at the Lake

lots of debating on writing a blog today, many times i x'd it then went to restart, so hey now i'm back on, seem to do that everyonce in a while it seems. Yesterday morning i went once again to wpg. for a lympatic massage, good thing i had my chauffer drive me, as these days, i'm just so tired, don't look forward to her starting a new job on tues, but yet happy for her. But anyway, we'll manage, there's always the folks who "surprise" here we are, what ya got to do today, that'll i'm sure pop in often, take care of any little or big need around here that i haven't gotten to.
Then shortly afternoon we packed up and headed off to the cabin for a quick get away with little girl, she once again made 3 new friends as soon as she got off the boat in the evening, she's always looking for someone to play with. Love that there are little girls close to her age for her to hang out with.
It is just so incredibly amazing how the fresh outside air, boat ride can just give one strength and oxygen that one's body is so looking for. It was such an absolutely beautiful evening, very calm, warm, sunny, who could ask for anything more, we did try our hand at fishing, i always gotta chuckle at little girl, she's fishing away and ooooh, oooh, i think i have one, na i think he got away, next thing ya know repeat, repeat, she did have her leech eaten off so hey, she must've had something. Did see a family on shore catch a beautiful walleye of 23" which is a must release, which they did, they did send it our way, well they tried, but i didn't care i didn't catch anything, it was just so relaxing to be out, on such a beautiful evening, just to get rejuvinated was wonderful. During the night i all of a sudden heard some rain drops, now if you know me, i find them very soothing, and they lul me to sleep. (Not the big drops with light flashes or booming, not so much my kind of thing) Now somtimes i actually wonder if i were born on a boat, na, i actually think i was, probably with a fishing rod in my hand too lol!! on a day with a gentle breeze with a gentle rain falling. Ah, my mother tells me, nope, oh well, i could just live on the water in a boat and get lulled to sleep by the gentle laps of water, ah... dreams.
Well this morning we were woken to a mix of sprinkling and rain, so we decided to bring in the boat, call it a day, well that called me for a day as well, how does one get tired, crawling into the truck while hubby drives boat onto trailer and then drive out when hooked up?? hm... i did have an idea that hit, but na, just would never do it, love my hubby way too much, but i had to laugh anyway at such a silly idea, what if i'd give er and hubby would go ker plunk into the water lol!! oh, ok, now that's not so funny, it only sounded funny temperarily lol!! Sometimes one's gotta get some type of laughter going, even if its that dry Friesen humor lol!! just to try and keep one's head about themselves, as things are going pretty tough, tough on the breathing end, tough on doing anything for that matter, so trying to stay positive is getting actually mighty difficult, my life is like a roller coaster by the minute, not by the day, one second tears next thing laughter,( ah you men who are reading will say, yep, that's women for ya, can't figure em' out lol!!) and we go on and on with this wonderful routine. trying to keep focus on the Lord and what he can do, not what i can't do.
I have been neglecting updating my prayer list this week with the busyness of everything but i hope you will continue to pray for those who truely need us. Please email me updates as i just can't get to calling everyone, it takes so much energy out of me now already talking so much on the phone.
* Blaine & Tamara: they are also getting baptised tomorro, Lord willing with his health, if not they will perform baptism at his house.
* for all the Young and Young at heart getting baptised tomorro in our church
* for Darlene's Mom - uterin cancer
* Donna's Dad - Lung cancer
* My cousin Dwayne & April - as she continues treatments for breast cancer
* our local restraunt owners the Haw family - Mr. Haw has lung cancer
* Ron & Joanne F - pray for good results as they return from US from taking a new treatment for liver cancer
* Cousin Mari & Agabus - Mari in US undergoing treatments for her liver cancer
* my cousin's friends who are struggling with their marriage
* Dave & Tina F - Dave suffering from Leukemia
* Matt - in wpg. waiting for his bone marrow transplant hopefully this week
* Janice as she still mourns the loss of Tom
* Bev C who is dealing with MS & her dad Jim as he heals from a cut thumb
* continue to pray for Sharon I who as far as i know is still waiting for either a donor liver transplant or loss of fluid to be able to have her son give her part of his.
* My neice Karla who to leave on her missions trip with a group from Miller to Germany, i haven't heard anything so assuming all went well.
* My neice Jennifer as she waits for results from her EEG and CT scan on her brain
* My cousin's son David J who is undergoing treatments for alphonse disease
* Serena C- her parents could bring her home once again, pray for them and Serena as giving a little girl a needle once a day is a diffucult task for child as well as parents
* Don B as he heals from a fractured shoulder

this pic is taken of a cabin up at Lake of the Prairies, one weekend, my sis & hubby & hubby & i did a double date up there quite a few years ago, ah, one day i'd love to own a cabin like that, just plain, basic, but so cute, ah just like me lol!! ha! ha!! anyway, cabin is for rent and its called "Hank's Hide A Way."
Anyway, happenings this week: monday i will be supervisor to my crew who will with smiling faces put in my muchly reduced garden, hey its only 14 long rows instead of 22, really i did downsize. not sure everything will fit but we'll just make room. maybe a bit bigger lol!!
wednesday: head off to wpg. for my muchly awaited CT scan, now if i could only get results right away, that would be great, but na, no such luck, gotta wait till June 2. I don't have my calendar infront of me as what else is on the agenda next week, but i know i take Janae is to see Dr. Thess June 1, blood work June 3, think there's a massage in there somewhere, and if i need to go for another treatment for lymphoma i will need to book that in, so yep, for some reason life of busyness continues.
Hope you all had a safe, wonderful long weekend, diane
"For the battle is not yours, but God's" 2 Chronicles 20:15

why worry??

