The Crab Chronicles

Remember the Rainbow

Anxiety. I slept all night in a vivid dream of trying to do research for a paper, and not knowing how to get it done. I woke up worried I was going to have to turn in the paper and wondering how the heck to get my hours in at work, Mike to school, etc. AND get that paper done.

I woke up in a total panic.

Then I remembered - I've been out of school more than 20 years. Finished my master's in 1990.

Maybe I was having a premonition of checking Mike's grades a few minutes ago and finding he has a 72 in Math. A 72!! That's two points away from failing. The grade report shows a bunch of assignments either have not been turned in or he has zeros in them. I told him he HAS to talk to his teacher and figure out a solution to that mess, or there will be a consequence here at home.

Please pray for him to get his butt in gear. This is his last week of school. He has A's and B's in everything else.

We were running errands last night after a very intense rainstorm late in the afternoon, and this is what we saw:

Michael said "Let's go to the end! We will get a lot of money!"

I wish it were that easy, son. I wish.

The rainbow did give me hope, though. Whenever I see a rainbow I feel happy and hopeful. Maybe that's a silly reaction, but that's how I feel.

There's an old song called "Look for the Rainbow" and I hear that in my head, too.

I woke up this morning and it was pouring rain. Great for the gardens, not so much for driving to school. I turned on the computer and clicked over to the Weather Channel site. I'd looked at the forecast last night and it said 30% chance of rain today. The screen said, "Rain will stop at 6:45." This was about 6:35. The rain was LOUD.I thought, how do they know what time the rain will stop? How silly.

At 6:46, I noticed the rain had stopped and the birds started singing. Another hopeful thing. OH-KAY.... So there's a psychic that works for the Weather Channel. Awesome.

What will the third thing be, I wonder?! My 65% Irish superstitious brain thinks like that.

True Confessions

I don't do things the way most other folks do, generally speaking, I must confess. So here's a list of some ways in which I am [cough cough] weird crazy nutso unconventional.

Keep in mind, all these are written with my tongue firmly in my cheek.Disagree, get mad at me, shout at your computer, it's all good. Debate is healthy.

Also, I may be opinionated, but I am not intolerant. Some of my best friends are pro-broccoli.

1) I found myself telling a young friend of Michael's recently that I don't allow two things in my house: Football and Broccoli.

Football is a mystery to me and the typical southerner's obsession with the sport is totally a mystery. Behemoths on steroids throwing each other on the ground and trying to break each other's bones? Really? Not my idea of entertainment.

Broccoli just grosses me out. The smell of it cooking makes me want to run in the opposite direction. I tell my kids, we eat no broccoli here. Take a vitamin instead. It's much more yummy.

2) I never wear high heels or pantyhose, even to job interviews. They were invented by the devil. In my version of Utopia, they would not even exist.

Women are brainwashed into thinking high heels are good, when in fact they are evil. I've worked too many lawsuits based on women falling and getting hurt to think otherwise. Besides, they are uncomfortable.

Why do women knowingly HURT themselves in the name of "beauty"?! Because we are brainwashed by mamas who were brainwashed by their mamas, and so on.

You never see a scene in a movie or on TV where a weary women comes home from work and kicks off her Crocs or her sneakers. Nope.

I know in my heart that one day women will wear comfortable shoes, and high heels will go the way of the corset - straight into museums.

I feel the same way about men's ties. There is no reason for them.

3) I don't care about new electronics.

USE IT UP AND WEAR IT OUT [my philosophy of life]

My car is a 1999 model and it will be driven until it dies in the driveway and I call one of those charities that picks up old cars. Then, hopefully I can switch and drive Mother's car, which is three years newer and has very few miles on it. It will be driven until death also.

I bought my current TV in 2002, and I see no reason to buy a new one. Mike asked me the other day why I don't buy a high def TV and I said "You see a lot of extra money lying around here?!"

Truth is, with my poor eyesight, I just don't see enough difference between high def and my big flat screen TV to matter. I told Mike he can save up his money and buy one, right after he buys everyone's Christmas presents.

