prodded, x-rayed, MRI’s etc. For now I will wait and then I will make the rounds of specialists. Some think my asthma may be the culprit for this weakness….so worry isn’t going to help me and I will be as proactive as I am able. In the mix I know God is going to point me in the direction I need, give me the right words to report to my doctor and I am not alone. I discover God’s love for me with Junior at my side. I sense the Marine in him that watches after me, will walk with me and I am comforted too. My past life did not have this support and today I am grateful for it. As I sense Junior’s strong support I also begin to see all the special people in my life to help me. Many also allow me to be a cheerleader for them as well. This bond deepens my life and makes me feel valuable. At first I try to find the support from those that I think will care, the lack of phone calls and interest in my life reminds me that they may care but I need to focus more on those that will give me the encouragement, prayers and love I need. Real life is not all those “Hallmark” moments but those that let me know my life is important to them and they let me tell them how important they are to me. In the end I learn the true “Hallmark” moments aren’t those pretty cards but the one’s who will go into the trenches with me and let me go with them. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 26 2015

September 26 2015 Greetings My Friend The pieces for us to have propane installed are finally falling into place. It has been 2 weeks since we called for the house to be set up with a furnace lines to receive the propane. We were told it would be less than a week so of course I questioned God if I heard Him right. I hear God tell me and then I question myself, it is irritating that I distrust hearing God right. I asked God a few times and somehow it went out of my thoughts. When week 2 had come I placed a phone call to the installers. Parts had not come in, the holiday meant people took some extra time off and they will be here tomorrow. Now I am thankful to God for how easily this has fallen into place. After the installation for the lines was set up I called for our tank to be installed and our first delivery of propane. This too fell into place and I chastise myself for the doubt I had. I also marvel at how easily this truly fell into place and God has let me know He has everything under control. We are still getting the propane for the original quote we received several weeks ago and this too has been tugging at my thoughts since it is nearly a month later. I do find out since we decided to go a bit differently with us getting a furnace that the estimate on how much we will use changes. We are not going to use the propane fireplace now. To be honest we have decided that this new way will be more efficient so the new amount seems okay. As I settle down in my thoughts Junior comes home from an early morning errand. I tell him the latest facts and have him call the propane delivery people back to confirm the changes. He does and he confirms the new decisions as well as asks a few other questions he has. He hangs up we discuss a bit more before going off to make room for the people to work in the underneath. Once more I stop and find myself feeling more confident. This is the 3rd time where I did the initial leg work and he has to confirm some the the changes that needs to take place. I marvel that he does not fuss at me or questions my intelligence. I have been with Junior 17 years now and yet I still struggle when I have to make a decision. I struggle due to my past experiences in trying to attempt these things and all the grief I got when I did not know an answer or gave a wrong answer to something I did not understand. Junior compliments me and confirms me and I marvel that I am truly capable of much more than I ever believed. I realize again how warped our thinking can be at times with PTSD. I know the rational side of the argument but the fear seems to override the rational thoughts. Letting go of the self talk has been extremely hard. Junior’s steadfast ways has gone far in helping me to face the fear and then given me courage to overcome it. I learn one more time that I may have walked away from a lifetime of abuse but the effects linger a lot longer. I allow myself to let go even if others seem to think that the day I walked out all of the hurt should have been resolved. Truly it does take years to overcome a lifetime of hurt. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 24 2015

September 24 2015 Greetings My Friend I haven’t seen the hummingbirds for a few days now. They have moved onto warmer climates and I miss them. To me this is the start of fall. I love the first part of the fall season, cooling temperatures after summer’s heat, the flowers in their full glory and even the changing of the color of the leaves. At the end of the fall season winter comes and my mind doesn’t want to accept the cold hard facts of winter. One of the ways that has helped me to move through the harshness of winter is to focus on some of things I love about winter. Each season has good and bad points so I strive to meet winter focusing on those warm feelings I conjure up. As it gets cooler I go from boxer shorts and a tank top to sleep in too pajama pants and a long tee shirt. I allow myself to have more pajama days and revel in the comfort of these clothes. I am a person who likes to snuggle into a blanket while sitting