When one goes through one round of chemo even if the side effects haven't been as bad as everyone else's, going through another round of chemo just bring too many chills into my body, and so many days i tell Hubby i don't want to take chemo again. chemo is something i really dread taking again, but many people go through it so many times, one lady i talked to is on her fourth round, another one has been going for 7 years. I need to try and focus more on day to day, as this long term taking chemo is just taking a lot out of me. I ask myself why am i worrying about it, you may be perfectly fine, but there's always those doubts and fears that want to creep in and take away what comfort and trust God wants to put into my heart. " Let him TRUST in the name of the Lord and RELY upon God. Isaiah 50:10 i was also looking for another verse but only part of it would come to me and i couldn't remember where it was found so i'll have to wrack my brain some more. Anyway as i was reading my devotions this morning the author spoke of her trial with cancer and "as i struggled with feelings of fear and dread- fear of the unknown and dread of no longer being in control. Then i laughed at myself. I was never in control to begin with; i just thought i was". This was a reminder i needed today, God is in control of our lives, let Him have his way, trust in Him. Disappointment and fear may rob us of our peace during our illness. A setback in our treatment interferes with our plans. We may feel helpless and frustrated and weep before the Lord. But, we are still His children. We can lean on Him and trust Him to direct our steps.
I had never imagined how much work a garden was up till this year, so anyone who gardens wether big or small, many hats goes off to all of you. Big girl & I went out and picked off the rhubarb that needed attention, and of course dessert for supper, and then we continued to put my sticks in to mark the rows where i'd be planting my seeds, well that simple task is not so simple, i didn't realize how little umph i had, but we did make it, and then to top it off, we moved my containers which were sitting just outside the garden into the garden so the boy could mow the grass. That did me in for the day, and supper consisted of cracklings and buns, no one complained though, Big girl made a delicious rhubarb crisp, desserts always make up those not so special suppers. today's agenda we'll stick to a more simplified indoor laundry, and i'll call that pretty much a day.
Oh i'd forgot to mention the farm is officially done seeding, corn, spuds, wheat, oats and canola, yahoo!! so one of the farm worker couples put on a Thank the Lord for a wonderful, safe, Spring seed and an we BBQ'd and had a wonderful relaxing time visiting with all the rest of the farm crew. It's wonderful that everyone of the workers at the farm, loves the Lord and are Christians, it is such a warm, suportive family, even us gals all love to get together and chat up a storm (a gentle one that is lol!!) You can't ask for anything better when it comes to a work place. Also when i hit a low this week, i could count on Colleen to comfort and be there for me, thanks, Colleen.


i just love the big white fluffy clouds and esp. against the beautiful evergreens, we have a beautiful yard that makes for many great pics

new treatment

Monday and yesterday i went to wpg. for lymph node drainage, it is a very soothing, gentle massage done to the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are what keeps our immune systems up to par, the fight off infections to the best of their abilities and sometimes when there's just too much your nodes tend to swell. I have learned a lot, but there are only 3 people in MB who do this one who's still not quite finished her training. This is something that are needed more of, one needs to have physiotherapy training or nurses training, or massage therapy training in order to take this course, it is a really rewarding field to be in, although Edith tells me its not always pretty, they work on a lot of burn victims, as well as NB babies who are deformed, it is absolutely amazing what one week of treatment can do for a person with severe burns. Doctors are slowly coming around to this idea as well as they see the results that patience are receiving. My doc had never heard of lymph node drainage so when i go back to see him i can show him the before and after, although right now we're still got a bit of work to do for the after part, she taught me how to drain my lymph nodes and taught Jodiene how to finish up where i can't reach. One thing i wish i would have known was when my arms and neck were so swollen in Aug. that i would have known about her, she says if they can catch someone the first time their body swells, they will never have the problem again, she says they wrap you, not quite sure what that means, but anyway, now if my arms swell up i can at least try and work out the bugs before it gets out of hand.
She said sometimes when people are coming down with a cold, their necks are sore, this quite often is a symptom that your lymph nodes are working really hard at fighting off infection, quite often it just can't keep up.
Another little tid bit i found out was, you know at big thanksgiving, christmas, or easter gatherings after the big turkey meal is done, some (well at least at my folks the guys all doze off for a while) turkey produces something that our body needs to make excuse my spelling but seratonan which helps you sleep, so does breads (but make sure not to put jams, peanut butter etc on) if you need help in sleeping at night sometimes just a half piece of toast very lightly buttered or dry will help your body produce what it needs to help you have a resfull sleep, and lo and behold pasta works the same way, although pasta not really recomended for night lunch lol!!
Anyway i will go back for another treatment on friday just to make sure my assistant and i have the massage technique down pat and that it is helping.
On today's agenda, i am hoping to accomplish picking my rhubarb which is much needed, just wondering does it work to put rhubarb through a juicer or do i need to make juice "the hard way" lol!! i'll give it a try. Second thing i hope to accomplish today is to put all my sticks in my garden where i want to put my rows, from there we will more than apt need to have a snooze.
I used to be such a good speller, but for some reason, as you probably have noticed a lot of words just aren't spelled right around here, i think at times little girl can out spell her mom already, i had to chuckle one day on are you smarter than a fifth grader they had a spelling word, i rambled off the spelling so proud of myself i think it was a second grade word, then came the "real" way to spell it oops, i'm not smarter than a fifth grader maybe not even second grader. oh well, little girl brings home a list of 10 words so we'll just learn to re spell. she's done extremeley well, i'm amazed at such big words for kids in grade 1.
Anyway, time to get little girl up for breakfast and for school, i don't have any up dates at this time, but i do have a praise item my friend D & S had a baby boy last week, am hoping to bring up some fresh baked buns hopefully next week one day and hold the little guy.
Continue to pray for me & our family, as the weeks progress one becomes quite anxious on what my future holds, and what the CT scan will read. One more week till CT scan, two weeks till i find out results. Waiting is not one of those look forward to times. thanks, diane

