POSTED BY KAIT

UPDATE: I received news this morning that Lizzy is doing much better. I have gotten in touch with Lizz herself and she says she is feeling better, but is weak and still in minor pain.
They took her off morphine last night because she was having difficulty breathing, but now she is back on morphine and doing well with it. Sugery is still very possible, but will keep y’all updated! Thank you for your prayers.

My very dear friend, Lizzy, was recently rushed to the emergency room after her horse kicked her. She has a ruptured spleen and is in a lot of pain right now. They are waiting for 24 hours to see if it will heal on it’s own, but surgery is likely.  The doctors rate her case a 4 out of 5, so it is pretty bad. They are giving her pain medicine but it has failed to give her any relief. Please pray for a speedy recovery and as little pain as possible for her.

It comes in waves, and leaves the same way.  It’s happening more and more often lately, however.

My desire to clean, get rid of, organize, and clean again was here today.  Looking around the living room overwhelmed my senses with a desire to minimize and refresh.  I had Gabe make and fill our spray bottle with cleaner.  We took cloths to the windows, doors, walls, and sills.  We moves tuff around, cleaned behind, on top of, and inside everything. 

I moved and hung pictures.  Re-organized drawers, filled small screw holes in the walls, and vacuumed.

I’m happy with the results.  The living room is done.

Tomorrow we’ll work on the kitchen. 

And I’ll take some window cleaner to the fresh spit marks on the lower half of the window Kait cleaned today.  We have a couple of adorable window lickers living with us.

Here are some ways for you to show me you love me.  And possibly get more from my blog.  You can subscribe, get emails, or follow me. 

But you can’t like me. Because that’s a Facebook thing and we aren’t going there.  We tried Facebook. Once. For two weeks. 
It was a no-go for us and we deleted Facebook from our lives forever.  I have to say that I’m really suprised at how hard some of you have taken our lack of Facebook-having (I know that word doesn’t look right but neither did just writing ’Facebook’ so whatever) and I’m beginning to wonder how some of you ever survived before Facebook came into existance.

But okay.

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written by dad

This last week I had a new experience, one that I hope I never have to repeat in the near future, or ever for that matter.  Have you ever had to say goodbye to somebody?  I mean really say goodbye like I won’t see you this side of heaven again.  Yeah.  Hard.

I took an emergency trip to Washington last week to visit my terminally ill Papa who, they say, didn’t have but days, maybe hours, to live.  Now this is a man who has inspired me in almost every facet of my life.  He is the reason I am a pilot today.  I hadn’t seen him in almost 2 years and it was quite a shock to see what the cancer had done to him.

I spent three days at his side, talking about politics, baseball, and our family.  There was a huge elephant in the room and we avoided talking about the whole reason I was there.  My Nana thought he would pass any moment and I wanted to be there when the Lord took him.  Well, the stubborn old man held on and so I had to say goodbye to someone I KNEW I would not see again in my lifetime.

It was hard.  He cried.  I cried.  Finally I just had to leave.  Distance makes it easier but it is something I will never forget.  He passed on Tuesday night peacefully sleeping.  Now he is with God and I am jealous.

Robert Franz Gronholz.  Father, Papa, Hero.

[Jesse, accessorized]

I looked out the window and saw the van was in the driveway.

“He’s home early!” I thought to myself. 

I ventured outside to meet him as he came in.  When I got around to the driver’s side I noticed the seat empty.  Looking toward the house, I wondered how he got past me. 

“Maybe he went through the garage”, I thought.

I peered around the van into the garage but didn’t see him.

So, I figured he had already made it into the house somehow and I went back in to find him.
Nowhere.
[really confused]

It was then that I realized.

He didn’t take the van to work, dummy.  He took the motorcycle.

[hits self on the head]

I like to think that I’ve got most of it together.  Even on days when the laundry is backed up, it only takes a couple hours of wash, dry, fold and I’ve got it manageable again.  When the kitchen is out of control I call in the troops to do their chores. When things get messy around here, I sweep through like a tornado and get it all picked up.
It’s pretty easy, most days.

There are some days, though, when I’m a mass of tangles.  The easy button is burried in a pile of poor-me.

Elizabeth Esther posted something yesterday that really stirred me.  And while I’ve never felt exactly what she is describing, I’ve been in a place close enough to it to understand what she is talking about.

And it’s good to know I’m not alone.

There are times when I don’t feel like being a Christian.

