Here I go again....

It just wouldn't be like me to post a prayer request here sooner than later.  The message below is the prayer request I received from my aunt on Monday. 

My cousin Theresa, a most vivacious lady if I do say so myself, is in dire need of support and love and a miracle.  Years ago we were all shocked to learn of her leukemia.  It was around Christmas time, and it was just so unlike her to be feeling so low for so long.  When they learned it was leukemia, she underwent chemo treatments right away, and as weak as she was with the brain lesions she had, she came back to life with an even brighter smile.  God is good!

I remember swing dancing with her, Margaret and Miki in Portland the following summer, and it was really remarkable to see her strength and zest for life.  A year later I stayed with her while in Helena for a friend's wedding.  I shaved my head and gave my ponytail to locks of love in her honor.  And though she looked so radiant with her short hair, she couldn't be convinced to cut it, too.  A special treat that trip was to go up in a plane with her and her parents.  She had been taking flying lessons before the whole thing had started.

She has met her love and married.  I was thrilled to have been able to make her wedding in Helena, driving out with my family after Christmas.  And I have seen pictures of the beautiful twin girls born to her and John last year.  Life has been good!

But now the leukemia is back.  And it is not responding to the chemo yet.  This is hard news to hear.  If you can take a minute or three, please offer up prayers for her and her family - may God give them strength and courage to see this through.  If it is God's will, I pray those two baby girls can grow up with their momma.  God is good - and this really sucks!

 

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----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Roxie Nistler <roxjoe1@gmail.com>

Dear Family....  

The Helena Families are joining in prayer July 1st - this First Friday, Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in prayer for Theresa's healing.   I invite you to join us in prayer too!  

Update:   She is receiving platelets and red blood cells today (Monday) and  will have her bone marrow tested tomorrow for remission and if it is in remission she will work towards another round of chemo and then travel to Seattle for bone marrow transplant.  

Her oncologist said that her leukemia AML  with the mutation on the 21st and 3rd chromosome was not a very good one (so to speak) of the mutations. 

Theresa's spirits are up and the doc let her spend a couple of days at home....coming and going from the hospital as long as she had lots of help.


This is a little note to invite you to join us in prayer for Theresa Colley (Nistler), whose leukemia recently came out of remission. 

 
Please forward this to anyone who may be interested in joining us on this Friday (July 1st) in prayer.
 
When? this First Friday of the month because it is The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!!
 
What?  we are requesting prayers or any charitable work for Theresa's healing. 
 
The Intention? To ask the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who loves us each so dearly, to mercifully grant Theresa healing in and through His Eucharistic Presence.
 
Example 1... Some of us are gathering from 3-4 pm for an hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament asking Jesus for her healing in the Cathedral.  You are invited to join us or come at anytime during your day to be united in prayer for Theresa.
 
Example 2... If you are attending mass on Friday, please consider dedicating it to Theresa.
 
These are only two possibilities...if you are traveling or wherever you need to be on Friday, please unite yourselves to all the wonderful souls praying for Theresa in whatever way the Holy Spirit motivates you - there are no limitations to your prayer generosity!
 
 
Why right now? if the leukemia goes into remission this week after her first round of chemo, she will receive another round of chemo in a couple of weeks and then hopefully travel to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant end of August. This will be a process of 4 months stay in Seattle if all goes well.  Her sister Maria was a match for her blood type, coming from MI.  This is the best case scenario!

A little history...It has been 6 years since her first treatment. During that time, when she had 27 lesions in her brain, many people gathered one Friday to pray in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the Year of the Eucharist (2005) asking Jesus for her healing. It was truly through the power of The Eucharist that Theresa is with us today; now married with a beautiful set of twins.   We are hopeful that this Friday we can surround Theresa with pray again.
 

Please note, we are praying all of this through the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux and Blessed John Paul II.
 

Thank you ahead of time for all the love poured out in prayer by the Helena Body of Christ and beyond!

Catsup or Ketchup?

