June 2011 – Page 3 – Write From Karen

Update on Jazz’s Toes

June 21, 2011June 21, 2011 Karen

When I picked Jazz up from summer school today (remember, he has personal finance in the morning and P.E. in the afternoon – NOT the best class to have when you feel like your toes are going to fall off), and he said today was the first day that he didn’t feel the agonizing pressure on his toes that has crippled him these past several days.

Praise God! I’ve been praying really hard for God to heal him – it’s been a ROUGH week for Jazz.

He was actually walking normally to the car today. I can’t help but wonder if the Epsom salt soak helped with the pressure. We haven’t been doing the soaks because the salt has just about killed Jazz this past week, which is probably good, salt is healing, but I just couldn’t bear to see him in so much ADDITIONAL pain, so I didn’t push the issue.

Anyway, we went to the followup visit with the podiatrist this afternoon. His toes look gross, but the doctor said he’s seen much worse at this stage. He was concerned about all of the pain that Jazz has been feeling. Though his toes would still feel sensitive at this stage, he said they shouldn’t be hurting him as much as they have been and that that was a sign they were infected.

He prescribed a different antibiotic and we’ve made another followup appointment in two weeks – WHICH, hopefully, will be the last time we have to see him because HOPEFULLY, the infection will be cleared up by then and he should be feeling much better by then.

I hope.

The doctor did use some tweezers to pluck out some dead skin (string of built-up puss? I didn’t catch what that was, exactly), and Jazz nearly came unglued when he touched the tweezers to his toe. Again, the doctor said he shouldn’t have been so sensitive and that it was the infection that was causing so much pain.

I blame myself. I take total responsibility for Jazz’s pain. Why? Because I should have stuck with the initial antibiotics that the clinic prescribed. I also should have stuck with the soaks. If I had done those two things, Jazz probably wouldn’t have been in so much pain this past week.

I dropped the mom ball. I not only dropped it, it rolled under the couch and got stuck under there.

*SIGH*

The antibiotics knocked him out. They made him so drowsy that he couldn’t keep his eyes open at school, which was terrible timing because it was finals week and he sort of needed to stay awake for those. That’s why we didn’t finish the medicine. But still, I should have worked around his school schedule and given them to him, regardless. It’s my fault that this has gone on for so long.

I feel so bad for the kid. It’s bad enough to see your kid in pain, it’s worse when you realize that you actually contributed to that pain.

At any rate, we finally figured out that ibuprofen works better for him than Tylenol, so I guess that’s a plus.

A small plus.

So here we are. Taking an oral antibiotic and when the infection gets knocked out, then we’ll have to treat his toes to an anti-fungal ointment for … God only knows how long.

Jazz was actually in pretty good spirits today. I think he was just so relieved to have a break from the pressure that he was giddy. I told him on the way home today that he now had a “story” to share with people. “Remember when I was 16-years old and had to have my toenails removed? Yeah. That sucked.”

I also told him that this kind of thing, only makes a person stronger. It builds character. I know he doesn’t want to hear that from me right now, but at some point, he’ll get what I’m saying.

We ALL have stories, unfortunately.

Home Movies, VideoPlay

Four Minutes of Cutesy Love Stuff

June 21, 2011 Karen

WARNING – WARNING!

Home video ahead!

Proceed at your own risk.

BYOP (Bring your own pillow)

I’ll supply the drool bibs.

Okay. I’m getting this digitizing process down and it’s going a lot faster than I anticipated. So far, so good. *knock on wood* I’m currently on tape four and I’m BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Seriously. I could never make it as a videographer because I literally have HOURS of film of people eating.

What the …??

I didn’t eat back then to stay skinny, so I think I was wishful thinking – fantasy calories are just as good as the real thing? Right?

Now? *pfft* Pass the buffet, friend.

Anyway … there may not be as many snippets as I had hoped because truly, I can barely stomach watching all of this footage; I would never dream of putting you all through that torment. I mean, I like to consider myself a brutal-sort of blogger, but even I have limits.

