Sunday, December 14, 2008

School's Out and Here Comes Christmas!

Well, here we are, on the 14th of December, a week and four days till Christmas!! Where did the year go??? It has just flown by; it seems like it was just Memorial Day weekend and now it's almost Christmas! My goodness! I feel like saying, 'Stop the world, I want to get off!' as if that would somehow stop time or slow it down!!!

I have just started working on my Christmas cards yesterday! I am so behind! Haven't even started shopping yet. Have basic ideas of what I am getting, just haven't gotten out there and done it yet!! I need to get on the ball or I will be one of those people running around of Christmas Eve trying to get that last gift (and the stores will be closing!).

I surprisingly got through most of my Christmas card list yesterday, although need to do several more. I have just signed my 'Merry Christmas' etc., my name and the name on the outside of the envelope. I still need to write the addresses on the envelopes and need to write little notes in several of them. Whew! Oh, I shouldn't say that I haven't gotten any Christmas shopping done; I am done with the dog's. She got some new toys, (a kind she likes particularly well, that are getting more and more difficult to find). I found them online for $4.99/each (good deal!), and they already arrived via UPS, so I am done with her.

The most important thing of late is that I made it through my first quarter of returning to college after many years! The last week of classes was December 1-4th and I took my final on December 10th (this past Wednesday). The final was long and arduous, even though I had studied for about a total of 15 hours over several days for it. I was one of the last ones to finish, no, I stand corrected, I was the last one to finish; the other two people who were also still in the classroom didn't finish.

When I say long, it was 3 pages front and back and then a 4th page, front only. Now there were only sometimes 2-3 problems per page, but then there would be several steps to the problem. We had an 1 hr and 50 minutes to take the test and I barely finished when I had to turn my test in at 2 hours. Ugh! It is definitely a test that needs 2 hours I think. Some people finished in like 45 minutes or an hour, but I am slow and methodical on my math test taking and so it takes me longer. I like to take my time and be sure I am doing each step of the problem correctly and not just rush through; make mistakes that way.

Anyways, I was glad to be done with the test and just have it over with. My nerves had gotten the best of my the day/night before and I cried several times. Silly, I know. I even had asked hubby to come over to go over a few problems on the review with me that I wasn't sure of; it was much different from what he had remembered. We got some of them worked through and I just got to the point where I couldn't push anymore in my brain, ya know? So, I just packed it in.

I took my notes with me to the final and got to school a 1/2hr before the final was to begin. I thought about taking out my notes and looking through them once more, but didn't. Instead, I took out a little New Testament/Psalms Bible that I carry with me to school every day. I read several verses out of the Psalms and out of several other books; then I bowed my head (yes right in front of everyone else that was also already in the classroom) and prayed. I prayed that God would calm my nerves, my shakes (they were bad that day); that He would calm my mind and spirit and that He would help me remember what I needed to remember for the test. That was it. Took my calculator, pencil, eraser, scrap paper, bottle of water and a peppermint out and got my desk situated for the test.

Soooooooooo, I didn't do as well on the final as I had hoped ( a high C: i knew when i was done with the test exactly which problems i had not done the right); however, that still gave me a final grade of a "B" for the class!!!!!! So, I finished my first quarter with a 3.0 GPA! Praise the Lord! It was truly with the Lord's help that I was able to do that well in a class that has never been an easy subject for me. So, thank you Lord, for getting me through this first quarter, through this class and with a final grade better than I had hoped for at the beginning of the quarter!!!!

Now I get a break until January 5th. That's the first day back for winter quarter. I don't know who my professor is for my poly sci class yet, but I do know that I have the same professor for the next succession in my math (103), for which I am very grateful. I signed up for my poly-sci class several weeks ago when registration opened for winter quarter; but I had to wait on the math class. My professor is part-time at my college, so I had to wait for them to assign her classes to her.

So, she emailed me the other day before the final and let me what they had assigned her; it worked out very well! I not only have her again for the math class, but its 4 days a week (which I need) and its at the same time as it was this quarter, 9-950am! So, I will have time on TTH before my poly sci class at noon, to get my math homework done in the math lab (which I will do ever day anyways; did that this quarter) and have a quick bite to eat for lunch. The Lord really was is in the details!

I am still struggling with my back. The pain has been incredible (and I don't mean that in an amazing way, I mean that in a bad way), but when I saw my doc again this past Wednesday afternoon, she gave me better pain medicine, and boy does it make a difference!! I had an MRI around lunch time on Wednesday also (on my back of course) and by the time I saw my doc at about 430pm, she had the preliminary report. I have arthritis in my back (which I already knew), but also two other things. At L4-5, I have a disc that is rupturing and at L3-4, I have a disc that is slipping (or protruding). Nice huh?? At the L4-5, where the disc is rupturing, it is causing my vertebrae to move closer together because the "cushion" of the disc is getting less and less. Anyways, its all causing the pain, pressing on nerves etc. The good news is that even with all of that going on, my spinal canal looks in real good shape. There is no narrowing of that, which is very good news.

