Phisch's blog

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Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Pro 31:30

To all the wonderful moms I know out there who give up so much for their kids and have a lot of wisdom and love to pass on to their kids, Happy Mother's Day!

There are so many of you out there who have been really great examples to me and I really love to hear about what you go through with those little folks who gave you a reason to celebrate Mother's Day.

For the rest of you who haven't had the pleasure of knowing what it's like to have little folks of your own to make you melt when they give you "those looks" and make you want to tear your hair out when they their their hair out or make you laugh when they give you "looks"  just remember your own childhood. This is a special day to remember that mom's sure aren't perfect, but there's a very real reason most phone calls are made on this day (please don't tell me that's an urban legend). Give your mom a great big hug and give her an extra one for me.

For my boys.

Faithful are the Wounds of a Friend

February 1985 wasn't different from the norm, really. February 1 was celebrated of course and it was with flowers and cake. Mommy turned 42. I was looking forward to cake all week and more cake seven days later when I would turn 15.

But I was most certainly *not* looking forward to the presentation I had to make in health class. I was working on the health issues that came with the vice of smoking. I had researched the organs affected beginning with the fine cillia in the nasal cavity all the way down to the major ones, the lungs. Emphysema, got that down of course but I also did a lot of research on the big "C."

The symptoms of cancer include, among others, fatigue and coughing up blood.

For a few weeks now, Mommy had been dealing with both. I had been giving her hissy fits (not to excuse them but it comes with teenage girl territory) because she and my dad had been working late. Maybe she was trying to avoid my hissy fits by working? It was a vicious circle, if that was the case. But she would still cough up blood. I would mentally chide myself for putting two and two together.

In the middle of the following March, we had a very, very, very rare family conference. It wasn't good. It took my parents about two weeks (as I remember from mental calculations I made at the time) to finally get to this point of talking to us kids.

I don't remember how  most of the talk went. Daddy did most of it. "Kids, your mom has lung cancer..."

He did tell us what the doctors were going to do, how long it would take and that they weren't sure what the results would be. I didn't want to tell them that I knew. Somehow, that would ring hollow or sound presumptuous or both.

I was a little upset that I knew it was cancer because in some contrived and twisted way I felt responsible. In hindsight, God was just preparing me for what would happen. Getting the chance to know about it ahead of time made it easier for me to handle when we were finally told.

Not long after, Mommy had major surgery to remove her right lung and then underwent aggressive chemotherapy. When she came home after surgery, she was really weak and found it hard to move. She showed me the sutures and they were shocking because they went up her back and over the shoulder and the stitches were huge and black and ugly and she could barely pull her gown over her shoulders to show me. They looked painful.

Chemo wasn't fun and she didn't eat much, but it wasn't as aggressive as they thought it would be because she didn't lose her hair (or not enough for me to notice). After the chemo, the doctors said they were pretty sure they got the cancer.

She "worked" at her recovery. I mean "work" because when you have four kids, you have a hard time resting. I did my level best to only be around Mommy when she asked because most of her time, I knew, was spent resting and praying. She had taken my blue leather bound Book of Prayers from my days at good ol' Colegio de San Agustin. I remember going into the bedroom and seeing my book open and upside down so she wouldn't lose her place. She was looking for comfort that really no one besides God was going to give her.

More later.

My SIL gets her master's degree today! WTG, Anna!

I really wanted to get a proper Yoda photo and I was going to make her a yoda hat but the patterns I found were baby-sized and since they were felted I didn't want to chance it. Besides, she's getting something lacy instead (it's taxing my brain and attention span). But I'm sure, by now, she's found some way to Yoda her cap and gown!

Have fun at your party, Anna and congrats again great mastah! May the Real Force be with you!

My sister has entered a photograph in Digital Camera Magazine's contest.

Stop by and vote, please! Of course I mean for her ;)

Is it because I asked?

Thing is, these things just keep coming up. Yes, I asked. What keeps coming up? These concepts:

- Spiritual gifts
- What are my spiritual gifts
- Stretching
- Leave your comfort zone
- Step out
- Be led by the Holy Spirit
- Be led by the Holy Spirit in every (little and big) thing
- Adventure
- "What God has for me"

Ah, but they're just "concepts" and "ideas" and I use parentheticals and "" too much and get too impulsive with blog posts.

:D

Ok. I will go visit some blogs tomorrow and get work done tomorrow and think about it tomorrow, Scarlet. Right now, I've got to go on a gift search.

The Word for Today Bible

Show us your bible.
Submitted by Connie.

I just bought this one last Wednesday! So it's still brand-spankin' new. I will have to make a cover for it very soon so it stays that way.

My previous one was a King Jimmy that really belonged to my other half and it's kinda gotten well-worn. Both my kids have torn pages out of it (during their toddler days). I can't wait to start scribbling in the new one.

Ok, I know I'm silly but I get weepy when I read this. I can't believe Chuck's written commentary for a bible like this. I remember years ago beginning bible study while he was going through Jeremiah on Sunday nights and though we attended other churches in the subsequent years, I'd made a point of listening in on Sunday night services to keep up with the studies all the way through the rest of the bible on back to Jeremiah.

One of these days, Chuck's gonna get called Home and I'm going to be sad because I have to say g'bye to my spiritual grandpa. Yes, it's temporary but it will still be sad. Unless we go at the same time and then it won't be much of an issue at all ;)

I'm posting here, but NM will likely do the same on his blog soon (I'll ask him to tomorrow). They won two of the four games they played in this weekend's tournament.