in my chair. During the summer at times it is too hot to be wrapped in a blanket but in the winter I can snuggle as long as I want to. The more I bring my focus to these thoughts the less I find myself dreading the winter season. I am able to move through the long winter months with an acceptance even some enjoyment. I even see the beauty of the four seasons as God created them. I am more reflective too. Winter invites me to be reflective, to ponder the deep things in my heart. All summer I absorb beauty and warmth but winter invites me to look deeper into my life, my faith, my relationships. As I am reflective I also am interested in the smells of home so I cook and bake and to me the sense of “home” sustains me. I start to see how the seasons interact with life in general too. Spring is an awakening to me. I see new birth new potential everywhere. I am giddy with excitement. Summer for me to be a time of absorbing. This year I perfected porch sitting. I took my breakfast to the porch most morning. I learned to absorb hummingbirds, butterflies and beautiful colors of summer. My mind quieted down and I was able to absorb God’s awesomeness more so. Fall prepares me for winter and for some reason I need the season of fall to get me ready to face winter and its harshness. As the leaves fall I can hear them crinkling under my feet. I love the smell of fall too. Soon I smell wood burning in fireplaces and in firepits. I remember camp fires of my younger days and the joy they brought me. I have a desire to nest and make our home comfortable. Retirement is teaching me to slow down and live in the moment. I am not seeking the next excitement around the corner I am learning to relish quiet, cleaning and looking after Junior, our fur children. The more I focus on all the sweet things of winter I don’t feel winter’s harsh coldness and bitter effects like I once did. I am grateful to live in VA now where winter is harsh but doesn’t stay like it does in MI. For the most part it snows, melts before the next snow comes. It gets bitter cold too but doesn’t stay long either and soon it will be spring again, the hummingbirds will be back and I have learned to enjoy this season too. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 22 2015

September 22 2015 Greetings My Friend My prayerful thought today “Lord teach me to be teachable to hear Your voice, not my will.” I am a woman who has an opinion and in general I am not afraid to share it. Junior likes this about me to an extent. At one point in his life he would ask “Do you like this” to be told yes and later find out how much it was despised and hated. When I tell Junior “I don’t care” he knows I mean just that, this particular thing or situation it doesn’t matter either way to me. Slowing down my own thoughts and desires is rather difficult for me at times. Learning to quiet my mind and thoughts so I can discern God’s will is a challenge. I need the reminder to “be still and know that I am God”. My learning to slow down and hear has been a journey as well. I remember asking God to help me with this endeavor. Next thing I knew I had cancer. My cancer made me extremely tired from the radiation. I remember times where my mind had so few thoughts racing through it. For the first time in my life I had moments of quietness in my mind and I started to understand when Junior told me that at times he has no thoughts going through his mind. As I bounced back from cancer I found my morning quiet time to truly have a quietness to it. These moments of quiet reflection did not last long but they were the start of quiet time and hearing God’s teaching on my heart more so. I was moving away from the need to keep showing people how much I cared but caring for them in my heart as I learned to lift them up in prayer. As time went on I could often hear God pointing me in a direction for my life or settling a fear that was consuming me. There was the Mother’s Day weekend where I mourned the lack of my children being involved in my life. I felt like an awful mother because I did not leave the abuse before I left. Somewhere in the grief God pointed out that I did the best I could with what I had. Later He pointed out how my ex played games with me even now. I also understood that our move to VA was to help me “cross the Jordan river” so to speak. I was to leave MI behind and enter into a new life or my promised land. I was to let go of the hurt and trust God. He pointed me to seek medication and it has helped me a lot. That fear I was reliving finally started to settle down and it became my past not my present any longer. Sometimes those memories try to poke through into my thoughts and I have learned to pray “Lord take that thought from me now.” He is faithful and in no time I am not reliving the nightmares of the past. I planned on working part time in retirement, volunteering etc. My health has not allowed me to enter into these things I have learned to love being quiet at home, writing, caring for our home and Junior. Sometimes we meet people in need and God teaches me to reach out to them. If I was busy working and volunteering I would not be around to meet this need God has placed on my heart. In learning to be teachable I have found my work in retirement for the Lord. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 19 2015

