what are we celebrating?

I wasn't sure whether to share about what's been buzzing around in my brain and heart over the past couple of weeks, but considering that I was laying awake at 2.30 am after Bethany went back to sleep and was unable to go back to sleep cause I was thinking about all this stuff I figured maybe I should just write it all down for the benefit of my sanity.

For those who have only met me through the blogging world let me just say straight up that I am a passionate person when something has stirred me and if my thoughts and opinions bother you it is not intended with any malice. So here goes....... Australia day, I deliberately didn't celebrate it, let me share why!

Now don't get me wrong, I love living here. We are so blessed in this country with public education, medicare, clean water, freedom of religion etc, things I know I too often take for granted, but I am not comfortable celebrating that I have these things, when I know all too well the price others paid so I could have them!

I am a lover of history. I loved it at school, did both modern and ancient for my HSC and then continued to uni where my initial degree was teaching history and english, until a little down the track I realised my love of history did not include wanting to teach it to teenagers and so I embarked on a new path doing community development until it ground to a halt last year due to babies and home schooling. History at school was all well and good but once I got to uni I took my first Australian history unit and I have never looked at things quite the same way again.

At school we did the first fleet, gold, bushrangers, gallipoli and that was about it in terms of Australian history, and we didn't do any in senior school, and this may sound rather cynical but I think back in my school days it was quite possibly deliberate that we were taught this sugar coated version of a mythical Australia where people could arise from convict origins and tame the bush and forge a great new world here and other such nationalistic ideas. I never noticed that the faces in these stories were always white.

Well that's only part of our history and a lot of people seem quite content to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that's the full story. January 26th is also known as 'invasion day' by Indigenous people and to be honest that's how I feel too. That day was the beginning of the end of a whole way of life for a group of people that our ancestors decided were animals. Some of the historical documents I've read have made me shudder with the blatant brutality they advocate in getting rid of the people who were in the way of British expansion here. And I'm not just talking about the early days. Child removal was still going on when my mother was young in an attempt to "breed Aboriginals out" (yes that is written in a government document), and in Qld many Aboriginals were in basically slave like labour conditions where they were paid in theory but their wages were held in 'protective' custody for their own good, except they never saw it and just last year there was legal action going on over these lost wages. I could fill pages with the injustices but I wont.

Have we changed? Have we moved on? Well we finally have a Prime Minister who realised an apology was a good first step, but so much more is needed. The statistics on life expectancy, child mortality, juvenile incarceration etc do not paint a pretty picture for our Indigenous population. They have been marginalised for so long and in the spiritual realm I believe their spirit has been crushed. Even at the moment Aboriginals in the NT are still living under the conditions of Howard's "emergency intervention" that basically tarred all Aboriginals with the same brush as child abusers, alcoholics etc. There was no case by case scrutiny, just a sweeping judgement. No government would ever get away with doing that to an entire white community, yet people applauded when Howard did it. The stereotypes and comments I hear people make about Aboriginals make my blood boil, and yet we proudly say as Aussies that we are the land of 'the fair go'.

It says in the Bible that the sins of the fathers will be punished to the third and fourth generation (Ex20:6), so just because we didn't personally do anything doesn't mean we have no part to play in doing something about it. I know that Governor King and his family used to own most of the land around here where I live and he made a proclamation in 1800 that any Aboriginal could be shot on sight if seen 'trespassing' on anyone's property, it makes me wonder who died so I could live here????? My ancestors were convicts so I know they had no choice in coming here, but how they lived and what they did once they got here is a different story.

So why am I sharing all this??? Because it matters very much to me. Even watching the movie Avatar a couple weeks ago was so disturbing to me because it depicts a people invading the land of Indigenous people, knocking down things sacred to them, declaring their way of life invalid, because they wanted to use and exploit the land these people were living on and when they wouldn't move out of the way they just killed them. Sounds all too familiar and yet people forget that is our history!! When we celebrate Australia day, whether we realise it or not we are saying 'we came, we conquered, we stayed'. It is basically a celebration that we won a war, except no-one acknowledges there was a war. And when we drape a flag all over the place that has absolutely no recognition on it of the people who were on this land when we arrived we are saying 'we won' over and over again.