Neither really - you know that joke about the mama tomato telling the baby tomato, who couldn't go as fast, to "ketchup"...yes, yes, well, I am trying to catch up. The task of adding pictures has not become streamlined for me, so it takes a little more effort on my part. This weekend flew by too quickly. After a full week, I was so excited to sleep in. While we could use a trip to town for groceries and the like, I insisted that we stay home and sleep in. This coming from the girl who woke up at 7:30 am Saturday morning and could not fall back to sleep! I read for a couple hours before abandoning all hope for delaying the day any longer. I spent hours in the garden weeding and hilling the potatoes. There was more than I could do, but when I finally called it a day about 4 pm, I had to literally drag myself in the house. I stripped off my dirty clothes and sat on the kitchen floor with a water bottle trying to revive myself. Needless to say, I really enjoyed my shower and found that under all the dirt, I was still there. This level of tiredness does not usually proceed family festivities, but I think we all needed an early night. The occasion: Julie's parents had come to visit from Tennessee!

It turns out Daniel is regimented about handling his own meat. Nobody else can mash and patty it like he can, so we all played support roles - I tore foil.

Yep - that's my pregnant sister! Marie is due in September, two months after Miki. I'm gonna be a tia all over again and again!

As I said, it was not the late soiree of poker and drinking. We all had an early morning on Sunday except Julie & her parents. And just to be difficult, I woke up even earlier than I needed to - grumpy morning #2! We left the house by 7:10 am to head to church. I had a training after Mass and returned home about 10:30 am. Thomas and I went back to bed for a three hour nap. I was out cold, and it felt good to sleep. I know it's a day of rest, but Sunday is also a day I have longer to work in the garden. This time, there was nothing to do but give in to the exhaustion. Thomas and I woke and watched a movie. We cleaned house a little before Julie's parents came over to check things out. And then the evening ended on a high note! David plays in the Wanna-Be Band, which just so happened to have a gig at the St. James Patio. Leaving the kids behind, Marie joined us for a trip into town for root beer, pizza, and some "oldies". The band has a songbook, and we called out request for a couple of hours before calling it a night. David was tucked back into the corner, which made for a lot of failed pictures. This is the best I got...

Electric guitar and all - the guy in the back had all the good vibes!

One Year!

I will always be Bear to my dad, though my engagement ring names me Tom's "osita". There is a new-to-me country song about a father giving his daughter away in marriage, and cheesy as it is, the father tells how he loved her first. Well, it reminds me of my dad, as I have always been his favorite oldest daughter. I may not have been the first he gave away, but giving me away is just different - I am the only one of my siblings that has settled outside of the Portland Metro area. So when things kept getting pushed around for when Abba could come to visit, I felt pretty lucky that I would get to spend Father's Day with him this year without having to get on a plane to Portland. Of course, Father's Day this year landed on our first wedding anniversary. My parents set a precedent having taken Miki & Marty and Nick & Jen out for dinner on their first anniversary, so Abba took us out for dinner, too. A trip to town Saturday night to eat at the St. James hit the spot, and we enjoyed ourselves on the patio afterward while an old friend of Tom's sang some tunes. After dinner and music, we headed up to Cold Beer so Dad could check out the only bar in Colfax, NM. We shared a pitcher and played some dominoes. The place was a bit dead, likely with Rod playing at the James, so we didn't stick around too long. Sunday morning we loaded up and headed back towards town for mass. I knew that the chaplain at Philmont would be celebrating mass at the little chapel in Rayado at 8 am (same time as our service in Cimarron), so we saved half the drive and stopped there. One staff came over from across the road, so there were just four of us. It was a really nice service, and Fr. Mike gave Thomas and I a really thoughtful blessing. It's been fun this month, remembering where we were a month ago. On the afternoon of the 7th I paused to remember that we were trying to figure out where we would pitch a tent because there was snow above 5,000 feet, which included pretty much all of Crater Lake. A few days later I remembered a really amazing meal at the Pelican Brewery and a romantic walk on the beach afterward. And then of course just last Thursday I was grateful that we weren't just pulling back into town after driving straight through the night from Portland, practically non-stop, save for a detour through nasty traffic in Colorado that landed us at our favorite sushi restaurant half an hour before closing. Oh the memories....and all the memories since! I can't wait to make some more...