September 19 2015 Greetings My Friend There has been a debate recently about a woman who will not issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. One of the arguments I heard is “this woman has been divorced 4 times what makes her so self righteous?” I am a woman who has been divorced and in our country for generations divorce has been viewed with a lot of skepticism. I came to a deep faith journey upon my divorce and prior to this time I can admit that I viewed others who were addicted, divorced, and a whole host of other things with disdain. My divorce taught me the great brokenness most of us feel at one point or another in our lives. Each of our sins are different but the brokenness is there. My faith journey is teaching me compassion for the broken not a condolence for what is tearing up their lives. I sometimes hear a statement that makes sense to me, “love the sinner, not the sin.” In ministry I meet broken people often. Some are wanting a way out of their rut and my goal is to love as Jesus loves us. At some point God will convict a heart and a life can be turned around. This is so true in my life and yes it was decades before I got the point. When Junior and I married our thinking was if this marriage did not turn out then we were not going to try again. Through the years I have met couples in a very stable and loving marriage who were divorced 3 times prior to this marriage. It took them a few tries to learn and change and grow. Junior and I attended classes on remarriages that helped us not fall into the traps many fall into. My heart goes out to homosexuals as well. I don’t hate them, I believe they need to be loved as my neighbor as well. I don’t believe that God created us to be in these relationships also. I do not support laws to insist we accept this lifestyle and at the same time I don’t think we have the right to not allow them to have jobs etc. They have the right to live alongside of us. I believe again that my job is to love as God loves and I see in the Bible that God calls sin, sin and eventually we pay a price for our sins, now or later but one day we will pay. If I look at an addict I see the destruction of sin on their lives. I also see healing when they give up the addiction and I am happy for them. In my own life I had anger issues. I learned it at the hands of an angry parent. My siblings felt the brunt of my anger more than I’d like to admit. I believe one of the good things that came out of my former marriage was I met my bully. He was stronger, angrier than I was and soon I found I did not like being the brunt of that type of anger. Today I do not relate with my fists or anger as I have in the past. It has been a huge learning process. Once I truly felt loved by God I was able to let the anger go. This again has been years in the making and I am thankful to be where I am now. I will keep changing and growing in God’s love. My goal is to love as God loves and let God do what He will for those whose ways I am not in agreement with. When I am made to change I will fight to prove I can’t be made to change. When I am loved to change I am open to changing directions. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 17 2015

September 15 2015 Greetings My Friend Learning to mourn is hard. Sometimes I try to skip past the mourning cycle only to find out the hurt doesn't go away. When I finally grieve that is the point I start to heal. When I divorced after 24 years I found myself grieving. It was at this point I began to understand that grief is not for the death of a person or beloved pet.I mourned the dreams I had when I first married. I mourned the familiar routines the loss of being a part of holidays with our family and extended family. I moved out of the family home so I mourned seeing neighbors. Recently I have found myself mourning the loss of my youth and health. For me I was surprised that I could no longer sweep through the house getting the house in order and then go volunteer or even have a part time job. After having cancer I started to struggle with Chronic Fatigue only I did not have a name for my extreme lack of energy and tiredness. The fatigue kept getting worse and when I retired I kept going down hill before I bottomed out. I found a doctor who help me work through the many problems I was struggling with. We tackled the insomnia and chronic fatigue and then moved onto my digestive issues and after discovering my Chiari Malformation she has sent me to specialists and I learn to understand, to work with my limitations. Lastly we worked on asthma. Today I struggle but not like I did. Through this process I found myself feeling scared, sorry for myself and finally a sense of acceptance which on hindsight looks like grieving was the beginning to work back to a semblance of health, a new way of living my life. I can honestly say that I am content today. I am learning the triggers for my asthma and I am accepting that will have periods of time where I need to lay low and move about slower than usual. I am learning to live with progressive disability with CM. I also have got my digestive upsets under control to an extent. At first all the setbacks in my health bothered me. I would start to gain headway only to struggle again. Today I understand that these setbacks are part of the journey and I am learning to lean into the down time realizing better days will come again. I also understand to slow my day down more so and move throughout the day as I can. I now take time most afternoons to nap or to be quiet and work again a bit in the evenings. Giving up my socializing has been hard but today I am able to be content at home for days at a time. I find that social media is helping socialize these days and I am grateful for the friendships I am making. As a former drama queen today I don’t fret and worry all day every day. I am able to grow mentally and spiritually. I no longer view exercise a routine but a way of life. I bend and stretch, I use my chair even to do some exercises. With this I am once more at a good weight and I feel better. God has been my anchor, my director in all of this and I am so grateful to have a good life again. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 15 2015

