Cuteness

I'm starting to collect the Panama pictures from everyone's cameras and I just can't help but stop and smile at these adorable kids...

Separation Anxiety

Well, I'm not really certain how to sum up Panama except intense and amazing. I have never seen God's hand so clearly evident in so unexpected and extreme ways. I don't know that I truly have the words to express it all right now and since I've got 200 e-mails sitting to read I figure I 'll wait to try, but after everything our group went through the past 9 days I had a weird separation anxiety when I left them all yesterday. There is something comforting about knowing that you can just grab someone's hand and they sense what they need to pray for based on your common experiences over the past few days, so leaving that to drive home to a 'normal life' was kinda of weird to say the least. I'm really glad Brandy and John were there to pick me up at the airport - I think driving home alone would have been rough. I almost cried when I hugged Brandy, and the kids giving me huge hugs and saying they prayed for me every day about made me cry again. Tasha said that every night when they sat down to do their nighttime prayers she said 'let's pray for Ms. Becky first'. It was too cute. Last night before I went to bed I texted the girls from the trip 'dulce suena' - it was nice to be home, but it just seemed strange not telling them goodnight...

Where's all the toilet paper?

Well, final packing day has arrived. We leave tomorrow! I actually packed up my backpack on Thursday night. I originally intended just to lay stuff out, make sure I didn't need to get anything on Friday and organize things, however, when that was done I realized that the entire organizational structure was laid out on my bed and thus if I actually wanted to go to bed it would mean I needed to either pile it all back onto the pile it came from (which was out of the question), find another place to transfer the organized piles (which didn't exist) or pack it up. So round about 1:30 am Friday morning my backpack was ready to go. AND I fit everything I needed into it with no second bag. This turned out to be very useful when we were doing final medicine and supply packing Friday night and realized there was no way this was all going to fit. Hence my second bag is now all the paperwork and labels for the clinic - works out well that I knew I didn't need a second carry-on.

So, today rolls around and I have two last things I need to buy. Two more little rolls of toilet paper and a thin rain jacket. I figured they shouldn't be that hard to find, so I wasn't much worried about it. I also had a few other errands to run so I figured I would do all of that after a morning meeting with Cynthia and our bible study groups, and then a mid-morning birthday tea party for Aubrey (which by the way was super cute). I started errand running at 1:30. It is 4:30 and I have yet to find someone selling anything I need to purchase. Oh wait, I did get a Father's Day card (note the card will be going in the mail today...sorry about that Dad). If it was a movie I'd be laughing, but it's my life, so I may as well let you laugh. I go to Target first figuring if they don't have stuff I can swing by Dick's which was right next door and possibly a bit more expensive. I checked the camping, travel and toilet paper section of target, all to no avail. They did have a rain jacket for $40, but I was really hoping to buy a super cheap one, I just want something to stuff in the bag to have on hand. Most of the time we can stay out of the rain if we need to, or we are going to be in the rain so long a rain jacket won't matter much - in either condition it doesn't matter if I have a $5 jacket or a $100 jacket in my bag. For those random times having a jacket may be handy I figure a $5 jacket will do. So, I leave the store and head over to Dick's - certain my quest will now end. However, not only do they not have little rolls of toilet paper, they also don't have any rain jackets. Well they have them, but they are expensive and they are heavy. I have a heavy rain jacket, a very nice one in fact. What I'm looking for is a cheap flimsy one. Well, the next thing on the list was Dina's dog food. She can only eat a certain kind because she is allergic to so much stuff and I figured I would make it easier on Oliver (who will be watching the house and the dogs...Brandy's dogs are here too) and buy some extra because they are running low. Dolittles is the only dog place I can get the specific brand she needs, and guess what I was informed - someone just bought the last bag! Sweet. Well, we will switch Dudley over to Kaylinn's food and Dina's should last. Dolittles was near Half Moon Outfitters so I figured I would see if they had toilet paper. No. Jackets? Yes, but they were $100. Moving on. To the pharmacy to get the prescription that is finally ready. When I get up to the line she rings it up as $50. Wait, I pay $15, $25 max for prescriptions, what is this $50 thing? She informs me that there is another brand (which I know because I had been using it, but it doesn't work the same) that has a generic and so the insurance is not paying all of it. Well, I'm not paying $50 for 2 weeks worth of nasal spray. I'll just suffer through with Claratin and go back to Flonase which I was using before. I ask about the toilet paper and no, they don't have any travel sizes either. So, at this point I'm about to scream at something or someone so I calmly leave the store and go to Sonic. At least a cherry coke and chedd-r-peppers will cheer me up. I push the button and sit there for about 5 minutes until I realize no one is going to answer my button and then drive to the drive through only to have the slowest drive through experience of all time. All I want is a cherry coke!!! I can roll my own toilet paper rolls and stand in the rain while my nose drips because I don't have the expensive allergy medicine and the dogs eat the wrong food, just give me a cherry coke!

