Official Driver

The McIntosh household is pleased to announce another official driver! Brady acquired his driver's license last Friday. Just think of the errands I can get out of running now. What should I do with all the time I'll have? Read a book, go for a walk, plant a garden? Oooh...guess I won't have as many excuses for a messy house. This is a picture of him driving through a snow-covered pass in Washington. He's a good driver. He says playing his racecar video game helped him. I'd say paying attention to the road ever since he was big enough to look out the window helped too. Now if we could just get Erin to do both of those things...

Book/Movie Tag

Okay Cristina, I'll try. It's interesting that my answers are books/movies I've recently seen/read or some of the first ones that I remember laughing or crying in. Just thought you'd like to see how a middle-aged mind works : )

Book I've cried the hardest in:
My Bible has the most tear stains in it.
Novel: Where the Red Fern Grows

Movie I've cried the hardest in:
The Other Side of the Mountain - This is based on the true story of Jill Kinmont an Olympic skier who basically skies off a mountain and becomes paralyzed from the neck down. I watched this 30 years ago in the movie theatre and cried buckets.

Worst movie I've ever watched:
The Little Red Pony (Can you believe it, a horse movie of all things?!) Based on John Steinbeck's book.

Most ridiculous movie I've watched:
Napoleon Dynamite (See Crazings)

Most disappointing book I've read:
Ex Libris by Ross King This book seemed to have it "all" for me: Set in England in the 1600s; a mystery that had to do with old rare books and history. The conclusion of the story was not only anti-climatic, but was the worst possible ending for any book lover.

Funniest Movie I've watched:
I remember "way back when" thinking Airport('80) was pretty funny. It was a spoof on the then popular disaster movies. I had fun laughing with my family with the movie, The Man Who Knew Too Little. (There are a couple of scenes that we fast-forwarded over.)

Silliest Book I've read:
I know there's probably been many, but I can't think of any right now.

Couple of Books I'm dying to read:
The one Erin's currently working on
Leave it to Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
Jewell, by Bret Lott

Couple of Movies I'm dying to watch:
Brady's next animated short
Dreamer - Is it in the video store yet?!! This is a HORSE movie based on a true story starring Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning
March of the Penguins

My good lookin' kids

I pushed the kids outside today so I could take this. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

Spring Under the Apple Tree

A photo I shot (around the corner from the crocuses) as we were waiting for "the man" to go away. (By the way, the crocus pic in yesterday's post was not taken by moi, it was a freebie off the web.)

Happy Spring!

Yesterday Erin and I went on a crocus hunt. We succeeded in finding pretty purples and yellows all open and smiling at us. The last few springtimes we've caught ourselves saying, "We meant to plant some last fall and we forgot." Oh well, a crocus hunt is a lot of fun, especially if you have a camera with you and you want to take a picture. The crocuses are usually in someone's front garden and a picture requires you to walk on a neighbor's yard or up a driveway. We were shy about doing this because a man was raking leaves right across the street at his home and we didn't want to look conspicuous. Do you think walking by three times looked less conspicuous? *grin*

We're happy to report that we are not feeling nearly as miserable now that we're back on some of our important supplements. I've actually had a couple of "spurts" when I had some decent energy, so much so that I excitedly made a list in my head of all the things I wanted to do that morning and started digging in to conquer them. Alas, the energy spurt didn't last very long but it was quite exciting while it lasted. Hopefully, there will be more of those for longer lengths of time in the future.

Why do we wear green today?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When Brent came home for lunch today we asked if everyone (that he works with) was wearing green. The answer was "yes" much to our amazement. "Do they know why they are doing that?" I asked. Probably not, was his reply. Here's an excerpt of a write-up of St. Patrick's life from www.catholic.org for those who want to know:

St. Patrick
(415?-493?)

Legends about Patrick abound; but truth is best served by our seeing two solid qualities in him: He was humble and he was courageous. The determination to accept suffering and success with equal indifference guided the life of God’s instrument for winning most of Ireland for Christ.

"The determination to accept suffering and success with equal indifference..."
That is a wonderful testimony to Patrick and a great reminder to me. I have to say that recently my acceptance of suffering has pretty much been with the hope of it paying off for my future health. To think about accepting suffering in the same way I would accept success is to totally let go of what I deem worthwhile in this life that I'm living and to have complete faith that both suffering and success are equally worthy qualities of livelihood.

I must say that I have caught myself during this prolonged illness with times of discontentment. I've had times when I've thought, "I want my life back." But God's Word has made it clear to me that THIS IS LIFE. I'm living exactly as God has ordained. My life isn't on hold. Our suffering through illness is just as much living as our success we experienced as we homeschooled. May Christ be glorified in it all.

Christ shield me this day:
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me

Saint Patrick, from his breastplate

Testing 1, 2, 3

Actually we have 4 lab tests that we brought home from the doctor's office and have to complete. We've sent in one. The next one we are working on requires us to be off all the supplements that were helping to keep our symptoms down a little bit. We'll be off them for a week. This feels like it is going to kill us. Please pray for us. I wouldn't be surprised if we needed to go to the hospital before the week is over, except that we won't go there because they will want to put us on meds that we can't be on for our test. We've gotta trust that all of this suffering will be worth it in the long run.