Rest in Peace, Terri.

A miserable chapter in our nation's history. At least she is now safely with her Lord, who can never and will never betray her.

Billboard Messages from God

Hannah Builds a Snowman

The occasion was the arrival of those cute red boots, a gift from a fellow Baby Face fan.

Come Back Stephen, All Is Forgiven

I have been too upset to talk/write about this for months now, but I simply must stop putting it off: I have been very upset with Stephen King.

Not that he cares.

It's about the Dark Tower series. He finally concluded it in the fall, after, what, 15 years? Fifteen years of his fans trudging faithfully along with Roland and his band, learning to speak dialects that take on a freakish life of their own, pretending we are gunslingers too, imagining ourselves as lean mean fighting machines instead of the geeky couch potatoes most of us are. (You know it's true.) We've expended all kinds of mental energy keeping track of alternate worlds, characters picked up from other King books and given new life then killed off and of course agonies of waiting between installments. And at last. The final installment. Roland the Gunslinger finds his Tower.

So as not to completely ruin the ending for anyone who hasn't already read it, I won't tell any specifics, but let me say, when Stephen King says "stop reading here," believe him. I know you won't stop, you'll keep going because you are a Hopeless Fan like me and you've been at this through 7 volumes and no way are you going to shut that book and leave a few more pages left. But please listen to Stephen. He's about to ruin the whole thing for you. He claims he has no control over the books he writes but I can hear him cackling nonetheless because he KNOWS we're all going to read those last few pages. And then he says we're not allowed to write him nasty letters because he forewarned us, after all. We're not allowed to show up on his doorstep and complain and whine. We're not allowed to stalk him. Not even a little bit.

Anyway I am finally coming out of my funk and am willing to consider a reconciliation with Stephen. I even re-read Firestarter a couple of weeks ago. (Still one of his best.) What's done is done. Things will never be the same between us, but at least we can rebuild our relationship. I'm waiting, Stephen.

A little Baby Face story

It's so fascinating!

Beckham loves it when I'm printing a bunch of decals.

What is that amazing thing? It goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth



and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth



and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and

Slowly getting back on our feet

On the plus side, every day we're able to do more before falling helplessly onto the nearest horizontal surface for a nap. I'm so thankful we are all a healthy bunch in normal circumstances. Considering how this flu bug knocked us out, I don't even want to think about what it would do in, say, a nursing home.

On the minus side, The Baby has a ruptured eardrum, and Bad Mommy didn't even realize what was going on till a couple of days later. Poor little thing. None of my children have had recurrent ear infections in their lifetimes so I am just not tuned in to what to watch for. Anyway our family doc, who is actually a wonderful physician's assistant, didn't get too excited about it; he said it was already healing.

Update

Still sick.

That's all.

Why the flurry of posts?

It's just been a tough week. Barry is away on business, the children are sick, I don't feel tiptop myself and the first week of the month is always the busiest anyway - too many meetings and obligations. I'm just feeling all "angsty," to quote a certain LOTR parodist.

I had so many plans for projects to do this week but so far all we've been able to do is drag ourselves from one appointment to another meeting to school to afterschool activities to another meeting and then we all come home and fall on our beds and sort of ooze all over everything. (We have colds.) It's probably a good thing Barry isn't here, he'd just catch our germs.

*whine*

UPDATE: OK, it's not colds. It's the flu. Ugh.

Unexpected pang

I had a miscarriage in the summer of 1999. We weren't trying to have any more children, in fact had decided our family was complete, so the baby was a surprise, and we had barely adjusted to the idea of the pregnancy when we lost it.

We have since been blessed with another child, which helped a great deal with the healing, and in fact I don't think about it a lot anymore unless I am reminded (though I did just now realize that our child would be starting kindergarten next year had he or she lived).

The other night I was watching "The Cider House Rules," based on John Irving's book. One subplot is a doctor who runs an orphanage and does illegal abortions on the side because he feels it's better not to bring yet more unwanted children into the world.

Having lost a child who was not asked for but wanted nonetheless, suddenly it hit me what a terrible loss an abortion is, whether those involved know it or not. At last, my disagreement with abortion is no longer just a head thing, but a heart thing as well.

God in the Clouds

Quote from my little one, age 4:

"If you want to know what God looks like, you look at the clouds. If you see one that looks like God, you say, 'Hi God!' and then you know that's Him."

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it sure is cute!