My whole heart thanks each and every one of you who sent out prayers and positive thoughts on behalf of Lainey Grace.  Miracles are appearing as a result and I personally cannot thank you all enough.  Those prayers have made the difference… THANK YOU.

This Week’s Reads

This week, I read and reviewed: 

Five Things I Can't Live Without by Holly Shumas

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

In My Mailbox for Review

The 19th Wife for TLC Book Tours.

I did win Girls in Trucks, though.  I’m so happy!   I’m looking forward to reading that book.

Contests 

ENTER ENTER ENTER

April 22nd is the deadline for the FOLLOW ME contest!  This book was awarded A Novel Menagerie’s “Guaranteed Good Book” Seal of Approval.  To enter, click HERE.

Reading Challenges

For the participants of  the Just For the Love of It Challenge, THIS IS OUR LAST MONTH.  Please post your April reviews HERE.  The participants of this challenge have posted some terrific book reviews.  You can find them by going to the sidebar and click onto a month and check out what’s been linked. 

I’m thrilled to announce that I have actually completed a challenge this week!  Hallelujah!  I completed the Book Awards Reading Challenge II.    Here are the books that fulfilled my requirement:

Love in the The Time of Cholera (August 2008) Nobel Prize

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (September 2008) Nobel Prize & Chubb Fellowship Award

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (December 2008) Boeke Prize & Alex Award

The Glass Castle:  Jeannette Walls  (December 2008) Alex Award

The Road, Cormac McCarthy - (December 2008) James Tait Black Memorial Prize & Pulitzer Prize

Life of Pi, Yann Martell (January 2009) Man Booker Prize

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (January 2009) National Book Critics Circle Award & Pulitzer Prize

Of Mice & Men, J. Steinbeck (February 2009) Nobel Prize

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Feburary 2009) Pulitzer Prize, Public Library Literary Award & Presidential Medal of Freedom

Atonementby Ian McEwan (April 2009) National Book Critics Circle Award

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (April 2009) National Book Critics Circle Award & Pulitzer Prize Winner

I would recommend just about all of them.  The majority of them received 10 out of 10 ratings on Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale.”  I am signing up for the Book Awards Challenge III that will be announced in May of this year.  I learned a lot about reading prize winners and to love 63% of the books I read on a challenge… that’s a good challenge!  I’m forever grateful that I learned about Life of Pi from this challenge… and, glad that I read The Road (although it wasn’t my favorite).

On J. Kaye’s 100+ Reading Challenge… I must report that somebody has finished the challenge already!  Can you believe it?  100 books and it’s only April!  I’m in awe!  I’m at 49 books done and I’m 1/2-way through my 50th!  Therefore, my statistical update for this challenge is that I’m 49% completed with 30.27% of the year completed.  This puts me ahead of schedule by 18.72%.  Yeah!  That’s 2% higher than last week.  I’ve never read 50 books in one year in my entire life.  I can’t imagine what it will be like if I can actually complete this challenge.  I know that many of you have completed this challenge in years past.  How did it feel?

I hear that the Read-A-Thon is going on this weekend.  I’ll be cheering for you guys.  You’re insane, though!  How are you going to keep your eyes open?  (Hee Hee).

Lainey Grace Update

Little sweet one is headed home!  Here are two journal entries on The Caring Bridge that her mom, Lori, wrote about her progress.  Again, thank you all so much for your prayers!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Praise God!!!!! To Him be all the glory and the honor and the praise! He is worthy of our praise in good times and bad but today we can praise him for a miracle!

The oncologist just came in to give us the results of Lainey’s CT Scan yesterday. She was looking for at least a  20% reduction of her tumor from just the first phase of Chemo.

I want you to all be encouraged with the MIRACLE that our mighty God has done today. The Dr. said that the tumor has been reduced by CLOSE TO 90%!!!!!!!!!!! She said that the radiologist had a hard time even finding it on the CT.

