Bye-Bye, Pegasus

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.
 ~E.B. White

I think my husband is having the same issues about Pegasus as I am about the guest room, but more so and for good reason. Pegasus is the white mini-van that we have had for...well, years and we got her before I began blogging, but I was keeping a journal at the time.

Here is an excerpt from November 28, 2007:

We sold the Panther last week and just got the Pegasus worked on. Tomorrow is the first time we will be driving Pegasus on our Thursday errands. I am actually happier that I will be driving a "beater" and that it is smaller so it is easier handle in parking lots. 

I need to explain what I did not write in my journal. We had a very nice black high top conversion van, the Panther, that I truly enjoyed, but sometime during the summer when Alan had to go on medical leave for the injury from my aunt's horse, I began feeling a strong urge to become very thrifty. We were living on about 60 percent of regular pay considering there was no overtime. Even though he had been back to work for a couple of months, that urgency only seem to be even stronger, so I suggested that we sell the Panther and get a used mini-van that would be better on mileage as gas prices were high at the time. It was not something I particularly wanted to do, but felt we just had to do.

So, we sold the Panther and bought a used 2000 white Dodge mini-van that we named Pegasus and then we realized why God had been urging us to do so.

Another entry from December 3, 2007:

My husband had been working a lot of hours this week, nearly 40 in over time. His boss called today while he was sleeping, but his manager was not his usual self and I felt there was something rather important about the meeting scheduled this morning that my husband had missed--particularly since he did not know what it was about before hand as he usually does. This evening a co-worker brought my husband home because the brakes locked up after he just had them replaced that day. He also had the one and only key to Pegasus because he was going to have another made today, so I could not pick him up even if he had thought of it. After his coworker left, my husband asked if I had a few minutes. Then came the news…Today was his last day at work, economical cutbacks they said. Well, it will be interesting to see how Atlanta runs with just four guys. My husband said they may hire him back, like they did in other cities after firing the experienced personnel, paying them their salaries plus their severance pay at the same time.

I have been of the mindset to cut back as far as we could for the last few weeks. The Lord again preparing my heart for what was to come, I believe. The news left me with odd feelings. I truly feel this is part of the Lord's plan for us and this is the last of the entanglements we built up in our life. (Insert: the entanglements were from a vision I kept seeing of angels untangling and clearing away a large pile of bright colored conduits.) Yet, part of me also believes I should be worried and scared; oddly, I find it a bit scary that I am not as concerned as I should be. What my Lord has in store, I am not sure.

I am concerned about having only one vehicle. If my husband gets a job without a company car, it could mean some real lifestyle changes. My typical Thursday would be pushed over to the weekend, I suppose. But, I am not sure what we would do for the Princess' piano lessons…? I suppose I could continue teach her piano myself for awhile until we could save enough for another car. Thankfully, we have not yet paid the credit card with the money we got from selling the Panther. We may need it for living expenses or another vehicle.

Lord, please let me see clearly the path you have provided for us to walk.

God had it all planned out. The money from the Panther not only paid for Pegasus and a few necessary repairs on her but also paid off our remaining 401K loan, which became due in full immediately after he was terminated. We did not see all that coming, but God did!

My husband did get a job on the last week of his severance pay, but there was no company vehicle and he was making about the same as he did on medical leave nearly a year before. Since he had to fly to most of weeks, the Princess and I would drive with him to the airport on most Monday mornings and pick him up at the airport most Friday nights. When he worked in town, he had Pegasus except on Thursdays; we continued with piano lessons and errands on that day by dropping him off at the office or at the customer's place of business depending on where he was needed that day.

Therefore, Pegasus was our one and only vehicle from December 2007 to February 2011, when my husband started a new job with a different company. At that time we added another white mini-van same model as Pegasus but a 2002 that only had 47,000 miles on it. By the way, it is not that we like white, it is just that these vehicles fit our criteria as to price and mileage, and since my husband had driven this model when he had company cars, we knew they were durable.

We hoped to keep Pegasus another year even though she has tipped over 300,000 miles because she has been such a good reliable van, but then his company signed on to the Runzheimer plan: 30 Days or Else. Before we knew about this, Pegasus just had her timing belt and water pump changed, a $700 job, and book price she is probably worth just that up to $1,200 maybe. She has been sitting in our driveway partially because my husband has not been home to try to sell her, not wanting me to handle it myself, and partially because he is having difficulty with the idea of selling her.

It was not just the eight years, Pegasus has been a symbol to us of how God guided us, protected us, and helped us to prepare and endure some tough years financially. When we watched too many other people around us lose their jobs and then their homes, we were still eeking by. It was not comfortable, but it was doable.

There was the time after we had her for over a year that one of her tires literally disintegrated on its sides as my husband and I with our dog were driving back from picking him up at the airport while the Princess was watching a movie at the church. I was so glad this happened with him being there. The treads were not too bad, it just was the tires were old. My husband changed the tire only to have the spare go flat as we got back on the highway. I do not know why he did not go through the intersection to pull into the gas station, but instead he pulled into the closest lit place, a McDonald's, to try to fix the spare and try to fill it with air with our emergency compressor, which was going to taking lots of time, but I was at peace as I was praying about getting back to our daughter.

Within a minute or two a red pickup pulled up right next to us. The man had an air compressor in the cab of the truck and between the fix-a-flat and the air, we made it back to the church and then home. My husband was worried about the money for new tires all around and I asked how much it would cost. He seemed relieved when I told him that we had it because I factored into my budget that we would need to have money available for repairs and maintenance.

Two weeks later after getting the new tires, we were driving through the remains of a horrible ice storm that blanketed northern Tennessee and on up through all of Ohio. It was not so much that it was slick, but the roads were terribly bumpy from the ice, because it had been too cold for salt to melt the ice completely. We could only go about 45 miles an hour in the best of places to my mother's funeral and it was jarring us all the way. I am so glad we have the new tires before that!