4) When I was a kid, I liked to eat bites of raw ground beef. Never made me sick. I've never had high cholesterol or mad cow disease. Red meat isn't the evil substance the media make it out to be.

5) I think every child should learn to swim before the age of three, and should be tested on it before they can be enrolled in school. Children drown every year and there's no reason for it. I learned to swim as a baby, at the YMCA, with Mother. We didn't have much money, either. Teach your kids to swim, people. Also teach them basic water safety. Lives will be saved.

6) I eat real butter, all the time. Real butter is NOT the enemy of mankind.

I was in Publix the other day and I was trying to buy some Plugra, which is the best butter in the universe, and there was an old man standing there blocking my access, carefully picking up EVERY SINGLE FAKE BUTTER there in the store, reading the back, and puttting it back on the shelf. I am short and I have short arms. I was also taught to be polite to my elders. I must've stood there 5 minutes. Finally I said "Excuse me" and I reached my short fat arm toward the shelf. He backed off long enough for me to grab my prized Plugra and make a getaway. I wanted to grab him by the collar and hiss like Jack Nicholson "You see that FAKE CRAP butter?!? It's NOT good for you. DO NOT buy it. It's one molecule away from plastic. I don't care what the damn label says. Eat one teaspoon of real butter instead."

I couldn't though. My mama raised me right.

7) I wear ONLY black pants. Not white pants or red pants. Not dresses. Not skirts, skorts, shorts, or culottes. Black pants. All the time. I like black pants. For people with fat legs, black stretchy pants are a godsend. I have a variety of colorful tops. That's enough color for me.

8) I think we should stop making Spanish a second language in our culture. This is America. You want to live here, learn English. Maybe if we stop printing everything in Spanish [like every piece of paper Mike brings home from school] then immigrants will be encouraged to learn English. A lot of churches around here offer FREE English classes. You want to speak Spanish or French or Chinese or whatever at home, FINE. But out in public, you speak English.

When I was in Publix the other day there was a woman stocking the shelves. I asked her where feminine products were. She looked puzzled. I repeated my request softly. She got a look of sheer terror on her face and ran off. She brought back a manager who helped me find what I needed, and was rather patronizing and rude, TO ME. I wasn't rude to the Hispanic lady. The manager's tone of voice implied I was being mean to the woman. I wanted to slap that manager and say WHY did you hire someone who cannot speak English and then put her out in the store where customers were likely to ask her questions?!

If I went to Italy, or Germany, or China, or any non-English speaking country to live, I would make a HUGE effort to learn the language. I learned enough Russian so I could get around on my own without feeling helpless, and I was only there and in Kazakhstan a grand total of a few weeks. I listened to CD's in my car.

Let's go back to speaking ENGLISH here.

9) I am uncool and I don't care if my kids think I am uncool. I see parents all the time trying to be cool, trying to be their kids' FRIEND and I want to slap them and say LISTEN, Dude or Dudette, they don't need a FRIEND, they need a parent. Parenting means you make rules and you enforce them. You want to win a popularity contest with your kids, be prepared for the fallout. You want to raise nice kids, enforce rules and discipline, and teach them good manners. If you don't, the world WILL.

10) The older I get, the less I care about religious convention. I want to know about how Christianity came about, and why there are so many things in conventional Christianity that appear to me to be intolerant and unloving, precisely the opposite of what I believe Jesus was all about.

I have been reading about the gnostics and the discoveries of the gnostic gospels. If you Google the word "gnostic" you will find a lot of misinformation out there. If you want to know more from a reliable source, check out the writings of Elaine Pagels, who writes objectively about the early Christian movement. She doesn't condemn orthodoxy but she sheds a lot of light on how early Christianity was molded into the form we know today.

We should teach our children to ask questions and to explore, not tell them everything was decided a long time ago and they should simply "turn or burn."

