Heart attack

I must tell you what my darling 2nd grade boy whom I work with daily did to me today. It is a miracle I am alive to tell you! But before I begin, I must give you a little background. This wonderful boy is a naturalist, and for pets in his house, he has 2 tarantulas, 1 snake, 2 mice, 3 rabbits, 3 turtles, 1 african water frog, 1 fish, and he recently got rid of 2 guinea pigs. Okay? And now, the rest of the story....

Today, we went for a short walk around the school for an earned break. As we are walking, he is telling me the following story:

The pet store in Burlington that we usually go to called us this weekend. They have a rattlesnake at their store, and the aquarium tank they keep it in broke (very large tank) and they needed someone to take the snake until they could have a new one shipped (it was Memorial Day weekend, and they couldn't get one until at least Tuesday). Of course, they knew we had the giant turtle tank, so we said we'd take it for the weekend. Well, while they were cleaning out the tank, they noticed she had laid eggs. So they brought them to us in this envelope.



At this point, he pulls a small manila envelope from his pocket marked "Rattlesnake Eggs". Handle with extreme caution. Warning, venom very poisonous." So I say to my little friend, "Poison?? You shouldn't have that at school! We are taking it to the nurses office right now!" He shruggs his shoulders and says in reply, "Do you want to see them first?" He begins to open the envelope, and then adds, "They might have hatched over the weekend. As I begin to peer in, something comes out and makes a horrible sound! I screamed at the top of my lungs, and nearly died on the spot! I'm SURE my heart stopped beating for a couple beats! Here is a picture of what is inside the blasted envelope:



I was fit to be tied! He was cracking up... and if you knew this boy, he doesn't belly laugh all that often. He totally sold me, hook, line, and sinker! Evil child. Just kidding! He's a sweetheart... except today! I STILL LIKE YOU, BUDDY!!!!

Well, I'm falling asleep... here is a final picture (or two) of some baby robins hatching on my sister's porch in Maine today! Bye!


Two hatched, one to go!


Three featherless ... robins???? Yep, that's what they are, ya just can't tell yet! LOL!

Memorial Day Happenings

Hello all! Happy Memorial Day! Hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends today. We started our day with the memorial day parade here in town. Both boys were in the parade, as well as my husband. Good thing my mother-in-law and her husband came to watch the parade with me, or it would have been pretty lonely! Here are a few pictures....

This is the HUGE flag suspended over the parade route between two ladder trucks from area fire departments.

This is Adam on the first part of the cub scout float...




And this is Nick on the second part of the cub scout float.
My mother-in-law risked life and limb running in front of the fire truck to get a picture of Jason driving... so that picture is on HER camera. I'll edit this post and add that picture here once she emails the pic to me.

This next picture is one of my FAVORITES from the whole parade....



Ladies and gentlemen-this is a GORGEOUS 1965 RED MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE!!
What a beautiful piece of machinery. Mmmmm, mmmm! I wouldn't mind owning one of those, I'll tell ya!

Anyway, a couple more pics for ya....

Those of you from my church will recognize this amazing woman! This is Sis. Margaret from the New Alpha Baptist church, and she was singing her HEART out on that float today, along with the other choir members. That trailer they were on was bouncing back and forth so much with the rhythmn of the choir members singing and clapping their hands! It was cool! And lastly....




This is Craig and I... my husband and I are great friends with Craig and his wife Lisa. He is on the fire dept as well as the local rescue squad. Today he was marching with rescue. When I hollered out his name, he came running over, grabbed my camera, and said, "I've always wanted to do this when your husband wasn't around!" And he held out the camera and snapped our picture! It was so funny! I showed the picture to Jason, and he cracked up! Craig is a great guy!

So, those are the parade pictures of the day. The rest of the day consisted of a fire dept. barbeque, a visit to my mom and Ray's yard sale, where I managed to save my three LOVERBOY albums from being sold, and then off to my mother-in-law's house for an afternoon Home and Garden party, which was very fun! Here is a picture of my latest purchase from them (x2)...