We had moments like that all the time. Pegasus has kind of like our rod and our staff that comforted us; she never parted the sea, but through her God always seem to meet our needs before we knew them and she certainly got us wherever we needed to go without a back up vehicle.

The thrifty side of me would like to sell her for at least the $700 we just put into her, but nothing anyone would pay for her would come close to what she is worth to us, so far more than her book price. After much consideration and prayer, we decided to donate her to a Christian organization that ministers to children, who should be coming for her this morning; the signed title and keys waiting on the table next to me. It just feels right, but in a bittersweet way.

My Lord, I probably do not know all the times You provided for us, but I also know times when it was so obvious to us that You did. Thank you for blessing us with reliable vehicles and taking care of us in preparation for rough times as You have. I ask that You continue to bless our vehicles and us.

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving Day

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I woke up this morning with this wonder of what I would be doing today and talking to my Lord about it as well as all the times He has guiding through the tough times. I thirst for His reassurances. I have done this probably much of my life except for those times when my thoughts were taken hostage too immediately by an overpowering gloom left over from the night before...or several nights. It has been many nights, so many that this air has an ancient familiarity, yet also feels awkward.

Today, though, I awoke in a reflective state which I would describe as normal for me as if this is my default mode. So, I am enjoying the golden hour of the morning with a voluminous harvest moon setting in the west  and the dawning sun in the east as the my home planet slowly rotates with a cup of Sweet Harvest Pumpkin tea on my left and the glare of technology in front beckoning me as blank canvases would an artist.

It is such a sweet feeling and I wish to savor it. A sip of tea...savor all there is in this quiet moment.

Today is Thanksgiving Day. I barely had an awareness that we were in November—well, I knew that it was November because the first week of it my husband and the Princess were on the retreat. I mean, for me time stopped from the weekend when the rest of the dominoes fell immediately after the retreat. I was stuck there. The moon and the sun continued their dances across the sky, but for me time had no real impact.

I found myself, more than once or twice the past month, still in my pajamas past noon. Now, I have nothing against people who stay in their pajamas long into the day, but it is not me. I like to dress as soon as I can without disturbing my husband, who might have had a later night than I. Pajamas still seen on me past daylight is often an indication that I am ill or in pain. I have been both, although the pain was in my heart.

My husband is now up and preparing in the kitchen. Thanksgiving is usually his day. Early in the week, I may have made a homemade pie and our Holiday Red Cabbage Cole Slaw, fondly called "the purple stuff" by a friend, but usually the only thing I might have my hand in the kitchen for this day is a sweet potato dish. My husband loves to cook, he loves to plan meals, and I am more than happy let him have this day as cooking is something I appreciate far more when someone else does it. This time around there will only be the three of us and the meal will be simple.

The turkey was in a brine over night and it will be smoked on our grill outside. Sometimes my husband fries the turkey, which is a Southern thing; Southerns fry just about anything they can stick a fork into seems and it is an indication that we have lived in the South a long time, even though originally I was a Yankee and my husband from the West. I have a store brought cherry pie and vanilla ice cream, a breech in protocol for us not to have homemade of both. Sweet potatoes will be baked with butter and brown sugar on hand. A salad and/or a simple vegetable side dish will be plenty.

It is not as fancy as we like but then our house is in a state of repair and remodel inside due to the replacement windows and yet-to-be-completed work on the outside—mostly left is painting the front door and the shutters. Add to that the events of since school started we, are emotionally worn and my husband has been away, except on the weekends, for the past few weeks. We have a way of adapting to the situations of life and we know that leaving some unclaimed space between all this and our limits is the best way to retain our civility...and quite possibly our sanity.

A friend asked us to join their family and in years past, we have shared a few holiday meals together, but with her mother, father-in-law, and two adult nieces living next door now, I felt that would be too much for me. Too many people, too noisy, and too much of all the things that can overwhelm a highly sensitive empath at her best. I have not regained confidence in my emotional stability just yet.

This morning after my daughter joined us for a breakfast of tea and sweet bread, our traditional holiday breakfast, I opened up a discussion I have been wanting to have us all to brainstorm for several months. We have several challenges in our home:

• The Princess and I both need an art and craft studio area that is functional. She is drawing all the time and writing when not doing that with reading pushed into third place.
• The Princess has no room in her bedroom making it difficult for her to have a guest sleepover.
• The Princess' digital piano, our birthday present, is crowding my dining room. (My keyboard is downstairs in the office area and the acoustical piano is in the living room.)
• For Christmas this year, the family gift is a big gun safe which is going in the basement room under the living room, which is also the room that houses our pantry and art and craft studio and storage currently. (The garage is the same level as the basement so no steps.)
• We have too much furniture and not enough functional spaces in the basement rooms.

One of the solutions I thought about last spring was to give the Princess both of the bedrooms, one she is using and the guest room. That would be ideal for us all at this stage. She could have the digital piano and even maybe the keyboard on a stacking stand in her study room along with her bookcase and desk.

The downside is we have a lovely honey oak country bedroom set that I really like and do not want to get rid of in the guest room and we do not have the space to store it—back to that later.

My husband has suggested a few times before to move his desk into the art and craft studio area and move all the art stuff into the office area. He also suggested building a wall of shelves on one end of the office area for all our books, which is a significant collection considering that we homeschool and just love books. Lots of incidental things get moved and changed, but these would be the major ones. The main thing that holds me back is the guest room furniture.

Maybe there is such an attachment because the guest room was the first room I redecorated in this house and the first furniture we bought so that friends from where we moved could visit as well as family. Even though there is just walking room at the foot and sides of the queen size bed and the matching armoire is in the Princess' room because it does not fit in with the guest room with the dresser and night stand, it has a old fashion inn quality with its faux painted walls in subtle old rose, peaches, cream with touches of gold, and decorations of roses and angels. It would sell better that way though if there was room for a rocking chair and a reading lamp on a side table with hardwood floors and homemade rugs, but I did what I could with the space that I had.

