I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!

As of late I have felt very much like the white rabbit from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." It seems that I'm dashing hither and yon all the time. This summer hasn't been nearly as productive as I would like, as we are all suffering with allergy/asthma symptoms that are much worse than in previous years. At this moment I have three girls that are suffering with headaches, major congestion, asthma-like symptoms(inability to do much without difficulty breathing), sinus infections, and even one with allergic conjunctivitus(pink eye). I have been suffering with many of these symptoms myself, but to a milder degree. Since we have found that many of the "regular" medicines have horrid side effects on our bodies, we have been delving into natural remedies. Many of them are quite effective. One of our favorites is colloidal silver*, which works as an antibiotic and we have had great success with it. Sunday, Rachel popped up with pink eye, and by yesterday it was in both eyes. I went to get some more silver, as we were out, and put 2 drops in each eye right before bedtime. By this morning, both eyes were nearly clear! I was so pleased with the results and that she was doing better.

We have also just had a birthday, which typically takes a week to prepare for because of various shopping trips for sisters to get their presents for the birthday girl. Rachel turned 12 on the 6th, and I will be doing her "Happy Birthday!" article in the next few days.

Another bit of excitement we have had was with a dove. Last Friday we found "our" cat(it's truly someone else's, but it seems to have forgotten that and only lives outside our house now) was trying to kill a dove. There were feathers everywhere and at first we assumed the dove to be dead. But upon further investigation we found that it had temporarily escaped the cat's clutches. Said cat was quite perturbed to be deprived of the evening repast for which he had diligently worked. We then needed to come to a decision about the bird. It looked horrid! Half of its feathers were missing and it had a quite a few cuts. I thought the bird wouldn't make it through the night and I was trying to make a decison about what to do while sitting on the steps with all of the girls surrounding me. We discussed that the bird would surely die, but they wanted to give it as much comfort in its death as they could. We all thought it would be better for the bird if he died in a nice quiet place, as opposed to being eaten alive by the cat! We brought the bird in and put him in a box with a towel. He was in shock and very calm. Surprisingly, he is still alive and doing quite well. Don't ask what we will do when he's healed; that decision hasn't been made. I think this has been a very good experience for the girls. They are tenderly caring for him/her and gaining a greater appreciation for God's wonderful creation. When you take the time to really look at an animal God created, you will see a great deal about God. This dove has the most brilliantly turquiose coloured eyelids. Rachel says it looks as if the bird is wearing eye shadow. He also has subtle shades of purple in green in the feathers around his neck. God's care about the intricate design of each of His creations is abundantly evident, if we will only take the time to look.

I have a feeling I will continue to be that white rabbit for a few more weeks at least, if not until after Thanksgiving, or even Christmas. I'm planning my school year at this time, a week from Friday Gene flies to Dallas for the weekend, on the 10th of September we have Sarah's birthday, Oct 14th we have an out of town wedding, Nov 9th we go camping and then Thanksgiving. These are just the high points of what we will be doing. Within that time there are many other thngs that don't take as much preperation and many things that will have to be done in advance in order to accomplish these larger tasks. I know many people have more daunting schedules than I, and will think that this is nothing. One of the things in recent years I have tried to accomplish is a more peaceful home. We have lived the common life before of running somewhere almost every night of the week and on the weekend. Because of that, we have purposely chosen not to run all of the time nor be involved in tons of activities. We strive to spend a great deal of time as a family and not all going our seperate ways. We can see the positive impact that these choices have made on our family and would encourage you to see if they would help you as well.


*The silver we use is 5ppm, which is something you need to be very careful about as stronger dosages have stronger effects which can be detrimental over time.