September 15 2015 Greetings My Friend September is Chiari Malformation month. It appears that I have had this birth defect from my birth although I found out about 3-4 years ago I have it. At first I was confused, scared and as these feelings started to settle I understood many things that have been part of my life more so. This process also has taught me that as I mourn the loss of loved ones, mourned the end of my 24 year marriage I too need to mourn the loss of my health. After I have mourned for a time I begin to ask God how to deal with my disabilities and He has been faithful in teaching me. I have prayed for complete healing and God has asked me “Am I enough?” That has been a journey in of itself. For the most part I believe I am good without complete healing and I marvel at the peace I have as I learn to live with disabilities. Along with Chiari I have allergy induced asthma, GERDS, PTSD and osteoporosis. These may be sister conditions or not. The PTSD is trauma from abuse. I believe insomnia, brain fog and concentration are more the Chiari, I am not positive but from what I read it seems to be the case. I also have balance issues that have been getting progressively worse. I also have developed a tremor in my hands, sometimes in my legs. Another problem with Chiari is that symptoms will come and go making it hard to diagnose. In my young adult years I remember having extreme neck pain, my wrists felt weak so weak that lifting my child or a pan of water scared me because I might drop them. I also see the signs of Chronic Fatigue before I knew there was a name to my extreme tiredness. When I was younger I found that days I had off of work I would sleep for the whole day. This revived me to go on as normal for a period of weeks, months before I caved into the tiredness again. Today I can not bounce back like I once did. With the help of Vitamin B 12 and moving in a slow methodical pace I have better energy. If I do too much, too many days of activity I will crash big time and it will take me several days to come back to my new normal. With asthma I tend to have bouts of bronchitis and these bouts take me even lower so sometimes it takes me a few weeks to bounce back to my new normal. At first I struggled with all of these limitations and to be honest it has taken me years to learn to live with these disabilities. For a few years after I retired I had insomnia so bad that I could only sleep an hour or two at a time. It got so bad that I blacked out, rolled down a hill and broke a vertebrae and that was when I found out I had Chiari Malformation. Today I have a CPAP, lavender oil helps me get to sleep at night, anti anxiety medication has helped my PTSD and a walking stick or walker if I am walking any great distance helps me to function. God has been my strength through this process and I find life too be awesome now. I would love to be whole again but that is not happening so I live as I am able. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 12 2015

September 12 2015 Greetings My Friend I am ADHD. I have discovered this in my older years but as I look back I now see it is something I have had for a lifetime. I tend to blurt out any and all thoughts that pop into my mind. I fidget, wiggle and I have a strong need to move about all the time. In my younger years I was able to keep my body going and in some way I was able to squelch a few of my thoughts and keep them inside. In my older years my body is slowing down and frankly keeping my thoughts at bay is very difficult. Actually I never realized how I blurted out things until I started taking an amino acid supplement. Right away I started noticing thoughts as the popped into my head and I found times I kept the thought inside of my head. With all my gagging issues I have recently stumbled across taking my dose 2 times a day instead of one because 5 pills made me gag. I have been doing this for some time now and it is occurring to me how much calmer I feel both in my thoughts and in my body. I have made peace with my life with God’s help and I have accepted my unique ways but now I sense a calmness I have never known and it is strangely wonderful. Along with splitting the supplements up and taking them 2 times a day I have spent a whole lot of time porch sitting this summer. These 2 things seem to have taken me to another level of calm that is refreshing. We were running errands yesterday and a thought popped into my head. Right away I thought that this is not the time to have this discussion with Junior. Right after this I asked him if he noticed that I am calmer and he agreed that I am. Through the years I have learned that men are single focused where women tend to have a spider web of thoughts and somehow we tie them together. It confuses men a bunch. The thought I had was on a totally different subject than we were discussing