That may sound harsh but the symbolism is poignant!! Whay was it such a big deal in the media during the 2000 olympics when Cathy Freeman picked up the Aboriginal flag to celebrate?? It may not be 'our' flag, but it's her flag, and that's my point, if we are all going to live here as one nation shouldn't we have a flag that reflects that? shouldn't we have a national day of celebration that truly incorporates everyone instead of choosing a day that brought so much misery to some of our population????

Perhaps as in the book of Nehemiah in the Bible we should repent and pray for this land just as the Israelites "confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers", so too we should stand in the gap for what was done here and pray for healing and peace!! How can we move forward if we don't acknowledge the sin of the past?!

There are great things happening with Indigenous people too and some of the things I learnt about when doing community development were great, but there's not enough. The prograns that are working are the ones where Aboriginal people are actually listened to and are running things themselves to suit their culture, language etc, when the white people stop trying to be the experts at what is best for them, like we've been trying to do for over 200 years!!

Anyway I will now get off my soap box. I have probably offended you all but I had to share what's on my mind. Feel free to disagree but I wont be arguing back, I have said my piece. Besides I'm a stubborn redhead so arguing with me is pointless :-) I love Australia, but I see it as a broken land in need of healing and that after all was my point!

Busy!

Welcome to our newly organised home! I think it may be partly nesting but also necessity that drove me to do some shifting of things around the house over the past few days. It started with some simple questions I had, like 'where on earth am I going to put the new bub's clothes?', and 'how can I make the loungeroom more childproof and save my books from tearing and stop Bethany pulling the chord that goes from the phone to the compuer?' I was pondering these questions while watching Oprah the other day and received some fabulous inspiration. Nate Berkus was on the show who normally does these fancy expensive makeovers but they were doing a recession version where he had a small budget and the idea was to make do with what they already had throughout the house and they could also swap things with neighbours that were involved in the project. They then had another guy on who's a decluttering expert

and he was helping the people figure out what they could get rid of.

Now I am a person who hates clutter anyway, I thrive on order and tidiness (although in a much more relaxed fashion than I used to due to little hands making mess!), but I realised I could definately get rid of some stuff and that I could probably use what we already had if I just moved things around, so my mission began!!

The photo above shows a little bookcase that is now in our back room (which has been gated to keep Bethany out) and it contains all our main home schooling resources and reference books that are within easy reach for Jaden and I but are now in a spot where they are safe from Bethany. I had to keep putting things higher and higher on the shelves in the loungeroom cause she was pulling things off and ripping them, but only so much can fit on the top shelves and we didn't want to spend money on another shelf to put out the back. (We couldn't move any of the bigber bookshelves out the back because with the light fittings on the wall and the attached shelves on the wall only a small shelf would fit.) That small shelf used to be in the loungeroom full of DVDs.
So to free up that shelf I did a video cull. We have a couple of draws underneath the TV cabinet that were full of videos that were mostly from when Jaden was little, and our other video/DVD shelf had a whole row of old videos that I had taped from TV when I was a teenager, they are now gone! All the old taped ones went in the bin cause I don't think they would actually survive much longer anyway and I never watch them, and Jaden's old ones are in a box to give to a lady at church who sells off stuff like that at markets to raise money for a Kenyan orphanage. We currently have a combo VCR/DVD but it has been in twice to be fixed and when it does finally die we are not replacing the VCR as you can't buy videos anymore anyway so we decided that culling made perfect sense. So there was now room to fit all the DVD's onto 1 shelf and the draws under the cabinet, which freed up the smaller shelf for the back room. But that was just the start.

Moving the DVD shelf meant that we could move the computer over to where the phone outlet actually is and remove the long chord that was draped all over the place and just begging for little hands to pull it. Moving the computer then meant we had more space in the corner area of our loungeroom so that became the play area and freed up more space making the room look much bigger. But wait, we're not done!

I hadn't addressed the baby issue yet. We have made a space in our room for bub and we have the bassinet in there and will be moving the change table in, but there's no room for any more draws or anything. However there are shelves under the changetable that would be fine for bubs stuff, except they are full of Bethany's sheets, blankets, towels, washers etc. Hmmm where could they go? Aha we actually have a wardrobe in the lougeroom that has a big shelf at the top, shelves down the side and then hanging space, that would be perfect (and I could finally hang up some of Bethy's pretty clothes that get scrunched in the draws), except it is full of all our craft stuff, stationery, my scrapbooking things etc. Some of that would fit in the draws that were in Bethy's room but some wouldn't, hmmm what to do. Well we did the swap and brought the draws into the loungeroom and put in all the craft stuff etc that fit. Bethy's stuff all went in the wardrobe and it freed up the space under the changetable for the bub stuff and I also found a nice basket in all that sorting that I will be able to put Bethy's wipes etc in once the changetable moves, so that I can still change her if the other one is asleep in the other room with the change table.

