Things I Am Grateful For

Last week was a very hard week because of Mr.Sinta's heart attack.

This week has been very stressful for different reasons which I will not reiterate. I will relate the following stressful story which has a happy ending.

Tonight, when I was really stressed, I left the house for the grocery store. At one particularly busy corner, I was stopped for a red light when a biker pulled up beside me. He appeared to fall down in front of my car's wheels, and I thought my car lurched forward slightly in the interim. My engine died. This is mega stress. I honestly thought that I had accidentally run over a biker who was already on the pavement. As I was getting out of my car, he stood up. I had not done anything. His chain fell off, and he bent over to try to adjust it. As he did so, he lost his balance and fell off of his bike right in front of my car. He was embarrassed and not stressed at all. I told him that he scared the bejeevers out of me. He assured me that he was absolutely fine. I must have imagined my car lurching forward. I was now headed to the grocery store stressed and thankful that I did not kill another human being at the same time. This is the happy ending.

It is a little different than the wedding driving story. Cars are stressful.

So, in lieu of doing something else, I am going to give thanks to the Lord. You may hang out with me and give thanks or go watch Nerf Office Wars again. I am not insulted.

Dear God,

I am thankful that I am alive, and the power is on because I am no good at journaling.

I am thankful that each of my family members is alive. Today, Mr. Sinta found out that the window washer's daughter died tragically last year. Please comfort this man; he is still grieving.

I am thankful that I am healthy enough to train for a marathon.

I am thankful for a house to live in, and for food in the refrigerator.

I am thankful that the oven works even though it was too hot to use it tonight.

I am thankful for a bike to ride to work, and that I did not accidentally run over it while backing the car out of the garage because I forgot to put it away after work.

I am thankful that I was able to reconcile four bank statements today, and everything balanced.

I am thankful for the many Bibles that I own, and for my church home. Thank you that I am not being excommunicated, or in trouble with the pastor in any way. Thank you that he even came to the hospital and prayed for Mr. Sinta last week.

Thank you for Bob and Shirley and how much they came to see us last week. I felt really cared about, and I really needed to feel cared about.

Thank you for the small group of ladies that I meet with each week.

Thank you for my prayer partners who are so supportive right now.

Thank you for my hard working husband who takes us to church. I have friends who only dream of those things.

Thank you that my mom is alive and that she likes me. Teresa's mom is alive and hasn't spoken to her for 20 years, and now her grandma, who speaks to her, is dying. Please give her special grace as she goes back to hopefully see her one last time.

Thank you for lots of friends.

Thank you for the cars working.

Thank you for smart, hard working kids who hug me sometimes even when I don't deserve it at all, and rarely mention my 18,000 parenting mistakes that they could mention each time we are together. Thank you that they still speak to me at all, and that they have not gone on Oprah to do a home school expose.

Thank you for being my Shepherd and leading me even when I don't understand. Thank you that understanding is not a necessary part of obeying, or I couldn't.

Thank you that You are God. Always Faithful. And I like Your white horse. If it were up to me, I would make You wear a cape because You seem to rescue me so often.

Thank you for commanding us not to worry because then we can go to sleep knowing it is okay not to be worrying about things.

Thank you that Your mercies are new every morning or we would be burnt toast in our beds when we wake up tomorrow.

Good night.

He's Home

On Wednesday morning, I found Mr. Sinta in a hospital conference room being lectured about the heart by a fat woman who was an expert. Next, we heard from a very in shape exercise expert about the activity level to have post heart attack. This was followed by instruction by a dietician. Next, his nurse gave us a run down on final other instructions and drug instructions before they sent me down to bring the car around for him. They didn't make him get in a wheelchair, which is good because I think there might have been a scene.

He said that his heart does not hurt at all. The only thing that hurts is where they stuck some apparatus in his leg to dig around to find a vein and take pictures of his heart in the cath lab. That REALLY hurts. Other people tell us that it didn't hurt them at all. I think that he had a real rookie who was terrible doing it. It makes him walk with a limp, but hopefully that will be healed soon.

The doctor said that his heart is in good shape, but he was very concerned about his diabetes which was out of control because Mr. Sinta had not been maintaining his diet etc., so he is back on meds for that. He has four prescriptions in all for this month.

