crashed . . .

. . . but not burned. when i turned on the computer this morning, all i got was a screen notification that said my system file was corrupted, and nothing could be opened. ack. dig out the restore cd-rom.  lost all our files, pictures, bookmarks, settings. sigh. it could have been so much worse, however.

when i got to work i found out one of my coworkers, who had been building a house on some recently purchased property, had withstood some damage from severe straight winds that had blown through during the night. upwards of 80 mph i believe. she and her husband had just sold most of their belongings and moved into an RV to live in while they continued building, having just sold their old property as well. they have horses, so they were building a barn attached to the house. the RV was parked next to the barn. the wind sheered the barn structure, but left the house structure undamaged. the RV was rocked, but left upright. this was at about 2:30 am. the horses are fine, they are fine, and the 2 cats and 1 dog are ok. i dont yet know if their RV is still livable.

so my minor inconvenience is nothing more than mildly annoying. but i did get my previous old fonts back, and i am pleased with that.

i have begun praying in the last few days for all my coworkers, and coming headlong against some serious strongholds that have been around for some time. it can be like stirring up a hornets nest when one begins to bring down old strongholds. things have gotten stirred up a bit here and there at work. but i am not backing off. i will pull harder and more fiercely until the walls come down. its invigorating to be in spiritual battle once again. i didnt realize how i missed it.

google Tags: prayer, spiritual warfare, storms, computer crashes

 

the day the trees broke

Technorati Tags: ice storm,power outage,storm

it was exactly a week ago today i drank my last cup of the iced coffee i keep on hand. i didnt make anymore that morning, and regretted it later. it was pretty cold outside, and after a while it began to rain. i had spent saturday cleaning, and was settling in to enjoy a peaceful day at home. the beau was sleeping in, recovering from a wicked cold. it was nothing to compare to the wicked cold moving into the state.

soon the rain turned to ice rain, and began to coat the world outside. it wouldnt stop, and the ice began to build on anything with a surface. winter was here, and she was not in a pretty mood. even jack frost kept away as she swept her icy robes over everything in sight, over and over again. hour after hour the ice rain fell. by late afternoon there was about an inch or more of ice on everything. my house is in an old neighborhood, and we have some of the largest, oldest trees around, many having too much deadwood because no one seems to want to cut anything tree related. ‘theyre too pretty to cut’. not anymore theyre not.

thats when it started. first there was a loud cracking sound, as a branch began to splinter. then the horrendous crash as it fell. a few at first. then they began to come down all over. not just my neighborhood, or my city, but all across the state, and several others as well. i think my house must have been in the very eye of the storm, because we were hit the hardest, at least in tulsa, for broken trees and downed lines. oh yes, i forgot to mention the bright blue flashes magnified by the icy rains and clouds, the ones i thought were snow lightning. blue, green, and red flashes began to burst all over the skies. silly me. that was the transformers exploding as lines were ripped out when trees fell.

it was a very quiet storm, as storms go. except for the timbers breaking and falling, there was very little else to hear. no wind, oh thank You Jesus! wind would have taken us off the map. there were a few house fires, and several people killed or injured, but nothing like it would have been had there been wind. no, it was eerily silent other than the breaking trees, and the occasional car alarm.

the sound kept up through the night. by morning there was a different world out there. we ventured out to see if we could get to the beaus work. there were icy limbs and branches everywhere, although the streets were merely wet. there were lines down as well. we picked our way through this surreal environment like a character in a video game searching for a workable route. we made it, only to find out there was no power at his place of work. they sent everyone home after about 15 minutes. when we got home, there was no power at our house either.

there was no power anywhere.

250,000 people in tulsa alone were without power. across the state, closer to 1,000,000. very few escaped without losing their electricity. we spent monday at home, as most of my coworkers did too, although my clinic was open and the building, one of about five powered by the hospital generators, had power. the clinic did close early however, as only about three patients made it in.

we dont have a generator as a few on my block do, but were still better off than many. we have a gas fireplace, and a gas water heater, halogen flashlights, and a gas stove. we also only had a large treelike bush in one corner of the yard. it was snapped in half, but that was the only damage we sustained. God has blessed us with a very good choice of house. many of my neighbors had big trees in there yards. the old house, three blocks from our new house, had several huge tree. the operative word here is had.  the beautiful oak in the front yard is ruined, and the two huge trees in the back that always gave us problems, well they wont be giving anyone else problems now.

