I have something to tell you.  You need to sit down because this is a biggie.  You sitting down?  My husband tried to kill me.

Yup, tried to kill me.  We had a light fixture in our kitchen that I did not like.  It was a 4' x 4' fluorescent light fixture.  It took up the entire middle of the kitchen ceiling.  It is nice when you need lots of light, but it is in the middle of the room and, therefore, casts shadows on the counter tops around the perimeter because it is always behind your head.

It gets mighty hot in the summer here and, when I'm cooking, gets mighty hot in the kitchen.  I've always wanted a ceiling fan in there, but there was not enough ceiling left after the monstrous light was done with it.

We have some roof leaks in that end of the house and my husband was complaining how hard it was to get down to that end from our attic access.  So, I saw my opportunity to get rid of that light.  That would make a huge hole to climb up into the attic when it was gone!

My husband removed the nails that held one side of the light up and was going to pull to get the other side to let go.  I moved my ladder over so I could climb up and grab the other end and BOOM!!!!! something very very heavy slammed down on my head.

This is what I saw:

Boy, oh boy, did it hurt!!  The reason that I know my husband tried to kill me is because, had he kept his end of the fixture up in the ceiling, the other nails wouldn't have pulled out.  So, if I disappear, you can give the police a lead on who might have done it. 

We still haven't been able to figure out where the rain is getting in.  Ugh!

Monday was the day that my son and I had to give depositions on the lawsuit against us (where the uninsured, unlicensed man ran a stop sign in front of my son in his unregistered, uninsured car that had open containers of beer in it and ended up dying of his injuries leaving behind a penniless widow with three children).  It was awful.  I watched as my son had to go back through the accident bit by bit, minute by minute, inch by inch.

It stirred up bad memories for my son and hurt me terribly to see him hurting.  It left me emotionally exhausted.  I can't even imagine what it did to my son.  Even yesterday I was still feeling the effects of it.  During my devotional time with God my mind kept wandering back to it.  I kept apologizing to God and was not able to focus on Him for any length of time.

The other lawyer was looking for something that would show that my son did something wrong (an independent witness and an accident reconstructionist say he did nothing wrong) or that my son is a liar or could have prevented the accident  somehow.  When it was over he told me to tell my son that there was, "Nothing personal."  I bit my lip and didn't say what was on my mind.

No, it wasn't personal, it was greed.  That lawyer saw an opportunity to get money off of someone else's misfortune.  He thought it would be easier than it is.  Many teenage boys drive recklessly.  My son wasn't.  This lawyer is not only representing the widow, he is representing the passenger in the other car.  My lawyer says that would be a conflict of interest and that makes the other lawyer look like a fool.

Money.  It sure can be an awful thing, can't it?  The desire for it sometimes makes us do things we shouldn't.

I put some pictures online in a photo album.  I have pictures of our barn and of the iguana cage, too.  I still have more of the cage that I haven't developed yet.

I also put some family and pet pictures in there.  Now remember, you don't have to go look.  If you don't like what you see, then it is your own fault for looking!!

Link to the 3/3/04 Bible study.

What a trying couple of weeks I have had.  I'm not going to bore you with the details but it has been rough.  I even had to email a prayer partner and tell her to send me some emergency hugs.  I was a woman on the edge!!

It was just one thing after the other.... boom!  boom!  boom!  The enemy was throwing everything at me but the kitchen sink!!

The last straw, so to speak, was when the right lens on my glasses popped out and broke.  I get glass lenses instead of plastic and they break when they hit the tile floor.  Walmart, the place where I got them last July, wouldn't take any responsibility for the screw falling out and then the lens.  They said I should have brought them in on a regular basis to have the screws tightened.  I've worn glasses for over 40 years and haven't had a lens pop like that with no warning of it getting loose.  Besides, it is always a minimum of a 30 minute wait at Walmart.

To make a very long story short, it is too expensive to replace just the lens so I decided to wait until July when my insurance will pay for another pair of glasses.  I got out my old glasses but they are scratched and make seeing difficult.  The optical department messed up and gave me plastic last time instead of glass.  They even added a non-glare coating which is what had scratched.

I tried to get them to remove the coating since I never ordered it but they said the glasses were too old.  I didn't even notice I didn't have glass lenses until the glasses were about two years old.  They gave me a very hard time about it.  They told me to call the supervisor.

That supervisor used to work at Walmart and said they should have replaced the lens.  Then, she said she would have the coating on the old glasses removed for free but it would take two days.  I told her I couldn't go without glasses for two days.  She said she would drive them to the lab herself and pick them up in the evening and it would only be one day.  I told her I'd sit in their waiting room since I can't drive without my glasses.  Then.... (this just blows me away every time I think about it).... she said they would replace the lens in the Walmart glasses for free AND when those came back they would remove the coating on my old glasses!!!!!  Isn't that amazing???

I am so blessed by that!  I really hate not being able to see well and the enemy knew it.  Now I'm being doubly blessed because I finally gave the whole thing over to God.  I had been struggling in the flesh up until I called the supervisor.  It wasn't until then that I asked God to help me.  DUH! 