We consider this a very scary wake up call to take care of his body.

It was scary for everyone to have him be unconscious in the parking lot and taken off by the paramedics to the hospital. I hope I never see it again. It was overwhelming.

We went to the grocery store to shop for new foods that he can enjoy and still be healthy yesterday.

We took a 1 1/2 mile walk this morning. Today we went to Sage Hen Reservoir for a few hours to relax and be with friends. We took the deluxe route through the towns of Ola and Sweet. We hiked a nature trail.

Tonight I went to another Boise Burn. Some people who prayed for me had very encouraging prophetic words for me. That meant a great deal to me. This week kind of seemed like Hell Week or something.

It is really good to be home with Mr. Sinta!

We are even planning on going camping with friends soon to Granjean, up by the Sawtooth National Forest. Mr. Sinta is shocked at me. For years, I refused to camp with anyone other than just our family. I guess that I am mellowing out a little. It actually sounds like fun to go with other people. For some reason, I never wanted to do it before.

The Adventure Continues

I ran a couple of miles this morning. After I got ready, Abby and I went to the hospital. She commented on the smell when we entered CCU. I thought it smelled better than most fast food restaurants, but she is sensitive. The heart doc came in and gave us information. It turns out that we met him briefly before and he is a Christian. We have mutual friends. He is extremely competent, good at communicating and friendly. That is a rare and wonderful combination for someone so highly educated in medicine.

Abby got queasy and I took her to a bathroom. She came back looking green when Mr. Sinta described a procedure, and she fainted. The doc said for Mr. Sinta to get out of the bed and give it to Abby. He has a sense of humor.

My mil and fil's neighbor is coincidentally two doors down from Mr. Sinta. He is awaiting major bypass surgery. He does not know the Lord. Please keep him in your prayers.

We had some encouraging visitors today, and it really helped.

I just received some news that Mr. Sinta's blood enzymes went down by half. This is encouraging. I hope he can come home tomorrow.



Thank you for your prayers.

Mr. Sinta

Today, Mr. Sinta called me from work and said to come because he was having terrible chest pains. I drove to the office and found him unconscious on the grass beside our office parking lot with Ryan on the phone to 911. The ambulance took him to St. Al's, and we followed in our cars. (Aimee drove me. Those of you who read the wedding day blog will know why.) I spent the time trying to make cell phone calls to people who would pray for Paul. I am sorry for those that I could not reach. I realized today that I have very few of our out of town relatives programmed into my phone. I keep really useful numbers there, like the pizza place, and local friends.

All of his tests were normal in the morning, but his chest hurt terribly. They made him stay for the results of some blood test. He sent us home while waiting in the afternoon. I went back to find out that he was being moved to a room because the blood showed that there was some heart damage.

After a test in which dye is injected into the heart, the doctor found that Mr. Sinta actually had the world's smallest heart attack, but a heart attack nonetheless. He is resting comfortably at this time. His blood sugar went up to 400 and that needs to come under control as well. He said that his chest did not hurt anymore.

I really appreciate all of your prayers for us, past, present and future. It looks like he will be in the hospital until about Thursday.

Okay, so now I will tell you the funny part. When he was moved to a room around 8 p.m., we had Aimee, Brent, Megan, Bob, Shirley and me. Everyone stayed while the doctor told us what he wanted to do. Afterwards, I was talking to Abby about it (We sent her to work because it looked like it was not a heart attack at 2 p.m.), Abby said that it reminded her of that scene from the movie, While You Were Sleeping. Yes, that was us, the group think family and friends.

Later the Pergersons came as well, to the waiting room, which was very nice.

Our pastor came and prayed for Paul while he was out of it in the emergency room, and anointed him with oil. It was good to be cared about.

Virgil - The Aeneid

So, I am reading The Aeneid, and I was all the way up to page 15 when I read this about Venus, mother of Aeneas, who has transformed herself into a young woman. By the way, this is a sneaky thing to do, but what a neat way to check up on your wandering son...

She is running around, faster than Hebrus and has a handy bow hung around her shoulders. Her hair is a wretched mess in the disheveling wind. Listen to what happened to her dress: "Her flowing gown knotted and kirtled up."

I like that. Kirtled. Say it fast three times: kirtled, kirtled, kirtled.

