A BUSY Week!

We just got through a delightfully busy week. My husband is now a graduate. I'm really proud of his persevering through these last 5 semesters (plus summers) and finishing what he started way back in 1970. I would have to say that this semester was his hardest one. He took a couple of classes that he considered filler to fill out his schedule, thinking that they would not be very demanding. They ended up being very demanding and he put in more work for a 2 hour and 1 hour course than most of the 3 hour courses he had taken. He also had to face his nemesis - Math - and did pass it, but barely. He found that every time he took a test in that class that he would have a panic attack and his mind would go blank. He did fine with his everyday work, but did not get a grade for that. He had a teacher in 3rd grade humiliate him in front of the whole class about math and has struggled with it his whole life. I'm hoping to get a remedial course I found online to help him to overcome this area. I don't think he is made to be mathematically minded, but have seen him handle math when he was doing real estate just fine and also the every day stuff. He says he thinks he would have handled Algebra better than the class he took. He had all kinds of weird stuff in that class such as logic (writing english sentences in mathematical terms) and set theory, etc. He did have a section on figuring interest and mortgages and such and got an A on the project he did in that section. That is what rescued him as far as the rest of the class was concerned. BUT, he did make it through and he got A's in the classes that were just to be filler and took so much work. He always does better in classes that he has to do papers and projects. He is not a good test taker.

Joelle and Tobey are living with us right now and we had Arielle and her two boys here this last week, too. It was pure pandemonium! But it was so good to have so many of my children and grandchildren with us. We picked Arielle and boys up at the airport on Wednesday afternoon for Joelle's birthday (thankyou, Philip, for that birthday present for Joelle that we got to enjoy, too!). Rick and I took them to the airport yesterday to send them back to Florida. It was really hard for me to see them go. Vincent(age 2.5) and Tobey(age 1.5) had so much fun playing together. It was good to see them getting along so well (in spite of several skirmishes over toys and also with their 5 year old uncle since a lot of them are his toys). Benjamin is just a delight. He is the happiest, peaceful baby. He just gives you shalom to hold him. Vincent is such a go-getter and very headstrong, so I'm glad that Arielle got such an easy-going baby. I just love Benjamin's red hair. When we met her at the airport, it looked like she was carrying one of my babies (minus the red in the hair). He looks a lot like his mother at that age.

In the midst of all that, I managed to get a dress sewn to wear to graduation. Rick was really wanting me to have a new dress for that event and I have a bunch of fabric I need to use, so I made a dress. I stayed up really late a couple of nights to get it done. Arielle and Joelle found one when they were going to thrift shops on Friday that looks really nice, too, and they paid only a dollar for it, so now my husband won't be so bored with my wardrobe (they got a nice jean dress for a dollar that fits me, too, so I was really blessed.) The nice part is, I hate to go shopping for clothes and I didn't have to. I guess they will have to go out shopping more often. LOL!

We had a Hanukkah party after our meeting on Saturday afternoon at our fellowship. One of the ladies had bought a cake for Rick and he got lots of congratulations and cards and a genuine rejoicing in his accomplishment. We had such a good time with our new-found "family." I'm really glad that so many of our children and grandchildren could be here for the graduation and for them and our fellowship family to celebrate with. It means a lot to have people to celebrate a big event in your life. We felt so loved by all of it. Rick was blessed with some monetary gifts for his graduation and he decided to get something that both of us can enjoy. We got a memory foam topper for our bed yesterday at Sam's and these "getting older" bones will enjoy a more comfy bed.

Life is good!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Cyborg Name

Hey, I succumbed to the latest fad in the blog world and got my Cyborg name. I hope you all are as amused as my family and I. I actually thought my husband's was much funnier. So I will let you see both as I'm sure he doesn't have time to mess with it himself.

Get Your Cyborg Name

Get Your Cyborg Name

Love and shalom,
Serena

Too much life to blog

Life is good. It is not necessarily easy, but it is good. We are pretty busy and blogging just isn't holding an interest for me as real life is right now. I am trying to read on other's blogs and even leave the rare comment, but it only gets done about once a week now. That is a good thing. It was so hard for me to not have friends and to just be home with the children and now we have a bunch of them and are really enjoying getting to know them.

Then there is family. New babies and such are an enjoyable part of life. We went down for Rick's fall break and got to enjoy the newest member of our family. Benjamin is such a good little baby and I miss getting to hold him. Joelle is down there now getting to enjoy him even for longer than I did. I'm really glad she is getting this visit with her sisters. She also has not made a lot of friends where she lives. She has always been very close to her sisters and this is a real treat to spend time with them.