who can not love a beautiful sunset down at the lake, absolute beauty

date

Hun & I went on a date today after church, its been quite a while since we spent one on one time, usually our outings include little girl, so hubby made sure during the week that one of the big kids would be in charge of little girl, so big girl took on that responsibility and her & Jeff took little girl golfing, Jeff still had his first set of golf clubs so that's what little girl used. She's quite a determined golfer i hear, i'm sure the next time the boy or girl will mention golfing she'll be wanting to go again too. I would have loved to see her golf. This week she asked me where dad's golf clubs were and i told her i wasn't sure, so off to the shop she went and came back with a T and ball, so she put the t in the ground put the ball on top and kicked it and kept going till ball was at house. i wasn't too keen on her finding the golf clubs as that may mean something like baseball inside, golf towards windows?? we don't need that kind of help on the place, so hopefully she'll be satisfied with little clubs for now.
Anyway, hubby organized this during the week, like i said he has lots of time to think on the tractor, well wouldn't you know it, this morning i said to him, hun, i'm just so tired, after church we just need to go right home and i need to sleep, i'm so tired, so he had to tell me his idea, to which of course i'm not too tired with a date with my hun, but we went out for an extravagent lunch (wendy's ) lol!! actually its one of my fav places to eat, fairly quiet, reasonably priced, of course he needed to treat us to Dairy Queen ice cream, so i made sure lunch wasn't too big, then we went off to the cabin, had a snooze and walked down to the lake and watched our neighbor family on the jet ski, and their daughter try her hand at water skiing, she did an excellent job, for first time, took maybe 4 tries in freezing cold water to get up long enough to ski. They are a wonderful couple who are pastoring south, west of Brandon, we are so fortunate to have many Christian family up at the lake as neighbors, we are slowly getting to know them, for years we kept to ourselves, now we're getting out and meeting people and enjoying everyone's company. Then we went down to the river to see how the fishing was doing, well it sounded quite slow, as fishing season opened but the water has been running for about a month already so spawning must be pretty much over, so maybe we'll have to bring boat up when we go up next. Hubby has just got to get it spring and fishing ready yet. Oh, then we went out for supper, i wasn't too keen on these more extravagent restraunts as they are so noisy so we decided on Smitty's we had a nice quiet spot, food was ok, but i didn't have to cook for hey!! it was great. All this sitting there watching waterskiing, reminded me of when hubby & bro in law dwayne went waterskiing no wet suits, just swim trunks, may long and br... it was cold, i really don't know what we were thinking, then the boat which was new to us at the time, all of a sudden died leaving poor dwayne mid lake, oh brr... we laugh now at how silly we were, maybe we're just wimps now, as another time we went May long up to Duck mountains and tented again at freezing temps, with our little ones, ice had just gone down, no waterskiing that weekend but br.....
Anyway i head to wpg. tomorro for my lymph node drainage so we'll see how that goes, hopefully do a bit of shopping ahead of time and head home, my baby sis (good thing she'll read this after we get back lol) is coming along so if i get too tired she'll drive IF i let her.
anyway, pic is of the kids (neice, nephew & little girl) having a blast last summer at the lake, little girl is always in her glory at the lake with "new" friends or on the boat fishing or tubing.

Pray for neice Karla this week as she and a group from Miller are suposed to be going on a missions trip to Germany, but British air ways is talking about striking so pray that they don't so they can go spread the word to kids and families in Germany
continue to pray for my neice Jennifer as she waits for her results on May 31 for her CT scan and her EEG
well i'm off to la la land, will try and update more tomorro