My Two Dads

Yes - Father's Day was a week ago. I know. I have been feeling quite tired and busy, and so it goes. Lucky me, I got to celebrate Father's Day with "my two dads." It made me laugh when I recalled the TV show from my youth, but as I was working in the garden, across the property I could see Abba and Pop working away. At lunch I fixed them sandwiches, and they talked and hung out in the evening. Fun to see them together and having fun - or at least working hard. Abba came to visit, and he wanted to "work the land". He has all the latest toys and gadgets for the city, but he's never gotten to maneuver a tractor or backhoe. This, I think, was better than any bottle of scotch we could have found...

It takes some left brain, right brain coordination to navigate the controls for the first hour. Abba was a whiz at it pretty quickly. I played on it, too....way more fun than weeding!

Pop came over on Friday, and these two made quite a team - one digs the hole and the other gets rid of the pile!

Someone was a little jealous that my dad was hogging all the tractor work. He walked over to our house and took his turn getting to dig. Consequently, these three turned into instant supervisors.

The morning my dad had to hit the road, we had to get a picture to show the progress. The hole will eventually be roughly 30' x 40'. Here we are about a tenth of the way there.

(Oh yeah, this is really getting under way on digging out our basement. Only a few more cubic yards to go, and a few more after that, and a few more....)

A Fun Weekend

Abba came to visit Wednesday, June 15th and stayed until Monday. It was a big weekend: Father's Day and our first wedding anniversary! A few fun photos below...

Thomas welded a bigger bucket for the back hoe as a Father's Day present for Pop. It was lots of fun watching an old paper cutter blade and all sorts of other scrap turn into a really pretty and nice bucket!

I get it from my momma: I enjoy hosting a meal and "entertaining". Our little place doesn't afford much room inside, but with the shade of the house, we have a nice little space for grilling and eating out. It was officially our second family dinner that we hosted, and I was thrilled! Sara helped Thomas water the chile plants before it got too dark. We headed down the road for Father's Day and enjoyed a hearty meal and lots of laughs. The stories started coming, and my dad was in for a treat. Abba & Pop - compadres sipping whisky!

I'm tired....

Four and a half full, fantastic days with my father.... 

 

He came to Miami to work, and so we did.  And now I just want to go back to bed.  I think he probably does, too.  I wish  work day wasn't ending with a bunch of manual labor clearing out the parish hall to prepare it for floor waxing.  Alas....maybe all those pleas we made for volunteers did not fall on deaf ears.

 

I really shouldn't complain because we had so much fun.  I am excited to post pictures for all to see what we accomplished.  Thomas and I got a new camera, and I have been trying to capture all the fun.  It will take me a minute or two of free time to finish learning about it, as mostly Thomas just stuck the battery and memory stick in so we could start figuring it out. 

 

In other random news, I did see a baby elk on my way to work which made me smile real big.

Top Ten

Actually, this is two "top fives"....  I'll start with the negative and end on a positive.  These are not an all-time top five, so much as the highlights of the last couple of days.

 

Top 5 to Make Me Cringe:

5.  I finally saw the doe with all the growths on her neck and face.  It's one of the things that makes you wince, and you want to look back and see it again.  Your brain just can't process quickly enough that in fact it is a beautiful and normally shaped deer with a multitude of hideous growths hanging off her neck and face.  Daniel kept talking about it, and now I have seen it and cringed.

 

4.  The flowering bindweed.  'Nough said, right?  

 

3.  A week-long forecast void of clouds or rain with plenty of wind.  The Raton Fire is still burning largely out of control, and I cringe to think how quickly a fire would spread through Miami with the dry, dry, dry conditions.

 

2.  The bird.  I don't understand how it is not annoyed by the car alarm chirping or that a larger bird hasn't tried to sit on it.  I now feel a bit more sympathy for my brother for having annoyed him with my singing when we were growing up.  If this is payback, I had not idea I was that bad.

 

1.  Tourists driving like every vista and cactus needs to be filmed!  Seriously got stuck behind a car on my way to work this morning that stopped on a blind curve just past a pull off in the middle of the lane.   Really?!?!  Some people are not on holiday and just need to get somewhere.

