Biggest Black Widow I've Ever Seen in My Life

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 I have so many things I have missed blogging about but these past few weeks that I thought would be a wonderful beginning to summer have ended up being quite stressful. Today, I had so many things slated to get done and I actually didn't get any full thing off my list. I got several smaller things done but am frustrated with all that there is to do.

I was down stairs dusting which wasn't actually on my list but when I walked by and saw that someone had actually written "love" in my dust, I thought perhaps I had better dust. I did like the fact that they felt to write the word "love" but was horrified that there was enough dust to write words. 

Anyway, I looked out the window as I was dusting to see this mammoth black widow. She had just killed something or laid a huge egg sack as it was VERY large. I thought to myself that I had better poison her before the sack hatches. Last year, I didn't catch it until it had hatched and there were lots of little babies running around. 

I thought I would show the pictures in the window along with the spider to show size. She must be doing VERY well in that window well to have gotten so big. Usually, they are about half that size. 

I didn't get down there with the camera until well after dark as I got side tracked on my way up for the camera. 

Lame post but she really is a beauty as far as black widows go. If you enlarge the top picture by clicking on it, you can clearly see her red spot. Isn't nature funny how it warns us she is poisonous.

I wish people had red dots to warn us, or different colored dots for different issues. I wonder what color dots I would carry.... Interesting thought. Sounds like a Max Lucado's story I've read. 

Morgellons Disease - No Cure, Medical unsure

Ok, so Princess 2 over the past few weeks as been telling me she is having some weird problems. 

A month or two ago she said she wasn't feeling well and found out the washer was backing up and molded all her suitcases and everything in them for a long time. 

There was lots of mold in the house. Then she bleached everything and thought that was the end of it. 

However, she got this "bite" as that is what she thought it was. She said it took weeks to go away and left a deep scar. 

Then, two came, then three, then on the arms. She also had a dental check up before leaving and has always had the best teeth in the family. 

She can hardly eat. She has so much teeth pain. She is going to the dentist today. I worry about her going to a Chinese dentist when she can't speak to him. I hope he doesn't pull a tooth or something. 

She told me a few weeks ago that she was waking every night with leg cramps. That causes her to have nightmares. 

She said she is so tired, her last email said, "I kind of feel like I just go through the motions of the day, and look forward to going to bed, then I get up and do it all over again." 

This isn't like her. She is tired all the time. She also wrote this about visiting someone's home. "and 15 minutes later I woke up almost drooling. My companion just let me fall asleep on the couch." 

I am really worried about her. I didn't put two and two together until late in the night last night. I clicked on "infected flea bite" and two clicks later was watching a youtube video and freaked out when the man described all her symptoms in a short video. Then, I realized they all went together. Here is that video clip.

Here is another video that talks about people in the US having it. He was a famous baseball pitcher and the news did a clip on their "weird" illness.

This last video shows lots of the sores on the bodies. I pray that we can figure out what is going on with Princess. These people have lived in pain and suffered for years and all them have scars all over the body. 

Please pray for her.... I don't think I am going to send my princesses out of the country any more... They all come back with weird life changing illnesses. 

Any Ideas as to What This Is? Missionary Strange Illness

Princess number 2 has been having some issues on her mission. I knew she was having a hard time with the language and things.

Today, I got some disturbing news and some photos. 

I guess she has been getting these sores which she thinks are bites. To me, the top picture almost looks like poison Ivy. However, she said she thinks they are bites of some kind. She said she has never felt a bite but looks down to see these red bumps form and then ooze for a few days and then leave scars.

 

She said they leave deep pits in her skin the size of a pencil eraser. She said they stay for weeks before they heal. She has now gotten some on her arms as well. 

I told her before seeing the photos that perhaps she was having an allergic reaction to flea bites but it also looks like a burn of some kind or a blister. 

I told her to get to a Dr. concerned it may be Staff of some kind but if any of you have any ideas as to what they could be, please let me know. 

Keep her in your prayers. She is having some other health issues and is going to see a native dentist this week. She is having a hard time eating. She saw a dentist before leaving and they said she was fine. I am wondering if she is toxic on something there. 

She has also been waking every night unable to sleep with cramps in her legs. Adding all those symptoms up, I get a bit nervous for her. Leg cramps, tired, sores on her legs and teeth pain.... 

