Friday, August 29, 2008

Our pet guinea pigs, Lady and Tramp

Betcha didn't know that some vets actually see/treat guinea pigs!? Never thought I'd ever care that they did. Actually would have cost us less to let the one die and buy a new one. Sounds horrible but I just couldn't see the little animals suffer anymore. So, Monday we made an emergency (unplanned) trip to the vet with Lady and Tramp who have been scratching furiously for months. Well, they were found to have, are you ready for this? They both have scabies and
Lady has it so bad she also has pneumonia and has lost weight etc. The amazing thing to me is that I didn't even say anything to the vet about putting her down. He said they would both get a shot for the scabies and then we'd go home with meds for the pneumonia and hope it gets better. This, I accepted along with a pretty big bill. Honestly, I'll probably get flack for this but, our wonderful dog has heartworms and we didn't even spend the $400 to get her better. She was diagnosed with this at least 5 years ago and you should see this girl run. Anyway, this was nowhere near $400 but much more than a new one would have cost. She'd better live!! She's actually eating and drinking pretty well and taking her meds very well. Just one more thing as a parent that I never thought I'd do. I told Tradd that she may not make it but we were going to do what we can to help her live. He started to cry and I'm not sure what all he said. I think he said something about getting another one to which I quickly said "no." Made him cry more. See, I should have let her die and just bought another one. He would have been fine with that. UGH!! Well, today we went crabbing and caught one and lost our crabbing basket. UGH! UGH! Anyway, we thought we'd go ahead and cook the one because we never have. Well, Tradd cried for 45 minutes because he thought we were putting the crab in our salt water aquarium. At first I joked with him about eating the crab and then it got serious. He couldn't breath right from crying so hard. So we conceded not to eat the crab but to take him back and let him go (we already have a small one in our aquarium). When he could finally breath right and there were no fresh tears he said, "let's eat it." You should have seen him dig into that crab. What a week!

Friday, August 8, 2008

3 Cheers for Pastor Scott!

Scott was "ordained" Seacoast fashion on Wednesday night. He was officially made a pastor 2 months ago but Wednesday was the public recognition of that calling. I'm so thrilled for him and so proud of him!! Scott puts his heart and soul into everything he does; work, play, being a father and husband. I'm just so glad to see God blessing him for his excellence and faithfulness to the Father. I could not have married a better man and am so thankful that God chose him for me and vice versa.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Blessed beyond words!

Not a day goes by that I am not blown away by God's provision!! The kids and I traveled 2500 miles during our vacation and the car ran great and just turned over 200,000 miles!! Only traveling set-back was a flat tire. The fact that we were kept so safe from accidents is also a huge praise! Gas prices were exhorbitant (about $4.29 in Michigan) but we had the money set aside in savings thanks to the IRS! (HA!HA!) Work was done on our house while we were gone that we never could have afforded. Work is still going to be done that is necessary for our health and safety and again it's all been provided for. There's been literally thousands, probably millions, of other things that God has taken care of for us but the incident that prompted this post came in the mail a few days ago. I have an OBGYN bill that I've paid a very small amount towards and I've been putting off making larger payments because I've been watching our very high insurance deductible slowly being met! I called the insurance company today to verify that in fact, we have $127 until our big deductible is met and after that, everything is covered 100% including hospitalization!! That means baby Drayton's prenatal care and delivery will not come out of our pockets. Can I just tell you that I complained like you wouldn't believe when the insurance changed to this high deductible? I, needless-to-say, have been very humbled by what a blessing it has turned out to be. There's a lot more detail to the whole story but what is also evident is that we never would have reached this amount if it weren't for Coleman's need for therapy and regular checks of her thyroid, heart and hearing. (Medicaid is her secondary insurance so all the bills go first to our insurance and then to Medicaid which is what helped us meet the deductible without it being a hardship on us.) More and more chapters keep getting added to the book God wants me to write! I've spent the second half of this day praising God and crying over his abundant provision!!