That has happened to me before. I don't usually run around with a handy hunting bow around my neck, but my skirt has been kirtled because of the wind.

I just didn't know it.

This is just one more reason that you should be reading classic books.

How would you know if your skirt had been kirtled in a disheveling wind?

You wouldn't. You would probably say something really uneducated, like, "My dress is all messed up in this awful wind."

Now you can say, "My flowing gown is knotted and kirtled up in the disheveling wind."

You're welcome. Enough little tidbits like this and you may become literate, or at least more interesting than if you spent time everyday watching Oprah.

See Jane Run

SJR is a store in Boise that caters to women runners. I recently joined their running group, and today was the first workout. I ran and talked with a young woman from Minnesota (a town near Redwing) who graduated from U Dub in Madison. She has a degree in Art History, and works as a producer for a local film video production company. Her name is Lana. She is a Very Nice Person. Minnesota people are like that. I hope we get to be friends.

After the initial training run, we met at a workout studio and looked over training plans for the duration. Originally, I planned on training for a half marathon in October, but my trainer/coach, Lynn B., said that she thought I could do a marathon by October. (There is also a possible 1/2 marathon Aug.30 in Pocatello that I could try, but she said it is not necessary to do that. It just gives you a better idea of what the actual marathon will be like later.)

I am going to be training for an October marathon, and if it proves too formidable, I can always switch to the 1/2 marathon in October.

It is fun to have Abby back home. Girls are so much more fun than Guys to have around the house. They like to do fun things, and you can have conversations with them. It was hard to have them both suddenly gone at the same time.

Aimee and I went out Thursday to see Nim's Island because I saw trailers that actually looked interesting for a shallow movie. For some reason, Brent was not interested. I don't think he cares for shallow movies... After seeing it at the dollar theater, Aimee gave a terse, accurate review: "I would have really liked it if I were a 6 year old girl." There you have it, Laura and Rachel, rent the Nim's Island Video and have a slumber party!

The funny thing is that I have loved being an urban dweller for the last 25 years, and even I was intrigued by living on that island. It just looked like fun despite the level of the acting, the costuming, and the writing. I want to try her zip line in the worst way. I have talked to people who have done great zip lines in Costa Rica through the top of the rain forest. There is nothing quite like it, according to them.

I have to say that I really enjoyed one scene in which Jodie Foster, an agoraphobic adventure writer, (this reminded me of Romancing the Stone) is being pulled/pried out of her San Francisco row house by an invisible hero just so she can make it to the cab. It is an excellent visual of what it takes to get people to leave their comfort zones and actually take a risk to help someone else. Pastors who use video clips in their sermons should find it extremely useful.

How to improve the movie: It really needed an actor of a similar caliber of Foster to play Jack. There was too much repetition and it moved too slowly, most likely for the kid audience. But hey, it is a darn good kid movie.

The Aeneid

Last night when I was supposed to be reading The Aeneid, I was sleeping. Tonight, I can iron, weed the roses or read The Aeneid before Mr. Sinta returns home from his trip.

Tomorrow is Abby's summer recital. She missed 8 days of practice and one lesson because she was on a missions trip in L.A. with the Dream Center. Her favorite part was ministering on Skid Row. As a 17-year-old-home schooled female, I am sure it was unlike anything she has ever witnessed previously. Let's be honest. I'm sure it was unlike I have ever experienced. They gave away food at housing projects, witnessed to people, offered to pray for people, visited high schools and invited people to different events etc. She said that the people who were the most closed to ministry, like completely, were the prostitutes. Some of the high schoolers that she invited to a youth event told her that they could not go because it was a different gang area, and they would be killed over there. This is definitely a different way of life. She honestly could not tell who was high and who was just smoking, which was sometimes a problem. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her. I have watched my kids take off to do different things over the years, but this one left me anxious until people started praying. She plans on going to Portland Bible College, and returning to the Dream Center to volunteer as an intern for a year. She also got to do some really fun things like see part of a movie being filmed, visit Malibu beach, and shop at Hollywood Blvd. The last day she rode the coasters at Six Flags Over Magic Mountain with Pastor Alan because everyone else was too afraid to go. Abby loves roller coasters. Everyone has their gift. Mine is not the L.A. slums or or roller coasters.