If we move, the main criteria would be a larger room for the Princess and an art studio area as well as a workout area, a large kitchen, and a mud/utility room with at the very least two usable acres, ten in all would be better but two need to be cleared and relatively flat. The house would be preferably less than 15 years old or remodeled, but with the ability to hide asbestos concerns, I would rather it be a newer home.

So, we are between fixing our house to sell or fixing it to suit ourselves or maybe both? We were hoping to move closer to the school to which the Princess was going, but that is no longer a concern and I have not received a clear word from the Lord yet about trying to move. I wonder if the reason we are to wait is because we would want to move closer to the college our daughter would be attending, if that is God's will for her, in just a few years. However, that puts homesteading off to the point we might not want to start such an endeavor.

All these ideas and yet I still have the walls around the windows to repair and paint, the interior of the windows to paint, the shutters and front door to paint, the dining room and kitchen to finish preparing from removing the wallpaper and to paint, and my bathroom to also paint. And the worse part is most of this would still have to be done even if we would like to move!

I was seeing our house as falling apart, even though we are fixing it up. It just reminded me of how everything rots in this world, everything needs maintenance and repair. However, when my home, that is, my family, began falling apart, that is when my perspective of what is most important focused on what it should be, not the plaster and paint, but the connections of love between my daughter, my husband, my friends, my Lord and me. All of them are my world, the house is just a place where they can find me. Still we have plans to change liabilities into assets in our living spaces because the house should serve our lifestyle not become our lifestyle. So, the Christmas tree we pick tomorrow will be probably be placed in front of a unpainted window with plaster still showing on the wall around it. It will not be perfect (as I so hoped to get it done before this day), but Christmas coming will be what we make it.

Thank you, my Lord. Just thank you for everything.

When the Train is on the Wrong Track

The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down. ~Jawaharlal Nehru

My Princess...it seemed that everything was going so good for her, that God was blessing her so abundantly, but she had become unreachable emotionally. Now she is again reachable but she began on a track that was the wrong one and her train just kept rolling on it, seemingly without God as the Engineer. Yes, she has been going on very rough rails and it breaks my heart to watch, but as teenagers become more independent thinkers, they can make some bad choices, which they rationalize to fit their own sense of justification. This often means that very rules we set as parents to protect them (because we have wisdom they have not yet acquired) will get bent and broken in varying degrees. It is a time of learning wisdom for themselves and it can come at some very high prices. Had the Princess used wisdom in respecting our rules and honoring us, she would not have broken the other ones that were set by the church play acting group and she would not have lost her role, the lead role, in the play.

We found out about her losing the part in the play on Sunday, November 8th, after church and that was the second whammy. The first being described in all the detail I felt comfortable to write in a public blog in my last post.

Then came the third! They say these things come in threes so I am very much hoping this is the last...for a very, very, VERY long time. (Three for three!)

This one happened at the school science retreat that she and her father were on the first week of November, because on Monday, November 9th—the day after we were given the news about the play—the mother of my daughter's best friend, a girl, at school and I talked. It was then I that learned about my daughter breaking another rule.

My friend's husband was also a chaperon in the only cabin where the pitiful air conditioner was not working at all in heat and humidity of Florida; the coolest night temperatures were in the 80's. My husband and this man were tentatively planning to have lunch on Monday. He has a similar job in another company so he was about to go out of state to the north and my husband was doing the same although he would be turning eastward after they ate. However, he realized something involving our daughter on the last day of the retreat and did not get to talk to my husband that day as they were preparing to leave. Sunday he thought we all would need to rest, so it could wait until Monday, but the lunch plans changed when we got the news about the play. We felt that we needed to be together as much as possible so my family went out together instead.

Back to Sunday, after the news about the play and being concerned about my daughter's mental/emotional state, I texted the wife to ask if her daughter, my daughter's best friend, could stay over night the coming Saturday as I had suggested a few weeks previously. Unfortunately, they were expecting family to visit so it was not possible, but she also texted that she had some concerns from the hardships and observations at the retreat. Considering her husband was in the cabin with the worse conditions, I figured that was at least one of the main ones, and we made plans to talk after I returned home from lunch on Monday with my husband and daughter.

Within the first few minutes, she told me what her husband had been hoping to tell my husband that day. I found myself moaning "no" and yet believing it completely.

After we completed our conversation that included other things which concerned her regarding the retreat that had nothing to do with my daughter, I called my husband, who almost turned right back around to come home, but instead he worked to make the two day job he was being sent to do done in one day and came back the following day with just two hours of sleep...actually, neither one of us slept well that night.

My husband was unaware of her breaking any rules while at the retreat; no one told him. The boys and girls are kept separate, except for group and team activities during the day, and while my husband was there he was the single chaperon in the cabin of a small group of boys. Due to the subtropical heat and sun, three of his boys became ill the first day, but one in particular had a bad time with the heat the entire week. Also, my husband is a very helpful kind of guy, therefore he was doing above and beyond his assigned duties, like changing the a flat tire for the school leader and such. So, although my husband was right there, he rarely saw our daughter and her chaperon failed to talk to him about the matter, even though she was aware of it...even facilitating what was against the rules on the retreat.

Many of those wonderful blessings God provided for the Princess as opportunities are for now just really sad reminders of what was taken away while she was trying to hide things from the very people who love her the most, could help her the most, and who will forgive her the most.

I have been having the weeping eyes syndrome off and on for about three weeks now. I go through the day with that uniquely exhausted feeling one has after a long gut wrenching cry, even though I have not had one...well, maybe in my spirit I am continually having one? I have been teetering between anger and despair. I can barely even pray because I start talking to my Lord about these things and I just end up ranting, forgetting completely that I was talking to the All Mighty. Peace eludes me or I, it.