With that tyrade screamed internally, I eventually get my cherry coke in hand and head to work to finish up our suitcase list so we know what is in each suitcase for customs. Thankfully the computer turned on just fine so at least something is going right. Then I'm going home...to roll toilet paper rolls because apparently there was a mass rush on Charmin To Go this week. And then tomorrow morning at 6:30am we'll meet at the church to load up, go to the airport and check in before service, and then directly afterwards we will be on our way to Panama City! This week it's been so hot in Charleston that it was actually cooler in Panama City...so that's a plus, right? See you all on the flip side - keep us in your prayers!!!

Belief

Today Sandor and I signed the divorce papers and had them notarized for me to take downtown later this week. To say that 10 minutes of my day sucked is an understatement.

Afterwards I went out for pizza and a salad with Angel and Stefanie who made me laugh, I read Rachel's blog about having ringworm for the past 3 months which made me smile thinking about her writing it, and tonight I'm going to help with the last of the medicine packing for Panama which will both get me ready to leave and remind me of the greater purpose in life. To say that those things make it better may not be completely true, but they do make it bearable.

Sometimes it's easier than other times to focus on the good and ignore the bad. And then I start wondering whether I should let myself focus on the bad or if there is another way to grieve and move on. I don't know that I have the answer, but I figured I would throw it out there for anyone else who may be contemplating the same thing - you aren't alone. For now I'm focusing on the good, since the bad isn't going anywhere - I figure if I need to focus on it to get over it then I'll do that later. And I'll listen to a quote I read this morning - "Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts; don't make the mistake of skeptics of believing their doubts and doubting their beliefs."

I believe that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). I believe God knew me before I was formed in my mother's womb and he set me apart for his purpose before I was born (Jeremiah 1:5). I believe that I will be joyful and prosperous (Psalm 128:2). I believe that God can do all things and that no purpose of his can be thwarted (Job 42:1). And if I believe that then I can believe these light and momentary troubles are achieving for me an eternal glory that far outweighs them all (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Prescription Woes

I'm going to do one more post today just because it's less stressful on the world for me to do this than to freak out on someone. My question for the day is why is it so difficult for people to actually do their job? In fact, I find it interesting at how absolutely spectacular people are at NOT doing their job. And it's not even like it's just one person, it's multiple people ALL not doing their job. So, my story for today of people with issues doing their job:

I got a prescription for Nasonex when I was at the doctor to help with the allergies (it works better than Flonase for me, which is what I was using at the time but had just run out of) that were leading to the head congestion that was leading to the post nasal drip, that likely helped with the sore throat and possibly helped with the ear infection. For anyone who doesn't have allergies, nasal spray is generally far more effective than pills, but you have to start it and be on it longer before you start seeing the effects. And thus when I got the prescription I went straight to the pharmacy. Here is my first bit of confusion - in my experience people don't fill prescriptions for fun. They actually need the item for which they are filling the prescription, otherwise a) they wouldn't have gone to the doctor and paid for a visit and b) they wouldn't have offered to pay you (the pharmacy) to fill the prescription for them. When I went to pick it back up they said they needed some kind of pre-authorization form from the doctor and that they had faxed it over and I could come back in a few days for the prescription.

