missed

Dear jacob,

I missed you in worship this morning.
I missed the voice God blessed you with singing His praises.
I missed your arm around me.
I missed you reaching for my hand during the closing prayer.

You missed a combined service and no Bible class.
You missed a loose piece of communion bread. :)
You missed ice chunks breaking off the steeple and tumbling down the roof during a prayer, of course.
You missed a very good lesson on how everything belongs to God.


37 hours down, 275 to go. I love you!

Candace

****For everyone else, I promise I’ll quit moping and write something actually worth looking at in the next few days.

he’s off

**** update: The plane landed safely in Haiti around 1:45pm central time.

jacob just left the house but is not in the air yet.

his friend, Gordon, came to pick him up so I wouldn’t have to drive the icy roads. (Gordon is the man who invited jacob to go to Belize last year. He is a deacon at Park Ave church of Christ and works at LeBonheur as a CRNA.)

i tried not to cry. then jacob pulled me in real close and tight and well…….you know how that goes.

our house is disgusting, so i have plenty to keep my mind from worrying. it smells like sausage and french toast too.

the team should be in Haiti by this afternoon.

thanks for reading and praying!

leaving for Haiti

so plans have changed a little and been up in the air for most of this week.

Jacob and the team leave tomorrow morning from Memphis. They are traveling on a Fedex jet, so they will be able to leave the area despite the inclement weather and delays of other flights.

Over 40,000 lbs of supplies are already on the way and will arrive Sunday. FedEx has been very instrumental in this whole process.

Here is a picture of the team and a list of names. Please pray for them and their patients.

• Dr. Sunny Anand, Le Bonheur director of Critical Care
• Dr. Gordon Kraus, internal medicine, Haiti Medical Missions of Memphis
• Dr. Derek Kelly, pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Campbell Clinic
• Dr. Josh Meier, pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Kosair Children’s Hospital, Louisville, KY; Children’s Orthopedics of Louisville
• Dr. Trey Eubanks, pediatric surgeon, medical director of Trauma, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center; Pediatric Surgical Group
• Dr. Joel Saltzman, medical director of Anesthesia, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center Pediatric Anesthesiologists PA
• Gordon Corder, certified registered nurse anesthetist, Pediatric Anesthesiologists PA
• Jacob Howell (<I love him!), surgery technician, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center

Umm, yeah, that’s my husband. I’m just a little proud of him.

I will be posting updates on here as well as Facebook.

do you have a heart?

jacob was on call the other night and had to go back in to the hospital at 4:30 in the morning. he knew he would probably get called around that time.

you see they were performing a harvest on a teenager who had died earlier in the day from a tragic accident. 
 
a harvest? yes, they had to harvest all of the child’s organs because his or her parents decided to donate them.

i laid awake for at least an hour thinking about that child’s family and the bad that happened to them, BUT on the same token thinking of all the good that will come from that bad.

amazing! 


are you signed up to be an organ donor? here in our state, you are identified as a registered organ donor by a heart on your driver’s license picture.

so, do you have a heart?

will your children have a heart?

i for real want to know, so leave a comment.

my space in cyberspace

I thought this was interesting. Myspace was my first experience in “blogging.” The last comment on my page is dated October 17, 2007. It was long before that that I actually gave myspace any attention. Here is what I said about myself nearly 2 1/2 years ago. (yeah, i know - me, me, me)

About me:
I can be very outgoing yet can be extremely shy. I love to sing along with the radio or just sing randomly. Clouds are beautiful and absolutely amazing, I mean they are JUST water! Coffee makes my heart flutter, literally. Chocolate is the best medicine. I love meeting people and building relationships. I am beautiful and I love knowing that about myself! I am a sucker for butterflies in my stomach and stopping to smell the roses. I am loud and often explode with laughter! I am far from where I need to be in life but exactly where I belong......

Who I'd like to meet:
C.S. Lewis, Dr. Seuss, and my mom at my age.

Candace's Interests General:
God and His Word, teaching and learning, CLOUDS, the Village of Hope, finding life in the little things, the people around me, details, small-world occurances, that sense of accomplishment that comes with a good run, traveling alone - anywhere, discovering new places, finding something in the Bible that had been forgotten or never before found, smiling at strangers and having them smile back, doing a good job, crashing at the end of a full day, having a Saturday to sleep in.....

Nowadays:
1. Not as much singing these days, I get too lost in my thoughts.
2. There’s not so much running…..honestly, almost none at all.
3. Switching to half-caff coffee alleviates heart palpitations.
4. Saturday mornings are for coffee on the couch, time with God, blogging, and cleaning in my pajamas. Not so much sleeping in.

The rest is pretty much the same. At least as far as this description goes. Life has changed a lot though.

Hmmm, I wonder what I will think when I read this post two years from now?

it just became more real

Jacob is leaving Tuesday for Haiti. He will be going with a surgical team from the children’s hospital where he works . He will be doing what he does best.

 
I am excited for him.

I am nervous for him.

I love him.

God is in control and HE will be glorified!

picniking

***thanks for introducing me to all the fun, Meg

 

don’t you love this last one? blurry, but i don’t care – it’s my favorite. that’s what he wanted most for his birthday. tape. so we got him three rolls of colorful tape.

no, i didn’t make the cake. mine wouldn’t have been that cute.

just having fun with the rebel and picnik

Healing Hands in Haiti

Have you been able to help the people of Haiti yet?