 

 

Top 5 to Make Me Smile:

5.  Watching Jeopardy with Thomas.  It's a fun little half hour of trivia and vegging out together.  I especially appreciate that he's messed with the antenna to get good reception for it.  I didn't miss it the first nine months we were here, and I won't miss it if we are too busy to catch it.  It is simply a little pleasure that makes me smile when the opportunity arises.

 

4.  That magical moment when the breeze starts to cool and every moment after it until bed time.  The afternoon sun is intense, but once it starts to cool, I don't want to come back in from working outside.

 

3.  Counting down the days, and now hours, until my dad arrives!

 

2.  Seeing my first baby antelope ~ oh how precious!  It was the size of a chihuahua with longer legs (not a "big boned" chihuahua like Charlie).  It is way too cute and maybe more dangerous to me as a driver than the tourists stopped in the middle of the road, but it made me smile.

 

1.  Moonshadows!  I wish I had a picture.  Monday night the moon was nearly full and oh so bright!  I had walked to my neighbors to buy some eggs and was invited to have a glass of wine and chat.  Sounded good after all the work in the garden.  I didn't walk home until almost 10 pm.  No need for a ride or a flashlight.  The moon was so bright that I had a shadow walking home.  And yes, I whistled, hummed, and sang Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow".

Evening visitor

Yesterday was a bizarre day. I slept poorly after 4:40 am, finally falling back to sleep for a couple hours before getting up to sing and read at church. After we got home and had a quick bite, Tom's dad stopped by to talk "buckets". Tom and his dad are building a larger backhoe bucket. Thomas had welded one part, and Pop had cut another part. After Pop left and my brief exposure to how hot the day was getting, I collapsed for a two hour nap. I was just so hot and tired. A quick cool shower helped wake me up in the afternoon, but not enough to actually move freely about the planet. I read and made a few phone calls. I started thinking about preparing dinner. I waited for the breeze to start cooling. In a dirty pair of gym shorts and a tank top, I heard a car pull up. I called to Thomas that his dad had arrived, but in fact there was a teenage boy standing on the other side of the screen door. He was desperate. The uniform shirt gave him away, and I presumed he and the contents of the white van outside were headed for Philmont. He needed a bathroom, and I pointed him down the hall. I closed the bedroom door and carried on. Thomas came wide-eyed out of the office as the bathroom door closed. He had heard a male voice passing and was terribly confused and alert. I told him that Boy Scout from South Carolina stopped and needed to use a bathroom. It could only have been a dire situation, as the lack of any services or people in the area make taking a potty stop relatively easy for a boy along Hwy 21. Thomas went out and talked to the folks in the van while I continued on with starting some rice cooking. He was still outside when the young scout finally emerged from the bathroom. He seemed somewhat more relieved, though still awkwardly uncomfortable at having intruded on such circumstances. I told him it wasn't a big deal, seeing as there isn't much between Springer and Philmont along the highway. The part that made the whole thing most amusing: he was genuinely surprised I had heard of Philmont and told me that was actually where he was headed. I laughed. It would be pretty difficult for anyone around here not to know about Philmont, but then not to suspect the destination of a boy wearing a Boy Scout uniform less than 20 miles from Philmont on a highway that doesn't lead to much else....well, you see why it was so laughable and how small this boy's world still is. They were on their way, and Thomas went and turned the bathroom fan on.

Fire in Raton

Yesterday afternoon a fire broke out in Raton.  This picture is from Marie, who was there with the kids.  They could see trees bursting into flames.  It has been too dry, and fire danger is really high everywhere around us.  We have been listening to the radio and scanner, and the stories or evacuations and lost structures makes everyone a little nervous and on edge.  I-25 has been closed, causing people to take dramatic re-routes to cross stateline with Colorado.  The train station has been closed until the trestles can be inspected.  The air quality is bad. 

 

Sadly, the forecast continues to be hot and dry and, worst of all, windy.  Please pray for some rain. 

