Welcome to another photo collection of life in the Ozarks!
No post is complete without my two favorite cats!
Autumnal blessings to you! ❤️ Amy
Happy Fall!
Tag: #LivingWithMS
Topping Up Your Faith
A well stocked pantry is essential for spontaneous bakers such as myself. Not only is it important to have the essentials on hand, like flour and butter, but also an ecclectic array of the odd and unusual, such as saffron and vanilla beans. It takes time to grow your stock necessary to whip up something special at a moment’s notice without having to make a grocery run. You also have to learn to keep an ongoing mental list of how much you have on hand of each ingredient. There is nothing more annoying than having to go to the store in the middle of a recipe because you don’t have enough of something to finish the job. Keeping your pantry topped up is important.
Much like baking, faith needs a deep repository of ingredients that are grown over time in order to create a feast that will supply daily Bread, even during times of famine. Basic faith, all that is needed to initially become a follower of Christ, is to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that by His death, burial, and resurrection He has overcome sin and death and has given us eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Scripture was written by about 40 different men, as the Holy Spirit prompted them (2 Timothy 3:16), over 1,500 years and is a wellspring of history, personal experience, wisdom, prophecy, fulfillment of prophecy, law, gospel, poetry, and letters giving first-hand accounts by eyewitnesses who had dealings with our eternal God across time. All of these were written for our learning (Romans 15:4) and can be mined to give us everything we need in order to grow our faith through hope, truth, love, peace, joy, patience, endurance, faithfulness, forgiveness, mercy, grace, obedience, submission, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control, understanding, wisdom… and so much more!
The growth of faith is directly related to how much time, effort, thought, and personal devotion we put into topping it up. Recognizing and experiencing God in one’s personal life with the aide of the Holy Spirit, when combined with listening to Him as you study scripture and talking to Him through prayer, combine to help us live our best and fullest life in Christ. It is this fullness of faith, one that is constantly being filled and topped up, that shifts our viewpoint from life here below to that of the promises given about life above.
As we see every day on the news, bad things happen in the world. If you have lived very long at all, you know that unsolicited bad things will happen in the lives of the ones we love and even to ourselves. Christians are not immune from failure, brokenness, loneliness, sorrow, or hardship of all kinds. Accidents, illnesses, viruses, diseases, and death will touch and eventually take us all.
BUT instead of despair and hopelessness when these things happen, we Christians can reach into our diligently topped up storehouse of faith and praise God through the storm instead of blaming Him. We find ourselves resting in His ever present, faithful hands and feel a deep assurance that He has lovingly pressed us against His heart to keep us safe. Not necessarily that He has removed the travails that happen to us in the flesh, though He certainly can do so if it is within His will! But, no, I mean the safety of our faith. The promise of His love and His sovereignty alive and over our lives no matter what situation or diagnosis or trouble we find ourselves in. This kind of faith is possible because Jesus Christ has overcome sin and death by His resurrection and is the source of eternal life for all who call upon His name. He has overcome everything in this world and, as a result, there is now nothing that can harm those who believe in Him – not even death!
Paul says it this way in 1 Corinthians 8:34-39, “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”.
To me, the promise that nothing can separate me from the love of God through Christ Jesus my Lord tops me up to overflowing! If you are already a Christian, don’t forget to keep topping up your faith each and every day through scripture and prayer. If you are not a Christian, but you want to know more about how to become one so you too can be filled to the “whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 3:19), then send me a message and I would count it a privilege to share the Gospel with you!
To the praise of His glory! ❤️Amy
August Is About to Adios
August has provided us several opportunities to enjoy time outdoors, as the pictures below document. We had a few unseasonably cool days for this time of year that allowed me to get out of the house and explore a few outdoor spaces close to our house. I ramped up my own self-isolation the past couple of weeks in anticipation of my next Ocrevus infusion. Matter of fact, I am writing this in the hospital while the O-juice goes in. The drug was supposed to start dripping at 8:00 but it got held up in the pharmacy until a little after 11:00 😖. It takes about five hours to infuse then I have to wait an hour before I can leave, so it’s going to be a long day. Even so, I’m thankful to be getting it at all since so many others with MS don’t have any options this late in the game (#30yearsofMS).
Hubby had a couple of weeks off between semesters so he tackled restoring the fence around our backyard. The days he worked on it were boiling!