This first video is our first anniversary. We gifted ourselves our first video camera and we took a video of us taking a bite of the first tier of our wedding cake saved from our wedding. You can watch the results.

Pardon the mushy kissing part but we were young and in love. (Sorry Kevin, not WERE, but ARE – ARE darling). Actually, we still do that, but now it’s even more gross because we’re old and wrinkled. We only do it in public to embarrass our teenage sons. SCORE.

Also? This was the one and only bite I had of my wedding cake. (Er. Wait a minute, maybe not). I was too nervous and worked up to eat any cake on our wedding day so … I’m really hoping it tasted better on THE day because it was like chewing cardboard that had been soaked in dog urine when we took this video.

Yum.

Here’s a picture of us with our entire wedding cake, if you’re interested. We’re munching on that top tier you see.

Did you notice anything weird about the Happy Anniversary sign that Kevin printed out on our state-of-the-art ZENITH computer and Epson dot-matrix printer? (You did indeed read that correctly. We’re old enough to have been around when computers were first becoming available to private citizens. And you only THOUGHT I was old, right?) For you sharp-eyed readers out there, a gold star if you noticed that “Anniversary” is missing an “R”. It say, “Happy AnniverSAY.” Hence the reason we say “Happy AnniverSAY” to each other every anniversary. Inside joke. Well, not so inside now, now that I’ve shared the joke with you all.

I will be honest and tell you that Kevin is quite horrified that I’m posting this for all the Internet to see. But as usual, I sweet talked him into letting me have my way so … don’t ruin it for me by making fun of it or anything or my marriage may not SEE year number 22. HA!

Some observations while watching these old movies:

I had BIG hair. No now, we can be honest. There is some footage where it’s literally standing on end. Why didn’t anyone tell me how stupid I looked?!? I mean, good grief. In fact, the next video I’m posting is me, in my hot rollers just to PROVE to you that I suffered all in the name of having awesome early 90’s hair.

Also? What is up with my high, squeaky, hillbilly voice? I had no idea I sounded like that and when I turned to Kevin, just now, my face a mask of petrified horror, and asked him if I still sounded like that, he said, “No. Thank God.”

Okay so I added the “thank God” part, but wow people. All that is missing are my overalls and missing teeth. (And I stopped wearing overalls shortly after having babies because WOW – that did not help disguise the post-baby fat AT ALL).

I have no idea why I have this weird fascination with the cake in this video. I keep picking at it, like I’m excavating for … treasure? Taste? Who knows. Actually, I remember picking through the cake and I think I thought the crusty icing was sort of fun to dig through. I was just as easily amused back then as I am now, it would appear.

And at the very end of the video, I dare to take one more bite. I think I was unwilling to accept the fact that it tasted so nasty the first time, so I was hoping that by taking a second bite, it might taste better.

It didn’t.

The candle in the video is the same candle that we used in our wedding. And yes, we both lit it during the ceremony to signify “unity.” Cheesy, but touching. I hung on to that candle for YEARS before it finally turned yellow and started to smell funny. Actually, we had stored it in a box in our attic and it was starting to melt from all the heat and getting candle wax everywhere.

Not one to be terribly sentimental, I tossed it.

This was taken in our first home, which we rented, which I found because Kevin was working so much in his new career (accounting), that he didn’t have time to look with me. I was shown this house, liked it so much that I called Kevin (from a land line, because we didn’t have cell phones back then *GASP*), and he said, “if you like it, I trust you, get it.” So I got it. We lived in that house for about two years. We moved into the house we own now when Dude was six months old. It was a great first house. VERY drafty, but very comfortable.

Also. I took a lot of video of Kevin’s youngest sister. I had (still do, actually) a girl crush on her and it’s painfully obvious in these old movies. I also noticed that she hardly ever acknowledged me while I was filming her. I bet she thought I was terribly irritating. Now that we’ve known each other for 20 + years, I’ll have to ask her if that annoyed her back then. lol

I love looking back on these old movies. It just brings up all sorts of tender feelings toward Kevin (not that I don’t STILL have tender feelings for him, but you know … did I just put my foot in my mouth?) and makes me thankful that we’ve had such a great life together. I’m truly blessed to have such a great man.