 

So there it is, some of my weirdness, right here on the internet. Whether you applaud me or condemn me, this is what I truly feel: if you stop intellectually and spiritually exploring, forming opinions, and asking questions, you will become hard and unyielding, and your life will be spent categorizing everyone else as "one of us" or "one of them" - a very sad thing.

Go in peace.

Sunday Craziness

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but my Sundays rarely are restful. Today was no exception.

Today was Youth Sunday at our church, and Michael was tapped to do two important things with his little Rite 13 class, read the Prayers of Intercession, and Read the Lord's Prayer while all the other kids did the sign language version. I forgot my camera but I took some shots with my phone.

As you can see, we have a very informal little church. Folks wear jeans, shorts, whatever. Mike looked conservative compared to a lot of the other teens. LOL / Below he's reading the prayer. All those kids are from the entire Sunday School.

The little ones are so funny.

Then after to church we had to get to Kroger. Then I had to take Alesia to work.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on Mike's social studies project with him, about China.He had to write and illustrate a comic book about Chinese history. We ended up doing "Bubba's Adventure in China." It may not win any awards, but it's done, at least.

No time for gardening but I took photos:

These are the ginormous parsley and spaghetti squash plants in one shot:

Hope y'all were able to relax!

Ranting Zombie

Yesterday was sort of bizarre, for several different reasons.I got a call from a recruiter about a job with a company up in Lawrenceville. They needed a Legal Assistant. Matt sounded funny on the phone and kept saying "Just read the email I send and let me know what you think." I thought that was a bit odd.

The company, it turns out, is an ultra right-wing group of lawyers who help people push their agenda through legal cases. Some of it is undoubtedly real religious persecution, and I am all for that kind of litigation because persecution of any group is unfair and just wrong. One of my ancestors was a French Huguenot who fled France in the 19th century due to religious persecution.

However, what made me back out of the job interview was an insistence that I sign off on a statement saying I completely agreed with their entire belief system, which included statements that the bible is completely infallible, people who aren't saved burn in hell, all abortion is murder, etc.  I am a Christian but I am a "live and let live" person. I don't push my beliefs or agenda on anyone and I resent when folks try to do it to me. As I've said before, I have dear friends who are all different religions, friends who are gay, who are Buddhists, who are agnostic or atheist, etc. I live with a Staunch Republican Episcopalian [Mother] but my closest friends are more liberal. My feeling is that I can love people BUT not necessarily agree with their beliefs and that's OK. My conscience wouldn't allow me to even discuss working for people who would demand I toe the ultra-right wing party line, though.

I will fight to the death for anyone in America's right to believe whatever they like because I think that's what makes our country great - it's tolerance. I am appalled at someone trying to force their beliefs on me, especially in a professional situation. Politics and religion have no place in the workplace, IMHO.

I never contributed to the PAC that Home Depot employees were urged to support, either. I think PACs and lobbying Congress is just wrong. That's part of the reason we are in such a fiscal mess right now. Everyone in Congress has their own agenda, and they don't care about the common good.

OK, I will climb off the soapbox now...

Michael was not a happy camper last night because I made him stay home and finish homework rather than go to baseball practice. I have a rule, school before sports. The teachers loaded him up with homework yesterday. He clearly didn't eat a good enough snack, and he became uncooperative. That always happens when he doesn't eat enough.

Alesia stayed at school until almost 9, then came home and ate a huge supper. I still have a hard time getting her to understand that going for hours and hours without eating is counterproductive. I don't know why it is taking so long to get my kids to understand that.

I have told Alesia over and over that I want her home before dark, but she has her own agenda. I am trying very hard to disengage from her daily dramas.

Then this morning at 5:15 Mother woke me up needing my help. She was awake with leg cramps all night. I got her some tonic water [for the quinine] and a potassium pill. She was up all night, bless her heart. I got her squared away, then I couldn't go back to sleep.

So I am operating on 5 hours sleep. I am zombie-like. It's such a lovely feeling.

Energizing Morning

I remember in college reading a quote that sort of scared me, but now, at 48, I totally get it and it makes me chuckle: "Age and treachery will always win over youth and skill.

