Lazy Days...Musings From The Infirmary!

We have had a couple lazy days. All five of us have been sick in varying degrees. Earlier in the week J had severe croup and that always scares us. Having had a dear brother die in his sleep it is always a fear of mine that I will walk in and she won't be breathing. Immediately when it started I brought her to the recliner and held her upright while she breathed in the humidifier steam. I wanted to take her outside as it was the perfect kind of night air to help croup. But outside search helicopters were circling. Not a good idea. Three times this week. One night you could hear the cops speaking over a mic system telling the fleeing person what to do. On nights like those I snuggle under the covers, hold on to hubby and pray. God has always protected us but it is hard not to be scared when you know someone desperate and likely on drugs/irrational is running around crazy in your neighborhood. Anyway, after the first night she is breathing much better. This morning she vomited after two bites of pancake though.

We all stayed home from church so that we wouldn't share this fun bug. I hate missing the fellowship and the music and the teaching, but I do enjoy our times together. Hubby read from The One Year Book of Devotions for Toddlers which Grandma and Grandpa got us for Christmas last year. I highly recommend it. They are short, have one scripture and a one or two sentence prayer. They teach about God and about manners and learning to deal with all of life's little things. There are questions written in the devotion itself which stimulate conversation. We start out our schooling mornings using this and we are going through it again. Afterall we only get about half of it most of the time because that is the nature of toddlers. D is 5 and really not a toddler anymore and really enjoys it. After the devotional D wanted to know if he could get his Bible "because I want to learn more about God and Sundays are for learning more about God!" LOL He talks like a little old man some times and it always cracks me up. I don't know where he gets it. He is so matter of fact. He brought back his Bible and actually read the first half of John chapter one fairly well. We asked him questions and he did actually understand what he was reading except for words like "testimony" and "witness" which children don't usually know. So D read to us and we sang some worship songs from one of their kids CDs and then we all prayed together. All three children pray. The girls usually keep it short and sweet but they are understanding and do pray for other people at times. D prays this almost every time, "Father God, please be with Laura (in Heaven), Mommy and Daddy and Me and Sisters and Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Dick (also in Heaven), amen!" When someone is sick or he knows something is happening he will pray for that too. He has prayed faithfully for Laura every day for almost a year now and maybe he has the perspective the rest of us have...that Heaven is not death, it's a continuation of life and he prays for her there. Is it just me or is it not so precious to hear your children praying in faith, with tender hearts? He could have just beaned his sister over the head minutes before, but then melt your heart with his precious, caring and thoughtful prayers! :o)

I hope we all get better because we want to go to our Bible studies this week. Wednesday I am beginning a study on a book called Facing Your Giants by Max Lucado at our church. It promises to be good. I am continuing on my Precept study on Romans at Sun River Church on Thursdays. We can't go if the kids are sick/contagious and I don't bend the rule on that as I hate when others do it to me!

The blurry photo above is my kitty Abbie. I didn't want to use the flash, so it is blurry. Hopefully in a couple weeks I will have my new camera and no more blurry photos! :o) Hubby put the clothes, warm from the dryer on our bed and Abbie staked claim! LOL

The last couple days I have been too exhausted to even knit and have been fighting a migraine for almost three weeks. This morning before I even opened my eyes I was seeing migraine auras that were better than any fireworks show! So I have been sitting in the chair or hiding out in the bedroom (since hubby is home). While sitting in the chair I have been watching the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. This year it has been really cool. They are in Spokane, the city we want to move to, and the arena is packed. They set a record in attendance (even beating out L.A.) and I hope this means that more skating will go to Spokane. The skaters all talked about how neat it was to have so many cheering them on.

This year it was so fun to watch! It seemed like a real competition, not just a "last man standing wins" contest! There was some awesome skating and I always love watching the nationals because you get to see everyone. In big events they only televise the people who do best. But there are a lot of really good skaters out there who never get the air play. One variant this year was that some of the big names like Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen, Michael Weiss etc were not competing. This gave opportunity for a lot of good skaters coming up through the ranks to show their stuff. I was sorry to see that Matt Savoie didn't skate this year and I didn't hear why. It's difficult to find something to criticize about bouncy Kimmie Meissner who the added ladies nation championship, to her world gold medal, but I most enjoyed Alissa Czisny, who went home with silver in spite of having won the long skate (because Kimmie had higher points in the short). Alissa kind of slipped under the radar for awhile, seemingly confidence issues (??) but was back and is an incredible spinner and just gorgeous to watch on the ice. I sure hope to be seeing more of her. And I love Emily Hughes. She is a hardworking, beautiful skater, not exactly delicate but graceful and classy. Unfortunately she seems to be plagued by the same symptoms as Michael Weiss...being an excellent skater, but always having something happen (a fall in the long program!) that keeps her from moving up the podium. I sure hope she can break that.

The men's skating is my favorite to watch. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was growing up with Scott Hamilton, Brian Boitano, Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko and others of that era. I have always liked Evan Lysacek and I cheered like any football fan at the Super Bowl during his mesmerizing and incredible long skate! (Anyone who does not thing ice skating is a sport, has not skated or checked out how buff the skaters are. I be the women skaters are in better condition than most football players or basketball players!) Johnny Weir is an excellent skater and has some beautiful programs but for me his immature personality gets in the way of his own good. He stood and watched Evan's program and lost his nerve. The crowd was WILD with crazy excitement for Evan Lysacek and it was a deafening roar...who wouldn't have lost some nerve? It also opened the door for Ryan Bradley to join the men on the podium. I'm really glad because he has been a hardworking skater for some time. Overall I thought it was a good and fair competition.

In ice dancing I have always loved Belbin and Agosto and was so thankful they changed their free skate. The program they had for the rest of the season was just kind of odd and wasn't bad in itself but really didn't fit them. The new program was skated well even though it was the first time skating it in competition (sometimes this weakens a performance) and I think it will help put them in serious competition at worlds. It is only in this new judging/scoring system that there has been some fairness and opportunity for ALL ice dancers to medal and I think they stand a good chance with this new free dance and certainly deserved the gold they received at nationals. Ooh! I was surprised to hear last night that Tanith Belbin is dating Evan Lysacek...sounds like skating soap opera. I imagine the skaters date and marry other skaters because they spend so much time at the rink but also because only another skater could truly understand everything they go through and sacrifice.

I enjoyed the other ice dancers and also the pairs. And it was fun to see the top two junior ladies, Mirai Nagasu and Caroline Zhang. Watch out ladies...these thirteen year olds, inspired by Michelle Kwan, are moving on up!

I'm sure I am mostly posting all this for my own benefit...if you made it this far, congratulations! :o) I had to accomplish something this weekend, so I created a post! Actually I did get the taxes done and e-filed...of course I'm highly motivated for that tax return! LOL