Digitizing Old Movies

June 20, 2011June 20, 2011 Karen

I’ve mentioned that the horrific F5 tornado that ripped through Joplin got me thinking about what I would want to save if I knew something like that was barreling down on us – our family home movies and pictures – and how I really want to focus and get everything stored onto DVD for safe keeping.

I would be physically sick if I ever lost these precious old movies of when the boys were little.

So, that’s what I’m doing, digitizing our old movies, burning them onto DVD’s and will soon store them in our safe deposit box.

(The same with our pictures, too. Which is the next project after I finish this).

So, I hounded Kevin into setting up the old camera at work and I’ve been busy capturing the videos for the past several days.

It’s slow going, but it’s not that bad since I can start the process, set the timer and then come back and check on it. I’ve been capturing the video in chunks because Kevin started to do this a while back and said that it would crash the computer after a time period. So I’m capturing it in chunks to hopefully avoid that snafu.

I just finished capturing the first tape and I will be burning it onto a DVD very soon. I will also be snipping portions of that tape and uploading them to YouTube, so you should see some of those snippets very soon.

Lucky you. 😉

Our first video camera was an anniversary gift to each other for our first anniversary. (I’ll likely post a snippet of when Kevin and I took a bite out of our first tier wedding cake that we saved – with interesting results, I might add). I took hours, and hours, and HOURS, of video of absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing, per se, but rather nothing really interesting happened, and I have to admit, it’s pretty boring, but it’s fun to watch all of the nieces and nephews when they were so YOUNG. (Geez, it doesn’t even seem possible).

I’m really looking forward to getting to the tapes when the boys were babies. I can’t wait to watch those again. It’s been YEARS since I watched them and I’m really looking forward to sharing some of those precious moments with you all.

This is going to be quite a process, I’m afraid. We have 42 tapes to go through.

I really regret not taking more videos over the years. I was so good about doing that in the early years (thank God), but as the kids got older, and well, resistant, (HA!), I just didn’t drag out the camera as much.

Later, we ended up buying a camera that filmed on DVD’s, which I’ll go through and post snippets of when I get to them. That will be a lot easier, obviously.

I’ve already told Kevin and the boys that we’re taking our video camera on vacation with us this year. We’ve talked about taking our video camera with us on vacation every year, and every year, Kevin and I would look at each other, contemplate the hassle of carrying around a video camera and nearly at the same time, wrinkle our noses and say, “Nah. Forget it.” (Just one of the reasons I adore that man – we think so much alike).

But I’m not going to allow him to talk me out of it this go-around. As we did last year, we will take enough cameras for everyone to use (the boys actually took some of the coolest photos), as well as our video camera and we’ll take turns filming each other. It should be interesting what the boys choose to focus on. HA! Kevin bought a whole spindle worth of 30-minute DVD’s for really cheap, so we won’t run out of DVD’s to use any time soon.

Oops. The timer just went off. Time to capture the next installment of our VERY EXCITING LIVES.

Hey. We may not be the most exciting people out there, but I wouldn’t trade our mundane moments for anything in the world.

P.S. – Here is our set up in case you want to do something similar with your old movies:

We’re using the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder. Here is the product description:

With the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder, anyone can transfer video to a DVD using a PC—no experience required. Simply connect a VCR, DVD player, camcorder or other video device to the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder USB hardware. Then use Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder software to create a DVD recording complete with menus and chapter at the click of a button. You can burn your video directly to a DVD without first copying files to the PC hard drive, saving both valuable time and space. The DVD can be played on any home DVD player. DVD burning has never been so easy thanks to the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder.

And it really is easy. And it saves as a Windows Media File, so there should be very little conversion required.