Michael played in a tennis round robin tournament this morning with his friend Colton. Their strategy was to just make the "old guys" run all over the courts, so they could win. Well, the "old guys" won. I don't think they used treachery, but they sure did give the young whippersnappers a butt-whoopin. I didn't see what happened, just heard about it from my friend Melanie.

 

I spent the morning at church. Not how I usually spend Saturday morning, but that's OK. I was very delighted to be able to hear Sara Miles speak. She was very candid, funny, and refreshing. She is very involved with her home church in San Francisco St. Gregory's, and she's become a really respected person in the Episcopalian community. We tend to be "God's frozen people." Sara's about the exact opposite of that. Her church is much more "hands on" than hidebound, and they sing in 4 part harmony without instruments, pass around the chalice for communion, and in general have a much more lively service. They also bring in food every Friday and operate a food pantry for anyone who is hungry.

Sara is gay and a former atheist, and much more left-wing than anyone I've ever met. However, I was struck this morning by how straightforward and insightful she is when she speaks. The one thing that will stay in my mind is her idea that Jesus is all about ACTION. He's not about forming a committee or studying an idea, he's about feeding people, healing people, and doing the work. There's nothing in the bible about going to church. It's all about doing for other people.

Here's a quote I like: "Jesus is right here with me and the crazy guy: the lowly and unprepared, as the prophets foretold. Among the weak, faithless, and doubting, as his disciples proved, then and now. He doesn’t look for the most “religious,” the most doctrinally correct, or, for that matter, the smartest of his beloved people to build his Kingdom, but hands over authority to anyone willing to suspend self-doubt, and simply trust Jesus’ faith in us."

When Sara realized there were hungry people all around her church, she started a food pantry. Everyone is welcome. Nobody has to live in the right area code or have the right paperwork. I so admire that. The food project has been thriving for more than 10 years.

I had a chance to chat with Sara after the lecture and she was very warm and down to earth. I've been to a lot of lectures in my life, but rarely have I felt so great afterwards.

It's a beautiful day here in Atlanta.

Alesia ran over something and blew out a tire last night so we have to get it fixed. Mother is feeling puny. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Michael has a scraped knee. There's no great reason to rejoice, but still I feel joyful and hopeful.

Being out among fellow grownups who share some of my enthusiasm for hands-on Christianity is so energizing and empowering. I wish I could listen to Sara [or someone like her] every morning.

Oh, and my seeds are sprouting! I will try and post a photo later. The zucchini and cauliflower are reaching for the sky!

Welcoming and Letting Go

We read a quote this morning in my adult formation class [what Episcopalians call Sunday School] that really struck home with me. I wanted to share it:

"The great and twin disciplines of the spiritual art of being family are, I think, the disciplines of welcoming and of letting go. These are matters of the heart."

[I can't find the name of the book this came from or I would share it. Rev. Laura showed us the book but the title has escaped me. I will email her.]

We are starting a series on caregiving - for parents and also perhaps non-parents who are still caring for someone, often their own elderly parents. I fit into both categories. It can be very challenging.

We went around the circle of folks in the class and everyone said their names and the names and ages of their children. The grandfatherly man sitting next to me had 10 children, ranging in age from 15 to late 40's. One woman, older than me, refused to give her kids' ages, saying then everyone would guess her own age. One lady had an infant with her. So it was a diverse group.

The only two parents who got emotional talking about their children were me and another mom, who has two daughters adopted domestically. We are both single moms. I don't think of us as a particularly oppressed group, but it was interesting that all the other parents spoke pretty matter-of-factly, and this other mom and I got choked up.

Maybe it's because being a single mom IS a great challenge. There is no co-parent to share ths stresses. Then again, there is nobody else we have to consult. I have Mother, of course, who is almost a co-parent, and has a great influence on my children, so I am very fortunate.

The bottom line is, God puts parents together with their children, whether biological or adopted. God makes families.

Hopefully I will glean some more interesting nuggets of information in the coming weeks, and I will share those here.