we had to ride it out for seven days. the president declared it a disaster area, releasing funds to bring in 2400 additional power workers, who pushed very hard to get everyone back up and running before the next storm - which skirted my town. my neighborhood was among the last to be restored, because it had the worst damages to lines. but saturday morning, as the beau was coming back from the laundromat, a fleet of five trucks followed him right to our house. i never saw such a beautiful set of trucks! by late afternoon, about 4:30 PM, there was the most welcome knock on the door, and the young man on the porch asked us if our main breaker was on. “well, turn it on, you have power now.”  i could have kissed him!

this morning the sky is brilliant blue, and the ice is long gone. im sitting here enjoying myself at the computer again, drinking fresh made coffee, and listening to the heater blowing warm air. we slept in our bed for the first time in seven days. we watched TV last night, and i vacuumed up much kitty litter. ah, the little joys of life.

i love winter, but she can sure be a harsh mistress at times.

click here for pictures

as summer wears on

this was a long four days at work. it seems like when you have a holiday three day weekend, you get five days of stuff on the following four days at work. and us with one person on vacation all week. ya! but next week i have a four day week again, because im taking friday off. so that will make up for it. i scheduled a visit to my doctor friday to see why this bump i incurred five weeks ago, on my shin just above my ankle, wont go away. i think i may have a bone chip. the beau and i had an argument that evening, and i was trying to take a shower and forget about it. i guess i bumped my shin on the tub. i really dont know what i did to it. all i know is the next day i had a painfull bruise and a hard little bump on my shin the next morning, and it hasnt resolved itself. stupid briuse.

then there is bougar. our funny old chow. she has lost some weight in the last month, and was acting like she didnt feel good. the vet did an ultrasound, and it showed that her liver and her spleen have nodules. the vet seems to think they started in the spleen and metastasized to the liver. friday she had a needle biopsy and an aspirate to check the liver and spleen tissues, and the fluid in her abdomen. we will get the results early next week. but our stand as soon as we knew there were health issues was to stand on psalm 145, as we have for the cats in times past. God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living creature. bougar qualifies as a living creature. her desire is to be well. ask, she’ll tell you. we have received that from the open hand of God. she will be fine. this will pass.

this morning we had a raucous storm. it blew through around 2:30am, and rained hard on everything. by 5:30am, when i took the beau to work (had to work this saturday), there were garbage cans and branches, stalled cars and standing water everywhere. after a storm, its a surreal and strange trek to the west side of tulsa and back early in the morning. it almost feels like a nightmare, except im not scared. i am rarely ever scared. but it is strange to drive my routine route to take him to work on those early days when he has to be there at 6am, and there is so much weird stuff on the roads going and coming. and its still dark, so its even stranger. later, after i had couple hours more sleep, i found an electrical problem. seems when i had more than one major thing on the lights blinked a lot. the air and the computer. the fans and the blow dryer. sometimes just the air or the blow dryer. so i called PSO, and they resolved the problem. weather covers. i think they are little shield things that protect the connections where the main lines and the transformers hookup. they replaced them, and no more problems. happy me.

tomorrow we are going to look at two houses for sale in our neighborhood. and we are getting miss nibbles. the comic book store owner where the beau goes most fridays after work has this sweet kitty that he keeps at the store. she really has personality. trouble is, the cats he has at home wont accept her. so he has been keeping her at the store. but they are about to expand the store space, so her environment is going to shrink. besides, she has been getting upset at being alone at night at the store. so we are taking her. she’s a lovely little tortishell shorthair with skin allergies. thor will love her right off. he loves every one. gizmo will not like her. he doesnt like anyone except people. maggie, it will depend on what day it is. the dogs will love to have another cat. and sammy wont care either way. whats one more?

tomorrow i will take pictureas of the new cat and the houses we look at. i will post them as soon as i can.

newness of life

inspired by a post written by keeperskorner, i started thinking about how i make real changes. the kind that changes my life, that change me.

whenever i have made changes that really took, i have had to change what i believe. like keepers, just repeating concepts that other people have written has never worked to change what i think, because it doesnt change what i believe. i just cant talk myself into accepting a thought that i have no basis for believing.

in the mid eighties, when i was living in colorado springs, i had some of my worst meltdowns. i had never blended well with other people, because i believed myself to be so insufficient as a person. being dyslexic and hyperactive, and not really knowing it, made me different. i saw things in completely different ways than every one else. apparently that made me seem stupid in the eyes of my school peers, and my neighborhood peers. my step sister severely resented the marriage between her father and my mother, and took all her angst out on me. this pattern, so well set in grade school, followed me through high school, and on into the world. because of so many rejections and humiliations from my peers, i really thought i was insufficient as a human being.

