Excerpt: The Pursuit of God, The Human Thirst for the Divine, A.W. Tozer

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, The Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wondered so long. In Jesus' name. Amen
Excerpt: The Pursuit of God, The Human Thirst for the Divine, A.W. Tozer

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Day 178 in the Year of Our Lord 2012

Using a paper I created for the May challenges at Digitals, ExtraOrdinary, Ordinary Day, I tried this new tutorial that a designer friend of mine, Cilenia Curtis mentioned. Took me all afternoon messing around with it and it is still not exactly the way I wanted or was trying for. I'll keep practicing! Practice makes perfect, so they say! :D Tut is here: http://ozone.oscraps.com/?p=2654.  Why don't you give it a try?  To those of you who know, care, or understand, I did it using Photoshop.  I want to try doing it with Photoshop Elements, too, to see if it works the same way.  The font I used is my new favorite, Scrap Script.

The picture is another one I "stole" from Liz from her facebook album!  Thanks, Liz!  :D


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Day 176 in the Year of Our Lord 2012

We left on Thursday at 6 a.m. and headed to northern KY to see Tim's mom, dad and former pastor, Bro. Hensley.  We arrived at Tim's mom's at 2:00.  We spent the afternoon with her and then went out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays.  It is always fun spending time with her and catching up.

Tim's dad already had other plans for Thursday, so when we left Tim's mom's, we drove to Lawrenceburg, IN to spend the night in the Holiday Inn Express on Rt. 50.  After a long day of traveling, we were in bed by 10 but the night's "rest" was not great. 

Since we were in the area, Tim scheduled a visit with Bro. Hensley for 9:30 a.m. on Friday.  It was soooo good to see him and Sister Betty!  They have been such a great influence in our ministry.  Really miss serving the Lord with them!  What great years those were at Addyston Baptist Church for us and for the kids.  Bro. Hensley told Tim that he had been the best assistant he had ever had.  What a compliment!

After visiting with them for a little over an hour we headed on down Rte 50 so we could cross Anderson Ferry over to Rte 8 in KY.  My how the memories just flooded our minds as we drove down Rte 8 through Constance, where we attended church for awhile.  I don't even remember the name of the church at this point.  The pastor was Eugene Dunn.  Hadn't seen him or his wife in years until they attended dad's funeral.  Haven't seen them since.

As you leave Constance, you come to Mile Hill which goes up past the Cincinnati Airport.  One of the things I will always remember about that hairpin curve is how our bus driver, Mrs. Roark took that curve one day and the wheels of the bus left the ground!  Everyone on the bus thought we were goners, LOL!

Then we drove through Stringtown on towards Taylorsport, passing Michelle Hartman's house, my good friend during high school, and the McGlassen and Hempfing fruit farms along the way.  As we drove passed Taylorsport we noticed Sprague's Grocery is no longer a grocery store but just someone's house.  The gas pumps were gone and the trees that shaded the store were gone.  We did see Mr. and Mrs. Sprague about 10 years or more ago at Tim's dad's 70th birthday celebration.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone now.  What a sweet couple they were!  We were always walking from the house to their store to buy candy.

And speaking of the house where we used to live, I had Tim drive down passed Tanners Lane to see if the house was still there.  It was but it was almost hidden from view by a row of brush in front of the house and the bush that dad used to keep trimmed was really grown and untrimmed.  The area where the Kenyon's house used to be, before the tornado of 1974 swept it from its foundation, was totally grown up and looked like a wooded area.  What a weird feeling it all was!  I want to find a picture of our house when we lived there so you can see the difference.  I know Joey and Kim will be interested.

Next stop, Tim's dad's.  We spent about an hour with them.  Chuck took us to see his garden which is down the street a bit and back in some trees near the creek that runs down into the river.  He used the creek to water the garden when needed.  They took us to lunch on up Tanner's Lane to the Hebron Grille.

As we left there and traveled through Hebron, it is amazing to see how different that area is compared to how it was when we were growing up there.