I am thinking perhaps my girls are done doing foreign missions.... Eating weird foods and getting weird illnesses..... 

Like I said, please keep her in your prayers.... 

Today, Is a BYE kinda Day

Today, I am taking a Bye. The past two weeks I had the flooding, and a day or so ago, the tree in the back yard (see post about it here) decided to split in the wind. Two HUGE branches came off. They both were hanging requiring pulled and sawing to get them down. Without a chain saw, it has taken two days to get it mostly cut up and in the garbage but we still have two LARGE pieces that are the size of my 12 year old that the saw just won't cut. I need to have someone come with a chain saw. I couldn't get mine started. 

I have company coming in a few hours and have been up all night trying to put back the carpet and pad so they can get to the guest bathroom which required putting the hall carpet back. Then cleaning the best I could around that mess. 

The water softener mildewed so I had to take the entire thing apart scrubbing each part. Get the bathroom cleaned and wash sheets and do laundry. 

We found that the problem with the washer flooding was the load size switch. I didn't know that could cause such a problem but we can't use the large load or it will flood again. The repair man said he would get the part from the recycle place to save me some money. I scraped linoleum and laid the carpet back down in the laundry until I can find the time to buy and lay some tile. I did go looking but will have to find a way to fund the tile I like. 

We moved the garden beds today. I had the girls and two friends help me move that. It was lots of work and we only got the wood box and cattle guard fencing moved but not up. Tomorrow, they will help move the dirt.

So, I am taking a bye as I have never done that before. I need a few hours sleep before company arrives. 

If you don't know what a "BYE" is, here is a link to Wikipedia's explanation.  

I hope your summer is going better than mine!  :-)

Missing my Missionary - Third Move in Taiwan

 

I figured since I am having a stressful week and have tons going on and still haven't gotten the website up and going, I would give an update on my missionary. 

Princess number 2 is now in her third area. She has really been up and down. It was so nice to be able to hear her voice on Mothers Day but the emails since then really have gone up and down. 

She has had a few issues with her dad. She has had a really depressed room mate. She has had flooding of her apartment which molded her luggage for a few weeks before she found it. The mold was making her sick but she didn't know what was making her feel that way. 

The landlord kept "fixing" it but without fixing it. Finally they got it fixed and she was then moved to another area with a native room mate which was REALLY hard for her the first week. She had only been with Americans before that and now, being with a native Chinese speaking person, she has felt very lonely. Still doesn't have a grasp on the language enough to communicate well.

That, along with being moved to a new area where the prior tenets were male and the toilet and washer didn't work, caused her stress. I am not sure how they survived without the toilet but don't want to know. She said the apartment was filthy and that only made it all the harder not having someone to talk with and having to spend all her time cleaning. 

She said they also left her with no information in the area, contacts etc. She felt very alone and said she thought about coming home. However, after the first week, cleaning the apartment and getting to know her room mate a little better, she is good to go!

She said the weirdest thing anyone has fed her is a raw liver and apple sandwich but that wasn't the worst as the raw chicken she couldn't eat and refused to eat it. She said that for the most part, the food is good. 

She also said she hasn't gotten sick as in cold or flu but just that weird mold thing for a week or two. That made me feel better. 

We are missing Princess 2 at home but know this will be an experience she will never forget. The language is coming slowly and for the most part, things are great! 

Proud of what you do and have done Princess!

Slide Safety - Loosing a Finger - Life Changing Event

By the look of my hand photo at the top, it looks as if everything is normal. However, if you look at the picture to the left and below, you can see that my left had is anything but normal. 

When I was two, I went to slide on my family slide and because older children had gone down it, the metal corner of the slide had ripped and my tiny pinky finger got caught in the rip and as my body slid down the slide, my pinky cut off. 


My mother found it and at the hospital, they tried to sew the finger back on but the damage was too great. 


They then took a skin graft off my stomach and tried to sew that over the bone sticking out the top. That also didn't take. 


They then cut my stomach open, inserted my finger and sewed my finger to live skin in my abdomen. 


They then put me in a body cast for several weeks during the summer to allow my finger skin to grow to my abdominal skin in hopes that they could then use the live skin to cover the bone that was sticking out and save my knuckle so that I could play the piano, type etc. 


