Checking In With You

I really have not disappeared from the face of the earth! I am not on the internet much these days but I still think of all you good readers and keep you in my prayers.

Everything is good with us; we're just very, very busy! We got our fifth child through high school, and all his paperwork in order to get into college in the fall. I've ordered books for the coming year for our sixth and last child (who is going into his sophomore year). We've made plans for our homeschool enrichment co-op for next year, where I am now on the three member council (since I didn't already have enough to do). We are looking forward to a great year, so if you happen to live in Baltimore, look us up.

We will be moving in mid-July, not cross-country, not even cross-city, only six or eight miles. However, it's just about as big an undertaking...maybe bigger since it's not a corporate move - so we have to pack our own stuff (oh, poor lil' things). I seem to have amnesia about the last move we made when we had to pack our own stuff. It would surely have been with babies in tow, so this one should be a piece of cake in comparison. But working around a job (even a part-time job) throws a different kind of angle into the equation.

Some of you may remember when I first moved to this city and basically knew no one. Since then we have made many friends. But this year we got to know a family so well that they have become dear family friends. We talk by email and phone, we get together on holidays, we camp together. In the midst of everything else that's going on right now, they are doing what we always knew (yet I always dreaded) that they would probably be doing soon: Moving again. Not moving like us, six or eight miles away, but closer to a thousand miles away. I am happy for them (through my own tears) and grateful. Even though they (and we) knew they probably wouldn't be here permanently, they were willing to open their hearts to us.

When I think of our kids living in various states, our relatives who are spread out in the West, our friends going back to Florida, I think maybe an RV would be the way for us to retire some day. Great thing to be thinking about in the midst of a gas crisis, isn't it? But hey, there's nothing like having dreams. And there's nothing like dreaming of being able to be with all our people, even in this life.

Please keep us in your prayers as we make our little move, and our friends as they make their big one, and all our kids as they move through their transitions in life. Those I will save for another post, so that I won't let so much time go between posting. You all are in my prayers and thoughts.

Breast Cancer Awareness

Breast Cancer Awareness

I've been tagged for an important meme by Stina. This meme is to help spread the awareness on the ‘Breast Cancer Awareness’ month of June. Please help our fellow women in passing on the importance of regular examination and early detection of breast cancer in order to catch this disease when it first erupts, maximizing the chance of survival and recovery.

Here are several facts on breast cancer that everyone should know about.

• The first sign of breast cancer usually shows up on a woman's mammogram before it can be felt or any other symptoms are present.
• Risks for breast cancer include a family history, atypical hyperplasia, delaying pregnancy until after age 30 or never becoming pregnant, early menstruation (before age 12), late menopause (after age 55), current use or use in the last ten years of oral contraceptives, and daily consumption of alcohol.
• Early detection of breast cancer, through monthly breast self-exam and particularly yearly mammography after age 40, offers the best chance for survival.
• Ninety-six percent of women who find and treat breast cancer early will be cancer-free after five years.
• Over eighty percent of breast lumps are not cancerous, but benign such as fibrocystic breast disease.
• You are never too young to develop breast cancer! Breast Self-Exam should begin by the age of twenty. (Ladies, this is important to teach your daughters when they hit puberty. If they get in the habit when they're young, it's much more likely they'll continue as they get older.)

Resources: American Cancer Society National Cancer Institute Komen Foundation. You can help the lives of many women by spreading the word about The Breast Cancer Site pink button as many times as you can. If The Breast Cancer Site receives 8 million clicks on the pink button in June, their premier sponsor -Bare Necessities- will donate $10,000 for more free mammograms. CLICK the pink button today!

Please pass the word along.

My Magazine Article

You can read my article Homeschooling with Sudden Vision Loss which was published in Home Education Magazine by clicking here. (I'm not sure why it says below the title, "Risks Public Virtual Schools Pose to Homeschools". I think it's simply a mistake, as it isn't what my article is about.)

Good Morning

The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. The sky is blue.

Why are the shrubs in the parking lot covered in red when it's not fall but spring? Ahh, I really should learn more about different plant types. Maybe some day...although I have my doubts. I like to just enjoy the beauty without understanding the visual detail.

This morning I've been commenting at a couple blogs as I visit them, and I decided I really ought to say hello to my own blog readers -- if I still have any.

One blogger was wondering why she blogs and whether it's worth it. I told her - basically - that it's just good to know her. I guess I guilt-tripped myself into blogging this morning.

Why did I start my blog? At the time I started it, I was working part time in retail sales at a department store. I wanted to share with people how it felt to be a retail clerk, how we can lift their day for love of God with just a smile or a good word. As time went on, I also wanted to help others who were struggling financially to know they were not alone and offer a few tidbits of advice now and then.

When my second son began losing his vision, I threw myself into blogging daily. It gave me something to do, not that I didn't have enough to do, but something positive and uplifting to do.

As time went on, I continued, hopeful that maybe I could start a part-time writing "career", and blogging would be a good networking opportunity for that. I got some kicks out of watching my site meter, but my greatest joy has been getting to know some really wonderful people...not for anything they can do for me, but just for who they are.

Eventually, I realized I was not launching a writing career - at least at this time. And I did need to make that little bit of extra money. So I got a part-time job. I will probably always write in some way. I have books on back burners. I have to keep buying more stoves to have enough back burners to put them on. You should see my kitchen. Ha. Just kidding. As you may know, I live in an apartment with a little kitchen, but yeah, I have a lot of ideas for books that I never quite get around to writing. Sometimes I think them, and later on someone else writes them. And that's okay, too.

So for now my life has taken a different turn. I'm working part-time in an interesting job. Interesting to me, but probably sounds boring to some. I try to describe my job and people yawn and their eyes glaze over. Let's just say I work in a billing department of a medical office but I don't get on the computer. Suits me fine because my responsibility is simply to be accurate. When I go home, the work doesn't go with me.

I've gotten more involved in our homeschool co-op, where as some of you know, I have been teaching preschool this past year. I will be more involved next year than this year. This blog used to be my apostolate. Having relocated, it was also where I had most of my friends. Now that I've entered the...I won't say the "real world" because this virtual world is very real...but now that I've submerged myself into a different world of apostolate and friends whom I can see and touch, I don't have as much time for this one. But I have so many wonderful friends from this blogging experience, this whole online experience.

Hey, I am not saying good-bye, but only good morning!

God bless you all! (If there is any "you all" still reading).