My boys are wiped out, and not feeling so good this evening... we may have pushed too hard too soon after their sickness... I pray they don't relapse because that would be the pits for EVERYONE!!!!

Well, that is all for this evening. We are hoping to get our stuff back onto our brand new deck, so we can begin enjoying the evenings outside again! See ya soon!

Happy Birthday Julie!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JULIE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

I LOVE YOU JULIE! YOU ARE
THE BEST MOM-IN-LAW ANYONE
COULD EVER HOPE FOR!!!!

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!

LOVE, MICHELLE

Demolition pictures

As promised, here are some pictures of the porch demolition that occurred at our house today!



Let the destruction begin!



The place where the man is standing by the ladder is our kitchen windows.



These are the stairs right outside our kitchen door that lead up to the 3rd floor.


Watch that first step!!!! Going DOWN!

It's an exciting process! I'll post more later!

Noisy!

Hello, yes I am home from work with sick children today (again!!), and there is a lot of noise around here! They were supposed to start tearing our porch off like 10 days ago, but it has been RAINING non-stop for 10 days, so today is the first day of sun we've had. Actually it's not sunny, just NOT raining! So the porch is coming off today, and let me tell ya, it is a NOISY job! But it's kind of cool, too! My husband has the digital camera with him, and he will be taking pictures of the tear down process as soon as he gets home from his meeting. He took one already, and I will post them here once he takes some more! FINALLY! I'm excited to be getting a SAFE porch on our building.

Anyway, keep praying for my boys... both have fevers, both have a terrible cough, one is now vomiting. I just need to see the light at the end of the sickness tunnel!

Church last night was excellent! Matt preached about the devil's envy... he lost his job as worshipper of God, and WE GOT HIS JOB, and he can't have it back, and that infuriates him! It was an excellent excellent message! We had a very deep move of the Holy Ghost last night, and it was very refreshing.

Well, I will report back later with pictures of the teardown! Bye for now!

exhausted

Well, last night was our THIRD night in the ER with Nick this week. We are all totally exhausted. They did a CT scan last night, and found an inflammation that has a name so long I couldn't possibly begin to remember how to spell it here... anyway, it is not dangerous and will work its way out of his system in time... it has something to do with the lymph nodes?? Whatever. I'm so tired I can't see straight.

I can't even remember what I have posted this week, if anything... it's all a fog. But Wednesday was an important day for me... 14 years ago on May 17th was the day I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, speaking in another tongue as the Spirit of God gave me the ability! It was such an awesome experience!!! To know that you are born again in the Spirit is totally mind blowing! It is the indwelling of God's Spirit that raises you up to go to heaven forever. True. Lots of christian churches won't teach that because people don't want to hear it. They want to go to church on Sunday, hear a "feel good" message that says "be a good person and do good things, and you will go to heaven some day" and then go home and be a good person and do good things all week without digging into the Word of God on their own and seeing what it really truely says about getting to heaven!! That is uncool. I am SOOO thankful to my step sister for inviting me to a church that isn't afraid to preach what is in the Bible... ALL of it! Here are just a couple verses that talk about being filled with God's Spirit in order to be saved:

Roman 8:9-11

9But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all.) 10Since Christ lives within you, even though your body will die because of sin, your spirit is alive because you have been made right with God. 11The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John 3:3-5

3Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God."
4"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"
5Jesus replied, "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

To be filled with the Holy Ghost means to be BORN of the Spirit. To be buried in water in Jesus' Name in baptism means to be BORN of the water. I have done both (baptized in Jesus' name on Aug 2, 1992). I am His, and when He comes back for his church, He will have no problem recognizing me! My favorite place to be is in a church service where the Spirit of God is moving and the people are worshipping with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