After my husband spent much time in prayer and attempting to myself, I agreed with what he felt was God's answer: to remove our daughter from school. I was surprised that I actually feel relieved when he said it. The Princess is in a far better emotional and mental state since we found out about the incomplete school work, even with the lost of her role in the play. She has bad days still, but at least now she is also having good ones. She has been laughing and smiling and teasing like my Princess, the girl who bounces back and makes the very best of where she is with a happy heart. I see her in the cracks.

Perhaps we were not supposed to place her in the Home Study Center at all this year. Before we had paid our enrollment fees last spring, I felt that we should take this year off from the school. It really took a toll on my homeschooling and our relationship last year to get all her assignments and special projects done. I thought I just wanted a break and maybe that I was being selfish, but in retrospect I now think God was telling me not to do it this year.

We waited to tell the Princess of our decision to remove her from school until after her piano recital on Sunday, November 15th, but we prepared her about the possibility that the school could suspend her (although it is in the handbook, we doubted they would). She withheld her emotions during that talk, waiting until her father left for another longer work trip to have it out with me alone today. She told me that she was not happy that we did not "consult" her before making the decision or at least give her the right to choose, because she wanted to continue her classes there. I raised my eyebrows: "You did make that choice. You made it quite clear that you did not really want to be in the school by your choice of actions for the past two months, like not completing your assignments, including the lying you did to hide it." (Ironically, we have been doing devotions for the past two months based on communication and how much more actions and body language and then tone have greater weight than the meaning of words spoken—did I not say that God has been guiding her path and stays steps ahead of her?)

There were many reasons that contributed to the decision to remove her from the school besides what I have written so far and not all the fault of the Princess, at least not directly. One was that it concerned us that she could hand in only half of her work from the very first week of school and on, yet we were not told about this until two months had passed, after I asked her teachers to contact me about it. Since any assigned work handed in a week late only gets 80% credit and 0% after that, I would think that two to three weeks of incomplete assignments would warrant communication from the teacher to the parents.

There is more, but the worst of it all, I hate that I cannot trust my own daughter right now. It has been tearing me apart for weeks. I just want to hug my child with all the love I have for her to love away her self-hating thoughts and these tears that keep seeping out of my broken heart.

My Lord, I feel we are at a pivotal point and You want us to turn sharply in another direction. Please guide us to the right path that You have prepared for us and have prepared us for.

All Things Work Together for Good

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ~Romans 8:28

We went to apple country last Friday and then hiked in the woods at Fort Mountain State Park, as the Princess wanted since we had not been there for six years. Sore from the hiking, Saturday I painted the last windows frames as it was a warm, dry day. The outside of all the windows are finally done.  So, by Sunday my legs were quite sore, but I helped my husband with painting the porch railing and all the visible spots are done, but I like to paint the undersides and the back of the posts at the steps on the ground too, so I still have that to do before cold weather sets in.

Understandably, I was so tired Sunday night that I was ready for bed early, but I saw on Google Hangouts, where my daughter "talks" with a classmate, that he invited her to read one of his Google docs. Out of curiosity, I looked at what she had in her own Google docs. There were a few, one written by the Princess was from the perspective of our late cat, Jamie, who typed everything in CAPS. He was worried about her for various reasons and about things she was doing and had not been doing. He was asking the intended recipient to help her, but no help would have come as the letter to her classmate was not sent nor was it accessible to him...and later I would find that she never intended to really sent it.

Now I have a rather imaginative child and writing is her main outlet of her often wildest of ideas. I try not to take most of them seriously, because at times she is just writing out things she is churning over in her brain, including some of her darkest thoughts—teens tend to have quite a few—and that is all it is. However, this one hit me rather hard. The Princess has been uncharacteristically withdrawn ever since school started and somehow it just felt that I should investigate further about the things she had written. So, then I was wide awake, unable to sleep, and not wanting to wake my daughter, who has enough difficulty falling to sleep, all this with having to prepare for her classes in the morning.

Although I was still concerned, most of the urgency from the preceding night had left me in the morning with focusing on just getting everything packed for the day of errands. We were in the van completely ready to go with the keys in the ignition and she was settling in her seat when it all came to a halt.

I saw something that made everything my sweet, little Princess had written an absolute alarming truth, rather than abstract ravings from a creative teenage mind. Realizing that I had seen something she only halfheartedly had hidden, she immediately was in tears.

At first I was angry, but it was only out of shock. I told her we were going back into the house and there I was rather calm when I asked her why she would do such a thing and she yelled out in fear and frustration that she was failing at school, that she had not been handing in her work since school began!

I just could not believe it! How many times had I asked her if she needed help? The same number of times she would say, "No, I'm fine." How many times did I ask her if she had gotten all her assignments done? The same number of times she had said, "Yes." How many times had I trusted her and not looked everything over? The same number of times she had lied to me over a two month period. How many times do I tell her that I love her, give her hugs (well, try to), and tell her how special she is to me, to her father, and to God? Probably as many times as she had been rejecting it all. I was hoping it was just one of those teenage phases that would be passing...eventually.

I called the school telling them she would not be in classes and that I needed her teachers to call when they could, because part of me felt she was still exaggerating it to be worse than it was and I needed to verify her claims with the teachers. However if it was true, I was not going to be too happy they had not brought this to my attention weeks ago. I also left a message for her piano teacher saying we would not be there. And I called my husband, but apparently he was at an account where his cell phone has no bars, so I had to wait for him to call back. By then I was past my initial shock, ready to deal with everything alone from where we were in that moment, and seriously wanting to seek out what had been troubling my child, because that was far more important to me than school work and grades.

I also realized that she had been producing these little tells as her way of crying out for help, even as she had been rejecting it; hoping to be discovered, even though she feared it, and wanting it out of her, even though she tried to keep it a secret. She had stopped crying after the truth erupted from her earlier and there was no yelling left in her. Apparently, she had blurted out this terrible secret that she had been trying to hide for weeks and now that it was out (and I did not kill her, as she put it) she was actually talking with me openly about her fears and what she had been doing. She said she was also afraid that we would kick her out, even though we have NEVER made that threat.