I don't remember much except I remember being really itchy and hot in the cast and being sad I couldn't swim and run through the sprinklers etc. Back then, the casts were very heavy and couldn't get wet. I remember being in the tub with very little water and plastic bags around me and water getting on the cast anyway. 


My least favorite memory is the pain of the cast on my lower back. I remember being in so much pain as the cast cut my lower back if I laid on my back. I couldn't lay on my sides. I remember waking and pushing myself off the cast and crying. It felt like a 2 x 4 board being placed just above your hips on the mattress and you trying to sleep on it. I was only able to fall asleep on my stomach with my hand under me for years. It wasn't until I was pregnant that I even put the two together. 

To this day, I can't sleep with my legs hanging down or lower than my hips or they ache and twitch all night. 

It is funny that a month in a body cast at 2 1/2 can affect someone their entire life. 

My mother told me that because it was so hot that when they took the cast off, my arm had grown to my side due to wet, heat and sweat. They had to pull it apart. Thank heavens I don't have any memory of that. 

I remember getting that toy below from my grandmother and she also crocheted me the slippers I am wearing in the photo to the right. I still have them but I wore them so much I put a hole in one of them. Funny what your remember..... 

I know that experience is why I became a nurse. Funny story about that. I was working one night and one of my co-workers noticed my finger being cut off. I told them how it was cut off. About an hour later, a temp nurse asked me how I lost my finger. I gave her a strange look as if I get one person a year asking, that is a lot. She said, "I'm only asking because I am missing the tip of one of my fingers as well and it was cut off on our slide when I was little."
 
I gave a "ha ha" laugh and said, "Very funny." She asked what I was talking about. I said, "Did (my co-workers name) put you up to that?" She told me she didn't have any clue what I was talking about. I told her how I cut my finger off and thought she was joking or making fun of me. 


She assured me she wasn't and showed me her middle finger and the top knuckle was missing. 


When we bought the house we live in now, you will not believe what was in the back yard... Yes, a metal slide with a rip in the corners. The first thing I did was take off that slide. It was cheaper for me to buy a new set than to buy a plastic slide for that one. 


So, I share this post as a warning to parents. Don't buy metal slides. They can burn when they are hot and can cut as they rip and are sharp. 


Thanks to my parents and the Doctors and nurses who saved my knuckle so I can type faster than most people I know and play the piano some and am grateful for my knuckle and all my fingers. Funny what we take for granted until they are gone.

Pennies From Heaven - New Theme Song

I am hoping this will post ok. I figure if I used a picture they were already hosting, it would allow me to post since the storage is already there. 

I was going to post this months ago as someone told me they heard my new "theme song" on the radio and told me to look it up on youtube. So, I went and looked it up and then had to search for the words. It sure is my theme song! 

Here is a link to Billie Holiday singing it. It is called, "Pennies From Heaven.""

Here are the words:

"If every time it rains, it rains, pennies from heaven (Shubby Dobby)Don’t you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven (Shubby Dobby)You’ll find your fortune falling all over town Each red and yella umbrella is up up up up upside down and...Trade them all for a pack of a gum, sunshine and ravioli (Macaroni)If you want the thing you love, you must have a pizzioli baby And when you hear thunder don’t run under a tree It be pennies from heaven, for you and for me Now come over here boy, Sam And every time it rains it rains And don’t you know each cloud contains Every time it rains, it rains And don’t you know each cloud contains You find your fortune falling All over town, all over town, all over town Each red and yella umbrella Is upside down twiddily bop A ha ba hozzie white Eagle eye la homba leeZombalomba zompolot Old wodilly boy ohAhhh bobba hoy boy Ohhhh boy a hoy boy Toddaly whoa, OOOOH!I knew I’d get ya I knew I’d get ya Let’s go, let’s go And you’ll find your fortune falling all over town It be pennies from heaven Pennies from heaven The pennies from heaven For you and me."

Please be patient with me as I try to figure out the new web page. It is a hugely busy time for me with the flooding, summer starting and court coming up. I hope I can figure out how to make the web page quickly and move this all over easily. I had a wonderful friend Jay (yes, I have posted about him several times and here is a link to his famous french toast) who always finds the information when I need it. Thanks for your help today Jay! You are an angel in my life and I know God had a hand in sending you. 

Please send prayers that I can figure it out quickly. I really have lots on my plate and the kids right now and figuring out a new web page wasn't on the "to do now" list.