Tag: Life w/the Colemans (Page 4 of 8)

Storm Pictures Around our Neighborhood

May 4, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Trash cans scattered across the vacant lot across the street. Unfortunately our trash man didn’t show until the next day and trash bags were scattered all over the neighborhood and filled our lake.

Our trash can? Broken fence.

Our house is the one in the middle across the street.

Play house.

Found our chairs.

This one is a little extra bent.

So glad the kids were there to help.

We think this is the tornado that devastated Harvest.. just a ways north of us.

House under construction on the other side of the lake. Notice the stop and street signs?

More street signs.

Neighborhood sign.

Power lines between us and the grocery store.

TREE!

Our lake from our back porch. We had a little ran. Flooded up to the neighborhood gazebo.

The tornado that came by our house started in the far corner of the lake between the gap in the trees.

The big tree to the right of the gap has quite a bit of damage.

Our propane tanks need a redesign. I think they should be underground.

We didn’t notice them until the next morning.

Zoë likes the new hole in our screen door.

After some hammering we were able to get it to close again.

Neighbor’s roof was pretty torn up.. I am guessing by our patio furniture.

The glass from our table was scattered all the way to the sidewalk.

I should get out there with the shop vac now that we have power.

The house across the street took some abuse, and that white frame used to hold a fence.

After the Storm No Power

May 4, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

I actually enjoy not having power for the most part. The kids come out of their rooms and are so entertaining. Much like camping, it’s the only time I get to see all of them at the same time. We have lots of experience with power failures: 4 hurricanes in FL and our house in Montgomery lost power in every storm.

When the rain let up, we hunted down our patio furniture, picked up the bigger pieces of our glass table out of our neighbor’s yard, talked to several neighbors in the street and called to check on friends that live near by. James called to say he was coming home early. It was quite a challenge to find a road without a downed tree or power line to our house.

We moved Josh’s car into the garage, found all the candles and flash lights. Luckily we had D batteries for my Granddad’s old radio and were able to listen to the news, hang out, and watch the skies for more tornadoes.

As the day went on and we heard more news about all of Huntsville being without power, we got a little concerned about how we were going to eat.. we only had enough propane to cook 4 hamburgers that night. Joel and Judi hadn’t done as much of the work preparing for dinner as the rest of us, so we made them share the 4th burger. Ha. We had hot dogs and other things, so they didn’t go hungry.

Between storms Josh, Joel and Judi went out to look for internet. They didn’t believe that all the businesses could really be with out power and Josh had a final exam that he needed to download by e-mail. I told them to be home before dark. I wished later I had told them to buy some propane while they were out.

They came home, we lit candles and were relieved to hear that the warnings would expire at 9:30 PM. As the sun was sitting we saw a couple of tornadoes on the horizon and one just north of us that turned the sky dark and green. We decided after a while to watch a DVD on Mike’s lap top before going to bed. We ALL agreed not to watch “Twister.” We had seen enough for one day.

Pictures coming up.

The Storm

May 4, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Mike called from DC the morning of the storm to tell us that there were tornado warnings in our area. I replied, “I know the sirens have been going off all morning.”

Trash was out, happy for the rain considering the drought and fires where my parents live, tornado sirens aren’t that out of the ordinary (and I still prefer them to the long drawn out hurricane warnings we had in Florida).

I thought about having James go in late for work.. but Mike talked me into letting him go at his normal time. Josh was studying for final exams and Joel was on the computer. Judi was dreaming about tornadoes (no kidding). Joel and Josh came out and looked around after hearing so many sirens then went back to their room.

I was working in the kitchen a little while later when I saw a wind shear blowing across the lake and called the boys to “Come quick and see.” Joel noticed a rotation in the clouds just above our yard. I yelled, “No!” Then on the far side of the lake we saw what I guess was the beginning of a water spout; water splashing and beginning to spin 20 to 30 feet up into the air.

Josh yelled, “Run!” Joel said, “Where’s the camera? Let’s take a video.” Josh and I yelled in unison, “No! Run!” We yelled to sleeping beauty, “Get in the bathroom there’s a tornado!” The dogs followed and we brought them in with us. Judi asked, “What about George?” Joel said, “Forget about her. Cats are survivors.” The lights flickered. We lost power. A few minutes later it had past.

