"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Did ya miss me?!? Poor Pepto 'bout fell out of her chair when she saw me editing my journal! I'm sure you're double checking the title to make sure you're on the correct page. Let me assure you, you are indeed reading the first update to SebbieDue's journal in well over three months. You heard me right, three months! Sheesh. I'm sorry if I worried you, but like Mr Twain at the time of his quote, I'm still alive and kickin'.

I promised some news to dear HBM, as she was in need of a fix, but before I get into catching y'all up on the Seuss family, may I ask for prayer?

My mother-in-law is going in for surgery to remove a large mass from her pelvic region. Six months ago, she got a clean bill of health at her physical, but 3 weeks ago, on the flight over to Germany, no less, she was unable to urinate and in quite a lot of pain. There were actually several doctors on the flight, which were able to make her comfortable until they landed. They went straight to the US military hospital, which couldn't find a thing (!). She toughed it out for 2 weeks, unable to urinate w/o assistance (cath) and cut their visit short and returned to the U.S. To make a long story short, they found a cyst, 6 inches in diameter (!) which must be removed (it was pressing on her urethra which caused the above mentioned symptoms). Surgery is scheduled for Monday, at which time they will remove it and send it to the lab, the results of the tests will determine whether or not they remove anything but the cyst. So far, her white count is down, which is a good sign. This is a very scary time for the family. Please keep her in your prayers. :)

On to the news...

We are in the midst of passing an "uggy bug" (as Ying used to refer to a stomach virus) around the family. So far, Ying, Yang, CLW, Thing2, and I have each had it. Cat is sooooo looking forward to getting it, since it's quite likely as he just got over a different uggy bug a couple of weeks ago, so his immunity's probably compromised.

I've been somewhat overwhelmed with life lately. So much to do...all good things, but I just can't do them all. I just can't fit breakfast, homeschooling, lunch, and the gym, all in before I go to work, not w/o getting up at 8am, but when I don't get to sleep until 2am, it's tough to do. So, needless to say, the gym has fallen off my plate. All that money... well, my work schedule is getting ready to change, so hopefully that will give me a couple more hours in the mornings so I can pick it back up again.

Speaking of work, that's part of my big news. I'm taking a new position at work. It will take advantage of more of my programming experience and pay considerably better. The pay increase will allow Cat to quit his weekend job altogether. It will still be a second shift position, which will allow us to continue to homeschool (a prerequisite for any job), but the days and hours will change. I'll work M-F when it starts, instead of working four ten-hour days.

There are good and bad things w/ this change. Obviously, the good things are more money, same days off as Cat, uh....more money. And the bad thing is, well, it's not really a bad thing, but it will require a big change for me. I'll actually be very busy at work. I will have a full eight-hour day of work each day, which will make the days/nights go quickly. It is a very big change from the job I have right now which has a good bit of free time, so I will have to make some hard decisions. Currently, I do a lot of my ministry stuff while I'm here at work, during the down times. I also do quite a bit of homeschool research/planning. All this will have to be reevaluated. I will only be able to continue doing the stuff that I can fit into the weekends, because weekdays will continue to be full. However, I have to remember that my weekends are now only two days long, rather than the three I was used to. They will also be Cat's days off, so, like I said, I need to do some praying and soul searching.

I still don't have a start date for the new job. It keeps getting delayed. So I probably have a few more weeks to work this all out.

The second bit of news is actually the big news. Thing1 & Crispani are engaged! I don't even know what to say about it, though I've had a month or so to get used to the idea. Everything inside me wants to drag her by the ear into the basement and not let her out for another five years, at least. She is so young, they both are. I just wasn't ready for this. On the flip side, I know that if they put Jesus at the center of their relationship, it will succeed. On the other hand, He's not central to either of them right now. On the flip side of that hand, they are not rushing things. They have a pretty lengthy list of items they'd like to accomplish before they marry, so they have some time to mature and for the Spirit to work on them both. Keep them in your prayers. Also GuitarMan, BeautifulArt, Cat, and me...we could use them too.

So yeah.

In other news, Thing2 is doing well. He scheduled his classes for next year, which will include three honors classes (English, History & Science)!  Wow.

Ying and Yang are such a pain in the petootie (petuty?) right now! They fight all the time! When they are separated, they're both angels, together they are truly NOT angels. I love 'em more than life, though!

CLW is sooooo cute. She's talking a lot now. She said her first more-than-two-word sentence the other day. She told T2, "Daddy get me wedto go bye-bye."

Cat told me last night, they were sitting on the porch and she  started pointing and yelling, "Babies, babies!" He couldn't figure out what she was talking about until he looked down and saw a bunch of ants crawling around on the ground. Too funny. She's such a gem!

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to make my updates more timely in the future. Enjoy your weekend!