when i gave my heart to the Lord in 1980, i thought things would change by themselves. that, however, isnt how it works. being born again made me a new creature on the inside. it gave me a new nature, and gave me access to everything God is and has. but it didnt do a thing for my mind, the part of me that connects to this world. my mind wasnt the part of me that was born again. the bible says in several places to put on the new man, made in the image of God. it took me several years to grasp why that is necessary, and how that is done. like so many new believers, i thought changes would just take me over. but the mind has to be renewed before the changes are evident. in the book of james its described like a man who looks at himself in a mirror, and then goes away and forgets what he looks like. the man who continues to renew his mind with the Word of God is like a man who continually looks into a mirror, sees the image of God there, and begins to believe that that is what he looks like too.

so, back to colorad springs, and my meltdowns, which were the result of being deeply disappointed at not seeing anything better in my life, and myself, than before. i was sitting on the floor of my living room one evening, most distraught and in tears. i began to seek the Lord for what could be done to change me from being such a failure. it was more that a pity party. i was tired of stumbling in the dark. He lead me to a scripture that launched me into many changes since.

1 john 4:16, “and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us …”

i know God loves me. not because i feel like He loves me. sometimes i dont feel like He is even paying attention. but knowledge is power. my faith is built on what i know the Word says, which never changes. my feelings are the reactions of everything i think, experience, and believe. easier to walk on water than to build on my feelings. theyre always changing. so when i saw this verse, i knew what to do. i had to begin to choose to believe. not just believe whatever sounded good, or whatever people told me. i had to choose to believe what God was telling me. He reveals what His Word is saying to my heart, and i choose to believe it. then i stand on it and speak it to myself - the same way people do when theyre worrying about something and continually say what theyre afraid is going to happen. i began to apply this to all the scriptures that describe who and what i am in Christ. you know what? i began to renew my mind. as i did, i began to walk in newness of life. it was like being a warrior, and finally beginning to put on my armour. it was like being a child of the King, and finally holding my head up.

this world hasnt changed, except to may have gotten worse, and there will always be things to contend with. there will be difficult people who will hurt me. there will be losses. there will be storms.  but i have changed. i will still make mistakes, and sometimes do the wrong thing out of anger. i still have many changes to make.

but these things, and the world, dont tell me who i am anymore. i know who i am. i may still struggle with having a personal identity. but i know i am a covenant woman, and i know Who i am in covenant with. i wont be having anymore meltdowns.

cat scratch fever

ok. here’s my story. i went skydiving, for the first - and last - time, with my beau last week. everything was going just fine. we were 10,000 ft up. sky was clear as the caribbean sea. light breeze barely felt. and we jumped.

ah the feel of the air as i went ripping through it. felt like i was floating. looked as if everything was standing still. i took it all in as if i were dreaming.

then about 2,000 ft i pulled the cord, and … nothing. argh! ok, no problem. i had a back up. i pulled that one, and it deployed! yea! um … oops. no wait, it twisted. uh oh. but now a rather strong breeze had me, and was blowing me way off course, right into a large, bare pecan tree.

right after i crashed through the limbs of this old tree, that seemed to have its branches raised to catch me, my shoot caught on one of the limbs, and snapped me into another limb, breaking my fall, and nearly breaking me.

but im ok now. just a few bruises and scratches …

thats my story, and im sticking to it.

where was God?

i have asked that question before. ive asked that question, or at least felt it rolling around in the back of my mind, many times since i have lived in tulsa. living here has been like being buried alive.

i was raised as a catholic initially, and went to a catholic grade school. the other kids tormented me almost the whole seven years i went there. the adults never intervened one time. i believed i was inferior. because of dyslexia and a slight depth perception problem, i wasnt too good with ball games at recess, so the other girls always argued over who would get stuck with me on their teams. i finally just quit playing. they all called me possum, because it sounded like my last name.

i did, however, have a teacher who, one time during religion class, told us that salvation was a choice. catholicism teaches that its automatic if youre baptized as a baby. there were other little things like that that happened while i was there. things that suggested God was interested in me. they didnt teach us that, and we never heard the Bible taught. we heard catholicism.

when i was 16 i asked Jesus to come into my heart. He did, and He said something to me that imprinted in my heart forever. He said ”I will never leave you, nor forsake you”. many years later, when i actually read the Bible, i found those words are in there twice.

when i was 23 a gave my heart Him. i set out to know Him, and began to devour the Bible. in doing so, i found a God who was way different than i had been taught. i found He was different than most people think.