Our boys played hard, and they played fairly. All week, NM prayed for the games and practice times (I'm so proud!). He did a great job and was the goal tender for at least the first half of each game if not longer. He volunteers for this job and in today's game, coach told him he's the most dependable for that position so that's why he got the job (I'm so proud!).

Today's game loss was tough on the boys. They played very well and they showed good sportsmanship, playing hard to the end.

Unfortunately, two of the goals that the other side made weren't done fairly. They were kicked out of NM's hands when he'd already pinned the ball down but the ref never saw that happen so they counted anyway. Yes, our boys would have won if they weren't counted.

Can you tell I'm proud of my boy? I can tell you I wouldn't want to be goalie knowing, going in, that cleats inches from my nose would be involved. He still wants to do it. In the Fall, we may consider upping the ante a bit and putting him in the more competitive part of the league. He loves the competition, it's what gets him going. The coach made a huge point of making sure he knew he did a great job in the game today which was nice because he knew NM was upset. Several of the parents told him the same thing, too.

Next Sunday, we have our post-season party, most likely at the pool. I'm going to be on the hunt for good martial arts classes for both boys to attend along with, hopefully, one of NM's team mates and his brothers. They're a great family. Yeah, I'm a little biased because they homeschool, too, and their mom plays WoW. Actually, she works there, too, but I'm not biased towards her because she's a GM. Not in the least. Really.

We got to see it Friday night. It was fun! The boys had a blast. J was literally sitting at the edge of his seat most of the time. When Stanley woke up flat for the first time, J said:

"He's flat! If a bulletin board fell on him you should see his bones!" Ew.

All the way home and the next morning, J was talking about it and singing about Flat Stanley.

NM was a bit worried at the beginning. He noticed that most of the kids there were, well, little. But as people were getting seated, he began to notice more and more those kids who were his age. That included the three brothers who sat to my right and began to play tag. The one closest to me turned to me and lightly poked my arm and said "Tag!"

He was mortified he tagged a stranger. He had to switch places after that :D

NM did enjoy it a lot, too, and that was good since it was his idea. He was concerned that it was a musical since he was bored out of his mind when his class went to see a production of Beauty and the Beast. But Flat Stanley is quite a bit different and very much up my kids' alley. Very funny!

Afterwards, we went outside and the kids played. They have this lights display on the ground that had the kids stomping around. Plus there's the hill of grass which had lots and lots of kids rolling down it. What a blast! Yes, they were tired but all smiles afterwards.

Speaking of funny, NM really loves Calvin and Hobbes lately. I got him another book and he's been pouring over it along with his little brother. I get a kick out of the look on his face as he's reading it.

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Originally uploaded by Phisch

Look at our pics. Edit: we did this last weekend, when soccer games were canceled due to recent rains.

The last few times we've hiked at the Greenbelt, we chose to exit at the Mopac frontage road and entered the trail from there (west side). We found that there was a trail entrance off 360, so that's where we went this time.

Good thing, too! This part of the trail was gorgeous. The weather was so perfect. It was in the 80s but there was a perfect breeze that made it just so nice in the shade and not awfully hot in the sun.

The trees are all green now, no real sign at all of the sparse grey of winter. We even found this very out of place poppy (made me wish I had a camera that let me pick the depth of field).

The boys had a great time and we could tell we were well overdue for a family outing!

For my boys. This post is by no means an endorsement of my own behavior. Mind that, will you?

I think it was in 4th grade when I had this classmate, Paolo, who was one of the class tom cats. By that I mean, he was a bully and kept everyone in line. I didn't like him much. He had tripped me once as I walked up the aisle in the middle of the classroom to work on a math problem on the board.

It was embarrassing enough to have to work on math in front of the class but to have tripped on the way there was just not fun. The teacher took care of it.

I told Mommy what happened and she was really sympathetic and then she told me something like that had happened to her.

She had this classmate in 3rd or 4th grade who would tease her mercilessly. In the morning, he'd stand in the doorway of the classroom, bar it with his body and keep her from getting inside.

She told me she finally got so tired of it that one day, she kicked him where it hurt the most. He never did it to her again.

Now, mind you, I think that she was telling me this so that, in a round about way she was explaining that it was ok to defend myself. I think so, anyway.

I was a little surprised when, after I was being teased by my brother (it went both ways, trust me), I used the same tactic Mommy did and she wasn't too happy about it at all. I think she made me darn his shirts with holes as punishment. I just remember being really mad while I was sewing, mostly mad that she was mad at me.

Mommy Family Trivia

Mommy was one of six children. If Mama had no miscarriages, there would have been nine.

Her oldest brother was a school principal (I think). He fell and injured part of his brain which put him out of work for a while but he ultimately died some months later. He was my favorite uncle and I remember that he used to pull coins out of my ear and cut all my boy cousins' hair.

The middle brother was a police officer. He was shot in the neck while he and his partner where chasing down a thief.

The youngest brother is still alive and has retired from work at the post office.

Her oldest sister was the head dietitian for the hospital where she lives but is now retired.

Her youngest sister, the one she's closest to, is still working but lives in Australia. I call her Nanay which is Tagalog for Mom. She's the closest thing to a grandma you have on my side of the family.