So now we still needed a place for craft stuff. Well I started culling my books. I had a whole shelf that was all my books, mainly a lot of christian novels were read once and had then been sitting there for years untouched. So I managed to free up 2 whole shelves of books (again they will be donated to the fundraising), plus another big pile of old uni textbooks that I can pass along to others I know who are studying now. Now I could fit stuff on that bookself, but how would I keep Bethany away from it? Well my sister has been busy rearranging too and she was getting rid of my nieces old wardrobe that had totally fallen apart. The wardrobe wasn't salvagable, but the doors were fine, so hubby took them off and screwed them onto my bookshelf. He then bolted it to the wall with a bracket cause it was a bit wobbly with the extra weight of the doors. There is a small gap in the middle cause they weren't an exact fit but all the things on the bottom 2 shelves are moved to the sides (except rolls of cardboard that wont fit through the gap anyway) and the doors are tied togther, and they have so far passed the test of little hands! Then the paints etc were put in plastic tubs out the back next to the home schooling shelf, and my scrapbooking caddy actually fitted in my room now because I had moved out a lamp table into Betahny's room to put the things on that had been on top of her draws.

So after all that culling, shuffling etc we now have order, organisation and are all set to start school next week and to fit a bub and their belongings into our room, and none of this 'new' furnitue cost us a cent. The moral of the story is that Nate Berkus was right, before you leave the house to shop when you want to redecorate, go browsing through your own house and see what you can use in a different way!!! :-)

Getting organised!!

Now that we are going to still be home schooling I have been busy getting organised!! I had a fabulous phone conversation with Lusi (from fruitful vine blog) last week and was really encouraged by her in many ways, one of which was praying about every curriculum choice, every therapy possibility for Jaden, every group we could join etc, and asking God to give me peace about which ones to take up and which ones to let go. Seems so simple but I never prayed that specifically about it all before and I have found such a peace in handing the direction over to God. So what will be doing?

Maths- we are going to start using math-u-see. Jaden will be doing alpha because he still finger counts and is lacking a lot of the strategies he needs. I have heard really good reports about MUS and was very impressed by the demo DVD, it helped me understand division which I have always struggled with so that's a good start. :-)

Science- I have ordered a book called 'Christian Kids explore Earth and space' and am very excited about it. I didn't use any science program or book last year, we just did bits and pieces from resources we already had, butI felt we needed some direction, especially as it's Jaden's favourite subject and I wanted to devote more time to it. The book covers a lot of areas in a year, looking at the earth from the core out, then loooking at water, the atmosphere, out to space etc. It covers the things that fascinate Jaden most like volcanos, the weather, earthquakes etc and has info, work pages, plus instructions for hands on stuff and experiments.

English & social studies- I have combined these. We are going to be using the Australian book traveller from Downunder literature, including the history book, our sunburnt country. This 'program' uses living books as a major resource and I have compiled quite a list of the books they recommend and some extras for Jaden's age group as well and have found most of them in the local library catalogue and a few that aren't I have found for sale (fabulous excuse to buy books, oh what joy!!!). Reading, writing, etc will be combined with history, geography etc, but we will still be doing handwriting and spelling too much to Jaden's dismay I'm sure. We may also be doing a unit study on ancient Egypt at some point this year. Jaden has expressed an interest in it and I have plenty of resources in this area since I studied it up to university level, it will just depend on whether we have the time, although I am pondering doing it as a link in when we get to looking at Moses in the Bible.

Socially- we are going to ditch the ice skating as it was too much for Jaden's sensory issues and wasn't very helpful socially, but we have found other social avenues. Jaden is booked into 'the hub' up the Blue Mountains which runs courses for home schoolers as well as social events. In March he will be doing a course in Aboriginal culture for 2 hours each Tuesday. They are doing story telling, arts and crafts and Aboriginal dance, and he is also attending a craft, treasure hunt, egg dying day the week after. I have also joined the tourettes association and there are social events as part of that as well so he can meet other kids who have tics like him.

