Dear Jude

My baby cousin Jude is 6 months old. He was just diagnosed with Neuroblastoma yesterday. Today is his surgery, at noon. Would you please keep him in your prayers? Please also keep his parents in your prayers. Praise the Lord that they caught the cancer early! That's encouraging! Its so surreal. You know it happens to other people's families, and you feel bad for them and keep them in your prayers, but you never think it could happen to your family, especially not to a baby cousin. We're in Amarillo right now and helping to take care of James, Jude's older brother. Hopefully we'll get to see Jude before he goes into surgery! Could you also pray that Jude's blood will clot so they can perform the surgery, as well as for the doctors?

The Handy Man and Driving

       Our Dad is very talented. He's a doctor most of the time, a handy man and carpenter the rest of the time. He can paint and is a wonderful photographer. He also is very patient and calm when instructing his daughters who tend to over-react while driving. ;)

       So today Maddy and I decided to go with our Dad to help him put a lock on one of the doors at his office. To make story short, we weren't much help, except for finding ways to bring in more light (the part of the building we were in didn't have lights yet), bringing some noise to the really quiet building, trying to stable the door while our dad drilled and we vaccuumed. Other than that, we were no more help to him than our little yorkie would have. lol. But we had fun hanging out with our dad in the meantime.

Driving

       Maddy has her permit now and Dad was very kind and let her drive there, and I was in the back seat of the truck praying REALLY hard that we'd actually make it to his office alive. Maddy has always been the reckless one, ever since we were tiny. She ran everywhere and always got herself hurt. Now she's the reckless driver. *gulp* I'm the cautious driver, just saying. I'm always terrified I'm too close to the other lane and so I normally wind up on the edge of the road. Maddy, on the other hand, practically drives in the wrong lane! To say the least, its terrifying. And I must say, I need to be more encouraging when she's driving since I normally say things like, "STOP DRIVING IN THE OPPOSITE LANE! I'M GOING TO BE HIT!" ahem.

Dream On

~According to legend, if you rub yourself with the herb marjoram (or anoint yourself with it) before going to sleep, you'll supposedly dream of your future spouse. ~

 

That tickled me when I read it, so OF COURSE I had to try it. Just for fun though, since I don't believe in superstitions. And last night was the perfect time to try it, because it's no fun doing this kind of thing by yourself! My dear friend Katie spent the night, and I had mentioned it when she first came over, but with all our talking, watching Downton Abbey, and talking some more0 until 1:30 in the morning, I nearly forgot it. I was almost asleep when I suddenly remembered and probably scared Katie half to death by jumping upright and yelling "MARJORAM!" After scrambling for a light, I burst into Maddy's room, because my sister had to participate too! So after grabbing the herb from the kitchen, I came back to my room, where all of us perched on my bed and then found out it was ground marjoram, instead of marjoram leaves. Although we didn't know what to do with it at first, we decided to rub it on our arms since it was a powder. I couldn't wait to drift off to sleep.

Next thing I know the alarm is going off and I groggily asked Katie if she had any dreams about a "future possibility." Nope, no dreams at all. Neither did Maddy. I had dreams, but they were all about some weird concert or speech and there were SO many people that I couldn't even began to sort out if there was one person who reoccurred in my dreams. haha. Serves us right. But ya never know. It's still a fun idea for a slumber party or something funny you can do with your sister(s).

A few more hilarious ideas are:

~Sleep with yarrow under your pillow to dream of your true love. To make marriage certain and soon, slip in some orange leaves with the yarrow.
~Tie 3 laurel leaves to the foot of you bed and your love will be blind to everyone but you. (Yeah right!)

~If you are a woman, offer your intended a spring of basil. If he accepts, you have won him. If that fails, bathe in warm water to which a cupful of rose petals and a teaspoon of dill seeds have been added.

The only problem is, that if you do dream of someone you have a fancy for, this might make some ladies a little desperate and make some silly mistakes. Don't really hand a guy a bunch of basil...its WAY too obvious. ;)

Today's news was horrible. Those poor people in Japan! First the earthquake, then the tsunami, and now the radiation from the nuclear plant! What next? If it wasn't for knowing that God was in control of all, I think I would lose it. Please remember to keep the people who have been affected by these disasters in your prayers, and also for the people going to aid them!

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake in their surging."

~Psalm 46: 1-3