It is kind of ironic, in a way, I had just written the encouragement letter to her that they will give her on high school science retreat that she is leaving for early tomorrow morning and I wrote it based on the Christian song "More Than You Think I Am" because I felt she had all these ideas about who I was as her mother and how I would respond to things, but she did not really understand the love I have for her and the grace I am ready to show her. I am telling you that God has been guiding this child very heavily from all angles, even while she was making very poor choices.

The algebra teacher called. This is the only teacher that she had last year, so she knows how different my daughter has been this year and we talked once before about our concerns. She told me that the Princess was behind in handing in some work, but she was not worried about the math, as she is rather bright in class, but she was far more concerned about her emotional state. I asked for a list of what was not turned in. I got it the next day and she was being very forgiving, because she only listed the last three weeks and was forgiving the rest. When I compared my daughter's list yesterday showing she handed in a little less than half and saw how she was not recalling how to do the work, I made the decision that she would do all of it with me so that she would actually learn it—that what homeschooling is really about after all, really learning not just testing well.

My husband called back finally and came home immediately, which was about an hour later as he was in town. Thank you, Lord. He had that time to drive to think out his initial anger response and was quite calm as he talked with her, but she was in a completely different frame of mind by then. She was initially worried that he was going to be angry, but after she realized that he was not going to "kill" her either, as she put it, nor kick her out of the house, she was actually smiling! I have not seen but a handful of genuine smiles since school started! My husband had to go back to work.

Afterward, I received a call from to her first science teacher, who only had her for September and then will have her for most of the second semester, and asked for a list of her incomplete work. Her current science teacher was too busy with the upcoming retreat, but I know she will get back to me when she can.

At dinner on Monday, my daughter was the child I had always known before all of this. She was talking! She laughed! She joked around! She was holding her head up instead of trying to hide and look down all the time! Her eyes twinkled! I turned toward my husband with an incredulous happy look and he said it was as if a great weight had been lifted.

We had taken all day Monday and Tuesday off for mental health days so that our emotions could stabilize: I can be the pillar of calm reasoning in a crisis but I have been known crash to an emotional puddle when it is mostly over and, for the Princess, we are hoping she settles in that happier state we are still seeing. We talked a lot about her fear of failing was actually resulting in her making choices that would cause her to fail. We talked about how everything she did and did not do so far is fixable and all can heal, and that we have flexibility because she is in a homeschool school taught by caring Christian homeschooling parents.

Wednesday we began tackling the overdue math assignments. All of my homeschooling lessons will be put on hold until we have everything with her outside classes caught up and I think it will take at least three weeks, but I also think that the Princess will feel much better once it is done.

I am hoping she has learned that avoiding things can allow them to grow into overwhelming problems so it is better to take them head on when they are smaller and more manageable; that asking for help is not showing weakness but showing faith in God that He will provide the knowledge needed; that accepting help when offered is honoring God because He had provided the help she needs; that God's grace overflows from the people He has placed in her life, including her parents (who did not "kill" her); and that we really do love her more than she can possibly understand almost as much a God does. So, in the end, maybe it was just one of those teenage phases, a temporary lapse of good judgment that just overwhelmed her quickly. I have that hope.

My Lord, thank you for always guiding my daughter back to You when she has made poor choices. May this lesson stay strong with her and may she be accepting of help. Please, my Lord, lavish Your blessings on all the people who have been praying for her.

More Broken Things!

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. ~Vance Havner

Enough already! Two weeks ago Dragon Heart's (my mini-van) the power window on the diver's side stop working in the closed position and my husband said to be grateful it got stuck closed rather than open. My husband fixed it that weekend. Sunday (yesterday) we were set to go to church in Dragon Heart and I was sitting on the passenger side, lowered my window to say something to Midnight, my cat, and the window would not go back up. In fact, when I pushed the button to have it go up it went down the rest of the way. We vacated it and went to church in the new vehicle.

So, Sunday afternoon, instead of uninstalling and then reinstalling the dishwasher that is apparently having a temperamental float switch possibly because it is not as level as it thinks it should be or it is stuck somehow, my husband replaced the power window, except he found out that he also needed to replace the switch. He will pick up the switch today and hopefully be home this week to replace it.

Today while I am out doing that stuff I do on Mondays, my husband is planning to get the dishwasher working and maybe install the new range. This will be after he sells the old dishwasher to a used appliance store and gets the new power window switch.

I have to say that at least, at the very least, we got to take the new vehicle and use that sun roof on the perfect day to have it open with sunshine and temperatures in the low 60's. It was great! This is me being grateful.

Still, just about everything I touch of late seems to be breaking or getting lost.

However, last night I fixed the Princess' camera. Not sure how exactly, but the error code is gone and it is working now. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on her cell phone; it just may need a new battery or resetting the battery indicator, not sure which. I just never have seen a battery indicator go backwards before. I mean, it starts out fully charge but also with a reading that it has a few seconds left on in the battery and as long as the phone is on or in sleep mode, the time on the battery time goes up! No, I did not touch before her cell phone before this began happening, I promise you.

My Lord, thank you for reminding me that broken things can be blessings.

A Key Aspect

Gratitude turns what we have into enough. ~Author Unknown

As you know we had to buy a vehicle under duress, but God was good bringing us to the vehicle He had prepared for us. I appreciated that very much, but in truth I was still resentful about having to go into debt for a vehicle, so that my husband would not be fired, even though it is likely that his old van might not have made it for another year as we had been hoping.

As you also know our dishwasher decided to quit on us and we could have replaced the control panel for the second time (we replaced the grinder once also with a much louder one), but it if they only were lasting about four years with each replacement on this model, it just seemed to be more cost effective to buy a new one with better reviews and an extended warranty.

What you do not know is that as we came to the second appliance store looking for our dishwasher, I realized that I had lost the key to the new vehicle and only that key. It was not on my main key ring, but on the hook with it.