in the 27 years that have passed since then, i have found that God is always true to His word. He never fails to keep a promise.

for some people, it seems like God is there fulfilling His promises before they even need it. have you ever noticed that? have you thought, there must be something special about them?

why does it seem like He fails, or chooses not to, for the rest of us?

it seemed like He was a long way off when i was in grade school, enduring mental and emotional torment for those seven years. it seemed like it when i went to junior high, and got much of the same. with a step father who drank heavily, a step sister who bitterly hated me, and a mother who was disabled by depression, its no wonder i rebelled.

but why did i think God was far away? because i had been taught to from the beginning. not in so many words, maybe. but i had been taught to expect that God is hard to reach, harder to win over, and that expecting Him to be there was presumptuous. i was taught to have blind faith. ‘just trust’ meant, no matter what happens, youre expected to believe that God knows best so just put up with it. i was a little child, so i just believed what i was taught.

imagine if i had been taught what the Bible says.

the Bible says its God’s will for us to have days of heaven on earth. the Bible tells us to pray ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”. the Bible says to be imitators of God like beloved children, and that God calls things that are not as though they were. and then they are. and the Bible says that God will never leave us nor forsake us.

well, now i know what the Bible says. when i think back on those days, or when i face new ones, i know where God is. i know He is my covenant partner. i know how seriously He takes His word. i know how seriously i take His word. when i face things that seem to overwhelm me, and i feel like im going under, and i experience great loss or affliction, or when i need or want something, i remember what He has said about it … or i go find out what He has said about it. then i stand on that Word, and i dont let go until it comes to pass.

if i fail to receive His help on something, its on me, not on Him. He can restore the years the locusts have eaten.

where was God? He was there, trying to get to me.

where’s waldo?

where have you been?

you haven’t been by your room in days.

did you fall off the earth?

did you hit her head and forget who you are? well, you never really knew who you were any way …

still …

where could you have possibly gotten off to?

im here. i really have been all along. sort of. ive been in my head.

well, not just there … ive been around.

let me explain.

the last two weeks or so everything has been kind of rearranged. first, i had that awful virus that made me cough and have all that congestion. dragged on for over thirty days. i never really felt ‘bad’, except for a couple of days when i was short of breath. made me kind of tired. but otherwise, i was more annoyed with it.

then the beau informed me his hours had been changed, and for the next two months he was going to have to go into work at 6 instead of 8 in the morning. so i get up at my usual time, but i take my shower right away, and then get him up to get ready. then i take him to work, and come home and feed sammy. then i get sleepy, and take a nap with her before i go to work. thats why i havent been here in the mornings, except briefly to look around.

in the evenings the beau has been tending more to our ebay site, and i have had other things to do around the house. so i havent been here at all in the evenings. instead, i have started a couple of books, spent some time talking to my mother on the phone, and keeping the house a little more diligently. then we get ready for bed, maybe watch a little television or try to watch a movie without falling asleep, and climb into bed around 9:30 or 10.

weekends i havent been here simply because its been nice here, a rare thing for this part of the country. so although i have been home, i havent been in the computer room. ive been playing with the dogs, and organizing stuff that accumulates (like mail, things we buy but dont put away, and stuff that gets thrown in my closet for safety against chewy cats). the beau worked a couple of saturdays, and then spent a couple more at midas - oh thats another blog for later - and sundays we have gone to see a couple of movies, and gone shopping.

so you see, ive been here, but i havent been.

you could have told some one. we were all worried something had happened to you.

im sorry. it wont happen again.

the last few weeks

its been almost three weeks now since the little invader came to my house. some nasty little virus swept through here, making camp at the plant where my beau works. it had several versions of how it manifested. he caught it as it floated around the air, i guess, as half the 800 employees had it. he was sick for a week, with weakness, congestion, fever. he took one sick day. the doctor on site, provided for those who have the company insurance, wouldnt give him anything, claiming antibiotics are over used. he didnt yet have a new primary care doctor, since his family doc was killed in a small plane crash several months ago. my doctor just recently agreed to see him. i started to have congestion, and my doctor called in some amoxicillin. i shared it with him, since i didnt feel as bad as he did. that was on the 3rd of may. if the amoxicillin was going to work, it would have anyway. my system is strong. this virus was stronger. my case developed into acute bronchitis. thats not worse than chronic. its just sudden, and of less duration than three months. these last three weeks feels like three months, though. im so tired of hacking. i didnt get week like my beau. i got a hacking cough brought on by lots of congestion. i went to see my dr and he gave me a tougher antibiotic. and sent me home from work. i stayed home the next day also. i am finally getting past the peak of it. bleh.