Rick not only has been accepted for grad school at the university he is attending, but also at one other he has applied to and another wants to do the grad interview. We are staying here. We are tired of moving and we are really enjoying life here now. The possibilities ahead are encouraging. When Rick had his grad interview, he was told that they could get him teaching pretty quickly. Since we won't be getting the grants we were getting, it will be necessary for him to have better employment than work-study. That is a joke! The work he is doing, he enjoys, though, and it does help to pay our bills. He picks up food five mornings a week from a couple of local grocery stores for the university food bank for the students and then he mans it in the afternoon for four days a week. It is also a blessing to us for which I am very grateful.

I have more projects to do than time to get them all done. I have a lot of sewing I want to do. I promised a new friend a snood in her favorite color. I tried to crochet it on the trip to Florida, but my back is out from a fall and I could not do it. Eventually, it'll get done. I've been busy building stuff for our place here to make it more organized. Last week I got the shelf for the videos and dvds done and a little stand for the TV, vcr, and dvd player. It fits under the livingroom side of the counter that juts out between the kitchen and living room. It is much better there than on my antique lamp table that I had a lamp on until there was no place for the TV. Personally, I'd rather it was in the closet, but there is not room there. I also got the valances done. Rick and I enclosed the back porch in plastic and I built a door out of 1x2's to cover with plastic to finish the project. In the spring, we hope to cover it with screening and the porch, too. I still need to make a bench for one side of the dining table. It'll take less room than the chairs and fit all 3 children comfortably on one side of the table. I plan to make it with storage space in it for games. I also want to learn how to make my own website. Besides that, there is more that I'd like to be doing as far as home education is concerned. And the list goes on... Oh, and I've never finished my testimony or about our trip to Canada. Oy!

May G-d bless you with His shalom and joy!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Getting Settled

We have been in the "new" place now for a week. We ended up moving in by Wednesday night and had the duplex all cleaned up by Thursday night with a small carload of stuff to get on Friday morning. We finished getting our stuff out of storage on the first. We had the help all last week of a recently retired man and his pickup truck from our fellowship. On Wednesday night we had his help and one other pickup truck and got almost everything out in four trips and two with the car. Rick and I had to go back so he could get some papers done that were due the next morning. That was one grueling day! On Thursday we took down the computer and moved it and the computer desk. They were pretty much the last of the stuff. What a relief!

The day after we moved in, there was some activity at the front of the trailer. We found out that the landlord was putting a covered front porch on it. There wasn't even any steps up to the front door. We weren't too concerned since we will mainly use the back door anyway. Our friends across the road said that he didn't even do that when his own daughter lived in the place. It is big enough to sit out and watch the world go by.

I've been having to do the usual projects to make my stuff fit like putting shelves in the kitchen cabinets and laundry room. There were huge spaces with no shelves, so I got wire shelving, plus made use of some lumber I had and got busy and made some. Then I got the kitchen and laundry settled. I just have bedrooms to do now. By the end of next week, we will be all settled other than curtains on the windows and that should get done pretty soon.

Our daughter, Rachelle, left for Iraq the beginning of the week. Please pray for her safety. It is hard that she will be over there for another year. Arielle hasn't had her baby yet. Pray that she gives birth while she can still use the birth center. I know she'd like to be relieved of a big burden on her feet and have that sweet little one in her arms.

Well, that is all the time I have to update right now. I'm glad for those of you that stop by and check on me. May G-d richly bless you all with His shalom and joy!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Moving - Again!

Life is crazy around here again. Since we are staying here in this area for Rick to go to grad school, we realized we did not have to stay in this very small duplex apartment until after he graduates. Then we found out about a 3bd/2ba mobile in the SW part of town. It is across the road from one of the families in our fellowship, it has lots of shade, a huge yard, a covered deck off the back and much more space than this little place. Even though it is more rurally located, it is almost a mile closer to the university. Our bedroom also has a bedroom door, which is awfully nice after not having one since we moved out of the mobile we were renting until the end of April. I think most of you moms and dads out there would agree. The landlords are really nice and are even letting us move in without a deposit. I am so looking forward to moving, though everything is in upheaval again. It is even crazier with it being in the midst of the High Holy Days and with the trip to Florida this last week to get my son and bring him home.

Speaking of the trip to Florida, it was really nice, though Arielle's baby did not cooperate and be born while we were down there. Joelle and her son got to go with me. Actually, we rented the car in her name because she had the good insurance so we didn't have to buy the rental car insurance, cutting the cost considerably for the trip. That means that Joelle did all the driving and I was the navigator. Since she is a good driver, but gets nervous with other peoples' not so great driving, it was a wonderful arrangement - at least in my opinion. We had to leave my youngest daughter home with Daddy since there was not enough room for everyone coming back from Florida if she came with us. She loved having all the daddy-time and going to classes with him and doing the food bank with him. She even got to spend the night with a friend on Thursday since that is Rick's marathon day at school. He has a stretch of classes that go from 3pm until almost 9pm with only enough time to get to the next class. That is besides his noon class and picking up for the food bank before that.