and it came to me that changing the subject would only confuse Junior, even aggravate him so I put it aside for another time. Through the years Junior has learned to tune in to the thoughts I truly wanted his input on. I have learned to state that I want input and a few other clues I am not sure I can name. He is pretty good at letting me talk my thoughts out loud as I need to work through issues. I still confuse him at times too. With this new calmness though I am learning to wait for some discussions and it is awesome. I am able to go longer stretches of time without talking and it is comfortable. Quiet non talk times was so uncomfortable, I guess my mind never shut down I felt conversations did not either. I know the difference now. Until this time of supplemental help along with God’s direction I have found the beauty of quiet both in my mind and in my spirit. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 10 2015

September 10 2015 Greetings My Friend The weather is cooler and for me porch sitting in the morning for breakfast is a daily discussion. I love the peace I feel on the porch, the beauty so why the debate? I begin having a talk with myself almost as soon as I wake up and feel the chill. “I won’t go outside this morning but stay snuggled in the house.” After I go through this thought I realize the great peace I get from my porch time so I put on a longer shirt and change out of my boxer shorts to pajama pants, go out eat breakfast and visit Junior. It seems so silly when I come in because it was awesome out there like I knew it would be. Recently Junior took a picture of me on the bench on the porch and I posted it. The comments I received stated how peaceful I look. I remark that it is the porch sitting that has brought me this contentment. I see God’s awesome creation and for a few minutes I am transported from the day’s cares and concerns. Recently as we talk about our kitchen renovation I once more walk past the wall of windows that are now on the enclosed porch. I tell myself when the weather gets too nasty that I have porch time waiting inside for me. I bring up a table idea again. We had one but somehow it got crowded out since this area has been more storage than a room. With the wall coming down at some point the area will be a part of our kitchen and it will be easier to have a permanent spot to look out year round. My thoughts turn once more to that sense of urgency we had to move from Michigan a few years ago. At most I felt we would leave Michigan for a period each winter and stay there. Then we felt led to move. Six years later I can’t thank God enough for that prompting. Junior and I are in the best place for us. God understood our needs more than we did. We have loved a country/wooded area much more than a beach type of relaxation. We have moved to the mountains and woods are all around us on our property, even in our scenery as we travel about the area. I find that I continue to relax and in this relaxation I sense that I have learned to accept myself as I am. Along with this awesome environment it seems that animals have started to appear in our lives. We had 2 cats but one day a dog showed up barked, we opened the door and she came in and did not leave. A few months later she had 6 puppies. One died, we found a home for 2 and have kept the other three. Other dogs have come and gone and at present we have 6 dogs and 4 cats. A momma cat adopted us and soon Junior made a cat door for her and her babies. Both Junior and I have always loved animals but this many? Joy fills our hearts each time we pull up in the driveway and we are greeted with so much excitement. We were receiving love in a way we longed for. Daisy came along as I was trying to come out of a fog of confusion and illness. She has helped me to have something to focus on to care for alongside of working to care for Junior again. It is so worth the discussion with myself to insist I go outside and sit even in the cool of fall. Daisy joins me and we share my breakfast. When I am done eating she stands up waits for me to pick her up and we go inside. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 8 2015

September 8 2015 Greetings My Friend In recent weeks I have gone from working a steady time period to breaking my work up throughout the day, resting for a few hours in the afternoon and then doing a few more things in the evening. In doing this I find that I am able to get a good days work done. Today I have stopped twice so I can catch my breath before moving on. This is life with asthma and my new normal. I have found myself mourning what once was and what it is now. I recall my youthful days of running, doing cartwheels and enjoying my day. I recall my adult years of picking out a project and working at it until it is done. I am sad in fact I am grieving. These moments still come which surprises me. Today though I have learned to grieve and in giving myself permission to grieve I soon find that I find ways to work within my new limitations. The grieving allows me to name a sorrow and in the sorrow I am able to acknowledge that life is now different. As I move into acceptance I learn new ways to cope and the final stage is contentment with where I am right now. Through the years I have learned this process is necessary in grieving the loss of someone to death, a loss of a relationship and now I see it being part of letting my younger days go and fully entering into my older years with hope. At the