Creative and practical arts- I am eyeing off a book called 'a child's book of art' to look at with Jaden. Art is really not my thing but I think we could both do with getting some culture in that area. My older sister is actually an art teacher so I can pick her brain too. Jaden has asked to learn guitar so I will be looking into that this year as well. Plus of course lots of arts and crafts at home to do with our subject areas, the messier the better as far as Jaden is concerned.

PDHPE- we will be looking at the human body with the help of the magic school bus in term 1, haven't decided the plans after that yet. We probably wont do soccer this year as it's a bit much to spend saturdays dragging 2 babies around, but Jaden wants to go back to swimming so that is another option for some sport.

Bible study- God has really impressed on me that I need to spend more time actually teaching Jaden about God and using God's word. So we will be starting each day with prayer and devotions and learning some memory verses (with the help of Colin Buchanan) and finding ways to apply them practically. As well as teaching other subjects from a Biblical perspective and we're going to be doing some Bible lessons looking through the Bible chronologically as well.

So that's the plan and I am really excited. I have found the enthusiasm that Jeanne (from a peaceful day blog) had when she posted about her plans a couple of weeks ago, I just had to get myself in the right place with God first so he could pass on His energy and His good plans for my boy! I am feeling really peaceful that this is God's path for us and look forward to getting started in a couple fo weeks.

I have also been getting organised for everything else going on in our lives. We have bought a bassinet and rearranged our room to fit it in, plus we have laybed a pram that has a toddler seat and a car seat. I also posted invitations yesterday for Bethany's 1st birthday party because that is coming up in Feb. Plus I am still in 'organising' mode for the ladies camp and have plans for my birthday in April hatching in my head too, I think it's getting rather full in there, but I like to be organised :-)

ok ok I get it!! :-)

I think God is cementing the point... my devotional passage this morning was Deut 6:5-7 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Then I flipped over my little daily thing (not sure what it's called, it stands up and you just flip for a new page each day) and it said "our greatest responsibility today may be the unselfish sacrifice of our time, talent, and love in the lives of those little ones around us."

I also couldn't get a song out of my head this morning, don't know what it's called but we sing it at church and I love the chorus but was challenged about do I really mean those words when I sing them??? .."I'll stand with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the one who gave it all, I'll stand my soul Lord to you surrendered, all I have is yours" (it may be all I am is yours, I can't remember exactly). But I felt quite challenged by God, is my soul truly all surrendered??? do I really mean it that all I have is His??? what if he asks me to do something I don't want to do (like thinking home schooling was way too hard a task to ask of me with 2 babies), will I still trust Him and surrender??????

I think I have well and truly gotten the point :-)

(speaking of children I am very excited that one of my bestest childhood buddies who I've been friends with since I was 7 or 8 is pregnant with her first bubba, YAY!!!! I wont be able to contain myself and am I sure I will start buying bubba gifts soon. We are also wagging church today to go and have lunch with some friends who are also expecting their first bub a few weeks before I'm due. Babies everywhere, I love it!!)

so.....

These very yummy cupcakes were made today by Jaden. I helped direct him a little bit but he mostly did it by himself. It was the first time I've let him use the hand beater so he was very excited!! It's actually a huge effort for him to help in the kitchen because of his tics. He is coughing and snorting and sniffing all the time so it's not terribly hygenic but he was very good at moving his face away, covering his mouth and then washing his hands, even though he had to do it many, mnay times and I'm sure it was annoying but he really wanted to do the cakes himself. I'll talk more about his tics in a minute, first a couple of catch up things....

This is my very clever 10 month old Bethany standing up all by herself. She is walking around the furniture now and walks if we hold her hands, she is itching to be able to do it by herself, probably so she can find more things to get into. She's a very active and curious little munchkin and is starting to show she has a very feisty redheaded temper too!!

This is our little crop of carrots. They were really yummy!!! I didn't peel any of them just washed them, some we ate raw and some cooked but they all tasted so nice, different to shop ones, just so much fresher!

Like we suspected we did plant some too close together so there were some 'snuggling' carrots LOL (made me think of your entwined carrot blog award Jillian).