The road back home from the river.
I have had a lot of things floating around in my mind to write about, but I haven’t decided if I want to share them or not. Writing is very pleasurable and cathartic for me and I want to guard it so it remains that way.
May God be with you. ❤️, Amy
A Peaceful Day at the Park 📸
❤ Amy
Nature Nurturing
We’ve seen the perfect blend of summery sun and rain here in Southwest Missouri this past week. We’re usually roasting in nearly 100*F/38*C by this time in August, but we’ve had gorgeous 77-80*F/21-27*C days. Thanks to the recent weather, nature is lush and bursting with color all over the place around us! The forecast says it will only last another day or two, but it has been a delicious treat while it lasts and a balm for these many months during Covid-19.
A large forested area lies both north and south of our neighborhood with a good sized river about a mile down the road. It has both a well-maintained river access spot and, a little further down the road, an old, reallocated bridge that serves as the entrance for a greenways trail that winds through and circles our city. Additionally, our neighborhood has a little landscaped lake with a walking path, bridge, water feature, bird houses, and a bench along the shore. On Wednesday of this last week MS kindly lent me a decent enough day that I drove to the river in the morning and spent some time soaking in the views from the bridge at the trail’s head. After lunch, I headed off for a lovely, cane-assisted stroll around the lake. There were butterflies everywhere in both places! They somehow managed to lift my spirits on their tiny little wings and carry them about as they soared around and flitted and fluttered here and there. Similarly, as I rested a couple of times on my way around the lake in the afternoon, I found myself smiling as I tried to follow the dizzying courses of dozens of dragonflies going nowhere and everywhere at once. What funny little creatures! Oh, and don’t worry, there are plenty of bird and cat photos below too😻!
This past Friday was an exciting day when…my new camera arrived!!! As you peruse the photos below, see if you can guess which ones I took with my point-and-shoot and which ones were with my new DSLR. The new camera inspired me to branch out and find a new photo editing app to play around with. It’s pretty safe to say I have a lot to learn. As an example, I hadn’t been messing around with the camera for more than five minutes before I realized I needed to invest in a more versatile lens. Some lessons are pricey 😉! No worries though, I am having fun and can’t wait to learn and grow my skills (and lens collection!). It was time for the upgrade because I needed another sit-down hobby to add to my arsenal of things to do when the MS monster has me lashed to the couch.
Speaking of MS, my next Ocrevus infusion is at the end of this month. Let’s see, this will be my second full dose which means I’ve been on it for 18 months. For the first time since starting it I think I’m experiencing the “crap gap” I’ve heard other MSers describe just before their next dose. My already ridiculous fatigue intermixed with poor balance, endurance, gait, bladder issues, clumsiness, sluggish word finding, and occasional cog-fog have all ratcheted up to the next level over the last few days. I hope topping the tank with more O-juice knocks my symptoms back down to the previous notch.
Part I: Riparian and Lakeside Entertainment
Here we are at the end of another blog. I looked back and realized I have been posting weekly lately. I didn’t mean to, or not mean to, it just happened. Will there be another blog next week? Maybe, I guess we will both have to wait and see😁. Either way, I’m glad you stopped by for a look-see. May God be with you! Amy
The Orange
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave —
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.
~Wendy Cope
Oranges are my favorite food. Orange is the color for MS Awareness. I love poetry and Wendy Cope writes good stuff. Titles for my blogs are always kind of hard to settle on, but this one was easy. And so, it occurred to me that it must be time for a post.
Besides, daily and ordinary things are important. Tethers feel good when life is pitching up the sea all around you. Maybe your ordinary day looks different than it did at the beginning of the year (cough – Covid), but I hope you have found some level, familiar ground upon which to walk. Everything is pretty much the same as before for me thanks to my parasitic sidekick MS. It’s been doggone hard to walk the past couple of days, so I’m especially grateful for the little things that help me get through the endless hours of sitting.
Cue a few of the pictures I’ve taken this week.
Part I. Light
Part II. Birds
Part III. Cats
Part IV. MS
Part V. The Orange
I hope you have a “huge orange” kind of day. God be with you! ~Amy
A Week Interrupted
There I was having a perfectly good day last Saturday riding around with my hubby as he ran into a couple of stores for our weekly shopping, when all of a sudden I felt a familiar pain in my lower tummy. Within just a few minutes I felt the next stage of an all too familiar urge hit and I knew before we made it home I had a UTI.