It just missed our house. Threw our patio furniture on and broke a neighbor’s fence a little over a block away. Broke our table into a million pieces and scattered them across the length of our neighbor’s yard. It abused our screen door. It’s hard to latch and often gets blown open. This time it bent out of shape and the screen tore up (most likely by an airborne patio chair). Knocked the propane tanks to our fireplace off their foundation and bent the pipe to the gauge (I always thought they should be under ground). We have a little damage to the roof.. mostly from the large hail we got later in the day from the storm that did the worst damage in our area (destroying whole neighborhoods up the road).

The tree near the “water spout” lost a bunch of branches. And many trees behind it and the frame of a newly constructed house are all down. Many of our neighbors (including one next door – her flag pole was bent over too) have blue tarps on their roofs now, a few lost their fences, a trampoline dropped on a neighbor’s BMW and a few other small things things were lost, but for the most part we are all happy to be alive and that things were not much worse.

Minutes after our small tornado a friend called from Montgomery to see if we were OK and to tell us that they had spent the morning praying for us. Wow! So nice to know. So blessed.

Jenny

Miracle Swimsuit

March 17, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

Judi has decided to go for her lifeguard certification with the Red Cross and

will be spending the next 4 Saturdays at UAH learning Lifeguarding and CPR.

Pray she does well and is able to find the perfect summer job.

She starts this Saturday and needed a new swimsuit fast.

The last 4 years that we’ve been swimsuit shopping

it has averaged us 4 days to find a modest swimsuit that fits.

The last couple of years the only thing we could find

that wasn’t old ladyish, cost less than $100, and fit was a two piece,

so she has basically been wearing shorts and a tank for the modest part.

Yesterday, we walked into JC Pennies and out with this

swimsuit in less than 10 minutes! It fits and it’s modest

and it’s attractive on her, it was on sale, And we both liked it!

Praise God!

Valentines

February 15, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

We had a great Valentine’s Day.

Mike got me this beautiful hydrangea plant.

Did you know that you can take hydrangea as a supplement
and it will dissolve kidney stones?
I know from experience. Most regular doctors don’t know.

I made Valentine bookmarks (above) for our homeschool bowling party.

The bowling party was all Judi’s idea. She remembers going bowling (ages 5-9)

on Valentine’s with our homeschool group in San Antonio.

She made these beautiful cookies (from a roll).

Everyone said they were delicious.

The radiologist that I had an appointment with today called yesterday to cancel my appointment. She wants to move me to a different location. I was glad she cancled, because after all I’ve read about radiation I’ve decided not to do it.

I am waiting now to hear from the breast center in Birmingham

about new appointments with a surgeon and oncologist there.

When I talked to UAB last week, I found out that the one allergist that worked at the hospital last day was in December. 🙂 At this point I am kinda hoping that UAB has more options than were offered here. Ones that don’t include surgery would be nice.

I’ve read that only 10-25% of people with DCIS ever develop an invasive breast cancer. If I refuse to take the drug they want to give me (one of it’s side effects is uterine cancer), and refuse to do radiation, I am not sure how much surgery will decrease my chances.

And the corn I am exposed to during surgery could increase my chances of going into anaphylactic shock when exposed to corn in the future.

I’ve been reading about a supplement called Diindolylmethane (DIM) that helps fight hormone dependent cancers (which mine is). Here is a link.

Still believing for healing and lots of wisdom.

Love,

Jenny

Monday’s Progress

February 8, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

This is what my day was like yesterday..

Wide awake at 4 AM.
Which was good because I needed to get some questions together for the allergists I was planing to see. God so totally helped me with them. Sunday I didn’t have the ability to think straight enough to even start.

6:30 AM .. Drive with James to work.
We are sharing a car right now. I made him a little late because I lost track of time.. but not too, too late.

7:30 AM..
Run home get ready really quick because I was already behind schedule.

8:00 AM
Run out the door to drop Zoë at the vet for her spay.

I hate being late.. God cleared the roads for me and the GPS got me to my first appointment only 5 minutes after their office opened and 25 minutes before my appointment.

8:30 AM See first allergist..
Actually, I never saw any allergist.. I handed an introductory letter to the receptionist who gave it to the doctor to read over first so I wouldn’t waste time and money if they couldn’t help me.

Both allergist suggested I go to UAB which has a cancer center where I would have a team of doctors including an allergist (I think) work together.

9 AM See breast cancer nurse for counseling at Breast Cancer Center.
She was wonderful, sweet, a Christian and has an interest in and some knowledge about holistic medicine.. which makes her just perfect for me. 🙂 She will be following me throughout my case.