Now I was going to talk about Jaden's tics....one of the main reasons I have been so concerned about sending him back to school. I can tell he has been anxious about going because his behaviour has gotten worse and so have his tics, to the point where it is literally happening all day, sometimes just non stop for 5 minutes in a row to the point where I think he really may be choking. He can't get through a sentence without it happening and eating oh my goodness, no way we could take him to eat in public right now, he can't help the tic and if he's just taken a bite food ends up everywhere!! I cannot for the life of me see how that would be coped with in a classroom by either the teacher or the kids and when he gets self conscious about it then it's even worse. This is on top of his aspergers which made school so hard for him to cope with before and I have been wondering why I would think that trying a 3rd school would be any different. So I have been doing some soul searching and spending lots of time with God to try and figure out what's going on in my head and what really is His best for Jaden.

Let me share some of what God has shown me. To start with I am learning to sit at His feet, even when I am busy, to dwell in God's presence during chores, to play worship music and focus on Him during the day, not new things, but things I have to admit I haven't been doing all that much lately. I am organising a women's camp for March this year and the focus God keeps giving us is to take time aside and sit with God and all the verses, songs etc God has given me for the camp I realised were not just for others but very much for me as well. I have let myself become overwhelmed and discouraged instead of resting in God for the strength I need for the tasks He has given me, especially being a mother.

These words from casting crowns have really spoken to me...."here at your feet, I lay this day down, not in my strength, but in yours I've found all I need, you're all I need. Jesus, Jesus at your feet, oh to dwell and never leave, Jesus, Jesus at your feet there is nowhere else for me... here at your feet I lay my future down, all of my dreams, I give to you now, and I find peace." I have been actively seeking God all throughout my day and have found more energy and peace, more enthusiasm and inspiration than I have had for months!!! I am still physically tired, but somehow energised by His Spirit and I have realised this is what I should have been doing all along but I somehow lost sight of God in the doldrums of daily life.

I was reading in Numbers this morning about the Israelites in the wilderness and when Moses made the bronze snake to save the people who had been grumbling against God, the devotion that went with the passage spoke right to my heart "if only they had trusted God's promise that he who had led would continue to lead, if only they had believed that he who had supplied would continue to supply, instead of being discouraged they would have been encouraged. Discouragement turn to encouragement when we look away from our circumstances and focus our eyes on the Lord"... duh, why had I forgotten that and gotten downhearted so easily. I heard the very same message on a dvd I watched a couple of days ago about Nick Vuijic who was born with no arms and legs and yet now sees God's purposes as he shares with people all around the world and doors open for him to minister in places no-one else could get into. It's not about the circumstances, or how hard it is, it's about focusing on God and His purposes for whatever it is he has called us to do in this life.

I realised that the lady who rang me and has a son with tourettes was definately a God-send but not for school resources, it was instead for social and emotional reasons, to be able to get in touch with a group of parents who live with tourettes is something I think I have really needed, and Jaden is looking forward to meeting other kids with tourettes. The thought of being able to be with other kids who wont think he's a freak and totally understand what he goes through will be amazing for him!!!

So I am going to keep home schooling and am actually now excited about our plans for the year, toddler, baby and all. Yes it will be hard but I know where to go for my strength!!! Jaden would not admit to me before how worried he was about school but when I spoke to him about it all today and told him we would keep home schooling he finally articulated how worried he had been about school, the poor boy has been a wreck and hopefully now he can calm down a bit! Thank you for your prayers and the encouraging words that some of you have shared with me on this journey, I have really needed them!!

So.... looks like I will still be an Aussie homeschool blogger after all :-)

to do or not to do that is the question?

Apparently I have not made up my mind about school this year because the closer it gets the more unsure I am of sending Jaden back to school. The reasons I pulled him out haven't changed and my reasons for sending him back were about my ability to cope which is more about me than about him so it's kinda missing the point. I did think it was the right thing to do but I think maybe I just felt ok about it cause it let me off the hook and that felt freeing for a while....hmmmmm. Really need to sit with God on this and be sure about what the path ahead is, would value your prayers, thanks!

normal

I commented on my facebook this morning about being exhausted and frustrated by the 'special needs' life and would love some 'normal' and I find it interesting that people comment about there being no normal etc, but you know what there is a normal and people who have it take it for granted!