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Our Russian Christmas Dinner last night was fun, but there was not a big turnout. That was OK by me, because it gave me a chance to have a good visit with the folks who were actually there. I forgot my camera, though, much to my chagrin. Oh well, next year will hopefully be better.

It was very cold and windy yesterday, and I suspect that might have accounted for the light turnout. Kids played outside and inside, though...

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If you like to read and you [like me] are appalled by the prices of books nowadays, check out this site, the Paperback Book Swap. I already listed a bunch of books on there and mailed off my first one, which gives me credits. It costs 2-3 dollars to mail a book, but that's a LOT cheaper than buying them. Check it out.

The Places We Can Go

I have noticed as I have endured this long period of employment woes that the minute I get to feeling really down and discouraged about how my life is going, God sends me a sign that things will get better. 

I get perturbed with myself sometimes for forgetting that God will take care of us. Sometimes I hear my grandmother's voice singing God Will Take Care of You, in my head. Mother told me it was Mamaw's favorite, and she had a lot of trials in her life so I am sure it was a frequent comfort to her.

I know I have talked about enjoying the blog Single Dad Laughing, but today's post is particularly powerful, even though it doesn't mention theology at all. It underlines my deep belief that miracles happen every day. This was a sign of hope for me this morning as I read it.

I always want to tell my non-believer friends that God is the most potent energy source in the world. This article Electric Ghosts discusses that in a thoughtful way. I just have an instinctive belief that our souls have energy and as we know from physics energy is never created nor destroyed, it merely changes forms. Love is powerful energy. Even most hardened atheists will agree that Love exists. I pity the ones who can never make the leap to understand that God IS Love, so therefore he exists.

One of my dreams is to be able to come up with a persuasive, logical way to convince non-believers of the existence and power of God. I guess I should just leave it up to the many priests and pastors in the world, huh?! Then again, it says somewhere in the bible "a little child shall lead them."

MY LOGICAL CHILD

I've always known my daughter was a very concrete thinker and her problem-solving abilities are very keen, but nothing brought home just how different we are like the conversation we had last night. It still makes me chuckle.

I was fixing dinner and I put something in the microwave for a minute. I went back to the stove and Alesia, who was sitting at the kitchen table, said "Did you see that?"

"See what?" I asked, not really know what she had noticed.

"The way that light flickered?" [The light over the kitchen table.]

"Yep, I saw it," I replied.

There was a pause.

I said, "You know what I think about when I see that light flickering?"

She looked at me. "No."

"I think my Daddy is trying to give me a message from the other side, saying a little hi, I'm here."

Alesia rolled here eyes. "That's weird, Mom."

"I read somewhere that spirits communicate with energy, that dimming lights can indicate paranormal activity," I explained.

There was another pause.

Alesia said "You know what I think when I see that light dimming?"

"No, what?"

"I think the energy from using the microwave overloaded the electric system and caused the light to dim, Mom."

I had to chuckle.

"You are going to be an engineer one of these days, kiddo. You just demonstrated how completely differently you and I think!"

I pointed out to her that some engineers [like cousin Steve] get to design cool stuff, and travel. She liked that. "I would like to travel!" she said excitedly.

As Dr. Seuss said, Oh, the Places You'll Go...   ;-)

[NOTE: Despite not sharing my enthusiasm for exploring the paranormal, Alesia does believe in God.]

A Day of Crowds

Seems like I've been in crowds all day long, which is weird for a Sunday.

Our church had no Sunday school today, so Michael and I went to church with Jason and Alesia. Jason goes to a mega church up in Gwinnett County, about 30 minutes from here. When I say mega I am not exaggerating. The parking lot alone is bigger than all the parking at Georgia Perimeter College. They run 3 services on Sunday and one or two on Saturday night. It doesn't look like a church. It looks like an auditorium. There was a professional type band, flashing lights, the whole nine yards. I've been in some big churches but nothing like this. Wow.

They have probably a half dozen coffee stations, and there's a Starbucks type coffee bar on the lower floor.Those people are caffeinated, lemme tell ya.