Fun Fact: One of the most common symptoms of MS is bladder control problems. The bladder has spasms and won’t empty completely causing frequency and urgency. Because the bladder won’t empty completely, MSers get a UTI very easily.
Anyway, my suspicion was validated at urgent care that same Saturday afternoon and I came home with the usual round of antibiotics and some Azo to ease the pain. I typically feel better within 24 hours, but when things felt worse by Sunday evening I knew we needed to go back to see what was going on.
A kidney infection was what was going on. I got a different script for a stronger antibiotic for the next seven days and then a thigh-full of another one. They warned me it would hurt as they added Lidocaine to the concoction and said it would take about 30-40 seconds to give because it was “thick”. I made it through the shot, but then nearly passed out 🥴. My blood pressure dropped too low very suddenly, I got all sweaty, and felt myself going. No big deal, I recovered and they let me go within another 30 minutes. Passing out was nothing compared to the pain throbbing through my thigh! With hubby dragging me by one arm and my cane propping me up to stay vertical with the other, I limped and whimpered my way to the car and thought, “That shot better be worth it!”
I’ve had lots of UTIs, but this was my first kidney infection; I wasn’t quite ready for how hard it kept hitting and how long it took to feel better. By Wednesday I knew I was going to live and felt back to my normal self on Thursday.
During the time it took to recover, I didn’t do much. I filled the lethargic days by hanging out with and generally loving around on the cats, reading an Inspector Morse mystery, listening to Dickens’ Bleak House, putting some puzzles together on my favorite puzzles app, and sleeping a lot. Finally, on Thursday and Friday, I ventured back out on the patio for short bits in the mornings and evenings – to avoid the heat, another no-no when you have MS – and even managed to muster the energy to sew a cute little tunic with an adorable cat print for myself!
There is a river just a mile and a half down the road from our house with a lovely bridge and trail from which to admire nature. Hubby humoured me and took me for a while around noon on Friday. Though I can’t walk the trail anymore, we traversed the bridge and took in all the special delights that fill the senses when around running water. Birds chirping, breezes blowing, water rippling, the faint whiff of fish in the air, the sight and smell of earth and dirt eroding, tree roots erupting on trails down to the river banks, and the beauty of wildflowers clustered along the banks and in the undergrowth, or definitely blooming in solitary confidence and glory.
It feels so good to feel better! It was a good reminder to appreciate my general health, despite the MS. I’d take a lot of crummy MS days over going through that again any time soon. I hope you enjoy the pictures below and are able to get a sense of their feel and place for the ones not captioned.
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. God be with you! ❤️
And Now For Something Completely Different…
Sick of the world? Me, too. Let me divert you.
I like looking at YouTube videos and other blogs that chronicle the everyday activities of someone else’s life. It’s both reassuring and fun to see that we all basically have the same rhythm to our lives that encompasses everything from humdrum chores, to work, to family ties and responsibilities, and an innate need for some kind of leisure activity or down time. This sameness, no matter where we are from or what we look like, reminds us we are all created in the image of God and that He has bound us to need each other as humans.
So, with that in mind, let me take you through some of the things I’ve been up to lately. Along the way you will find some cats, a brief snapshot of the music I’ve been listening to, a little sewing project, and a few meals. Of course, there will be a fair few birds, too.
I think I’ve learned some important lessons while photographing wild birds that have resonated with me as pretty good general advice for life, especially at this time. 1. Be patient, nature works on its own schedule and at its own pace. 2. Always be ready, opportunity only lasts a few seconds . 3. Only about 10% of the media (in my case, photos I take) is worth keeping, the other 90% is missing the picture and destined for the trash can. 4. Remember that everything you see on your screen is only what you can see through the lens, you have to look up to get the whole picture. Conversely, not everything in the big picture is worth focusing in on. 5. Keep a sharp eye out for the things that are beautiful and zoom in on them.
(Yep, I like Monty Python. If you have to ask what I mean, don’t bother.)