My doc said that her office was going to refer me over to the Sports Medicine/Rehabilitation (which is in the same building). When I was done with the doc and was checking out, we set up an appointment for me to see my doc again in 4 weeks and then they said they would call me the next day (which would have been last Thursday, the 11th) with my appointment with the Sports Medicine would be. Well, they still haven't called, and I am running out of time. Like I said, I start back to school on January 5th, and if you take out 4 days for which the office will be closed for the holidays (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day), that doesn't leave me much time to get in and get started on doing whatever I need to do to begin the healing of my back so that I am not in the same severe pain etc., when school starts back up. And I really would like to be off the pain medicine too; it dulls my senses and my mind and while it helps with the pain which has been so bad, I feel I need to be off of it for school.

I had called one of my dear friends Friday morning to talk about a few things (she had emailed me) and to see how she was doing and she wanted to know how I was doing. She was on her way to see her chiropractor. So, I told her what the MRI showed, what the doc said they were going to do (refer me to sports med), and that I had not heard anything about any of that yet. I shared with her my frustration and that I wanted to get something started to get the process of healing started on my back, which she totally understood.

So, she went in and talked with her chiropractor about my situation(with my permission). So, a few minutes later, her chiropractors' office called me and said that my friend had shared my situation. They took my name and info etc., and I have an appointment with them this Tuesday! PTL!!!! I am so thankful that I am going to be getting started on the healing process. Now, I know it is probably going to be painful to do this, and that it will take time; that I will have to also do exercises here at home (not a problem), but at least I will be getting started on the process!!! PTL!!! So, thank you dear friend, for connecting me with your chiropractor; and thank the Lord for the email I received from her that morning that prompted me to call her!!! Again, the Lord is in the details!!!!

I went to church last night with one of my friends from my small group. She picked me up so that I could take my medicine and not be in pain during the service, but be able to go. It was a good service and I enjoyed singing and praising the Lord, even though I had to sit down. The sermon was good also. It was about 'Radical Generosity', 2 Corinthians 8:1-9. It was really good.

Our church is taking a special Christmas offering. Half of the amount that is received in the offering will go to help people/families in our church/community that are having a very tough time because of our economy; perhaps they have been laid-off or have completely lost their job etc. They had intended the whole offering to go to this Project Clean Water, but after they started hearing of people in our church family that were being laid-off or losing their jobs and needed help, they prayed about it and decided to split this special Christmas offering because of the special situations in our community.

The other half will be going overseas for Project Clean Water to help provide money that will help provide clean wells (and therefore clean water) in developing countries that desperately need this like Uganda, India and Central America. Did you know ( I did not know this) that over 3900 children die every day from water-borne diseases because the water is dirty. That is astounding! You can go to http://www.adventconspiracy.org/ to read about this and there is a link on the page if you would like to donate to help get clean water to people all over the world that desperately need it.

My church is also doing a Christmas Eve service, which I am looking forward to attending. Actually they are having 2 Christmas Eve services. One is at 5pm, which I believe is more family oriented; there will be a kid's live nativity and Christmas carols along with Pastor Steve sharing. The 7pm service is going to be more 'adult', I believe. We will have candlelight time of worship and praise in celebration of Jesus Christs' birth. If you are interested in learning more about these services or any of our services etc., in general, go to http://www.enewlife.com/. Come out for any of the services, but I think the Christmas Eve services will be very special.

Well, my final campaign that I volunteered with this summer/fall finally finished all of the counting of ballots and a couple of things that had to run through the courts. It was the race for the 15th Ohio District for the US House. Anyhow, they finally finished it all up the other day, and I am sad to report that Steve Stivers lost the race to his opponent, MaryJo Kilroy. It wasn't even close enough to trigger an automatic recount (which I think a lot of us were hoping for). The numbers would have had to be within 1/2 of 1% to trigger the recount and it was not. So, only one of the campaigns that I volunteered on won, and it was at the state level, which was good, but losing this US House seat and also the Presidency was very disappointing. Never fear though, it won't be long before campaigning will start up again for different things, and we will be hard back at work at it!

Well, I guess that's it for now. Just wanted to let you know how things turned out for school . And catch up you on my back. Tell ya about Church things and Christmas coming up (so fast!).
I hope that ya'll are doing well. I hope that everyone who was also in college this fall and is now on break, did well also. I prayed for all of us.

Ya'll enjoy your Christmas season with your family and friends. Remember that JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON! And don't be afraid to say 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' to people instead of the politically correct 'Happy Holidays'. Say it loud and proud!! May God bless you and yours at this special time of year!

"O, Holy Night" by Josh Groban:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTgMe5demPc

1 comment:

Neo said...

good job on the math exam. Are you sure you and hubby are getting divorced? Just seems you rely on him alot and he does come through, just think about it, not that I know the situation at all but...
stay in touch I like to hear whats good, and btw Merry Christmas if I don't hear from you before you are in my prayers, even though I don't formally pray much