I am not a fan of mega churches, I will admit. I was prepared to hate it. I didn't hate it. It's not the way I want to worship, but I didn't disagree with anything that was said or done.

Baptisms were done onstages, with the folks sitting in little boxes of water and getting fully immersed. Each baptism [there were 3 or 4] was accomplished in about 2 minutes. The minister asked if the person accepted Jesus Christ as their savior and then sort of pushed them down in the water to be totally immersed. Everyone applauded. The name flashed on the screen.That was it.

The sermon centered on the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with the 5 loaves and two fishes. It asked everyone to consider how you have to allow for miracles and trust God. I totally agree with that.

What I didn't care for was the feeling of being just one of a multitude. In my little church you see the same faces every Sunday. You know people. They know you. There's one urn of coffee for everyone, and that's enough.The ministers now your name.

I also wasn't tickled that there were no female ministers anywhere on the stage of mega church. Lots of guys but no females. This is supposed to be a non-denominational church, so I don't understand that. In my opinion, women have just as much right to preach the gospel as men.

I'm not a mega church kinda gal, but it was an interesting experience.

I told Jason that turnabout is fair play, and he will have to come to St. Bede's one Sunday. That will be a shock to his system. LOL

We went to Kroger late this afternoon to stock up on groceries and it was a zoo. Crowds everywhere. One guy walking around was about 6'5, completely bald, long trenchcoat [it was 65 degrees out], long beard, lots of tattoos. He looked like a bad guy from Matrix or something. I avoided him. He is not a typical Kroger shopper, not in the burbs anyway.

Alesia had some drama this evening with Jason, their first fight, but things got smoothed over, thank God. She handled it with maturity and I was proud of her.

Can't believe Thanksgiving week is here. Wow.

Miracles Happen Every Day

I used to think only nutjobs believed in angels and miracles and such. Age and maturity have shown me otherwise. In order to allow miracles into your life I truly believe you have to talk to God.

Over at Single Dad Laughing's blog he is asking readers to leave comments about something impossible that has happened. The comments left are astonishing, and give me hope. If you're feeling down, go over to his site and check them out.

The recent return of my daughter to my home is just another in a long line of miracles that have touched my life from the very beginning.

When my mother found out she was pregnant with me in 1961, it was a very high risk pregnancy. There was only a slim chance that I would survive. She had had one really tragic miscarriage shortly after she married, and then a number of smaller miscarriages. She couldn't seem to get pregnant and stay that way. My brother was born healthy but then Mother nearly died of a kidney infection after being in and out of labor for over a week.

With me, Dr. Watson told Mother that if she didn't rest in bed the whole pregnancy she would likely miscarry again. Bruce was 2! Try staying in bed with an active 2 year old boy to look after. So Dad borrowed money and hired a maid, and Mother stayed in bed the whole time. She bled the entire time. When I was finally born, the cord was wrapped around my neck and I was coming very quickly. Dr. Watson gave Mother a drug to slow labor and unwrapped the cord from my neck. So I was born a healthy 5 lb. 8 oz. miracle.

I've often thought to myself, why did I defy the odds and make it into this world? Is there some compelling reason for me to exist? I don't have any extraordinary talents or gifts. I finally came to realize, in the last few years, that adopting my children was my purpose in life.

My ministry is to spread the word that there are many, many children in the world that need loving homes, and even without a whole lot of money you can still adopt them and have a happy family.

My friend Stephanie's recent post about what would've happened if she hadn't adopted her children should be required reading for any adoptive parent or anyone who has ever even considered adopting an older child. Less than 5% of children over age 3 are ever adopted. Most go into lives of crime, prostitution, drug addiction, and/or suicide.

So many kids like Michael, who is missing a hand, are considered totally disabled in foreign countries. In India he would likely have to beg. In Kazakhstan he was looking at a future of collecting a government welfare-type check the rest of his life. Being an orphan and having a missing hand meant his future was going to be VERY bleak. Stephanie's kids were headed to similar fates. It's not considered politically correct in the adoption world to say you "rescued" your child or saved their life, but  that's the truth of it, in so many cases. 