[shock and awe]

It gets hard, living this life of freedom in Christ.  Using the word free in association with Christianity doesn’t always make sense to me.  I feel bound, shackled, and limited by my beliefs.  Not all the time, but in those times.  Times when my selfishness slides into the drivers seat while I’m preoccupied with soaking an entire bottle of purple honey off the 2 year old. 

There are moments in my life when it is just too difficult - always striving to do the right thing, answer well, and react properly. 

And I’ll admit to pushing my faith aside before, ignoring it so I didn’t have to deal with my sin.

But I can’t, really.  I can turn my back on God only long enough to spin around in a complete circle and come face to face with Him once again.
Turns out God is irresistible to me.  I can’t not believe. 

Isn’t.
That.
Something.

In her post Elizabeth Esther quotes Sheldon Vanauken. 

“And then I found I could not reject God. I could not. I cannot explain this. One discovers one cannot move a boulder by trying with all one’s strength to do it. I discovered–without any sudden influx of love or faith–that I could not reject Christianity. Why I don’t know. There it was. I could not. That was an end to it.”  
Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Just in case you didn’t know -

A baby, violently ripped from his mother’s womb by human hands who have determined in all their wisdom that it is that baby’s time to die, is then sold, for profit, to a pharmaceutical company, to develop a vaccine to be injected into your child.

Sound unbelievable?

But it’s true.

Think I’m kidding?  Think I’m just being crazy?  Get to Googlin’.

MRC5, WI-38, WI-26 VA4, RA273, PER C and HEK 293

In an article from K.N.O.W. -

Because the pharmaceutical industry perceives public acceptance of the current vaccines, they continue to utilize both existing and new aborted fetal sources for vaccine development.  The latest is a new fetal cell line, PER C6, created by Dutch pharmaceutical, Crucell, NV.  This cell line uses the retinal tissue of an 18-week gestation baby, created specifically for vaccine development.

There is so much more I wanted to add from this article but it’s best if you read it yourself here.

People! Abortion is a multi-billion dollar industry.  Next time you or your children go to the doctor to get vaccinations just think about it. “What am I funding?” and “What exactly is in this vaccination?”

All I’m saying is, let your decisions be yours.  Don’t go blind. Don’t let yourself be led like the ignorant fool they are assuming you are. If you feel you must vaccinate, at least know that there are options that don’t include aborted baby trade.  Do research, then talk to your doctor.

The choice is yours.

Find your state’s vaccination exemption forms here.

I get a lot of spam comments.  And I mean A. Lot.  Some are not even words, but others are actual words or sentences, or something in between the two. 

Up until a few days ago I had a spam blocker on my blog.  It didn’t really stop the spam – it just made the spammers have to work harder by typing those annoying re-captcha words in before they could submit a comment.  Which means they were taking the time to type in a comment, then the re-captcha words, and still leaving comments like this one I received just a few minutes ago: 

Excellent Congress,cut heat soil comparison duty cover context empty shake achieve not deep credit image it experience seat definition obvious same mark lie attractive listen belong lord secretary tree tall hard end beat human peace reduce suitable food victim but engineering vote throughout master question class region shout letter by dangerous main attempt ignore entitle judge scientific game category lady energy travel article so trial priority see criterion apart support complete treatment response official condition raise pull kitchen facility everybody curriculum generally close specific crowd minister acquire expression right over wife hand unfortunately hurt

If I was a spam commenter and wanted to get my link published on a blog, I think I would write something a little more tricky.  Something a little more likely to get past the comment moderator.  Something a little more relevant.

I think I’d be less obvious.

Spammers are not just annoying, they’re incredibly stupid.

Is there some kind of stupid blocker WordPress plugin for this?

I’ve been toying with this idea lately.  This idea that I should stop writing for my readers.  I think I wanna be more real.

Sometimes I want to write something here on my blog.  So, I do.  But I never publish it.

Because I think my readers will think I’m weird. 
Or will be appalled when I write ’crap’ (literally).  Crap.  Just like that. 
Or friends and family will be worried about me cause I just know they’ll take that post wrong. 
Or that if I’m honest people will think I’m completely insane.

You know, whatever.

My husband often announces “That’s a blog post for ya.” 
I often reply, “I’d never…”
But he’s taken lately to reminding me that this is my blog.  If I want to write about how I found a 4 month old dirty cloth diaper wadded up behind the changing table I should be able to do so without worrying what other people think. (yeah, it happened)

If I want to really keep it real I’ve got to stop being concerned that writing about my life style is going to offend yours.

And If I want to write only in the third person, in all caps, and call myself Delilah, I should be able to.  It’s my blog.

My journal.

Mine.

DELILAH SAYS, “PEACE OUT”.

[too weird?]