the same day i stayed home, i took sammy in for a check up. her glipizide isnt enough to counter the kidney Rx diet, which has more carbs. her blood sugar was up to 400. so she is going to start getting insulin. back when this all started, they had quit making cat insulin, and the only choice was humilin - for humans. she crashed several times on ½ unit. thats when we moved her kitten food, high in protein and low in carbs, and glipzide. her blood sugar was 90 consistently. until her kidneys began to fail. sigh. but now they make cat insulin again, which is made just for the feline system. ’spensive stuff, at $150 something per bottle. but it should last a while.

my son called me on mothers day. yea!!!! that was the best gift! it was wonderful to talk to him. he has had it pretty intense training, now that his unit is going back to iraq in september. that will be a seven month deployment. then God will bring him home safely as previously promised, and he will be getting out soon after that. then he plans to join the police department, or the sheriffs department. eventually wants to move back to the northwest. my daughter in law is going to have their baby in november. she sent me ultrasound images. yea again!!! i cant wait to see the new baby! i feel so close to her, and so much closer to my son now. its wonderful. God has so kept His promises to me so far!

so, thats what ive been up to this last few weeks. still working on plans to move. ah, my heart is already there.

pieces the imperials ‘priority’

pieces

pieces

so many pieces to my life

scattered all around

and some of them are gone

and i know that i cant ever

put them back together again

 

pieces

pieces

so many pieces to my life

a puzzle left unfinished

jumbled and unwhole

who can really ever

put them all together again

 

in a vision like a daydream

through you mind

i saw Jesus coming closer

holding all my hopes combined

He spoke with great compassion

as He put one hand on me

and in the other hand He held

what i could never see

 

He said pieces

pieces

I have all the pieces to your life

a thousand tiny fragments

of every single day

I can put them all together

and there’ll never be another one who can

 

He said pieces

pieces

I have all the pieces to your life

in My hand I hold the pieces

of every single day

I can put them all together

so they’ll never fall away

I can put them all together

and there’ll never be another one who can

 

some things ive been thinking about

next friday i will be going to see an ophthalmologist. i havent seen an eye doctor in many years. my eyes have always been good - 23/30 vision. but in the last year working at the clinic my eyes have had to endure severe fluorescence and heavy computer use. the floaters have increased to the point of distraction

this has me thinking about things.

when i was little, i was diagnosed with amblyopia, or lazy eye. it seems my brain didnt completely receive all the signal from my left eye, for whatever reason, and favored my right eye. this caused me to have mild depth perception problems. things always look a little closer than they are. really messed up my attempts at racket ball, tennis, and other ball games. in the sixth grade i was given a pair of glasses, but they slid down my nose so much i couldnt stand them. they did make things crystal clear, but were so annoying i finally left off wearing them. in my twenties i had a second pair, after my last eye exam. same thing happened.

thinking about the amblyopia made me think about dyslexia. i have never been diagnosed with this, but i know i am dyslexic. perhaps not as severely as some, but enough to contend with.

i have always had to stop and think which way is left and which is right. columns of numbers are next to impossible to cope with. as are rows of numbers. i have to place my finger on the numbers to read them. otherwise they dance around and change places, and become other numbers. makes entering patient information interesting. in grade school i took piano lessons. i think i could have become a good player, but i could not read the music. i understood the sheet music, but had to work out the song by reading each note aloud, counting the spaces to determine which note it was. once i had learned the song, i could play it with my heart, and forget about the sheet. but it was such an effort getting there. i had the same problem learning the routines in dance classes. i could not easily tell what the teacher was doing. so to do the same was harder for me than the rest of the class. again, once i learned the dance, i could soar.

the other side of this is the visual thinking. i think in pictures. everyone visualizes, but i think in mostly pictures. i see the thing. when i plan my day, or a series of tasks, i watch it play out in my head first, making adjustments or changes to the movie in my head. then i do it, and it falls together wonderfully. i solve problems the same way. the funny thing is, language is one of my strengths. understanding composition, how to string words to create the right image in my listeners mind, and such. as long as i dont have to read much, or write by hand much … and yet i love to write. its like drawing, in a way. but my spelling is challenged by certain letter combinations, and often the order is wrong or there are letters missing. texting is a breeze. typing is not. and why are the numbers on the keypad upside down to the numbers on the phone? sigh …

i love spellcheck!

add to this mix hyperactive, which i was diagnosed with around age three, and given ritalin for a brief time as treatment, and you have a very different sort of person.

me.