One Thousand Gifts 2.28.11

This week was one of catching up...laundry, schoolwork, emails, calendars, connections with friends, reading, cleaning, and the like.  I lost focus a time or two and found my chest getting tight with stress over how everything would get done.

To close out my week I left behind the to-do list and sat for hours in a room with sisters in Christ and learned how to quilt.  Our finished products will go to local new moms in need of help, and the lady who will deliver our quilts wept as she told us how she treasured the thought of carrying a homemade quilt to the hospital to welcome a new little one.  What a great way to remember why we're here.

Thankful today for...

67. more warm days
68. learning and teaching
69. Aldi. What a practical one. I feed my family on so much less money because I shop at this store.
70. students who grow more diligent by the year
71. my noisy sewing machine; it has served me faithfully these eleven years
72. rotary cutters and self-healing mats
73. big tables for work
74. tulips and daffodils making their appearance
75. a positive report from the pediatric surgeon at Jonathan's follow-up
76. ladybugs
77. a Valentine's day party with friends old and new
78. our small group community
79. my husband's ministry to younger men around him
80. good books

Maddie enjoying her Valentine's day cake pop

Soupilee 2011

Here it is, folks:  your chance to brighten up the long winter months with satisfying, heartening SOUP. 

There is a part of me that mourns the arrival of spring and summer because my meal planning no longer includes hot soup.  There is no other option for our table that I can so easily stretch with a little extra water and a little extra rice or veggies.

I'm going to give you one recipe today and then link to three more below.  I will keep the linky open until Sunday night to give you plenty of time to link up.  If you don't have a blog, leave a comment with your recipe cut and pasted or linked from a recipe website!

Nana's Hamburger Soup
(from my maternal grandmother's kitchen)

1 lb. ground beef
1 bay leaf
1/2 C. chopped celery
1/2 C. chopped onion
1/2 C. chopped carrots
2 C. chopped tomatoes (I use one can of diced tomatoes)
1/2 C. barley or rice
4 cubes beef bouillon

In a large pot, brown the meat.  Drain, return to pan.  Add 6 C water and bay leaf; simmer for 30 minutes.  Add all other ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes more.

And that's it.  Easy, right?

NOTES:
I almost always up the broth amount and add more veggies and barley.
My grandmother uses barley, my mom uses rice, I use barley.  It tastes good either way.
If you want to use your crockpot for this recipe, you can.  Just brown the meat ahead of time and then throw everything else in together.
This recipe requires good old-fashioned bouillon cubes.  If you use a stock concentrate like I do, you will need to add salt.  I actually keep bouillon cubes in my cabinet just for this soup.

Do you have a kinder, more adaptable friend in the food world than soup? Who soothes you when you are ill? Who refuses to leave you when you are impoverished and stretches its resources to give a hearty sustenance and cheer? Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guests? Soup does its loyal best, no matter what undignified conditions are imposed upon it. You don't catch steak hanging around when you're poor and sick, do you? 

Judith Martin (Miss Manners)

Link up here!

One Thousand Gifts 2.21.11

Thanking God this week for:

49. Levine Children's Hospital
50. being discharged
51. my own bed...flannel sheets and wonderful mattress
52. sleeping like a rock
53. coffee in my kitchen
54. planting
55. warmth
56. more room for growth..in the garden and in me
57. obvious but always accurate analogies of gardening to faith
58. birds...nuthatch, wren, bluebird, red-headed woodpecker
59. a boy who bounced back to health
60. increased appetite
61. cooking on a sunny afternoon
62. valentines
63. a fruit bowl
64. boys who can cook a decent breakfast
65. brightly painted birdhouses, a souvenir from co-op
66. hanging laundry out to dry

Announcements...A Terrible Way to Die

(The title is a song that the boy scouts taught us at the boys' pinewood derby a few weeks back.  Do you know it?)

Two Important Announcements!

One, we are hosting a house concert next month!  Andy Gullahorn will be filling our abode with tunes for one evening in March.  If you're interested in coming, contact us.  It's on the 24th (a Thursday) at 7:30.  Admission is $15 a head.

Two, before Christmas, I made a promise to my friend Erica that I would do a winter version of Coldsaladpalooza.  The winter edition was to have been for soup.  You can see how well I have kept that promise.  Poor pregnant Erica has been sliding into snowbanks and getting stuck and having conflicts with mean oil truck drivers and I have been of no assistance in the soup department.  Erica sent me this hilarious link from the Onion as a gentle reminder.

So even though it is close to 70 at 9:30 this morning and looks to be a gorgeous spring day, I am announcing that next week I will be looking for links to your favorite soup creations.  I will christen this Great Festival of Soupiness to be Soupilee.  Look for a linky on Tuesday.  Because you know the snap back to cold is coming, Southerners.

If nothing else, you will be a great help to my friend Lisa in the southern hemisphere as she looks to the approaching fall.

Have a great weekend!

Sleeping Underneath the Same Big Sky

Longtime readers of my blog will remember that for about two years we switched rooms with the kids, meaning that the four boys had our master bedroom and we had one of the smaller rooms.  We rearranged again just recently, but the change is not yet complete.

Part of the problem is that I have Blogger's Disease, which means that if there is something blog-worthy that should be photographed, I don't want the opportunity to pass me by.

The back story on the photo:  while the boys were in the master bedroom, it was a spaced-themed room.  We had a solar system hanging from the ceiling.

Which is why for months, David and I have been sleeping in a room that looks like this:

Isn't it romantic?

Now that you've all seen it, I think I'll take them down.

