It’s always Autumn in England

Saturday we are heading to Ireland.

We are taking the ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare and then we have booked a cottage in County Wexford about 30 minutes from the port. We may take a day to go to Dublin, I’m not sure. I plan on relaxing as much as possible…sleeping in, playing board games, watching movies. I would like to take in some of the local scenery and gardens and maybe walk along a beach one day. It will be far too cold to get in the water, or even wear a swimsuit, but I love the beach!

Called my mom today. She leaves tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday morning we pick her up at Manchester Airport.

Friday, I am working from 12-5pm.

Saturday morning, bright and early we leave for IRELAND!

Thursday went well at work. The girls worked hard and my boss had a surprise for me. She had done much of my usual paperwork that I do during the week and then she put me in charge of all the girls and getting everything done!

The girls finished by their target of 2pm and then we had a lady from church come in and she worked with them all to do customising t-shirts. While they did that, I took some White Spirit and a big broom and cleaned the driveway where some paint had spilled a couple of weeks ago. My back and hands ached, but the driveway looks much better!

Tomorrow morning, bright and early Evan and I are heading to Northampton. We have to make a quick stop in Leeds to pick something up.

Monday I am working extra hours and will get to meet Mark Zschech when he visits Mercy for the day. He is our Chairman of the Board of Trustees and all the staff have been asked to be there for the day!

Tomorrow is ‘Major Cleaning Day’ at work. We have these once a month and all programmes are stopped for the day and the girls do lots of cleaning and then usually get a take away or some kind of treat. Even though the girls clean every day, tomorrow will be extra stuff like sweeping the drive, washing the van or rearranging the office (that’s what they did a couple months ago!)

I have never worked on a MCD before, but this time my boss, Jo asked me to swap days from Tuesday to Thursday so I could be there. We have shed full of recycling that needs to be taken to the recycling centre, because it took me several months to get the recycling people to deliver the boxes to use for collection. This meant with a house full of 8 people, we have a LOT of recycling built up over the last few months. My fun job is going to be to get some of the girls to help me load the van and take it all to be recycled. Plus, I still have to do all my usual work that I barely squeeze into an 8 hour day. Should be fun! I will let you know how it goes!

Sorry to have not updated on Abigail for a while. I was hoping anyone who wanted to know would read Angela’s blog. I worked an extra shift last weekend because I swapped with another person and was covering her shift, therefore, I just have not had time to update. But, she is home and they have found no reason to be concerned so far. They are still waiting on an EEG on Monday.

I am really looking forward to having Mom & Sam here and going to Ireland. I need a break and will definately need one after doing three weekends in a row and still doing my mid-week shifts. I have basically done 40 hours of over time in two weeks. Today I feel like I have caught up a bit on sleep and woke up at 8:20am on my own!

I am running to Skipton today to buy a Hen Night gift for Anya today and maybe something to wear for the 80’s theme party. Otherwise, I will just have to not go in costume, because I have NOTHING 80’s style to wear at the moment.

Tonight about 9:30pm I got a call from a friend in Northampton who is good friends with my sister as well saying that my niece who is three had been rushed to hospital and was on a ventilator because she was not breathing on her own.

The good news is that God was there with her and she is now doing fine. Aparantly she woke up coughing and was sick and then 10 mintues later was having a siezure and then was really sick.

The Dr’s think she had a virus and that it may have caused a high temperature and that is what caused her to struggle to breath. They did a CAT scan and everything seems to be normal. I got a call just before midnight to say that she is being kept on the childrens ward for the night. Her dad is staying with her and my sister has gone home to look after their 7month old son.

Thanks to everyone I called or texted for praying. I am sure all will be fine through the night. Thank you God for being with her! 

The appeal Mercy had last week week regarding Housing Benefit was denied. I believe that the courts claim is the because the programme is free the girls cannot get Housing Benefit, even though their housing is not free and there is a cost involved for it.

But, I believe that God has a plan for Mercy and even though this money would have been useful for the day to day running of the house, I have every confidence that God is going to provide in an unexpected way. I know money is not my responsibility at Mercy, but as staff we all cared about this outcome. But, I have this real sense of peace about the situation and I shared that with Kerry & Arianna (the executive director and director of programming) this week. They were both joyful to hear someone say that I felt God’s hand in this situation even though none of us can see what will happen next. I am waiting in anticipation to see how God reveals his plan!

I was glad it was Monday this morning at work. Then I came home and all I could do was sleep. Literally, I took a 15 minute nap in bed, went upstairs and slept for about 1-2 hours while ‘watching’ tv. I did stay awake for 2 episodes of Will & Grace. Then I went back to bed for an hour. I was exhausted.

In other news, I saw a band in concert this weekend at our church called Downhere. They are pretty good. You can check them out on myspace.com/downhere