We decided to drive all the way home on Thursday, instead of stopping on the way home. We got home at 2:30 in the morning and then Joelle and I both had trouble going to sleep because of the late night caffeine we had ingested (cappucino for me and dark roast coffee for her) and so it was a short night for us. We had to go get Gaelyn in the morning from her overnight and I had to take Joelle and Tobey home in the afternoon. I got back just in time to eat and get to our Erev Yom Teruah service. We had a great time blowing the shofars and were back for our normal service this evening with a yummy dinner, too. In 10 days it will be Yom Kippur and then in 4 more days it will be Succoth. Yom Kippur starts on the night of the 1st of October and we will be finishing moving out of this place in the morning that day. We are already taking loads of boxes over, but we will have help that day with pickup trucks and manly bodies to get the furniture all moved over. That is going to be just wonderful after Rick and I have done almost all the moves we've done the last 2 years all by ourselves. (We did have help unloading the truck when we moved to the last mobile and I was so grateful for it at the time.)

All I can say is that G-d is SO good! May He richly bless y'all with His shalom and joy!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Still Here!

I've been busy and also just haven't had the motivation to post on my blog. I know I've got things to do here, but there is just so much life to live in the "real world." We found a fellowship here in our town. It is Bethavara Hebrew Assembly. Presently there are 50 or more people meeting together on Saturday evenings. We are quite encouraged. They had been meeting in a mobile home and outgrew it and got a storefront downtown. That is when we heard about it. I guess they were being incognito since they didn't have room for visitors in the mobile. Well, they've been getting them now and if the rate of growth keeps up will outgrow this meeting place in a short time. It is one of those places where you feel "at home" and we are glad that we have been led to it.

Rick is graduating in December. He will have a degree in psychology, but decided that pursuing becoming a professional counselor did not fit him in the context in which he would be forced to operate. The ONLY thing that sets a person free is the BLOOD and the CROSS of YESHUA the MESSIAH. The ungodly philosophies of ungodly men will not bring true freedom. They might give a bandaid, but the root of the problem will not really be touched. Since his other love and desire has been to teach, he is going to put the psych degree to good use in special education. We don't like public schools and won't send our children to them, but there needs to be a witness. Contrary to some stuff said in the blogs about how unmanly it is for a man to be a teacher, there is a real need for men in the schools. There will be children to fill the public schools no matter what we believe about them and many of those children do not have good male role models in their lives. Our children are not mature enough to be "missionaries" in the public school, but adults can be, just as "tent makers" are a witness in countries that a missionary cannot get into. When Rick graduates he will be going into the Master of Arts in Teaching (Special Education) at the university he has been attending. Since he did not take the education track, he needs to get the stuff to get certified as a teacher. We are glad for some clearer direction on all this. We also know that it is all subject to change, too, but have shalom that this is what we are to do.

We just made a quick trip to where Arielle lives to take our son, Jared, to see his dad. He was supposed to fly down on US Air on Friday and when his dad went to pay the unaccompanied minor fee on Wednesday, the airline informed him that they don't take unaccompanied minors on flights with a layover. He couldn't get any flights within 3 hours from us that weren't layovers so his plans fell through. Rick suggested that if he paid for the rental car and the gas, we would bring Jared down and come and get him when the visit is up. So we left after Rick's one class on Friday morning and he had picked up the food for the food bank. I got to see Arielle and her family on Friday night and my other daughter, Lael, and her family on Saturday night. Lael lives less than 20 miles from Arielle. We got to visit some dear friends Saturday afternoon since both Lael and Arielle had prior plans that couldn't be changed at the last minute. It was a good trip, though quite tiring since it is 600 miles one way.

I wish I had a picture of Arielle. She has a huge baby belly. She got her dad's skinny genes, so she is tall and slender and she looks like she has a bigger ball than a basketball under her clothes. She is hoping and I am hoping that she will not go the whole 2.5 weeks that she has until her estimated due date. I got to feel the little one moving and really enjoyed seeing her son, Vincent. He had a great time playing with his aunt and uncle and had no time for any of us big people - even his dad when he came home from his night shift. He is quite a handsome little fellow and quite a charmer, but he sure can pitch a fit when he doesn't like something. Arielle will be quite busy when the baby is born - for sure! Maybe by the time we go down to get Jared, we will have a new grandchild to meet. I'm hoping!

May G-d bless y'all with His shalom and joy!

Love and shalom,
Serena

Are you discouraged? Having a bad day?

Then you need to go here and watch the video. I'm sure it will impact you because it is just incredible!

Love and shalom,
Serena