My in-laws are coming to visit tomorrow night and I've been trying to get ready.  My husband and I will be sleeping in the camper because we are giving my father-in-law our room.  My mother-in-law will be in here with the computer on our rollaway bed.  My father-in-law used to be an electrician.  He is going to help my husband wire our barn.

Tomorrow during the day I will be helping at the high school.  They are doing the mock job interviews again.  My husband used to teach one of the classes but now he doesn't.  Since I helped before I am helping still.  This will be the last one.  The school is dropping the class.  Figures.  They are dropping the class that teaches banking, credit, insurance, buying a home, etc.  Those are things that the students will all need when they go out in the real world!

Too bad that the people in charge of things don't look at the big picture.  The schools are being forced to teach the things that someone at the state level has decided to put on the tests that determine if the students have learned enough.  Yes, let's make sure they know what date the constitution was signed, which train will reach a destination in what amount of time, and what photosynthesis is.  Let's not give them anything they will actually use!

Sorry.  I got on my soapbox again.  I have a unique view of the educational system.  I've had three sons go through it.  I have a husband who coaches and teaches in it. I was and am a volunteer in it.

It isn't about the teachers.  It isn't about the schools.  It is about the students and their futures.  That's it.  That's the bottom line.

Boy, oh boy, did it get hot here all of a sudden!  Yesterday it was 95 degrees!  All of a sudden!  From cold to rain to wind to HOT!  May we have some nice weather, please?  Something where I can leave my doors and windows open and listen to the birds singing?

Last weekend there was lots of snow on the mountains around us and now it is gone gone gone from the lower ones.

Good thing I'm not a rock.  I'd crack from the crazy temperature extremes!

(By the way, the wind is back.  It's my fault.  I untied my wind chimes.  I have some big ones that I tie to a pole to keep them from making too much noise when the wind blows.  There was no wind in the forecast so I untied them.  Within an hour the wind began blowing so hard it sounded like it was tearing off our roof!)

I'm sorry I've been getting this done on Wednesdays.  My goal is to do it on Mondays, but with everything going crazy around here it just hasn't been getting done.  As it is, I'm working on this in the morning but it may not get online until later on today.

I need to go hang my clothes on the line, cut out coupons, make a shopping list, and finish dusting before my prayer partner arrives.  Since I don't yet have a scripture for the Bible study I will have to wait.

Link to the 3/10/04 Bible study.

Things have settled down to a dull roar around here.  I had company over the weekend.  I need to get things cleaned up and put away.  Then I need to focus on getting ready for next weekend.  My husband and I are finally going to be able to take our anniversary trip that we had to postpone because of my husband being sick. 

I have to clean up the camper as we were sleeping in it this last weekend because we gave my father-in-law our room and bed.  Then I need to get it ready for our trip.  It is in serious need of washing on the outside.  I haven't been driving it much so have allowed the rain and wind to have their way with my poor white truck. 

I've been so busy and so frazzled the last two weeks that I haven't ridden the exercise bike regularly.  I started back up yesterday.  I must must must get more exercise and lose some weight.  I'm tired of feeling like I am wrapped in a boa constrictor when I put on my nice clothes.  I will not buy any larger clothes so that only means one thing.... I must lose some weight!  The good news is that I've lost five pounds since I started a regular exercise program.  I don't know if there is any bad news because I haven't been on the scale in a week.

I have a job at our new church.  I'm going to be organizing the Sunday School supply room.  God has gifted me with being able to make order where there is chaos.  I got to go see it and it will be a challenge.  One of the challenges is finding time to get in there and work.  Someone has to let me in and set the alarms when I am done.

Well, I'm going to make this short since I have a lot of things to do in a short time.  Oh, I almost forgot, I made some corrections on the Names of God.  I had some wrong scripture references and have added a name.

Link to the 3/16/04 Bible study.

We are back from our weekend vacation.  It was very relaxing.  We got to bowl and watch a movie and just plain relax.  I really needed to get away from all the annoying small things that are involved in day-to-day living.  (I almost said the things that keep coming down the pike.  Anybody know what a pike is?  I know a pike is a fish.  Is it supposed to be coming down the pipe?  There are so many sayings that have lost their meanings.)

(I just looked up pike in the dictionary.  It could refer to a mountain with a peaked summit or it could mean a railroad line.  Better yet, coming down a railroad line that is coming down a mountain!  LOL!)

We came back Monday afternoon but I've been busy with appointments and putting things away and lots of other things.  That is my excuse for not getting this done until Thursday.  Will you forgive me?

Yay!!  I got my glasses back.  It is such a relief to be able to see!  Do you remember?  They are the ones that the glass lens broke.  I couldn't see well through my back up glasses because the optometrist office had ordered plastic instead of glass and the plastic had scratched.

The good news is that I can see and it didn't cost me anything to get them fixed.  HOWEVER, they put in a plastic lens!  Now I have one glass and one plastic lens in the same pair of frames!!  I can't complain because they did me a favor in fixing them, but I am going to mention it.  After all, they gave me a bad time because they didn't believe they made a mistake before and gave me plastic when I ordered glass.  Now I have proof that they are still making that same mistake!

Link to the 3/25/04 Bible study.