Normal is when your child doesn't spend 10 mins screaming and punching themselves in the head because a lego piece wont fit, normal is your child being able to complete a sentence or a mouthful of food without a tic taking control of their body making them sound like they are choking to death or coughing up their lungs, and of course being stared at by passers by as they do it! Normal is a child who can attend school without endless phone calls from the principal, liasing between support staff and doctors, funding meetings and being excited when we get through one day without a drama! Normal is not having to endure a meltdown everyday in winter because your child has sensory issues and doesn't like jumpers. Normal is a child who knows how to have a 2 way conversation and not just tell you reams of useless facts, who can actually interact and play with people.

These are just a few tiny examples that may give you a picture of what our 'normal' is. On our last visit to the neurologist he asked me a question for statistical purposes about how much time is spent during our day dealing with Jaden's rituals, routines etc in order to prevent meltdowns, I laughed!! Um we spend all day making sure things are running smoothly the way he needs to try and keep some form of calm, how on earth could we time that, it's just our life???!!!!

I love my son but I am exhausted by him and that's just the truth! When there was only him I guess I didn't notice so much, but with a very active 10 month old (who yesterday discovered she could slide the back door open and head out to the verandah, all in the space of 10 seconds while I was getting a drink!), who is also still waking at night, and being pregnant as well I am just so tired all the time and don't have the energy that I used to have so I am not coping as well.

My only option right now is to just keep leaning on God, to sit at His feet as He keeps reminding me to do cause otherwise I would just cry all day. My devotional readings the last few days have all been so relevant, about God caring for our children even more than we do and about God's faithfulness, I have to trust that because otherwise I would be consumed by worry for the future, how will Jaden cope with high school? how will he ever be able to hold down a job? (I particularly thought of that after watching an episode of the comedy 'Big Bang Theory' when the character Sheldon, who reminds me so much of Jaden, told his new boss that he was smarter than him, got fired and then couldn't understand what he did wrong) Will he ever be able to understand a relationship and get married? I don't know the answer to any of those questions but God does and that will have to do, afterall he made Jaden and he understands the nuances of his 'special' brain far better than I ever will. That doesn't mean that it's not hard though and I guess it always will be hard and sometimes I just need to vent and tell people that without cliched responses!

Grateful!!

I have been led to pondering the amazing people in my life after reading a book I got for christmas. It was Dawn French's autobiography, "Dear Fatty', which rather than writing as a chronology of events she writes as a series of letters to those who have been the most meaningful people in her life. There were times I laughed out loud, and there were also time I bawled my eyes out, particularly a letter she wrote to her father about how she felt about his suicide when she was 19, heart wrenching stuff!!! But what shines through the book is the love and thankfulness she feels for those around her who have loved and supported her through the ups and downs of life and I got to thinking that if I sat down to write letters like that I could fill far more than 1 book.

There are friends in my life who I've known since I was very young, people who have been in my life for 25-30 years and still mean so much to me even though with jobs, husbands and kids we don't get to see each other as much as we used to. I have also been blessed and privileged over the past few years to have been involved with some incredibly amazing people in healing ministries in my church, people who have helped me in my journey with God and people who have also allowed me to help them.

I am also so grateful to God not just for bringing so many fabulous people into my life but also for giving me my life to start with and the many times He has saved it, even from the womb. I will not go into details here about where my mother was at in life when I was born or the miraculousness of the fact that I made it to being born at all, but it was purely God that saved both mine and my mother's life all those years ago and I look at how God has used her to bless so many people and know that He works all things for good!!! I also know that my very faithful grandmother (who is now 92 years old, in a nursing home and yet still prays for us all) spent many hours on her knees for her family and her legacy has always been such a blessing to me.

I have decided that for my birthday this year I will indeed write letters to those who have blessed me so much, but will not publish them in a book for all the world to read, I will instead have a ladies luch to thank and celebrate for 35 years of life and will put a letter on the table for each of these amazing people in my life to read and know how they have impacted me. It's not until April but I think I'll start writing them soon cause I tend to get carried away when I am writing and each one may be a book in it's own right, plus I will probably blubber the whole time I write too LOL.

I start 2010 with the knowledge that I am loved, blessed beyond belief and that my life was saved for a purpose, which is to glorfy God in doing whatever He calls me to do. May your new year start with such revelation of God's love and faithfulness to you as well. Happy new year :-)