We are still going to proceed with the second phase of Chemo as planned but Lainey’s treatment time will probably be much shorter and will not have to include as many meds.

We are so blessed and encouraged by all of the prayers that are coming in from literally, all over the world. You have all had a part in this miracle by your prayers.

I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High. Psalm 9:1-2
 
Friday, April 17, 2009 9:24 PM, PDT

It looks like we will be going home tomorrow morning. Hallelujah!!!!!!

Today has been like the day before Christmas…..loooooooong.

Lainey has cleared all of the medicine from her system that needed to be cleared and we are just waiting for one more dose of Chemo in the morning (5:30 am).

It was a little overwhelming today, learning all that will be involved and seeing our extended schedule for the next few months. Please pray for us as we begin to juggle home-schooling with trips to the clinic in San Diego twice per week for labs, PIC-line dressing changes and Chemo.

We look forward to having a day at home to settle in, get adjusted and organized for our new “schedule”. It will be a bit rigorous but God will sustain us in His strength and we just need to take it one day at a time. We know that there will be fluctuations in the timing and that our patience will be tested. We are just so grateful for this hospital, the Doctors, nurses and the medicines that are being used by God to help our baby girl get well and for all of you…our family and friends.

We thank you for all of your prayers, friendship, and offers of help. Brace yourselves, we may just need to take you up on it.

…but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Rom. 6:3-5

In case you hadn’t read Lainey Grace’s story, you can access it by clicking HERE.  

At Home & On TV 

All the Steve-O-Haters in the house yelled, “Hoooo!”  He’s gone.  Unfortunately, Lacy was taken away with him.  Ugh.  I hate that.  Perhaps she’ll still be dancing with they have the guest musical stars.  I’m hoping that we’ll get Chuck and Kim (I’m on a pact never to call her “Lil’ Kim” anymore) out of the ranks soon enough.  I still like Ty, even though his dancing isn’t the greatest, but I assume he’s scootin’ out the door sooner rather than later.  If you’re into it, you can catch up on my goofy gossip (HERE).       

Here’s a picture of the twins at church on Easter with their buddies…

Easter was wonderful.  I took the twins to a local buffet/brunch were kids eat for $6 EACH!  Now, I realize that I don’t have much longer of being able to take advantage of this because they are AMAZON children.  But, they each LOVED it and ate 5 plates a piece… begging… “MOM, can we come here again, PLLLLEAAASEEE?”  We got out the door for under $30 and were stuffed… “YEAH!”  I took the longest nap ever and we watched movies.  We also watched “The Ten Commandments” on the Saturday night before Easter.  I love that movie.  “Let my people go!”  We had a break from soccer last weekend, so that was cool.

I now need to publicly announce that I HATE CITIBANK MORTGAGE.  They’ve had my paperwork for over 2 months now and they keep transferring it and re-transferring it.  I’m getting nowhere and more and more behind.  I need a damn FULL TIME job and I need it now.  If I could ask for prayers and positive thoughts from y’all on that, I’d be most appreciative.  Wouldn’t it be great if I could get paid for reading?  Oh, the dream, the dream!

The allergies have attacked me, AGAIN!  I’m so freakin’ sick of it that I cannot express to you how “up-to-here” I am with it!  I’ve been bed-ridden for 2 days because it’s that bad.  I absolutely cannot breathe or sleep.

I was a bit saddened by the “cool or not cool” thing that cruised about our community this week.  But, I’ve decided that the only people whose feelings I really care about are those of my readers and also those of the writers of the blogs that I follow.  And, if I’m “not cool” with everybody else… I don’t really care.  I’ll just sick Ollie on them!  Speaking of which, The Great Wall of China has to be completed by the end of today.  GAG!

As always, my thanks to all of you for reading not only this post, but the others as well.   Your readership means the world to me!  AND, your comments are invaluable to me!

11 Responses to “The Sunday Salon: Prayers Create Miracles”