She mentioned a couple of things that were really helpful.
One. The doctors can give me something like Benadryl before the surgery to help lessen any reactions I might have. I don’t like to take stuff, so I normally just suffer through.

Two. Although for the most part my allergy symptoms have only been uncomfortable, they can be prepared to help me if they escalate into anaphylactic shock during surgery. I should also read more about anaphylactic shock, so that if I do go into anaphylactic shock, it won’t be as scary.

Three. They caught my cancer so early that it’s actually considered pre-cancerous. I like that. 🙂

10:30 AM Second allergist suggested I go to UAB.

**Through all this I started thinking about how your body is designed to destroy it’s own cancer cells and how the stress that my corn allergy causes in my body is probably a big part of why it hasn’t. This is a HUGE thought that I am not sure what to do about yet.. something I am setting at Jesus’ feet.

11 AM Home for a lunch break..
And a bunch of phone calls to our insurance, to a doctor’s office at UAB, and to cancel appointments here. And I got a 30 min. nap in. 🙂

1:30 PM Run to Costco for black ink and pick up James for his doctors appointment.
I got to talk to Mike on the phone for a little bit here. He is starting a new office at work. They are having a hiring “pause,” which is making it difficult to build a team to do all the work that they want him to do. He is flying to DC today to work on setting up the people he has there so far and won’t be back until Thursday night. **He is really getting hit from all sides and needs lots of prayer.

3 PM See James’ doctor
Which is also my primary doctor.. who did a very good job with him. She talked to him about exercising so that his body could be in top shape and fight off the little cancer cells that develop in each of our bodies everyday. So now, we all have extra motivation to exercise.

4:30 Pick up Zoë

5:30 Eat and phone calls

6:30 Update Mike in person

7:30 Gymnastics with Judi

I am so glad life goes on. I wouldn’t want it to stop for me.. 🙂

Bed.. and I slept really good.. Mike said something about the kids accidently hurting Zoë and did I hear her screaming last night. I didn’t hear a thing. 🙂

So to sum things up.. I learned:
Stress is bad.
Allergies cause stress.
Exercise is good.

My next steps are to get in to see a radiologist at UAB so that I can decide if or not I want to totally rule that out, to learn more about seeing an allergist there, and to look over this huge notebook the breast cancer nurse gave me.

Have a great day,

Jenny

Blogging

February 8, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Yesterday was so jam packed with doctor appointments (mine, our puppy, Zoë’s, and one for James, too), that when I woke up this morning it took me a while to realize that it was only Tuesday and not Saturday. ha ha

Blogging is going to be so much different now. Up until now I’ve only had my Mom, two sisters and one or two friends ever look at it. I didn’t have to worry much about what I said, but was still very careful to write exactly what I wanted to say and took time to re-read through everything and tried to check my grammar and everything.

The kids would complain from time to time that I spent too much time on my blog. I thought, “You should see how few post I’ve written.” And they didn’t know that when I wrote post about deep heart stuff, that sometimes I spent days praying about what I wanted to write before I even started.

Now I don’t want to let too many days go by with out updating my blog. One: because I know what it’s like to have a dear, young friend with breast cancer and to be praying fervently and to long for news.

Two: because although I really would rather just have this little journey done and over with quickly then soon forgotten, it’s probably better that I relish every day of it.. the same as I’ve learned to relish and enjoy each and every day of my life and write as much as I can, so I can remember God’s faithfulness to me.

Much of the time, the reason I write my blog has been to give a testimony of God’s goodness to my kids. They don’t read my blog. They think they know everything about me and that it would be super redundant, and they are probably right because through my years of homeschooling I discovered that sharing my love for Jesus and my life with them is what being a parent is about.. you know Deuteronomy 6 ..and being at home for school has enabled me to do a lot of that.

For example, Judi and I have been reading this wonderful book by Sarah Mally called “Before You Meet Prince Charming.” I have been soooo happy with it. If you know anyone with a daughter who is ages 12 or up, I suggest you get it for them or if you have a daughter that age, that you read it with them. It’s about purity and she has said everything I would like to say to Judi and more. Reading it with her has enabled me to share much of my heart about purity with her. One of the last things we read was about defrauding and how in dating it’s easy to lead someone on because you like the attention, how that is a form of defrauding and hurts the other person deeply.

