I have a dear friend, really more like a daugther to me, who is ill - very ill. She's also very stubborn. She lives alone and really needs someone to care for her - to help her. Mark and I have offered our home, and her doctor agrees she should be here; but she's stalling and dragging her feet, not wanting to impose and more than a little afraid of many things. I'm praying she will realize that we love her and want to help.

She's had a very rough life, and to say that she is due a break would be an understatement. Sometimes life just isn't fair - but God loves us and we need to hold on to that when all *seems* hopeless. Like the Footprints in the Sand poem - it's during those rough times that God carries us, if we let Him. She's struggling and I'm doing all I can - with much prayer and leading from the Holy Spirit - to help her.

So I'm heading into this new season of Service to others in my life. As a wife and mother, I've always served my family, but with the children older, and now in school, I'm able to extend my service more than before. Pray for her - that she will let me help her, and for me to seek the God's leading on how to do it.

On a lighter note: I'm excited about the Joyce Meyer conference this weekend!! I'm going with ladies from our new church. This is an awesome church and we just love it!! I've got the arrangements made for the kiddos, for the couple of times that I need someone to care for them around their school times, or when Mark is working.

Well, I need to go start my day. Until next time.....

God bless YOU!
Traci

The same day we closed on the house, we bought Mark a new Jeep Liberty diesel. It's a nice vehicle and gets much better gas mileage than his truck did. With Mark now commuting over 100 miles per day back and forth to work, he needed to get better gas mileage.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up my new Shih Tzu puppy!! YAY!!! Her official name will be: TraMar Princess Sophia of Sullivan; but we'll call her Sophie. :-) She's 12 weeks old and a solid reddish gold with black markings. Very cute!! I'm waiting to see how she turns out to see if she's show potential.

We're home from church today as Sam and Hannah are sick. So I'm going to take this time to do a little housework, and baking, as I've got the ladies Bible study group coming here Tuesday.

Have a blessed day in the Lord!
Traci

I'm on more than a few email list, and of course have the ministry message board (http://t2ckk.org) and usually post my daily plans each morning. Below is a copy and paste of what I first posted to my Christian Shih Tzu email list, then to my ministry message board - with some updates along the way. So please pardon the broken-ness of the flow of everything. After you read it all, you'll see why I don't have the time (or energy) to re-type it all today.

[ begin pasted copy ]
I'm copying and pasting what my day today has been like thus far. I posted it on my Christian group first, then thought to post it on my ministry message board..... so this is a copy and paste from all that from the message board to you all. I hope you all get a good laugh out of what I have been through this day thus far.... and can perhaps see *why* I laughed at the post this morning. And it's now 11:46 am and it's relatively uneventful since these postings, except for Hannah getting out the whole entire bag of animal crackers and her and Emmy having a party in the bedroom - oh, and they got out a bag of ham and let Bear have that!! :-O

You can laugh or cry: I chose to laugh. Enjoy the show..... :-D

Traci
...............
Okay ladies, I'm going to copy and paste this as I posted it to my Christian Shih Tzu group. This is to save me time from typing it all out again - as you can see from reading below, I've been a bit busy today. [ BTW: It's now 9:11 am and Emily is standing at my office door bawling her eyes out because I scolded her for smacking Hannah. ]

..................................
Morning everyone!
It is pouring down rain here - and my puppies woke me up to go out to potty (they sleep in their kennels in my room). So we do our normal morning routine, I stumble out of bed, let them out and we have this conga line to the door to go out on the deck. I open the door they all three file out and STOP! It's raining!!! I shut the door just in time to keep them out. hehehehe There is an overhang right at the back door, so they didn't *have* to stand in the rain. Wellllll, MR. Romeo apparently decided he didn't want to pee in the rain and when I let them all back in, he trotted right over to the corner of my sofa and hiked his leg and started to PEE!!! :-O I took care of that and plopped his butt back out on the rainy deck. Humpf! He's now sporting one of Dusty's belly bands! :-D BTW Dusty girl, we need bigger belly bands and MORE of them, as it appears Mr. Romeo has put on a bit of weight. ;-)

So that has been my morning thus far at only 5:09 AM. Let's hope the rest of the day gets better than this! LOL Anywho, I have loads of web design work to do, so that will engulf the bulk of my day. There's the laundry calling to me as well, and then the children..... I'm going to put them to work today. ;-) Maybe that will keep them occupied and out of trouble.