Of course, it is not the average key either—oh, no! It has the remote to open the doors is in the key itself. So, we spent time retracing all our steps, but we did not find it. As I thought about it, I could have lost it anytime from the previous Sunday, the only I drove the new vehicle was to pick up the Princess from play practice, and I just now noticed it that Saturday.

For the following days I called every place I had been in the past week. One actually had a remote Ford all by itself, but it was not our key, because the teeth of the key was on the outer edge and ours is a laser cut, so the outside of the key is straight and the teeth are in the middle.

Keys used to be so simple, but technology complicates everything. Between the laser cut and the programming of the remote, this is a $300 key. Not kidding!

Then I found myself thinking of Jonah sitting with a good view to watch the destruction of Nineveh still seething with resentment for having to do something he most definitely had not wanted to do. God even provided him some comfort in the shade and then He took it away.

I really should have been more grateful for the new vehicle and more careful with its special, high-priced key, which is now on my main key ring in a highly respected place and a key reminder of how to properly be grateful...and every day I am very grateful it is there!

Thank you, my Lord, for reminding me that a key aspect of being truly grateful is to not have any resentment.

An Enchantress for the Lord

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.
~Jewish Proverb

A few weeks ago, a lady at our church, who works with the younger children, prayed over all the teen helpers, including the Princess. A few days later, my daughter asked about what "enchantress" meant. I asked her why she was asking because I felt that she already knew what it commonly would mean. It was then that she told me the lady told her she was an enchantress. Again, I am not one to get highly concerned about such things because of two reasons:

1. Teenagers often wrongly tell about or leave out key details about such experiences, even though they are not intentionally hiding anything or trying to deceive. 
2. If such a word was a message from God, then it must have a completely different and anointed meaning in His realm than most Christians would associate with it.

 
At the time, I told my daughter that since there is nothing that God would promote that was associated with evil, then I would see the use of that word as associated with her being enchanting or charming in the way that she is as a captivating performer, whether it be performing at the piano or acting.

However, my daughter also started asking me about the population in Florida, about whether or not Fidel Castro was still alive, and concerns about Russia and China. She has had difficulty falling sleeping at night for the last few years, but recently she began having serious problems with it. She was not sleeping at all or very little with black circles under her eyes. I learned later that she was actually trying not to sleep on purpose. Remember that I am empathic so take a guess who also was beginning to have the same problems.

After quite some time in prayer and quite a few talks with quite a few people besides the Princess, including one with the lady who prayed for her, I think I finally have a better picture of what happened and is happening. The lady, who has the gift of prophetic dreams and visions, prayed over her and heard the word "enchantress," but did not say that my daughter was one. She did not feel it was meant to be a warning or condemnation and she had explained to my daughter that she did not feel it meant anything to do with witchcraft or magic, a point my daughter failed to mention. In fact, the lady told her that she felt it meant about the same thing I had thought it might mean.

Since then, the Princess has been having what she believes are prophetic visions and dreams of the End Times. She tells me that only a "handful" make it out of Florida, which becomes flooded, and a key point in her visions is that what she is seeing begins after the death of Fidel Castro. Then there are attacks on the east and west coasts by Russia and China. She even made a map showing what parts of the United States come under occupation.

Scary stuff to say the least. Now I completely understand why she has been so depressed for a few weeks. I think if I were having these same visions and dreams that would be a basket case myself, so I can only imagine what a fourteen year old might be feeling.

I am mindful that this gift happened after someone with the same gift prayed for her, because being empathic I have been influenced by other people's gifts when I touch them or am close or on rarer occasions when I am thinking or praying for them. However, it is more like a temporary borrowing that lasts just for that time not something that lasts for weeks as with the Princess. I still believe her main gift is in her performing talents, although one person told me she is a seer as she seems to have an awareness of the spiritual realm and I have seen some empathic tendencies in her as well.

I feel I need to address the "enchantress" thing, because the overwhelming response from my Christian friends have been how "enchantress" had an occult influence that would appeal to the Princess. I have prayed for her protection and for God's guidance of her since she was born, but particularly now. I have been very mindful of her in this respect before this incident for this is the age when the Christian women in my family, who became the most steadfast in their faith, were strongly drawn by the occult, but God always guided us—yes, that included me—away from it and gave us strong discernment to recognize it from that time on. I think this is kind of what my daughter is going through right now, so I also believe that she was given that word from God.

Enchantress is a word that has two meanings in the English language:

1. a woman who practices magic; sorceress.
2. an irresistibly charming or fascinating woman.

Looking in the Bible, I could only find these four words in Hebrew:

אָשַׁף  ashaph: (noun) a conjurer, enchanter
נָחַשׁ  nachash: (verb) to practice divination, observe signs
עָנַן  anan: (verb) to bring, but also associated with enchanter, observer of times, soothsayer, sorcerer
לָ֫חַשׁ  lachash: (noun) a whispering, charming

Obviously, most uses for these words in the Bible are nothing with which a Christian would want to be associated, BUT some of the uses are not bad at all. In fact, Isaiah 26:16, lachash is translated as a "whispered prayer!" In Genesis 9:14, God used anan to describe how He would bring clouds to make a rainbow. In Strong's Dictionary nachash also means to learn by experience, diligently observe, and even observe signs, and I know quite a few Christians who have been observing and looking for signs particularly of late with the four blood moons.

I believe its meaning was more associated with seeing signs given to my daughter to serve both as a reminder how easy it is to be seduced by Satan to use a gift in a way that does not please her Lord and also to describe her gift. Plus, she is very charming, particularly on stage, and I believe it is that gift God means to use the most to bring people to Christ. So, to me it means a charming woman with the gift of observing signs meant to be used to bring Christ to people and people to Christ because of her love for Him. That was what I believe (and also the woman who prayed over her) that God wanted the Princess to understand.