So here is question number two. Isn't a prescription kinda a pre-authorization form? I mean you don't make them up. A doctor had to actually write it for you, so why does it help the insurance company to have a doctor write a second paper saying yep, they wrote the first one. ESPECIALLY for allergy nasal spray - I mean I'm not filling codeine here. Anyway, what are you going to do, that's the way it is, so I paid for my antibiotics and ear drops and went on my way. Two days later I called the pharmacy to see if it was ready. A real live person checked the file, said no they had not received anything back from the insurance company but the form had been faxed to my doctor, so I should wait another day or so and then check again ("because sometimes it take a while to fill out the papers" - really? I fill out papers all day and none of them take 3 days to do, but whatever).

Then on Sunday I get an automated call on my phone saying my prescription is ready so I stop by the pharmacy, wait in line and when I get to the lady (and spell my name 18 times because she is really having issues with it), I find out that no that automated call was saying my prescription is ready if I had that form filled out but since I don't it's not, and I'll keep getting those calls so I should ignore them. REALLY? You can't turn that option off your computers? She says that she will fax it again though, so I drive away, calmly talking to myself and saying it's really not that bad, I only wasted 5 minutes of my day, move on with life.

And we come to today. I finally decided it was worth bothering the doctor, not just the pharmacy, so I called the ENT to see if they had filled out the form. They say they have never received a form and give me their fax number to make sure the pharmacy has the correct one. I call the pharmacy and after about 5 minutes of listening in awe to the stupidity of this entire thing and that idiocy of this entire process I learn that 1) they don't have the fax number, 2) they never faxed it because that wasn't an option in the system, 3) they normally call them, 4) she doesn't know if they called them, 5) I was supposed to call them with a number I was given for them to call and supposedly do something that I don't know what it is, but they would know. I mean you have GOT to be kidding me? Three (not one, THREE) people told me something was faxed, and it's MY job to call the doctor and ask them to call some number and say something to someone so I can get some stupid allergy medicine. And the lady ended the call with 'thank you for your patience'. Don't thank me for my patience, lady, thank me that I've got an allergy induced headache and so I can't think very hard of something snarky enough to say to make me feel better. I figure I should definitely have the medicine by the time allergy season is over.

Thera-Flu

I realize that I have been slack on posting and thus 2 posts in one day is a little over the top, but I felt that for the good of society I needed to get this on the internet. If you at all value your taste buds DO NOT drink Thera-Flu lemon flavor. It is possibly the worst taste I have EVER had. I'm not even joking - I know you think that I am, but it's been almost a week since I drank it and as you can see I'm still emotionally scared.

When I was sick last week I went home from work early on Tuesday to try to sleep for an hour before going in to VBS. I figured I would check what cold and flu items I had at the house to attempt to give myself an extra boost of feeling better, and as it turned out I had lemon flavored Thera-Flu. Now I don't remember buying this, or ever drinking it, although it was opened, so I figured I would make myself some hot water, pour that in, enjoy a hot throat soothing drink while sitting on the couch with the dog, lay down and take a nap and then go on my merry way. Wow. Was I in for a surprise. I mixed the powder into the hot water and took a sip and wanted to puke. I thought 'there is no way I can drink this entire cup, I must have done something wrong, maybe too much water, maybe not enough'. So I look on the package and no, I was correct - 6 ounces of water, no more, no less, and you are supposed to drink the whole thing in 10 minutes. Well I had just spent 3 minutes recovering from my first gag reflex and re-reading the directions so I better boogie. So I threw an ice cube in thinking, well at least if it's not scalding hot I can just chug it down and that won't be so bad. I am not kidding when I say it was all I could do to finish that cup. I tried the chugging, the holding your nose while you drink, the pretending it was something different, the tiny sips all in a row. EVERYTHING I could think of. And knowing you have a time frame to drink it in does not make it relaxing, let me say that! Finally, I drank the last of it, forced back the last of the gag reflex, threw the entire box into the trash and went to bed.