If you think church is boring, you just haven't found a church where His Spirit is moving! Our church is so much fun, with very powerful and meaningful preaching and teaching. Check out our church website audio library to hear some of the most recent messages. Or if you'd rather WATCH a service, go to the website of my friend in Mississippi, where you can watch a stream of an entire service, music and preaching and more! Try it! You'll never regret it! Eternity is too long to be wrong!

www.readytobefree.com

Nick in the ER

Hello all.... what a looooonnnnnggggg night. Nick was having severe abdominal pain, beginning around 5:30 yesterday afternoon. He kept complaining, and I wrote it off as gas pains. But at bedtime he couldn't get to sleep because the pain was so sharp. By 2am, we knew we had more than gas pains on our hands. We called the doctor, and he advised us to take him to the ER. They suspected appendicitis, but drew his blood and found a normal white blood cell count. He had already gone to the bathroom, and I knew it wasn't dinner, because Jason finished Nick's dinner, and had no problems. Here's what I think....

When Nick was crying at bedtime and squirming all over his bed (keeping older brother awake), Adam came down off the top bunk and layed hands on Nick and prayed the prayer of faith, claiming that we do not serve a complicated God, and that healing is a fact, then claimed healing for Nick. It didn't get better right away, as the 2 am trip to the ER shows, but this morning, after about 5 hours of sleep, he is feeling no pain at all, and I believe God chose to heal Nick! Thank you Lord Jesus! He is relaxing, enjoying his day of rest (after being up all night, he NEEDS it!). God is so good!

New links in my sidebar!

OK... I'm exhausted. It has taken me hours to figure out how to put links to other websites on my blog in the sidebar. But I have overcome! It looks like NOTHING, compared to all the work it took me! But I now have permanent links to my local church website, the site for the United Pentecostal Church International, my favorite online magazine called Ninety and Nine, which is an apostolic pentecostal ezine, and finally, a link to my friend Britt's church in Memphis, TN... the Pentecostal Church pastored by Rev. Terry Black. They have AWESOME video of entire services... worship AND preaching! And lately you see several people in one service receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit and being baptized in water in the name of Jesus! It is exciting! Be sure to check out one of their services soon... use the link on my sidebar to get there! LOL! I'm beat... time for bed! Tomorrow is my Holy Ghost birthday! 14 years ago on May 17th, I was born again, speaking in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave me the ability! It was GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It still is, 14 years later! THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Porch

Hey, there is excitement brewing around here. We have lived in this apartment building for almost four years. Since we moved in, we've been hearing, "We'll be putting a new porch on your building this spring...." Spring has come and gone 3 times... and NOW.... the 4th spring is the charm!! The wood in this porch is so rotten you can stick your finger through the wood! Yeah. That is lawsuit material. If we had gotten any significant snowfall this past winter, the entire 3 story porch would surely have come crashing down off the building. But today, a flatbed truck LOADED with lumber showed up! YAY! The building next door to us already has the 3rd story section of porch removed... ours comes off in the next couple days! YAY! And so.... our door is getting boarded up so we don't "forget" and try to walk out the door and drop 20 feet.... WATCH THAT FIRST STEP... IT'S A DOOZY!!!! Any of you planning to come visit... you'll have to come in the front of the building. That will be obvious. Duh. Anyway, that is the current buzz around here.

Baseball is in full swing. We are at the field M, W, and F, which isn't too too bad. However, we have cub scouts on Tuesday. So that leaves only Thursday free.... free to study for spelling tests the following morning! :) Will be nice when it is all over and done with. At least I am getting my exercise! The boys play on fields that feel like miles apart! I have to walk forever to get from one game/practice to the other and back. phew!

How 'bout them Red Sox? They are currently giving the Yanks the smack down treatment... in the bottom of the 8th inning, the score is Sox 11, Yanks 3. Beautiful. But I am not dumb enough to think the Yanks can't beat us tomorrow.... we'll just have to wait and see. I am fairly content right now with an 11-3 score.

Well, that is all for now. Have a wonderful Wednesday tomorrow!