Waking up in urban Miami

No, I don't live in that Miami, but I have to say that I have been mighty thrown off by a bird. We haven't been seeing tropical birds like toucans or macaws that might suggest a beachfront Miami, rather it is the sound of one (or more) silly bird. There are so many birds around here lately that it is almost a constant cacophony of chirping, singing, tweeting, etc. It is quite lovely, too. I really enjoy the sound of the hummingbirds coming into the feeder. My mother-in-law told me of a fat little yellow bird that she has been spotting on her hummingbird feeder, and sure enough we have had a similar visitor. There are the swallows that have started building one of their mud huts on top of our outdoor light. There are some really beautiful colors and sounds. So why did I wake up on Saturday morning at 6 am to a car alarm? Yes, if you lived in a city twenty years ago, you know the one that goes from ambulance siren, to police siren, to fire truck, to ice cream truck, to garbage truck...okay, maybe I am getting carried away. But there is that one distinct car alarm that runs through several short bursts of different shrill sirens. This is the sound I woke up to. It was confusing, and I couldn't sleep, so I watched a movie - BIG..with Tom Hanks. I think I even heard that car alarm when he stays at the St. James Hotel in NYC before his "tweener" bachelor pad. Anyhow, I made it out to work in the garden once Thomas was up and we'd eaten. As I worked away and he welded, I hollered at him, "Can you hear that? Do you hear that bird?" The car alarm was still going off, and I knew I hadn't dreamt or imagined it. Seriously, that bird kept singing through the different sirens over and over and over again! So how did this bird come to be in Miami? How did this sound become its tune? Do bird calls actually evolve over time? Has this one a migratory pattern from Albuquerque where its great-great-great grandma learned this new song and passed it down in the oral tradition to be remembered every spring? Will this species of birds still be singing the car alarm song in years to come, outliving the people who remember where the sound came from? Silly little bird....we're in the country...no need for a car alarm...

Why did the skunk cross the road?

I have no idea, but more importantly HOW did the skunk cross the road? When I saw him the first time, he was already roadkill!?!? No kidding, I drove back by 8.5 hours later, and the skunk was on the other side of the road. Likely a bird tried to carry him off and accidentally punctured the stink gland and dropped him like a rotted potato. Other animals crossing the road include deer. There have been a pair of does, sisters - I believe, who have been sprinting from one place to the next, suggesting that they were doing something they shouldn't have. Thomas pointed them out last night running from the south end of our property and into our neighbor's, across the road and far away. However, we saw them this morning across the NE corner of our property in another neighbor's fence. We have put up an electric fence around the garden and wire fence around the fruit trees and raspberries. They will nibble on almost anything green - I say "almost" because there is plenty of bindweed to feed on that hasn't been touched. Thomas laughs as my stories vacillate between "wow how cool" and "dang varmint" when it comes to the local animal life.

Hot & Dry

This morning we actually woke up to a blue sky.  This shouldn't be surprising, considering that we have been having such hot and dry (and windy) days.  We are close enough to the large Wallow Wildfire in Arizona that the smoke has been looming over the mountains and down over the towns.  I haven't noticed ash on the car (unless it is disguising itself as bird poop), but Albuquerque and Eagle Nest have been been layered with it.

 

I am carrying my boots and wild-land gear in the back of the car in case we called in.  The lightning of last week has passed, so our biggest threat at the moment is the carelessness of a cigarette tossed out the window or other reckless behavior.  The winds have been howling so much, and the ground is so dry.  It would most certainly be devastating.

 

Thomas and I have been watering the garden in the cool of the late evening.  He was so surprised at how warm the soil was last night, but the chiles and okra are happy for that.  Pray for rain...

Going home today?

Not me, but hopefully my dad will be going home today for an urgent recovery before he comes to visit.  After a little scare over 6 weeks ago that my dad was having pains related to his heart, yesterday he finally went under the knife and had a blockage removed and two stents inserted.  Last I heard, he was uncomfortable flat on his back and waiting to be transferred to his recovery room for a night of interrupted sleep.  Anyone who has had surgery and stayed over night knows that they come pester you all through the night, so you can't wait to go home and get some sleep.

 

We're all praying for a speedy recovery.  And if we are lucky, Dad will be waking up in New Mexico this time next week!