So, consider yourself warned. I may have felt a little better, but my taste buds have yet to forgive me. Do NOT trust this packaging:

Biscuits

One day back in May, Kim and I had extra time after a morning in the field and on our way back to work stopped to pick strawberries before the season ended. Strawberry picking tends to leave you with a million strawberries that you need to do something with so I found a handy dandy recipe for strawberry orange marmalade that I thought I would try out. Now, of course because I have so much free time on my hands I have tons of time to make jelly...right. I went ahead and froze the strawberries because while I had good intentions I figured those good intentions would result in a lot of spoiled berries, and a few weeks later when a state holiday was upon me I pulled them back out of the freezer and went ahead and made my marmalade.

I ran out of jars and had to put the last few jars of marmalade into tupperware which now resides in my fridge. Up until this point, however, I had not actually tasted it. Which brings us to last night. Brandy and I were trying to decide at 9:00 if it was worth making something for dinner. I said something about her needing to try the marmalade, at which point we got a brilliant idea - biscuits from Bojangles and marmalade for dinner. Perfect! So we drove down the road and as I'm ordering I start realizing what a ridiculous order I'm making:

BoJ person: "Can I help you?"
me: "I'd like 4 biscuits"
person: "any butter or jelly"
me: "no, and then I'd also like...(start laughing because I realize how ridiculous this is sounding) a ham and biscuit sandwich (for John)...(try to keep composure and not laugh out loud)...and a sausage and biscuit sandwich"
person: "is that everything?"
me: "yes...(again, forcing myself to stop laughing...while Brandy is laughing and not helping matters)"

we pull around to the window and the conversation goes something like this

me: "sorry I'm laughing I just realized as I was saying it how ridiculous my order sounded"
person: "that's ok, who am I to judge?" (indicating he obviously agrees it is a ridiculous order)
Brandy: "do people order biscuits usually?"
person: "yes, it's not that strange...well, I guess at 9:30 at night it is, but...(trailing off as to not continue talking about how odd our order is)"
Brandy: "well we just have some homemade jelly that we want to eat with biscuits and we don't have any biscuits"
person: "so you have homemade jelly but you are buying the biscuits instead of making them?"
me: "yeah, I guess we are kinda lazy about the biscuits, we just don't feel like making them"
person: "like I said, who am I to judge"
us: laughing

Needless to say, Bojangles possibly thinks we are total idiots, but whatever. We had delicious biscuits and jelly - and it motivated me to actually get up this morning and run with Brandy since I ate such an absurd dinner!

Brandy very excited about the biscuits and jelly:

Mid Week Update

Well, VBS is going well. I have determined that if insanity needed to be given human form it would be a room full of 14 3-4 year olds. Last night I spent the evening with the preschoolers because one of our workers was sick (I also was somewhat sick, but her kidney stones trumps my ear infection and sore throat, and I don't really get the option of being sick, whereas an unpaid volunteer does...thus, to the preschool classroom I went). So, I always find the preschoolers entertaining because they find the fact that I stand on the stage to welcome everyone and do our opening lesson absolutely fascinating! 'I know you! You're the captain!' they exclaimed with delight when I went upstairs the first day, as if I was some kind of celebrity - it was pretty hysterical. They are also pretty focused on me wearing the captain hat ALL the time. And they are quite certain my name is now Captain. 'Captain, look at my shoes', 'Captain, it's your turn', 'Captain, can I have some water'...and so on - you get the picture. My favorite of the whole evening, however, was when we took our shoes off to play one of the games and the one little girl says 'Captain, I like your toes' (referencing my toenail polish), it was pretty hysterical.