end of the day I find I have that sense of accomplishment of doing a good days work. For me seeing our home fairly neat and in order gives me that sense of accomplishment. I have always been an active person and again I grieved my loss of energy. In reevaluating my new energy level I find that I am active at the level I am able to be active. I am moving and doing but now it is slower and more thought out. When I see myself being active in a new light I feel good about myself. Retirement allows me to slow down and to work at the pace my body is able to. In retirement I also find that life is good and that my life still has an impact on others. I pray a whole lot because by praying I am able to enter into other people’s life with love. I spend a lot of time going into and out of social media these days and with this I find friends I can connect with as I need to. These friends are people I care about and I also find myself praying for them. I may take a whole day to clean our home but Junior lets me know that our home is comfortable. I sense he likes the order I keep so he can focus on renovating our home and not keeping it up. Although he does help a lot with the upkeep. He needs the little jobs so he can rest his back but he doesn’t necessarily want to be still so washing dishes gives him that distraction. He loves doing laundry so for the most part these days he washes and I hang the clothes then fold and put them away. Lately I have entered into doing research phone calling and then Junior and I talk about my findings which allows me to order what we need done such as installing the piping for propane. At the end of the day I see that Junior and I are blending our talents which allows us to run our lives more efficiently. My quiet time with God has allowed me to utilize my skills and He shows me my value all the time. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 5 2015

September 5 2015 Greetings My Friend I have a plan and I am anxious to put it into place. I think a bench by the firepit would remind me of all the campfires at retreats and such. Over more in the middle of the porch I think a group of rocking chairs would invite a group of people to share their lives. On the ramp up the porch is a great spot for a bench to sit on look out and eat, drink coffee and such. That is the thought running around in my mind. Visitors are few and far between to our new home even so I like the idea if we do have visitor’s then I am ready to sit down and enjoy some of life with them. Junior wonders over and over why I continue to attempt to make our home a place for people to gather when we don’t have visitors. Growing up people were always stopping by our home. I can still remember Mom screaming “hurry up pick up the house” as people pulled up to the curb of our home. We all scrambled sticking things under the couch or throwing things in a bedroom and shutting the door. When the guests walked in our home looked presentable. My first marriage we had family and friends over often for holidays, bbq’s and even a few drop in guests. I loved visitor’s and in my heart I still am setting up our home for the visitor’s to come and be comfortable. Junior’s life hasn’t been filled with visitors like my life has. He has led a quiet life and any visiting was done visiting other’s but not at his home. It is what he has known and lived. I love Junior’s lifestyle a ton. I call it boring and this is a compliment although it doesn’t sound like it. Along with visitor’s my life was filled with drama over nothing. I remember at one point telling people “I’d like to get off this roller coaster and live a boring life.” Junior and I don’t do drama and I love it. I watch him renovate, play with our fur children and he looks so content as he moves through his day. It took me a while to learn to quit looking for drama, I guess even though I was tired of it I did not know how to live without it either. Our niece and her family were here this summer and spent an afternoon out on the porch with us. It was still in construction mode but we had the bench on the ramp and we all sat around talking and at one point she mentioned how relaxing it was. That made my day. We were able to be outside and Junior took their son around the yard finding cool stuff and things to work on. We loved watching Junior do Junior as only he can. The two were content and Mom knew what her child was into. It was an awesome afternoon. As I dreamed about the look of the porch I felt like this was an addition to our home which excited me. This summer I have learned to porch sit for meals a quick rest before tackling another project. I can almost picture myself doing crafts, writing out on the porch next summer. I understand more fully how outdoor space is truly like adding a room to our home. With the roof on the porch we have shade and that means we can sit outside more so. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 3 2015