Whether you call it something "impossible" or use my preferred term "miracle," the impossible happens every day.

I truly believe there are two worlds we live in, the Seen and the Unseen. By "unseen" I simply mean the world of the spirit. For Christians, it's the Holy Spirit. Maybe you don't believe in ghosts, but if you're a Christian and you take the bible seriously, you have to admit Jesus was a ghost, when he appeared on the third day. So there are inexplicable things in the world.

My dad's uncle, Jake, was told he had severe heart issues and despite the fact he was a binge drinker, and only sporadically sought medical treatment at the VA hospital, he lived for years afterwards. (He was one of the sweetest humans I've ever known, and I adored him.)

The fact that I was able to adopt Alesia, despite the many obstacles, is a miracle. The orphanage director had great hostility towards Americans and was adamant Alesia not be adopted. I prayed, many friends and family members prayed, the missionary Svetlana visited him, Katya wrote him a beautiful letter, and somehow his heart was moved and he signed the papers allowing the adoption just days before he died. If he had not, my daughter would very likely be living on the streets in Russia, with no future.

When Michael came here in May 2007, he knew maybe 20 words of English. He started school a few months later and was able to do most all of the work, with help. In fall 2008, after less than 18 months in America, he tested out of the fourth grade and was put in the fifth grade. How many kids do you know who could do that, in a language they didn't speak for the first 10 years of life?!?

After she was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder and received therapy, Alesia's reading level jumped from 2nd grade to about 7th grade in less than 2 years, and she was able to do well in high school despite lacking a lot of basic knowledge. She is very smart, but in Russia she was considered "slow."

As Mother and I struggle to pay bills, and pray for me to find a job or a way to make a living, we try to remind each other about every day that God's ways are not known to us, but all things have a reason. Maybe I needed to be home right now, supporting Michael and Mom emotionally during this very difficult fall. Maybe I wouldn't have had the strength to persevere with all the emotional storms recently if my attention was divided by a demanding job.

God's plans are exactly what we would want for ourselves if we knew all the facts. AMEN

If you are in a situation that you cannot cope with alone, ask God to take your burden. Ask for a miracle.

Happy Baptism Day

I was very proud of my son today. He was baptized into the Episcopal Church and "sealed as Christ's own forever"! Yay! He didn't show any nerves, and read his responses in a nice clear voice. I, on the other hand, cried and ruined my eye makeup, while Michael was being annointed with holy water and then when we walked around the church. Mother cried too.

The heater at the church was broken and it was very cold this morning, so that didn't help. I didn't think I would need a coat because it was so sunny, and just wore a black cotton tunic shirt and pants and a big scarf. Michael had on a nice sweater and a tee shirt underneath. Mother just wore a long-sleeved shirt and sweater and skirt.

Alesia had an appointment to go back to the mall to interview for a job, so she didn't make it to church, but joined us later for lunch.

It was so cold, the priest told Mike later he was "an honorary member of the polar bear club!" Thank goodness we sprinkle instead of full immersion.

Mother sat in the back near the font.

Below, in front of the font, is Mike's Rite 13 teacher and baptismal sponsor, Dr. Graves. A very nice man.

Afterwards, we went out to lunch with Alesia and her boyfriend Jason at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Mother didn't feel up to joining us, but we had a fun time. Below are some shots there. Mike had VERY hot hot wings and drank two huge glasses of water.

I thought Michael was getting to be such a big guy, until I saw him next to Jason. LOL I must say, I like Jason very much. He has been a hugely positive influence on Alesia. I am very glad he is a Christian and has our same values.

Now begins the real work for Michael, of preparing to be confirmed. I feel confident his spiritual life will continue to grow.

PRAYER REQUEST

I am so happy there have been positive things to come about in the past few weeks, culminating in today. However, I still need prayer coverage for my job situation. I am trying to stay positive and focused, but it's tough. Please just pray that God will lead me to the right job soon. Thanks.