This is not the first time that I have had this kind of experience that goes against the grain in mainstream Christianity. God also gave me a gift that most Christians, including me originally, have judged as highly questionable if not down right evil. However, I know the months I spent in prayer and fasting to be sure I had God's complete approval—of a gift He gave to me, no less!— and He gave me confirmation time and time again from differing sources, even when I still would not accept His answer. I am so thankful God is so patient with stubborn Christians, who want to keep Him in a box.

I have had pastors and even very close friends tell me flat out that my gift of empathy was not a named gift in the Bible or too far removed from what they believe that they did not want anything to do with me anymore, but I have had other friends actually seek God on the matter and were given confirmation of His approval. I know, without a doubt, it came from God; I remember the moment I was given it like it was just yesterday. My Christian friends would rather describe it as a Word of Knowledge and that is fine with me; on the other hand, it just is what it is, it whatever you call it, and God gave it to me. I call it empathy because that describes it the best, like a sub category under a Word of Knowledge. The empathy works with the gift of healing, so I am aware of what a person needs in the way of healing even when they do not. Empathy was a gift I asked for, sort of; I did not ask to be empathic specifically, I simply asked to know what was wrong with people and the gift of empathy obviously was His answer.

I know this will not be a popular post and I am open to discussing anything here. I would just like to bring up a few other terms used by Christians and non-Christians and even Occultists: healer, seer, and prophet. My point is that the word "enchantress" in God's Kingdom cannot have a bad meaning and I choose to live in God's Kingdom. So, if my Lord has said my daughter is an enchantress, then it must have a holy meaning honoring Him that has been twisted by evil in our fallen world and I choose to see it through His heart and I believe that is where He has led me.

My Lord, I do not understand everything in Your Kingdom. I am a child hungry for the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom You will provide for my daughter, my husband, and me. Help me be strong when I need to be strong, have my eyes and heart open to what You wish me to see, and be Your humble student always.

The New Vehicle and The Refi

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money? ~Ayn Rand

We are now in the latter part of the process for refinancing our house. We planned to do this when the siding work was finished; we had saved up for half of the job and placed the cost of the second half on a credit card, which would have been fine, except with the amount we pay for a first and second mortgages and our expenses it was going to be really tight to make credit card payments too. Then, came the necessity to buy a new vehicle, just so my husband could stay employed, with its accompanying car loan....

Refinancing the house became no longer a choice, it was a necessity. So, we began the refinancing process with the idea that we would wrap up the entire cost of the vehicle into it.

We went to look at used vehicles and did something we never do: we bought one on the spot. It was like God placed it there just for us. It had exactly what my husband wanted, all wheel drive and a tow package already installed. It is not white, which I appreciate so much, my Lord, since both our minivans are white and we never liked the color. This one is a red metallic on the orange side, a guy color for sure but I keep telling myself it is a lovely autumn color because I am just still so happy it is not white. Do you know what God threw into the deal for me that I just had a passing thought that it would be nice but was not a necessity? A huge sunroof! I cannot wait to go on our annual autumn trip to north Georgia!

For the vehicle financing, we placed $10,000 on another credit card to wrap into the mortgage refinancing and the remainder as a car loan through our credit union with a interest rate that was actually lower than the mortgage would be. You might ask why do it that way instead of placing the entire amount on the car loan. This is the why: We purchased a 2014 vehicle and the Runzheimer plan for my husband is three years or I forget how many miles, which is based on his previous driving records. In addition, the car can only be up to five years old and ours is technically already two years old, so like it or not we will have to buy another car in three years regardless. We did not want to be perpetually in debt with car loans so the plan is that we pay $105 more per month on our four year loan to pay it off completely in three years, while at the same time saving money specifically for the cost of another car to be purchased in 2018. Then I will be given his vehicle and he will have the newer one.

If I were to look at all this another way, we placed the entire cost of the siding project in the refi and have a smaller car loan. Thankfully, the housing market has rebounded in our area. In fact, it rebounded as sharply up as it went sharply down. Do you remember I Was Afraid to Hope... when I cried for hours over not being able to refinance the mortgage five years ago because our home was worth about half of what it was when we bought it? Yeah, well, it has been increasing as we were paying the mortgage down and this year the county assessed the value of our house increased $25,000 this year alone. Now it is worth more than when we bought it and the appraiser agreed, so our refi is going to happen as soon as we pick a closing date.

Oh, but then—yes, there is more!—a certain major kitchen appliance, who shall remain unnamed, decided to take an early retirement from washing dishes without notice. We went this past Saturday looking at stainless steel dishwashers, which we had narrowed down to two or three from the reviews online. But, while we were there—you all know that if I break the grammar rule of not starting a sentence with a conjunction that I am trying to get your attention and make a strong point, right?—my husband spied an out-of-the-box LG stainless steel convection gas range at a very good price and it did not have a visual scratch anywhere. The saleswoman finalized the deal with the coupon and sale on Sunday evening with an additional 12% off.

The cost of these two appliances has been added to one of the credit cards that will be wrapped into the refi. Now I have two matching stainless steel appliances (not yet picked up and installed) and I still have an almond refrigerator. I looked at the refrigerators because...well, if my husband could make the argument that our working stove needed to be replaced because we have to turn the food so it does not burn on one side, then I could make the argument that we needed a new refrigerator because our working refrigerator freezes items in the crispers and items at the back, which can ruin fresh raw foods.

To be honest, I let the refrigerator thing go for now because the stainless steel, French door refrigerator I really want by LG is so new that very few stores have it available and it costs as much as the two appliances we just bought. Because we eat a diet high in fresh, raw foods, which are bulky, I need a larger refrigerator than we have. I also buy some things that should not be frozen in bulk when on sale that keep rather well, like cheese. Also, we do not want water dispenser or even an ice maker, but there is one in the freezer. We did discuss putting the refrigerator we have in the garage and maybe getting rid of one of the freezers, and we would need to do this if we had the land for milking goats and egg laying chickens, but we are not there yet.

Ideally, we need a full refrigerator beside a matching full upright freezer in our kitchen with the handles placed next to each other so they look like one unit with French doors, but we do not have the kitchen for that either. We have a tall list of must-haves for the next house, if we ever get there, with a huge pantry also in the kitchen or the mud room of a ranch home with a full basement. I can dream!!!