We drove to Elisabeth's to spend the night to break up the trip back to NC.  We arrived there at 5:00.  On Saturday, I stayed with Abigail while the rest of the family passed out VBS flyers and Tim took Anthony out to breakfast.  After everyone returned, we were on the road to NC by 11:30.  Stopped at Wendy's for lunch on the road and got home around 4:15. 

When we got back home, we had to clean the church, make the bulletin, print out SS papers, do laundry and get a few groceries.  It was another 10 p.m. bed time!

I did a few scrapbook pages while traveling this weekend and finished up one I had started after I got home and then did another one today.  So I will share those with you.  Credits and a description are below each one.

While at the Thom-A-Lex park, Hannah was enjoying the breeze blowing and wanted her mommy to take a picture of her with the wind blowing through her hair. Looks like it had stopped blowing at this point, however!

Fonts: Typewriter and Edwardian Script
Kit:  Come on Get Happy by Angie Young
Store Link:  http://digitalscrapbookpages.com/digitals/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_296&products_id=26909

I would love to know what Abigail was thinking as she stood by the front door watching the birds fly across the yard just out of her reach. Her one-year-jibberish was wonderful to listen to, even though I had no idea what she was saying in her baby language. How wonderful to watch her discover the world!

Fonts: Typewriter and Scrap Script
Kit:  FYA June 2012 - Discover by Angie Young
Store Link:  http://digitalscrapbookpages.com/digitals/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_296&products_id=26851

A lot of babies do not like the feel of grass, but Thad really enjoyed crawling in it and studied it seriously.

Fonts: Typewriter and TypewriterRough
Kit:  FYA June 2012 - Discover by Cilenia Curtis
Store Link:  http://digitalscrapbookpages.com/digitals/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_313&products_id=26864

While some people pronounce the name with a long "o" sound, it is traditionally pronounced as body. This is derived from the original name of the area, which was "Bodies Island," after the Body family from whom the land was purchased. Folklore would have you believe it is due to the number of dead sailors washed ashore from this portion of the Atlantic Ocean, which is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. An impressive array of ships have been sunk due to storms, shoals, and German U-boats in World War II.

Fonts: Typewriter and Scrap Script
Kit: FYA June 2012 - Discover by Aria
Store Link: http://digitalscrapbookpages.com/digitals/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=26_324&products_id=26850

Monday, June 18, 2012

Day 170 in the Year of Our Lord 2012

Surprise!  I decided to crawl out from under that proverbial rock and let you all know that I am still alive!  Life is just zipppppppppppppppppping by these days!

First of all, let me give you an update on Tim's cancer situation.  It's all pretty good news!

We went for a check up last Friday, June 15th.  It took less than 5 minutes for the Physicians Assistant to rip out the gauze from Tim's neck wound, comment that it looked good (granulated I think is the word he said to the intern that was with him) and for me to keep doing what I'm doing and that Tim wouldn't need to come back for a month.  Hopefully, Lord willing, it will be completely healed by then!

We spent the most time talking with a nurse about a study group that Tim is qualified to take part in.  With this cancer, I think I mentioned before that there is an 80% chance that there is no more cancer in the other lymph nodes behind Tim's right ear where the cancer was found in the lymph node they removed.  The normal procedure has been to still do surgery to remove the rest of the lymph nodes to be safe.  That is where this study comes in.  There is a new ultrasound procedure that is being tested versus the operation.  So, one test group has the operation, while the other test group goes through the ultrasound procedure.  In the random selection, Tim was chosen to be in the ultrasound group.  This is a 10 year study in which Tim will be given ultrasound treatments every 4 months for the first 2 years, I believe.  Then every 6 months for 2 or 3 years after that and then once a year every year after that.  This ultrasound procedure will be free through the study group.

So, thankfully there will be no more surgery at this point!  If they do find cancer in the lymph nodes through the ultrasound procedure, I would say there will then be surgery.  Of course our prayer is that the Lord has seen fit that the cancer is gone!  We thank Him for his goodness to us as it could have been a much worse scenario all the way around!  We know personally many who have not been so blessed as we.  Praise ye the Lord!