September 3 2015 Greetings My Friend Before I begin my day, prayer time even Bible study time I ask God to “open my eyes, heart and soul to Him and His will.” This consistent prayer helps me to stay focused on God and helps me to let go of my self centered ways. Without this I am sure I would still look at life through my own selfish heart. I am starting to add “Not my will but Your will.” I have come a long way through the years and I also know I am no where near where I want to be at the same time. I also ask frequently “put me this day and my life to Your Holy use.” With these prayers and with other prayers I find myself walking away from what seems right in my mind and I allow God to set my heart on His work for me. As a people pleaser for a good portion of my life I kept finding out that no matter how hard I tried to be agreeable, to be what I felt others wanted of me I did not endear myself to others as I thought I could. Actually I irritated people more than anything. These prayers are teaching me to please God and seek His will in my life. The more I able to let go of my own desires and learn to listen to God’s will I am finding a quiet peace within me. I am learning to accept my flaws and along the way the flaws are not flaws but God has created me in a unique way. In my special unique way God has given me my own calling to reach a certain group of people. As I began my writing career I felt I would reach out to the abused the most. The more I interact on Facebook I find I reach different types of hurting people along with the abused. With the discovery of my birth defect Chiari Malformation I understand the devastating effects of an invisible chronic illness. God has gifted me with the ability to put into words the things I am struggling with. I find that as I write about the things I am learning is also reaching another group of people. Many chronic illness’ share a few things in common one of which is Chronic Fatigue. This disease can seem like we are lazy looking trying to get out of obligations and such. In fact the fatigue can overwhelm us and moving away from it is a huge job. Through the years I have learned to work within my limitations and to be as proactive as I can. I am now taking Vitamin b12 for energy. With this I am able to function more so again. I also know that to many days of activity will throw me into a deep exhaustion. If I stop and allow my body to regroup I will be back to my new normal in short order. Along with balance issues, shakiness and occasional neck pain, mastoid pain and digestive upsets I have ways to cope through the moments and even keep them at bay with essential oils, supplements, medications, eating right and exercising within my limitations. I also struggle with asthma which has been recently diagnosed so I am learning how to cope, to find my triggers and to stay as healthy as I can. I also know I can be proactive up to a point and that recovering is going to take time. I sense God teaching me and I am sharing this journey and other journeys with others. In this I find support, give support and love. My God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 1 2015

September 1 2015 Greetings My Friend I tried a 2nd day of phone research and gave up. I can not believe the number of places I called and got no answers or was instructed to leave a message. The thing is those that I left a message with have not called back. Plan B was to drive to propane places in the area and go in to talk to them. Our first place did not deliver propane but suggested we go across the street. As we got in the car I noticed that this was the one place that answered the phone and helped me so much. At this point Junior was ready to just use this company. While we were talking to the representative we learned we needed to do a few steps before having the propane delivered and the tanks set up. We need some lines installed and we have decided to use a furnace so we have a gentleman coming by to walk through our home and then we can have what we need installed. We are choosing to have 2- 100 lb. tanks. From the estimates we should use 1 ½ tanks each year. By using the 2 we should get through the winter with no other deliveries and then we can order propane when the prices are lower. By my estimates we will save $40 a month over going and getting a refill in smaller tanks each week or two. As we get this in place we will buy wood to use in our wood/coal stove. We have left over coal from last year and we use it mainly during the night to keep the house warm. Having gone through 2 major blackouts in the last few years I find that I am comforted that we will have heat and using a gasoline generator we should only need electricity mainly at night for the refrigerator, the TV, laundry and such. Down the road we will look into a propane generator but for now we are covered. Junior has discovered that the propane furnace will also save us rather than using our propane fireplace and our heat should be more consistent. We can still use the fireplace but now it will be for enjoyment. When we first got it the thought was we would always have heat but now we are looking for a more efficient way to stay warm throughout the year. We have not liked the heat pump and wished we never got it. We live and we learn. Sometimes the lessons are hard. Heat pumps were new to us and in theory they seemed good. I must say we get great air conditioning from ours but I think we could cool our home in a cheaper way and we may look into this as we go along. We are liking the units where they are attached to the wall/ceiling area and we can cool each room to our needs instead of cooling the whole house especially areas we are not in as often. Throughout this process I have kept asking God to direct us and I believe He has opened our eyes to the things we need to do. At times I sense He has placed the need on our hearts as well and as things fall into place I feel a peace. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet