A Time for Sadness

Life has taken a very unexpected turn this week. On Monday night, we got a call that my grandmother had taken a severe turn for the worst and was basically non-responsive. On Tuesday morning we were told by Hospice that her body was basically shutting down and she would probaby not last 2 days. So, after scrambling around to get a week's worth of work done in 1 hour, and throwing clothes in a bag, we picked Mikayla up from school and headed straight to SC.

My grandmother has had Parkinsons for almost 10 years now and has had ups and downs over the years, so this is really no surprise. But that doesn't make these final days any easier. Even though it's not a great time in our lives, God is still continually reminding me of the blessings he's given me. I'm so grateful for memories.....laying in bed I can remember every detail of Mimi's house, times when I'd spend the night, shelling peas and eating popcorn while watching the Atlanta Braves, shopping trips with Mimi and Mom, holidays together....a woman alive and active and full of life and love. These are the ways I want to remember her; not laying in a nursing home withered and dying. The hardest part but the greatest part of these days is remembering her life and the times I've had with her for over 31 years. And it's so sweet to watch people file through and talk to her, cry and basically share this time of grief with us....her husband of 65+ years, my Mom the only child, the grandchildren, church friends, relatives, Hospice staff and the nursing home staff who call as often as family to check on her and tell her they love her. God has surrounded my Mimi with love in her final days....just like she surrounded us all with love and life for over 85 years.

So, yes we're sad....but we know that Mimi has walked with God for almost all of her life and she's been ready to go for quite some time now. And it's such a comfort to know that "absent from the body is present with the Lord". Thank God for the comfort of Scripture! There is a time for sadness, but there will also be "joy in the morning".

Thank God for the Little Things

You know, part of the fun of being a Christian is the way you can be going along in your normal, everyday life and God just throws little blessings or bits of fun your way. I know being in ministry is hard and a lot of the time it's very taxing to be really involved in a church, or even a community endeavor, club, etc. But sometimes, God just gives you little things that make it so rewarding....and not even spiritual blessings or answers to prayer, but fun stuff you'd never think you'd get to do otherwise.

One little thing I'm thanking God for is the rain. You might not know, but GA has been in a severe drought for months. To the point where they don't want you watering your lawn or washing your car at all. But starting on Thanksgiving day we have had rain every day and today it's just been coming down constantly. Now, I'm not a huge fan of rain over a long period of time because I find it depressing, especially when it's cool outside at the same time. But I'm so thankful for these few days of rain God has sent our way that it's not that big a deal to have to dress warmly, get my car dirty every time I drive it, and end up with rain droplets on me everywhere we go! This rain will, by no means, end our drought....but you know, at least it's not 3 years without rain like with Elijah in the Old Testament!

Then we thought since we had to cancel our Thanksgiving this year due to MAC's sickness, it'd be kind of boring. Well, thank God for family because we had a very nice Thanksgiving day with the in-laws, then yesterday afternoon we had an impromptu lunch with the entire family here, and we had some free time to take our 2 kids to see "Bee Movie". It's so nice to just be able to relax and spend some down time with family instead of worrying about gas prices during traveling, going back to work more exhausted than when we left, etc. So, thank God for family!

And finally, thank God for those "extras." This is where God just throws fun things your way! We were sleeping in on Saturday and the phone rang at 9am. I let it go and tried to go back to sleep but it kept bugging me, so I finally got up and checked messages. Turns out one of our church teenager's family had 6 extra tickets to the UGA/Ga Tech game that afternoon!! They offered them to us for free, so we hopped in the shower, dressed warmly (turns out not warmly enough) and took off for Atlanta. I haven't been to a UGA game in 5 years and to be able to go to this game where MAC cheers for one team and I cheer for the other is second only behind my dream to go to the UGA/Florida game in Jacksonville some year! So, for the cost of parking and 2 meals, we got to see an awesome game on a cool fall day and all because, I believe, God just likes to bless us every now and then with things that make us happy!

So, keep your eyes open! Maybe God will be sending a special and fun blessing your way today :-)

The Ever-Changing Wedding Ring

Even though MAC is still sick (more on that later), I went shopping for a new wedding ring today by myself. If you know me at all, you know that when I decide it's time to do something, it's like a bee buzzing around my head and I HAVE to do it right away!! So, off to shop for rings I went! When MAC proposed he gave me a family ring that his parents had made to suit me, then on our 3rd anniversary, I got another diamond ring to replace that one. I've been telling MAC for years that for our 10th anniversary (in 2 weeks) that I wanted a new diamond ring. There are just so many choices out there it's hard to decide. Plus there's the tendency to want more than can be afforded :-) So, I brought home several ideas for MAC today (you should see the eyeroll at the prices) and hopefully tomorrow he'll feel more like braving the holiday crowds for some jewelry shopping. Guess what he wants for our anniverary? Bet you can't guess....a BandFlex. Like a Bowflex but with bands instead of bows. Hmmm.....guess who's still pretty much in shape after 10 years of marriage and who's the one who's put on 50 pounds? I told him he can work out on his BandFlex, but I want a big fat diamond so the shine from the ring will distract people from my "overweightness"! Good reason for a new right, right? I thought so!

As for MAC's ongoing sickness, his mom finally convinced him to see a doctor. After waiting 4.5 hours at the Med-Stop today he was told he has bronchitis which is 3/4 of the way to pneumonia. No wonder he felt so bad! He's on 2 antibiotics and is feeling slightly better tonight. Doc said he should feel much better within 2 days. However, hopefully he'll feel up to taking the kids to the movies tomorrow and visiting a few jewelry stores :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Just wanted to wish all my blog readers a Happy Thanksgiving!

We ate at Michael's parent's house, just with them, which is a big change from our usual habits of traveling 7 hours of TN or spending the holiday with my parents. It was a nice, quiet meal and we stayed most the the rest of the day and just talked which is so rare with our busy schedules. All in all, a very relaxing day. Plus, I have to say, when MAC first said we'd be staying home I was intimidated by having to come up with an entire Tgiving meal on my own.....but since his parents didn't travel either all I had to make was my Mom's delicious squash casserole, my awesome mashed potatoes (also inherited from Mom) and an Edward's Lemon Meringue pie from the freezer at Winn Dixie! I'll take that easy holiday meal any day!

MAC is still very ill and will be visiting the doctor tomorrow (a very last resort for him). His mom, a nurse, thinks he has bronchitis so he might be looking at taking some antibiotics. I'll just be glad when he's over this stuff....for all our sakes :-)

Sam, if you read this entry, we thought of you today out in the desert. Hope you got some decent food and maybe got to talk to your wife. We miss our adopted son!

Our not-so-exciting weekend....

You know, sometimes blogging is very boring....because our life is very boring...and there's nothing exciting to write about. But in the interest of not falling behind with my blog, here were the events of our boring weekend.

MAC - laid around the house all weekend looking pitiful, coughing, snorting and napping. As you can probably tell, he's the one still really sick. He did get up enough gumption to watch some football with me between naps and work on his youth meeting lesson which, regardless of feeling like crap, he still taught last night.

Heather - I worked on Saturday morning for about 1 hour (gotta love the flexible work schedule), then went to the mall and bought a few things at the big Belks sale including....dum dum dum....the elusize pair of khaki pants! They're not what I was dreaming of in the perfect pair, but they're a nice inbetween khaki color, they fit pretty well and they were only $20! So, that was a dream come true there! Came home and watched football the rest of the day (this is what we do during the fall....watch football all day).

Matthew and Mikayla got to attend a neighbor's birthday party at Burger King on Saturday night and the folks told me to go on home and they'd bring the kids home when the party was over, which was super nice. So, all in all, a rather boring day. Sunday we had a Tgiving lunch provided by the deacons after the Sunday morning service, so I told MAC to get himself up and we were going to go to church so we could get a free lunch. I'm not joking about that! Anyway, after our free lunch we came home and took naps, then went back to church for our annual joint Tgiving service with the area Presbyterian churches and then had a late youth group meeting which MAC managed to teach despite his illness. Then we came home and went to bed. Woohoo....exciting, huh? Well, blogging can't always be about the excitement....so stayed tuned....maybe something dramatic will happen today or tomorrow!

Sick and tired of being sick and tired!!!!!

This week has just been awesome....and I say that sarcastically. I've been fighting off a cold for over a week and just when you think it's going to go away...BAM....it comes back with a vengeance. And good ole' MAC, who was on the verge of getting the same thing went to an outdoor bonfire for the teens and woke up the next morning with a trip to FL planned for work and feeling like crap. So we have coughed, moaned, sneezed and generally just sludged through this week. Sounds like fun, right? Well, don't feel obligated to tell us you hope we feel better cause it looks like things are looking up....but with kids in the house who wants to bet they'll come down the same thing next weekend while they're on Tgiving break? LOL

In other news, Mikayla had her first big "work at home" graded project this week. She had to do a poster on Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice. Just let me say, it was one of the hardest things I've done recently to just sit back and let her do her poster her way. She pulled an article off Wikipedia herself, read it and underlined what she wanted to use on her poster and basically all I did was print off the pictures for her and help her organize the project into what to do first, second, third, etc. However, when it came time for her to actually put the poster together, I had to get up and literally walk away to keep myself from taking over. I mean, I want her to get a 100 and want it to look perfect and if we could help it would have been AWESOME! LOL But, it's her project and her grade, so I bit my tongue, stepped away and let her do her thing. And honestly, it didn't turn out too bad, although it definitely looked like a 3rd grader did it on her first attempt. But she was proud of it and the teacher said we helped her just the right amount. So, hopefully, she'll get a decent grade for it. But this whole thing does not bode well for future large projects that she brings home to work on. Maybe MAC will be doing more work on helping with homework in the future, unless I can get my "perfectionist" gene under control!

Michael's going back to school :-)

That title is a big statement, even though it seems simple. MAC has been planning to go to seminary for 10 years. When we first got married, we requested packets of info and applications from several seminaries - both Baptist and Reformed. When he felt that his beliefs about Scripture were leading him to a Reformed seminary, we hit some roadblocks. For one, most of the Reformed schools require a session or elder recommendation and as much as we loved Dr. Surrett and respected his ministry at Emmanuel in Kings Mountain, we doubted highly that he would give MAC a recommendation to go to a Calvinistic seminary! So he put the seminary plans on hold and we worked with youth in NC for 5 years. Then when we moved to GA and broke ties with our "Baptist heritage" the subject of seminary came up again; but he had told his father that he'd work for him for 5 years in the family business. And working 40 hours a week and traveling all over the middle GA area servicing computers is not conducive to working on master's level courses. So, again, we felt God saying "Wait!" And so he did everything he could in the meantime to prepare. He came under care of the session at our church 3 years ago and began working closely with a ruling elder in the church in order to be better prepared for seminary when the time came. Another obstacle was that we wanted to put him through seminary without acquiring student loans...basically this meant saving up for classes ahead of time and if you know us, we are definitely not savers! Finally, Matthew was old enough for school and I was able to go back to work very part time, but enough for us to have some extra money for classes. After having to write an extensive paper to prove that his education received at Ambassador was good enough to get him into seminary (gotta love unaccredited colleges!), he was finally accepted into seminary last September for enrollment in the winter quarter beginning in January. So, we were all excited and he was choosing a class to take.....and then our house developed a crack running the entire length of the foundation. $12000 later, our house was repaired, but there was no money left for seminary. This was very discouraging; but what can you do when God shuts the door yet again? This summer I approached my boss about working on Saturday mornings so we would have more money to set aside for seminary and thankfully, the Lord has blessed enough for us to once again put money into savings. And, praise the Lord, MAC enrolled in his first seminary class last week and the books for the course are already on their way. He hopes to get a big headstart on the reading required for the course which starts January 4th. He'll be driving to Atlanta and going to classes at Reformed Theological Seminary on Friday and all day Saturday for several weekends. Then he'll have a set period of time after the classes are over to finish the course work and turn it in.

This is a big step for our family in many ways. Not only is it extremely expensive financially, but it means having to balance our family life and other activities even more, so that he has time to study but still has family, youth work, and fun time. I know that we'll have to fight for our family time, which we've always tried to make a priority; and MAC will be cutting back on his youth work and teaching schedule at church in order to accommodate his studying. And luxuries like golf and outings will be cut back due to budgeting (at least riding a motorcycle isn't too expensive!); but we believe that this is what God wants us to be doing and are so happy that after 10 years of dreaming he's finally on his way to earning a master's degree - even if it is one class at a time.

But at this rate, that doctorate he wants to get? That'll be when we're grandparents :-) So, pray for us and all the changes that are ahead. I'm thankful to the Lord for the timing of all this, even though it seems so slow by our standards. I'm glad for the 10 years of marriage we've had to strengthen our home, our marriage and our family before we go through these coming years....cause I know they'll be tough!

The Year of the Concert

Today, I had a friend call to inform me that Keith Urban will be making a stop in GA next year on a combined tour with Carrie Underwood. Now, I am not a fan of country music.....but I'd sit in the rain in December to watch Keith Urban play! This got me thinking that this has really been "the year of the concert" for the Collins family.

Most of you know that we adore music, of almost any type except rap, and it plays pretty much constantly in our vehicles, offices and lots of times at home too. Mikayla has a clock radio and goes to sleep with it on every night. I can probably remember only 3-4 times in the entire past year that I have been driving and turned the radio off completely. We do enjoy our music :-) And as it turns out, we have enjoyed lots of concerts this year, too. There's just something different about hearing a group live! Feeling the music inside your body is something that just can't be explained; and with subwoofers the size of my car from floor to ceiling, you can ALWAYS feel the music.

We saw My Chemical Romance in April, which was - by far - one of the most entertaining and energetic things I've been to in my entire life. Thoroughly enjoyed it and would go back in a heartbeat if they came anywhere near GA. Took Mikayla to see Keith Urban in Atlanta back in June since that's her favorite artist. What a great show and the artist is hot, too! I think Mikayla was completely overwhelmed by the sounds, sights, etc....but she said she had a great time. Michael went to Projkt Revolution in August, an outdoor concert where it was 105 in the shade. I missed that one due to the kids starting school the day before. He loved the entire experience (an all day rock concert...one band after another) and is now a big Linkin Park fan. I wouldn't consider it a "concert", per se, but we saw the Phantom of the Opera in Birmingham a few weekends ago....another gotta see it live type experience. This was our third or fourth time for that, and we'll continue to see it every few years until they are no longer running. One of the best soundtracks and romances of all time. Then last weekend we went to a triple billing, Plain White Ts, Gymclass Heroes, and Fall Out Boy. All completely different, but all great experiences. We hope to continue this trend in years to come. After all, Metallica is touring next year.....and we missed the Alice in Chains/Velvet Revolver tour this year. I plan to see Slash play live before I die!

So, if you ever get a chance, pony up the $40 on ticketmaster and go to a live concert! You'll never view music in the same way and there's nothing like jumping up and down, with your hands in the air and screaming lyrics at the top of your lungs with 30,000 other people! Better than singing in the shower any day :-)

The Unlucky Search for Pants

First, I want to say "Thanks" to everyone for their comments on Mikayla and her possible ADD diagnosis. We're just going to encourage her as much as possible between now and her appointment in January to pay attention and focus...also doing research in the interim period to evaluate all options of treatment. If she does have ADD, I believe it's borderline. Anyway, I'll keep everybody posted on her progress over the coming months.

Well, this entry in my blog is aptly titled after one of my peeves with the retail industry. I have been looking for a pair of khaki pants....you know, just plain cotton pants in a light brown color....for about 2 months. I have several sweaters and outfits in my closet just begging to be worn, but no pants to match them! I have ordered khaki pants from every online retailer that I trust (most of our shopping is done online these days) and have spent a good bit of money sending them back because they don't fit. Now, if you know me, and most of you do, I am not the smallest woman in America and freely admit this. Everyone has their sizing issues, and mine consist of a larger than average rear end and huge thighs. Most retailers do not make pants to accomodate these things very easily! After trying all my online options, I decided to just look in the stores as I have time and see if they have anything that would work. I visited the GAP last weekend in my unlucky search for pants. Now, the GAP is historically known for selling nice quality basics....and above all jeans and chinos (khaki pants). Well, this is not the GAP of old. They had 3 pairs of khaki pants in the entire store, and all of them were the wide leg variety. Now, I have nothing against wide leg pants and own several pairs; however, when you're a larger woman and you have to get a large size (say a 14!), the said "wide legs" on these pants are wide enough for 4 people's legs to fit comfortably! The leg opening at the bottom engulfs your entire shoe! So, the GAP no longer specializes in khaki pants....although they had about 20 different styles and varieties of black pants. Hmmm.... Anyway, I do recommend their jeans if you happen to have my body type. They're some of the best fitting, if more expensive, jeans for us bigger bottomed women.

So, my search for khaki pants continues at Old Navy this weekend. Again, a pet peeve. They had 1-2 pairs of khaki pants in their entire store....and these were the "lowest rise" variety. Meaning that when you bend over, sit down, or make the tiniest movement they drift down your buttocks and show your rear end. This is not a pretty site....and these pants are usually the cause of the dreaded "muffin top" which can make ever the smallest girl look overweight. So, yet again, a strike out.

My quest for a pair of khaki pants that fits continues.....stay posted for further developments! LOL Actually, this seems really frivolous compared to my previous post; but you can't be serious all the time and I am really determined to find a pair of khaki pants :-)

Until next time.....

ADD, anyone?

This is a wonderful start to a blog, but honestly, it's the latest major happening in the Collins' household. Yesterday was the first parent/teacher conference of the year at Mikayla's school and I was informed - very nicely, by the way - from her teacher that she might have ADD. This isn't something new to us, since her teachers have told us this every year since she was in K-3 - but we assumed she would grow out of it, it was only a borderline condition, and she always did so well in school (usually above average and scores very highly on tests) that we didn't give it much thought. But yesterday's conference really hit hard. Basically, the teacher told me that Mikayla has SO much potential that she's not even reaching because she just can't seem to focus at school. She wants to recommend Mikayla for "Focus Group Classes" (gifted classes) but is hesitant because of the large amount of testing to qualify. We know about the testing because she's been recommened for Focus Group Classes before but could not pass the battery of state tests in the Math/logical thinking areas. Usually, Mikayla's "zone-out" times were in Math, but now it's starting to affect her language arts/writing skills which she has always excelled at. On a side note, can I just say that what is expected of students in school today is NOT what was expected of us when we were in elementary school 20 years ago! She is working on long division and writing early stage term papers (research, note cards, glossary, etc). These things don't work when you can't focus or group activities into logical sequences. To make a long story short, this was a major blow! Part of it is pride on my part - I don't want my child to have psychological problems or a learning deficiency, I want her to be perfect! But at the same time, how can I not attempt to help her reach her full potential in school? So, after much talk, research and tears last night I called made an appointment for her with a psychologist this morning. Funny - we couldn't get an appointment for 2 MONTHS the doctor was backed up so far. Anyway, we're going to have her evaluated to see if she does indeed have ADD, then we'll look into options besides medication since I believe medication should be a last resort.

It's so hard for me to understand this problem because my mind is almost over-organized and my ability to focus is not a problem. Michael, however, still struggles with his ADD and knows exactly how she feels and operates. At least God gave me a partner who can help understand and deal with this on a very personal basis! So, there you have it.....the latest excitement in the Collins family. Now it's time for me to clean bathtubs :-)