HOT!!

HOT!! HOT!! HOT!!

We are greatly regretting not taking my brother Curt's advice when we were building our house long ago and put in central air.  There are fourteen days a year we regret it greatly, and the rest of the 351 days we get along just fine.

This is day one of fourteen, I'm thinking.

We are not "green" so much, as I think it is more due to the fact that I always worked with people who were hotter than me, consequently causing me to freeze all day, and it would take me two hours to warm up when walking outside into the hot, humid air late in the day.  And, air conditioning has always made me sick.  Like, summer-cold type sick all summer, so we just kind of decided we wouldn't need it.

We like the windows open, and fresh air.  We like to "feel" the seasons.  And trust me, we are certainly "feeling" summer today.    

Plus, we failed to take into account that we had always lived in houses with lots of trees surrounding them.  We finally got a few to grow and the one central maple is providing awesome shade now - but not enough to keep a house cool yet.  We measure it each summer by how much shade it provides - like, after five years, it was "a two person shade tree"; then a couple of years later, you could put the table under it and be shaded; now, I'm thinking the whole family could squeeze under it and be good.

But, today, I'm pretty sure we change over to the air window units.

***

It is amazing how much better I feel for some long stretches of time.  (Long stretches of time for me equals a couple of hours.)  Wednesday was not such a good wake-up day, then we spent the day in the car driving in the bright sunshine, and it just kind of all came undone.

After my appointment, we were so hungry that we ate at Steak-n-Shake -- not such a wise move on my part.  I should have stuck with my sterile plastic spoon and tub of peaches.  But, that steak-burger and french fries and chocolate milkshake were so good going down, then sadly, it suddenly occurred to me that my wailing stomach is still boss.  

It was the first time in a long time we were able to do fast-food for me.  Scott watched me with mixed anticipation.

I still should not eat dairy.  Or that much quantity in one sitting.  Or that much grease.

But, even though I am less than half the woman I used to be, I am feeling better.  I feel like I have topped the hills in Southern Ohio and am looking at the whole range of Appalachian mountains ahead, but I am topping hills at least now.

Still tired as all get out some hours of some days, but feeling better.

If only my stomach would agree.

***

Scott had four ton of stone delivered while we were gone yesterday, and decided that today - the hottest day of the year - he is wheel-barrowing it back to the garden paths.

He .  is . crazy.

But he has the garden in pretty amazing shape.

If I could figure out my issues with google blogger I would post some pictures.  Blogger and I are no longer friends.  I could not even correct the hi-liting issue on the last blog entry.  It might have something to do with the fact that at least three security services are trying to take over 'Dell' here.

Computers and I have issues when my brain is working well.  Now, I'm just trying to glare at it, and make it go away with wishful thinking.

Apparently, I also have issues with my cell phone, which I still consider 'new' to me as I got it the night before I started treatment in January.  We were driving by the Verizon building on I270 on our way to stay over at Kristi and Cal's and I am talking to a Verizon rep in Washington state.  A rep that I think was taking advantage of the laxer marijuana laws on the west coast.

I haven't had enough brain power to just sit down and call them back and really learn the phone.  What might be even better soon, is that I just march my half-brain into one of their stores and have them show me how to use it, and update it, and sync it, etc, etc, etc.

It has been handy for Scott and I to use for Solitaire games while waiting in medical facilities.  We trade off the small computer and the phone to keep us distracted.

Honestly, what in the world did patients do ten years ago while waiting whole days???

***

We read some disturbing things online last week while looking for something, something to take care of chemo-headaches while waiting on my doctor to call back.  There was a German study on Taxol that I could not peel my eyes off of.

It wasn't so positive.

Then, the Bible reading for last Sabbath was pretty much all on trust.  Trusting God in the midst of chaos and trusting that He will work.  Sometimes, some awful things happen in those same passages as well, and having Stoneburner blood coursing through my veins, I'm not one to think that throwing my brain over to "positive thinking" is everything Norman Vincent Peale leads one to believe.

So I'm mulling over if we as a nation believe that trusting God is just positive thinking?  I know it is God's grace that is holding us and keeping us now, but sometimes that lands a little askew when it is a phrase thrown out there as an 'encouragement' for those in the valley.

As I'm thinking this over on a little bit deeper level now, I want to know what is really the bottom line truth - do we just bop through life and throw out 'truisms' and not really understand what trusting God is all about?

I don't have any answers, but listening to 'Ray' again last night helped me develop what I have believed for a long time, and cannot put into words - sometimes God's will sucks.  Or better rephrased, sometimes we in North America expect that God is not about suffering.

He is.

If we were to plop ourselves in any church other than North America or another nation that has decent medical care, most of us would be mourning a child we had lost.  Or evil we had seen with our own eyes.  Or, making big choices about what we believe because it might cost us some pain and suffering or even life itself.

All I know, is that sometimes we make it too easy and easily accuse others of lack of faith, when really, faith might be more about walking through the "sucky" times when you can't put a positive spin on it - and still believing.

Some believe we have been through enough bad times already.

I don't even compare to what some suffer in China.  What some have suffered in Africa.  What some are enduring this moment in a lot of circumstances that are anything but pleasant, but they know God is right there beside them.

And I don't know how I even got here, so I will blame it on the heat.

But I know God is good all the time.  I know He is mighty.  I know He hears and He heals.

I know He is good whether I am freezing in Siberia or sweating in Ohio.

And more-so than I will ever know.