Hercules Wants My Toothbrush
I didn’t know MS recruited, but it seems that it recently acquired the mythical legend Hercules to it’s dark side. I guess he took a shine to my electric toothbrush because it certainly feels like I am in an all-out, do or die wrestling match against some kind of superhuman force the entire two minutes it runs. Oral hygiene shouldn’t require a 10 minute power nap to recover from, right? It’s been so long since I’ve experienced “normal” energy that I can’t remember.
Anywho… despite insipid fatigue, life has crept quite happily along. Because I have the best hubby and sister in the world, they each drove ten hours both ways (!) so I could spend a week staying with my sister in Texas. We didn’t do anything or go anywhere because CV-19 is crazy in Austin at the moment, but we had fun anyway and I love spending time with them all.
(L-R) chocolate, raspberry-white chocolate cheesecake, red velvet, lemon.
Other than having to start a diet when I got home, everything else fell back into place like I had never left. I still have the sweetest hubby and cats one could ask for and the birds are as photogenic as ever. Oh, and a squirrel has found the feeders. He’s cute now but he probably won’t be if he decides to invite his friends.
A few days have been nice enough I have been able to spend time outside, but heat and MS don’t mix so I’ve been indoors a lot more than I would like. I’ve had extra entrenched primary MS fatigue which has made it hard to do much. (Primary fatigue is thought to be due to nerve messages from your brain and spinal cord having to navigate the areas of damage caused by your MS. It takes more energy to send and deliver messages to other parts of the body, like the muscles in your arms and legs, causing a build-up of fatigue. – mstrust.org.uk). However, it feels good to be back home and I have books that need reading, shows that need watching, puzzles that need putting together, music that needs listening to, and apps that need playing.
Stay safe and God be with you!
If Only
The whole world is mad enough to chew nails and spit rivets at each other. The wildfire of anxiety already fueled by a viral pandemic and financial hardships has roared into an inferno fanned by outrage over racial injustice. Add all of this to an overly politicized, deeply divided, radically idealized, and seemingly diabolicaly opposed Left and Right presidential election year and, voila, here we are. McCarthyism (“The practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigate techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.” – Dictionary.com) turned into Cancel Culture (“The popular practice of withdrawing support for public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.” Dictionary.com). Unsurprisingly, we (collectively as humans) have learned absolutely nothing from God or history on how to get along with each other. Like sheep, we’ve all gone astray. The only difference between us and sheep is that we like to point and call out the wrong courses everyone else has taken, but never look back at our own errors.
As a result, I’ve been rationing my news intake and limiting my time on social media platforms. I can’t take all the lava-hot words and vitriol spewing out of the mouths on all sides of the world’s current, self-inflicted problems. I don’t know how to heal or even understand the differences of opinion and the vast chasms that seem to lie between the logic and thinking of some of us. So, with that admission, what can I do? I have been and will continue to lay them down at my Father’s feet. He is the answer to everything, always. God excels in doing what everyone says is impossible.
I’m doing the same on a personal level. While the huge fires of the world keep burning, so too do the little flames within my life. I’m sure you understand because we’re all the same. My personal fire is called MS but yours might be named such things as Furloughed, Job, Money, Stress, Anger, Divorce, Death, Parent, Child, Spouse, Cancer, Diabetes, Aging… just about anything, really. For me, MS is constantly melting away tiny pieces of my own sovereignty. It’s very difficult to let go of the things in life that make you feel like you have some control, such as driving, shopping, cooking, and walking.
In much the same way that I realize I can’t put out the MS fire in my own life and deal with the destruction it leaves in it’s wake on my own, we, as a nation and even world, must understand we will have to work collectively to bring the flames of our society back under control. The solution will not be conceived in fear of an unseen germ, worry over the next great depression, or riots that break our neighbors’ windows and loot their livelihoods because of injustice. No, if it could then we would already have the answer. The fix is to be found in love. The kind of love the apostle Paul described in I Corinthians 13:4-7, the sort God has for us. His love is patient, kind, happy for others instead of envious, lifts others up instead of boasting about self, is well mannered instead of rude, seeks the good of others instead of self, is slow to anger, keeps no records of wrongs, delights in holiness instead of evil, rejoices in the truth instead of sensationalism, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
I realize what I am about to say is very Pollyannish of me, but… If every person would recognize the truthfulness and wisdom of this type of love and make it their own personal goal to practice it, without policing others and how they are doing as they attempt to do the same, all the infernos of the world would simply burn themselves out. If only.
Amy's Axons 