Thank you all for your prayers and you know we would still cherish your prayers as you think of Tim and his situation that the Lord would see fit to have him cancer-free from here on out!

OK, in other news, I joined a Creative Team so I could have the chance to work with some "artsy" digital scrapbooking kits.  While it is not really my style for my designs, I have been very intrigued with these designers' (Angie Young, Aria and Cilenia Curtis, who are all fellow-designers at Digitals) work.  So, when they put out a CT call, I decided the only way to learn more about their style would be to join their CT.  I was accepted and on a 3 month trial basis, which is good because I do not know if I will be able to keep up with them and do my own designing, too!

That being said, here are the layouts I have created so far using their "artsy" kits.  I really want to know what you think!  I have to say that I kinda like it!  It takes me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to put one page together!  What you see is more than likely NOT what I started out with!

These are pictures taken while Jessica and Liz were here last week with the kids.





Friday, June 1, 2012

Day 153 in the Year of Our Lord 2012

Thanks so much, EVERYONE, for your prayers on Tim's behalf!  You will never know this side of Glory how much they mean to us!

Last Friday, Tim began running a low-grade fever, even though he didn't tell me about it at the time.

Saturday, we went to a revival meeting and later he told me the longer he sat there, the worse he felt.  He was running a low-grade fever.

Sunday, he did not attend Sunday school but preached even tho he didn't really feel well.  While we were standing at the back to shake everyone's hands as they left, I noticed his collar was very wet from the incision.  The RN, who is a member of the church, checked the incision.  The skin was hot to the touch and had an odor.  She told us he needed to go to the ER.  Since it was Sunday, Tim decided he would go on Monday, Memorial day.  He continued the low-grade fever all day.  As the day wore on, he decided it might be better to go after the evening services because "the ER probably wouldn't be as crowded then as tomorrow."

Immediately after church we headed to the ER, arriving around 7:30.  The waiting room was packed!  We figured we were in for a looooooooooong wait!  I hated it for him because I knew he was not feeling well.  However, the Lord helped us along.  Since Tim was feverish and his blood pressure was elevated and he was post operation, they put him on the "fast track" and we had a bed by 8:30.

They took several blood cultures, (which turned out to be negative we found out today).  The doctor on call cut the stitches to the wound and the infection just poured out!  Tim said he immediately began to feel better!  Instead of stitching him back together, the wound was left open and the doctor soaked gauze in saline solution and packed it into the wound.  He had me watch him because "you are going to be doing the 3 times a day!"  My first reaction was..........."You want ME to do this????!!!!!!!"  You will do things for your loved ones that you normally would NEVER think of doing, won't you?

So, the doctor sent us home with some supplies (gauze, saline solution, suture scissors, and tape) to perform the task at home.  He told us to make sure we get in to see the surgeon on Tuesday.

And for those of you curious (as we were) why antibiotics were not administered, it was because the bacteria was not in the tissue so antibiotics would not have worked.  The infection was only a site infection.



So, Monday I attended to Tim's wound and it was not (is not) as bad a task as I thought it would be.  He is very uncomfortable and it is very sore as you can imagine it would be packing gauze onto an open, raw wound.





Tuesday, instead of the doctor being in the office, we found out he would not be back in until today (Friday).  I told the receptionist that we could not wait til Friday.  So we saw the Physician's Assistant.  Long story short, he removed the gauze to check the wound, said "it is dramatic, but you are doing a good job.  Keep it up and be sure and make an appointment to see the surgeon on Friday."  He sent us home with more supplies (I've got gauze coming out the ying yang, lol!)

FINALLY, today we saw the surgeon!  Found out, first of all, that of the 4 (we thot there were only 3) lymph nodes that were removed, 3 near the right clavicle and 1 behind his right ear, the one behind Tim's right ear showed melanoma.  The cancer removed from the back of his neck is free and clear.  After it heals more, there will be more treatment for the melanoma .....either surgery or another procedure to find out if there is more cancer in the other lymph nodes.  But nothing will be done until Tim is pretty much healed up, which probably will be another month. 

Your continued prayers will be appreciated!  Praise the Lord that there was no cancer in the other 3!