Though Dazzle probably has software that comes with it, we’re using Windows Movie Magic to actually capture the video. It recognizes the video camera and it’s as simple as clicking “start capturing video.” Once you click on “stop capture”, then it saves to whatever folder you designate. Once it’s on your hard drive (actually, you don’t have to save the video on your hard drive if you don’t want to, but it’s less likely to crash when you burn it on to a DVD later), you can burn it to a DVD. Once on a DVD, then you can edit the video and upload it.

Anyway, that might give you a starting point if you’re interested in digitizing any of your old movies.

P.S.S. – I was not compensated, in any way, for mentioning this product. It’s what we use and we like it because it’s easy and seems to do the job. Remember? I don’t do product reviews. Ever. I should write a disclaimer or something.

Life-condensed

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

June 19, 2011 Karen

Yep, that’s me. 😀

I think my dad is around 22 or 23 in this picture. My parents were very young when they had me.

Abundant Life

Teaching: Fellowship Is Essential

June 19, 2011May 29, 2011 Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

Another variable that affects our lives involves the way God relates to groups, nations, or corporate entities, and how everyone in such bodies of people can receive the consequences of corporate sin. There are times when what one person experiences is due to God’s grace, reward, mercy or wrath on an entire group of which he is a part. There are many examples of this in the Word of God. All the Egyptians suffered because of Pharaoh’s hard heart. Another example is in Joshua 7, where the army of Israel was defeated because of the sin of Achan and his family.

Although it may not at first seem “fair” that a person would be dealt with by God as part of a group, rather than on his or her own merits, the Bible and history clearly indicate that this happens. This is one of the main reasons why Christians are to be concerned about “social evils,” and work to keep society free from sin. Certain cultures have been and are much more God-oriented and accepting of spiritual truth than are others. That is one reason why God exhorts believers to pray for community leaders that the laws they make are conducive to Christians being free to live according to the dictates of God’s Word (1 Tim. 2:1ff).

In the category of how God relates to groups of people is something we will call “community faith,” that is, the mutual faith of individual Christians who associate with one another. Jesus alluded to this when he spoke of two or three believers gathered together in his name (Matt. 18:20). Every Christian knows that some churches or fellowships are “hot” and see great movements of God on a regular basis, while other churches are “cold” and have not seen God move powerfully in years. The fervent prayers of a group of Christians who are “of one accord” are synergistic, that is, greater than the sum of their individual prayers. In the spiritual battle, there are times when we as Christians must “link arms” with other brethren in order to be victorious (Acts 4:23-33).

When Jesus Christ walked among people, the love and power in his words and deeds generated great faith in many people. In other words, Jesus himself was a compelling object of faith. Today, Jesus is not living among us in person. But, via the gift of holy spirit, he does live within each Christian. As each of us comes to know the Lord Jesus and exercises his supernatural power resident within us, and as we speak the truth in love one to another, we provide visible examples of God’s goodness, and thus help others grow in faith. This is one reason why dynamic Christian fellowship based upon the truth of God’s Word is indispensable, as the following verses show. Without it, many believers remain weak in faith.

Hebrews 10:23-25
(23) Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
(24) And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
(25) Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

To do what the above verses exhort us to do, we must first be learning the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our individual lives — by prayer, reading the Word and reaching out to others in his stead, among other things. As we do this, our confidence in who we are in the Lord, our awareness of our own function in the Body of Christ and our zeal to diligently carry it out all grow.

Second, we must get together with other Christians, and continue to do so on a regular basis, and in a variety of ways. Third, whenever we do so, our attitude should be, “What can I do to bless someone?” The more secure you are in Christ, the more you are willing to be vulnerable in reaching out to others via loving doctrine, reproof or correction. The more real the Lord Jesus is to you, the more confident you are that he will work in you to help your brethren. This is why fellowship and faith are in one way mutually dependent. It is much more difficult to grow in faith if you are not actively involved in a Christian fellowship that is based upon the truth of God’s Word, practiced in love. [1]

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page, their YouTube Channel, or follow them on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.

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