So, my main focus last night was to find some way to handle one of the little boys who is WILD! I'm not talking the normal 4 year old wild, I'm talking ramp it up about 3 notches 4 year old on a sugar high wild, and have that extend for the full 3 hours. In Brandy's professional opinion the only real tactic is timed positive reinforcement, she cautioned however the problem with that age is they don't really get time yet, so you can't do the 'if you sit here for 5 minutes we'll go get a drink of water' or 'if you finish this game in 10 minutes we will go downstairs and sing songs'. So, it was just me and wild child hanging out all night. 'look at this paper, what color is it? red. right, very good, what is the color of the spyglass, that's right it's red too, what's your favorite color, red? wow, I like red, how about that story, did you hear what she said about the snake? did is surprise you? yes, why? oh, it surprised me, have you ever seen a snake? yes, what color was it, ok, now come sit here with me and listen to the directions so we can play the game, no right here, did you hear the directions, yes, ok, no, come over here, we have to wait our turn, yep we are starting, but look you go in 3 people, let's count down...'and that was ALLLLLLLLL night. I actually started playing a game with myself to see how long I could keep him on task before he broke off attempting to run around the room. I'm pretty sure I got to a solid 4 minutes one time, which was pretty awesome. However, by the end of the evening he and I were like peanut butter and jelly. He even sat with me when we sang songs and didn't go running up the stairs like the previous 2 evenings. :)

So, all in all it was successful. My throat is feeling MUCH better, and I had a good night sleep last night for the first time in a few nights, so I think the week is moving along quite splendidly. Honestly, one of these nights I'm going to remember to bring the camera home and put some pictures on her of the contained chaos that is the High Seas Expedition :)

The Week Has Begun

Well, VBS week is upon us. It started out pretty well. There were a few glitches, like people not showing up and such (I mean really, I just don't get why you would not show up when you know there are 5-10 kids who you are supposed to be in charge of, I mean do you think those kids just disappear when you decide not to come?), but all in all the evening went beautifully. Now I just need the sore throat that I woke up with to go away - things that don't help a sore throat are anything having to do with reining in kids!

The Kaylinn pup is at doggie day care today. She may or may not be happy about that, but I just couldn't stand for her to have another entire day at home alone. Since I have to work until 5 and then go to church shortly after and not get home until 9:30 or 10 it just seems too mean to leave her there all week. So...doggie day care it is this week. We shall see how she does!

One of the funny stories from last night while I was up with the preschoolers - they were learning about when the angel helped Peter out of jail in Acts and so the preschoolers were playing a game of Duck, Duck, Goose - except you said Peter instead of Duck and Angel instead of Goose, when you picked your angel they walked you around the circle to help you escape jail. Makes sense, right? The one little boy goes walking around the circle saying Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter...Duck. Apparently neither Angel nor Goose was the appropriate name for the person he wanted to pick. I also had one of them insist on making a fish face when we took his picture for the card they get at the end of the week. I guess he determined that if we were on the High Seas (the theme this year) then he was a fish - and he was very determined about it. Ahhh, preschoolers are something else.

A New Look

Welcome to the new blog look and name (those of you who read my blogs on facebook once they are updated do not get the full effect, if you'd like it go to www.walkerszivak.blogspot.com). Thanks to beautiful, talented Rachel the blog is updated to handle the new big step in life... This step seems to be one of faith - faith that God's got it under control and I don't need to. So, I've settled on the definition of faith found in Hebrews as my blog title - The Substance of Things Hoped For.

Here is to Wednesday being over, the craziest part of the week being completed, an unexpected but extremely needed schedule change, and God answering prayers even when they are silly in the grand scheme of the world, but happen to be huge in the minor scheme of your particular life. Today God put a cord that I've never seen Walmart sell on the inventory at the Walmart next to my meeting location just to make my day go smoother. He's pretty cool like that :)