If you would like to see the relief Healing Hands International already has in place and what they have lined up for the following weeks, go here.  You can make donations on their website or by calling (615) 832-2000. 

$50. That’s all it takes to supply clean water to 100 people a day.

Fifty dollars.

all I have needed Thy hand hath provided

great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

Here is collection (piece meal) of thoughts from worship and Bible class this morning. I had to write (type) them down again so I could further sear them into my mind for the coming week.

2 Kings 4:1-7

God provides.

Luke 12:22-31

”Instead, strive for his kingdom…..” 
(the whole passage was read, but this bit stuck out for me)

Psalm 34

God always shows up!

Matthew 14:15-21 

God can do great things with little things.

Celebrate. Praise Him for His marvelous work.

What little things are you celebrating and praising God for today?

oh, brother

*for my sister, Jennifer and other brother, Timmy
 
Jonny – that’s what I call him. He is now 22, as of this last Sunday. 

When he was little his nickname was Bruiser.


 
He’s goofy. He’s smart. He’s charming. He LOVES his nieces and nephew. He’s good with animals. He hates onions, celery, and mushrooms.
 
 
He’s also hurting. Physically and spiritually.
 

A week ago, he lived just around the corner from me and Jacob. Less than 1/2 a mile. He would pop in randomly. Sometimes to come cook cornbread because his oven didn’t work or sometimes just to play with the dogs. He would come here to take showers when his hot water heater went out. He would just stop by and shoot the breeze.


For the next 6 months, he will be living 20 minutes away. I am both glad and sad. His apartment before was a dump and it was getting worse. His apartment now will be more dependable but I am not so sure about his roommate. 

 
Sometimes I feel like Jonny’s mother more than his sister. Or maybe I am just a big sister and I feel like that because he has no mother. He was 10 when our mother passed away and 20 when our dad died. I wonder what he would be like without those completely life altering circumstances. Oh well. I cannot dwell on that.
 

I know he has a heart of gold. I know God works wonders. I know prayer works. Now, if only I would remember that every night.

Jennifer, quit crying.

that Country Living lampshade

I saw it and gasped. I really liked it. Without a doubt I knew I would be making it. Easy, easy but time consuming.


Don’t be fooled by the cover. That lamp may be $39.99 but the lamp SHADE is another $59.99!

Here’s my version…..

Pretty, huh?

I found a much less expensive shade at Garden Ridge and used a 40% coupon to get the stencil at Michael’s. The paint is some leftover from something else. And I improvised by dabbing on the paint with a wadded up napkin rather than a sponge.

Perfect? Nah.

I kind of like how the paint is thick in parts and thin in others. It really shows when the light is on.

Jacob really likes it. Before I went to bed last night, I admitted I liked it but didn’t love it like I thought I would. He said that didn’t matter because he liked it.

Linking up to DIY day at A Soft Place to Land because you can SO do this yourself!

January junkin

Any given Saturday you can usually find us at estate sales, yard sales or an antique store. We just have fun looking at all the cool stuff and finding things we had as kids. I guess you could say that junkin’ is one of our hobbies. It’s fun for us.

Well, today we hit the jackpot of all jackpots. Okay, not really, but I am really excited about today’s find.

We went to an antique store close to our house and were looking for a pipe for him and a chandelier for her. No such luck, but we did find these so insanely large they moved up with my cheeks when I laughed awesome glasses. Cute, huh?


Our adventure then took us to the thrift store across the street in hopes that we could steal away ten more minutes out of the house. That’s when I saw it.

White. Dark legs. I knew those sleek and curvy lines from years of dreaming in catalogs .

Could it be?

I checked the tag. It just said “couch” and “$90.00.” I was on a mission now. I decided I needed to flip this couch over to hunt for a label. Then, my senses came to me and I simply lifted the middle, slipcoverless cushion to find……


Yep, she was. So, I grabbed the cushion with the “Couch $90.00” tag and started towards the front. But Jacob had noticed another tag. It said “Couch $79.98". I began sniffing the couch all over to make sure it had not been peed on. I was looking for rips (it has one small one). I was expecting to find broken springs or busted legs. No smells. One rip. No breaks. A little surface dirt. SOLD.

When we got to the front and handed the tag to the lady, she said “Oh, you’re not going to pay this much.” My heart sank. “What?” I happened to stammer out. “It’s not going to be this much” she said coolly. I (stupidly) asked, “Why?” Again, she said, “It’s not that much. I can mark it up if you want me to.” Jacob and I together, “NO!”


The top tag is the tag on the couch. The bottom is our receipt that shows what we paid tax and all. Steal? I think so.


We got the couch after a trip home to get Jacob’s truck. I ran the vacuum over it (a few times) and cleaned it with damp washcloth. It is now drying from a round of febreeze.

We have already picked out and bought a slipcover on eBay (only $149)! I am am one happy junker tonight.


If you want to see what we bought yesterday while junkin with jacob’s family, go here. It sold in less than 12 hours for more than twice what we paid for it! Woo-hoo!