Nancy Grandquist concert review

WOW. Yep. That is what I have to say. This "concert" really wasn't a concert as much as it was a POWERFUL time of worshipping the Lord. The Holy Ghost was there in a sweet and powerful way this evening. The songs were fun and anointed at the same time. She sang lots of old time religion songs that go waaaaay back. She sang songs by some of the great singers of pentecost, like the McGruders and such. Her spontaneous worship at the keyboard was deep, leading us deeper into His presence. The Lord moved in such a beautiful way during the altar call. I wanted to stay till the end. I REALLY wanted the opportunity to actually MEET Nancy. But...

I had a pressing engagement at home with my 9 year old that I could not miss. He told me on the phone that he was ready to talk about what was bothering him when he got off the bus this afternoon, so I rushed out of the service and home to my son. I'm so glad I did. I want him to know that I am there for him, always willing to listen and support him. I don't want him feeling like he's less important than a "church service". He already knows that GOD is my top priority... but "services" do NOT come before family needs. I see the proper Godly order in life as 1. GOD 2. Husband 3. children 4. church 5. other stuff. I place church services AFTER my family, because in essence, those children are my "church". If I go to church services and neglect their needs, they will not see the benefit of serving God. To them, God will be something that took away the ones whom they depend on. Yes, there is a balance, and my children will grow up knowing the essential priority of putting God and service to God above other activities in everyday life.

Okay, done preaching. I must thank the ladies' dept. of our district for bringing Nancy here from California. She was a tremendous blessing to us here in the NH/VT district.

Today was an absolutely GORGEOUS spring day in Vermont! I took a couple pictures of the blue sky, white fluffy clouds, and "spring green" baby leaves bursting forth on the trees, which is about killing those of us with severe spring allergies! Once I have the opportunity to download them off the camera, I will post them up here. Until then, here is a prime offender in the pollen department, but my #1 absolute most favorite flower in the world! I am convinced that this is what heaven smells like...

They are only in bloom for 4-10 days, but sometimes the best things in life are brief and fleeting.... the lilacs here should be in full bloom in the next 3 weeks!

Blessings to you all! Thanks for reading!

Thinking on a musical train of thought

Hello... not really having too much focused information this evening. This week has really sucked the life out of me... I'll spare you the details. I am exhausted. So thinking in long connected thoughts is OUT tonight.

I do have a topic on my mind however. Concerts. Quite a few good ones coming up. Tomorrow I am going to see Nancy Grandquist, which I am VERY MUCH looking forward to! She is a wonderful singer/worship leader. It should be an excellent time of worship.

May 26th, which happens to be my sweet mother-in-law's birthday, is the Phillips, Craig, and Dean concert. Tickets are WAY expensive... not sure we'll make it to that one.

The other one I really really really want to go to is Israel Houghton and New Breed. WOW. They take worship to a whole new level... it is awesome! Click on the link to hear some of their music.... awesome!

Other than concerts... I just have cleaning my house on my mind. It is horrible. I am sitting here blogging when I should be cleaning. Yep. Guilty as charged. I suppose I should get OFF the computer and get to work. It's just that there never seems to be any REST or DOWNTIME. This IS my downtime. I've been going 100 mph since my feet hit the floor at 6:30 this morning... it is now 9:37 pm. That is 15 hours on the run. Tired. Guess it's time to hit the sack... after I do a LITTLE bit of cleaning. Night all!

Rainy days and baseball

It's a rainy day... I am tired. I stayed up way too late last night, but it was fun. My next door neighbor and I were out on the deck, relaxing, listening to a local structure fire on the scanner and the Red Sox / Yankees game on the radio.... by the way....


HOW 'BOUT THEM RED SOX???????????????? Yeah baby. That was a sweet game! I believe tonight's game will be rained out... it is currently 6:47 with a game time of 7:05, and it is RAINING in Boston. So.......

We are getting ready to play a game of charades (my boys and I), so I must depart for now.