Oooo, I am going to call the local groomer here (we apparently only have ONE) and make an appointment for Rosie. I'm still too sore from my surgery to really groom dogs, and since Mark doesn't have my grooming sink hooked up yet, I'm just going to bite the bullet and try a new groomer for her. She really needs it. Pray this works out okay and I won't have any horror stories to tell. I love my other groomer, but she's way too far away now to use. :-

Then came my updated post...............

Oh well ladies, my morning has gotten so much more..... interesting and "exciting" since I first posted. Ahhh, where to begin: first, a time update, it is now *only* 8:40 am here. so in a mere 3.5 hours or so since my first posting here's what's happened:

Around 5:30 am, I hear this dripping. Remember, it's raining here. Mmmm, that sounds loud for rain dripping. I go investigate. Mmm?? Is that condensation near the furnace/air conditioning unit here in the basement? Look up, nope, water dripping from some pipe near the ceiling. Odd? (remember, I've not yet had a full cup of coffee and Hannah is running around somewhere). So I go upstairs to find Hannah and see if the kitchen sink is leaking? Hannah comes running into the kitchen: "Momma, there's water dripping in your bathroom!" Uh-oh, what has that child done now - is what I'm thinking. I walk in to find water literally dripping from the door frame going from my bedroom into my bathroom - all over the carpet, the tile floor. UGH!!! So I run to get buckets, towels..... come back in to find water dripping on the floor under the skylight too!! SCREAM!!!! Oh dear Lord help me - it's not yet 6:00AM!!!! Okay, get that controlled as best as I can until I can call SOMEONE - ANYONE to come stop this leaking.

Okay, back downstairs to try and calm myself. Romeo and Rosie are down in my office with me. I'm checking mail, making a now more lengthy To-Do list for the day. About 30 minutes goes by... Mmmm? Hannah comes screeching to my office door, crying in a panic: "Momma, there's a HUGE spider on my pillow!!!! Come SEEEEEEEE!!!" Oh dear Lord, I soooo hate bugs of any sort. So off I go to save the day and become the exterminator. Ladies, this was one huge honkin' spider! EWWWWWW!! I can't find any official bug spray, so I decide to santize it to death with Lysol. :- Okay, so it shocked the spider to death, I swat it off the pillow with the flyswatter and stomp on it. The children were elated and I was quite proud that I manage to kill the ginormous mutant spider. :-D

So back I go to the office, sorting through mail, did manage to make that grooming appointment for Rosie and checked off that on my list. A little time goes by... mmmm? it's awfully quiet, where are those children? I go upstairs to find that they have moved a chair over to the pantry, managed to get up to the very top shelf and get the box of chocolate donuts I had hidden up there (supposedly out of their reach) and helped themselves to the WHOLE BOX! Oh dear Lord, the sugar high will now begin. Oy vey!!!

So I come back downstairs after a good scolding, and making them each a bowl of cereal! And within minutes, Mr. Romeo hikes his leg and pees on the carpet in my office. Apparently he has learned how to move the belly band down and pee at will. Oh dear Lord - I'm gonna neutered this dog myself right here and NOW!!! I haul him upstairs to take him out, only to find one of the little fur darlings left me a nice poop package right in front of the deck door. At this point, I'm ready to have a cow.

All three dogs are now in their kennels in TIME OUT! The three children are upstairs making their beds and cleaning up their rooms. I'm down here typing all this to you all, in hopes of holding on to my sanity by maybe giving you all a good laugh at my day and for you to see how good your day is, in comparison to mine.

Oh dear Lord, I hear the piano and water running upstairs.... this can not be good news. Pray for me ladies. It's not even 9:00 am and I'm worn out!! LOL

So see, now don't ya'll feel better about your day?!!! So much for that resting I'm supposed to be doing!!! Off I go to the next adventure..... PRAY FOR ME!