You thought I was done right? No. Ever since the siding job, I have not been able to pull my van into the garage because of paint cans, remodeling materials, lots of wood boards, and just things that were put on so they were handy, but now are just piles. (I will say that the workout area in the garage is still clean up enough we can use it.) To clean up the garage properly, my husband has been wanting another larger shed—did you guess? Yes, another cost that he is planning to wrap into the refi, but at least he is planning to build it himself.

In truth, my husband originally thought we might be placing the entire amount of the new vehicle in it before all this a well what was left over from the siding job so we are pre-approved for a higher amount than we will be needing. Still, I wanted our debt to be little as possible.

My Lord, thank you for the choices we were able to make and even the timing of our dishwasher quitting. Thank you also for providing for us a vehicle that will serve our needs.

30 Days or Else?

You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice. ~Bob Marley

My husband fixes and maintains printing equipment, which means he has to travel to the customer. There are plenty of customers in the Atlanta area, but he still has to fly now and then as well. For almost all of his entire career prior to December of 2007, my husband had a company vehicle, and after that time, he has been using our own vehicles and receiving reimbursement per mileage. That is about to end.

The company is going to the Runzheimer plan. With this plan he drives our own vehicle, but it requires that the vehicle must be less than three years old and originally priced at $22,000, so we are being forced to buy a new car every three years and be in a perpetually increasing debt mode (like our government); our vehicles are 2000 and 2002 models, and we bought both of them for less than that even with all their repairs and new tires.

The benefit to the company, besides it saves them money, is that it is supposed to present a better image. (Being the rebel that I am, I immediately thought that people could easily buy a newer vehicle that has dents all over it or a horrible paint job or has stuffed animals glued to it, because they do not have a requirement about these things! Would that be an acceptable company image, I wonder?)

We have 30 days to come into compliance or else—my husband will be out of compliance and no longer employed.

Nice, eh?

We also have to carry expensive business vehicle insurance. We will be reimbursed a flat fee monthly to cover these costs, supposedly because it is based on averages not actual costs, plus a lesser amount than before per mileage.

That is not all. Although I am not sure about this part right now, usually the Runzheimer plans require that you have used your vehicle for something like 80% business, because how dare you actually use your own vehicle more than 20% for personal use! Basically, you can use it for personal use, but you may have to pay back some of the reimbursement money to the company.

So, we probably have to go into debt for around $20,000 (at least) so my husband can keep his job...and yes, it is legal and has been upheld in courts. I guess companies see it as being no different than requiring uniforms or business attire, but I have a different take on it. The employees never like this plan, but the employers do.

It does not matter that we do not believe in buying new cars or we try not to finance cars or have a policy of trying to be debt-free or that we just went into debt (for half of the costs) to get our house resided so we cannot possibly pay a car payment on top of it. No, just 30 days or no job.

At least, this plan (so far) has not mentioned a limit on mileage. Some plans are five years old or 60,000 miles, which ever comes first, and you fall out of compliance. Some plans also limit which cars you can get as well.

I really do not like being backed into a corner and having our sole income threatened. We hoped to get a replacement car in about two years, now we have no choice, unless my husband finds another employer...which I would support, since he is currently on his third manager who has promised to promote him and has not yet. In fact, he has only had one review with this company and only one raise in five years!

Yes, I am just a tad bit miffed right now, but if God is in this and guiding us, then it will all work out well in a way that I obviously cannot foresee.

My Lord, all things work to our good and there is a reason for all things. I believe that, so temper my emotions and allow me to rest in You so that I can see Your blessing and guidance. I wish to step where You wish me to step and seek Your heart at all times.

A Glimpse of Being Free

Sometimes two people stay together for the sake of the kids — two kids who sat under a full moon and pledged to be forever true. -Robert Brault

Although I have enjoyed being with my daughter almost all the time while homeschooling throughout the years, I have to say that I also try to image what life will be like in about three to four years when homeschooling will be over for me. Actually, I am not sure what I will do, but knowing myself as I do, I will submerse myself into something...or several somethings.

I get glimpses of that kind of freedom, the kind that my husband and I had for the first thirteen years of our marriage when we could do anything we wanted at any time within the limits of our budget and his grueling work schedule, of course. Last weekend my daughter left for an overnight birthday party and we had an entire 24 hours to be with each other, if I include the time we were at church, of course.

We decided on a movie. Now I really do not like going to the movie theater as much as I used to when it was just us before because it costs too much and many movies just are not worth it. However, there are some movies that just really are better on the big screen, so we picked one of those. Then there was the choice of going to a theater were we could see it in IMAX 3D or not. I would have liked that but when we saw the cost—well, we decided that the old fashion 2D screen would be good enough.

Off we went like two carefree giddy kids to watch Jurassic World. By the time the movie was over, I was happy with my small life of a middle-aged woman having been married 28 years with a teen daughter and ready to go back to my house that needs more attention than I want to give. Watching such high action movies with them throwing everything they can at all my senses has always been thrilling, but have to admit that I felt a bit worn out afterward. Maybe it was watching that woman running in high heels throughout the whole thing; it just made it seem so unrealistic!

During the movie, the thoughts of the first time I went on the SkyHike with my daughter kept going through my mind. When I was up there on that first challenge scared out of my mind, I was thinking of the scene in the third Jurassic Park movie in the aviary on that rickety catwalk and thought nearly out loud: "Why am I doing this when I don't even have dinosaurs chasing me?"

When my daughter returned, she asked what the movie was about, I said, "Well, it started with oo-oo and aw-aw, and then there's running and...screaming, just like the first three movies"

In the end it was not the movie that was the best part of the time I had with my husband, it was just being together, remembering all the other times we have been together, and looking forward to the times we will be together.

Thank you my Lord for the time that my husband and I can have together alone now and then.