Back to what I was leading up to.. I need to be more spontaneous now.. write and post and not worry to much about grammar, and if or not the “secret” I want share might be too personal, or what someone might think about it, or wither or not I am ready to be criticized for it, or if later I will look back and think, “That was so childish.”

So here’s my secret for today.. The last 7 or so years I have been so completely in love with Jesus and so long to see Him and to be with Him that I am so totally fine with leaving this earth that I have actually prayed more than once that I could be like Enoch who walked with God and then wasn’t. I am ready when He is..

BUT I know I STILL need my Mom and Dad and I still really, REALLY need my wonderful husband.. so even though my heart longs for Him to be ready to take me now.. I hope He isn’t so I can be here for my husband and kids and I intend to live a really long, wonderful life filled with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.. AND I fully expect to be here when Jesus comes back in the clouds.

This is one thing my kids do know about me. I think about it a lot and it’s hard not to tell them because I really, REALLY love being with Jesus and I really, REALLY want to see Him coming in the clouds, and I really REALLY want to see my children happily married with lots of wonderful little blessings to call me Grams.

Time to run (not think or check my grammar),

Love,

Jenny

Scrapbooking Up a Storm

January 5, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

I normally scrapbook 5 to 7 pages once a year starting in October

and send copies to my family in Texas as Christmas gifts.

Kinda narcissistic, I know, but I do it because I love to receive scrapbook

pages in return of their families. Does that make me even more narcissistic?

We don’t get to see each other often enough and I love to see pictures of my

nephews and niece and what they are doing in scrapbooks and on my sister’s blogs.

This year we met them in Arkansas in October, then my in-laws came

to visit in November.. so I didn’t start scrapbooking until December.

It’s January now and a record breaking 29 pages later

(we did a lot this year) I am still scrapbooking.

I only have 3 or 4 pages to go.. I will defiantly not be sending copies of them all.

Choosing which pages should go to who might be challenging.

I’ll try to pick the ones I think the kids will enjoy the most.

We had had snow Christmas day.. that added these 3 pages..

We had 4-6 inches of snow over Christmas weekend.. a new record for Huntsville.

Missed church because the roads were icy.

Josh got to help build the snowman this time.

He actually took the lead and insisted perfection out of Joel and Judi.

They spent over an hour on him.

James hid out in his room on the computer.

I should have made him come out for the last picture.

So happy to have so many pictures to scrapbook. 🙂

Love,

Growing Up

December 16, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

My second little duckling got his first job. Yay! He’ll be working full time in a technical department, helping people with their computers and programing. We are thankful for the opportunity and experience he’ll be gaining and for the friend from church who helped him get the job and who will be mentoring him.

Only thing is that now I have to go through the separation anxiety that most moms go through when their kids go to their first day of kindergarden. Homeschooling is great about postponing things like that. His first day of work I’ll be dropping him off at 7 am, I will probably cry, and I’ll praying that he’ll do well, be a light for Jesus, and be protected in the big bad world.

I think James is feeling it, too. He’s been giving me lots of hugs. I’d never tell any of my kids that I cried when I dropped them off.. or blogged about their new job at 3 am. They would probably laugh at me (and mostly I wouldn’t want them to worry).

I am so thankful for all the years of homeschooling that God has walked me through, for all the time I’ve had with my children, for the spiritual and personal growth homeschooling caused in me, and especially that I all four love the Lord (and me) despite all my faults and shortcomings.

Soon, I’ll be in new, uncharted territory (for me).. I won’t have any left in homeschool and they will all be living their own lives, but my job won’t be finished.. I will still be praying that they will continue to choose to live them for the Lord, that they will find Him their constant helper and guide, that they will choose and be blessed with full and happy lives, and that they will continue to grow and mature and be a well pleasing fragrance for the Lord.

And and for much more..

Christmas Cards 2010

December 13, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 3 Comments

I was hoping to take our annual family photo this weekend,

then chickened out when the weather turned even colder.

Our normal highs for this time of year are in the 50s.

Feels like we’ve been in the 20s and 30s for weeks.

It snowed ALL day yesterday, and it’s snowing still.

Tonight we are expecting a low of 12.

Not the best weather for picture taking or

housebreaking a puppy. Burr!

So, our Christmas cards are a little different this year.

If you’re thinking one or two of the pictures have been photoshopped..

you are right, but I’ll never tell which ones.

Hope you’re keeping warm.

Love,

Jenny