Overheard

Scene: Quiet conversation between Mom and Jonathan before Jonathan goes to sleep in his hospital bed.

Mom, explaining more about his surgery:  ...so, the doctors had to take out your appendix because it was broken.  And then they cleaned out all the germs.  And you'll take some medicine for a little while to make sure all the germs are gone.

Jonathan:  What about a new appendix?

Mom:  You want a new appendix?  Well, you don't really need an appendix, so I don't think the doctors will give you one.

Jonathan:  But the Holy Spirit can!

One Thousand Gifts 2.14.11

Well, what a couple of weeks we've had.  Two weeks ago the whole family came down with the seasonal flu -- everyone except for me.

This time last week I was thinking about calling the pediatrician because Jonathan wasn't bouncing back from the flu very quickly whereas everyone else had.

Little did I know that a week later I would be sitting in my son's hospital room listening to an IV pump and nursing him back to health after an appendectomy.


Thankful today for

32. an attentive pediatrician who sent us back to the hospital after we were discharged the first time
33. a quick, simple, laproscopic procedure
34. antibiotics. I am usually wary of them but this time around I am embracing them with my whole being :-)
35. a decent hospital cafeteria
36. wireless internet in the hospital
37. having Ann's book along with me
38. a church family who has fed us, watched our other four kids, shuttled them back and forth to the hospital, and been incredibly supportive and helpful in general
39. a truly wonderful view from our room
40. the rooftop garden and 60 degree temps yesterday
41. my husband, who has embraced fully his Mr. Mom role for most of the last week and even remembered to dress our daughter in her Valentine's dress for church yesterday
42. Jonathan's progress so far...eating, walking, and building more Lego sets
43. our ability to participate in a study for oral antibiotics so J does not need to have a pic line put in today
44. hospital volunteers who filled his days with homemade valentines and candy
45. seeing the ministry that my children are to one another, how beneficial they are to each other

 

46. prayers from around the country and across the world

47. visitors each day

48. sweet nurses

Thanks to each of you for your prayers and support this past week.  I think we are headed home today.

Sneaky

Have you ever heard the words "sneaky appendix" used together before?  That's what I just heard the pediatric surgeon say.  Jonathan has a sneaky appendix because it was scanned earlier in the week and came back looking normal.

However, it is not normal...it's ruptured.  He's having surgery around 8:30 Saturday morning.

We are grateful to finally have an answer to the pain he's been having, and of course we would love your continued prayer for his health.

UPDATE:  Surgery now schedule for around noon.  Jonathan is comfortable and sleeping.  He is on IV antibiotics.

Update

We're home!

Jonathan has his ups and downs, but on the whole he is bouncing back nicely.

In case you're wondering what exactly he had, here is more info.  They think he had a viral form, resulting from his battle with the flu last week.

Thanks for your prayers.

At the Hospital

I've been here at the hospital with our youngest guy, Jonathan, since about noontime yesterday.  He had been complaining of stomach pains since Saturday, was lethargic, and was refusing to eat.  He would only drink if I forced him to.

I called our pediatric nurse yesterday morning and she told me to skip the office visit and head straight to the hospital.

When we were finally -- after almost three hours in the waiting room, ugh -- taken back to a room, they wanted to look into it further and were concerned about his hydration level.  They put in an IV and started some fluids.  The ultrasound that he had later showed an appendix that was on the "large end of normal" and an extremely enlarged lymph node next to the appendix.

The radiologist was a little perplexed by this because he said usually it's pretty cut and dry -- he'll tell the surgeons that they should take it out, or they shouldn't.  Jonathan's case was not that simple.  So they kept him here overnight for observation and more fluids.

Today he was allowed to eat and drink for the first time since we got here; he housed some goldfish crackers and apple juice.  He complained that his grilled cheese sandwich tasted weird.  He also perked up for about two hours -- enough time to completely assemble a Lego helicopter all by himself:..ONE HANDED.  (He's not using the arm with the IV in it)

Then he zoned out again and looked more and more pekid as the day went on. The pediatric surgeon came and rightly judged that "he's probably normally a pretty energetic kid."  Yes.  Yes he is.  So they want to keep him here another night for more fluids and more observation.

So, to sum up:  it's probably leftover stuff from his battle with the seasonal flu last week (I haven't told you blog readers about that yet!  Everyone except me had the flu last week!  Wow, exciting!!!).  Swollen lymph nodes are pretty common in this area in young children, and it just happens to be right next to his appendix.  The surgeon who was on last night said that Jonathan's pain was not acute enough to be appendicitis, and everyone who has seen him today has concurred.  All his blood screens have been clear.

I have internet access here in the room and my cell phone is finally charged up again if you need to reach us.

Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: 

God has made the one as well as the other, 

so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

Ecclesiastes 7:13-14

Overheard -- Sound of Music Edition

Over the Christmas holiday, I watched "The Sound of Music" with the boys and Maddie one night.

First off let me say that Maddie was ENRAPTURED.  She could not look away.  I think she would have watched the whole thing if it weren't so late.

Upon watching "I Am Sixteen Going On Seventeen," the older boys covered their eyes and groaned about kissing.  Jonathan said, "Mom, I am going to watch the whole thing WITH KISSING."  They all thought Leisl's reaction was hilarious.  (Remember?  She walks to the door of the gazebo and goes, "WEEEE!")

Perhaps their favorite moment of the whole movie was when the kids fall out of the boat while excitedly greeting the Captain.

And my personal favorite...
Maria is processing across the Abbey courtyard in her wedding gown and veil, followed by the sisters.

Jonathan turned to me and said, "Mom!  Look at all those black women!".