And the wall came a tumblin' down!

The first term of this year is over and I made it through! Health-wise it was a difficult journey, many days finding me in tears because I was so tired or in so much pain with still too much homework to do. One weekend I went on a short hike with my HomeschoolAlumni.org friends and about landed myself in the urgent care from the pain. Then for about three weeks in the middle of the term I got hit with bad FibroFog (kinda hard to interpret when you can’t remember a word for more than 0.1 second…, and hard to get around when you’re not quite sure what one is suppose to do with the elevator buttons, much less what floor you’re on ;-p ).

BUT! God is so faithful and gave me just enough strength to get through. Thanks for all your prayers. My family and friends were encouraging (and sister-in-Christ classmate Breezy was always ready with a helpful “Amy, you won’t go to hell if you don’t finish your homework.”). My tutor has been so patient, too--he’s a huge part of the reason I’ve made it this far.

As many of you know, I’ve been struggling with my interpreting skills for a few years now. Because of my vision-related learning disabilities and my Fibro, it’s often seemed foolish to keep pushing on against what felt like an unmovable wall. I added a year to the program and voluntarily repeated a few classes in hopes that it would help, but last year it didn’t seem to have made that much difference. Yet I still felt God telling me to keep walking. So I did…just kept marching in silly circles around that Jericho wall, staring at those solid stones, knowing only God could knock them down, and trusting that somehow He would.

And He did!

The end of last term and over the summer I started seeing little cracks in that wall. This year it’s come a tumbling down! My health issues have still been big chunks of rock littering my path, but my interpreting skills have grown in leaps and bounds. Last month we took our first try at the big Qualifying Exam. Most people don’t pass it the first time and I passed the voice part and was fairly close to passing the signing part. I didn’t qualify for the internship yet, but I’m so happy with my score and am confident that I can pass the next one. Just today I got my grades back from all my classes this term and I got all Bs and As. For me that’s particularly amazing.
Now I’ve got three blessed weeks off. I’ll be spending them continuing to practice interpreting, working a little, resting a lot, and finally writing! I’ve so missed writing this term. I’ll be wrapping up the last few details of the latest Peculiar People book, Delivered, and then hopefully getting back to the Heirloom Chronicles.

This month I’m also joining a study at OHSU for a new med for Fibromyalgia. It’s suppose to help with both pain and the FibroFog, so I’m excited about it and am praying I’ll get the real med and not a placebo. I was suppose to have my initial four-hour-long appointment today, but icy roads nixed that plan. Hopefully the roads will clear up sooner than the weather people think, as the longer I wait for my appointment, the longer I’m off pain meds. My family is suppose to head to the beach on Friday, too, and right now the pass is pretty much impassible. At least the snow is pretty on the foothills!
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Gull-able

Here’s a belated entry about the lovely weekend when Laury was here last week.

It started with a dandelion. Apparently only one kind of dandelion grows in Illinois, and Laury was incredulous that the almost-dainty-looking blooms with the small circlet of pedals balancing on tall stems were, indeed, dandelions. We finally convinced her and she rushed along to each of the flowers in our field, eager to see what other treasures the Northwest had to offer. “The Pacific Northwest is like a completely different country!”

“You know,” Marita joked, “We could tell her anything and she’d believe us.”

I grinned. “Yeah, see that, Laury?” I pointed to a pile of rocks. “That’s the rare….umm…Jubjub flower.” Mari and I laughed.

Laury spotted a flower on the other side of the rocks and peered at it. “Really? That white one?”

We laughed harder and she looked around in puzzlement before she realized I was pulling her leg. From then on whenever she asked a question I didn’t know, I would make up a silly answer (typical for me, anyhow ;-) ). And from then on, if Marita or I gave her a true answer, she would say doubtfully, “huh uh.” but if it was a made up answer she would gasp, “Really?!” Kinda backwards…so of course I had to tease her more. And of course she teased me back just as hard. ;-) We pretty much laughed the entire weekend--it was so fun.

Here’s a bunch of random silly pictures and the stories to go along with them:

< Laury and I giggling with our laptops during the sleepover at Marita's house.

>>I'm not singing--really. Mari caught me in action as I was telling a story. And to think, some people believe I'm quiet and shy!

Saturday Mari and Laury and I drove to Seaside, OR. It was a lovely day--not too hot and not too cold. It was the first time Laury had ever seen the ocean. We splashed in the cold waves a bit and then settled down to eat our lunch. As always, seagulls flocked around, eager to find any bit of food. Marita and I pretty much ignored them, but Laury was enjoying them and snapped some pictures. Then...out of the corner of our eyes... Marita and I saw Laury start to toss a bit of bread to a bird. Mari lunged for her, yelling, "No!"

It was too late. The bread fell to the beach and the entire Northwest population of seagulls made a dive. Straight for us. One bird gulped up the bread. The others made a circle around us. The three of us humans in the middle huddled closer together. "Rule number one." Mari and I told Laury. "Never, never, EVER, feed the seagulls."

The circle tightened. The birds didn't make a sound, just stared at us with menacing dark eyes. You could just see the "Mine? Mine? Mine?" thought bubbles hovering over their heads as they watched us eat.

Finally someone else made the fatal mistake and the birds flew to gobble up someone else's lunch. All but one bird, that is. Perhaps it was the one, and only one, who had gotten the piece of bread Laury threw, but it stuck close to us the rest of the day. In fact, Laury started calling it our guard-gull and you can see it in the background of the above picture.




< Two dizzy people trying to hold each other up doesn't work so well. "I'm not dizzy." I tried protesting. "I just...sorta...loose my balance sometimes."

"Hon," Laury patted my arm, "that's called dizzy."

>>Mari and Laury had never heard of drip castles, so of course I had to demonstrate the fine art, as taught to me by my dad. True

to my life as a "kid magnet," I had no sooner started when two little boys rushed over to see what I was doing. I showed them how to scoop up a handful of wet sand and let it dribble through your fingers to form a bumpy, almost-spooky-looking castle. The younger boy discovered that his hands were dirty halfway through the first drip, and rushed off to wash them (doubly funny because I used to do that during mud pie making when I was that age, too), but the older boy and I had fun making our castles.

Fish!!

I did it! I made it through the first year of the interpreting program still alive and with okay grades in all my classes. ;-) It feels so nice to have it done. This summer I’ll be working hard to improve my interpreting even more so I’m ready to meet the challenge of the second year head on.

My finals went pretty well, thanks to everyone’s prayers. By the last day of my busiest week, I was definitely worn out and not at my highest potential, but even so made it through with an okay grade. Now my classmates and I are celebrating with a couple of parties this week. Then it’s back to practicing every day!

As though the word is out that I’m done with school, I’m already starting to get more editing and critiquing projects again, and even got my first paid one! This summer I’ll be dusting off a lot of my old stories and a few poems and submitting them to magazines, as well as doing some new writing. My goal is to finish editing the postcard project, also, and have that ready for the editor at least by the end of the summer.

This week I got referred to pain management classes and to another kind of sleep clinic. They will both start next month and be weekly appointments for a few weeks. I’m sure they will cover a lot of information I know, but hopefully I’ll learn some new things as well, and can take some steps to get healthier this summer so I’ll be more equipped for school next fall. The next term in October will probably be the most challenging yet. I’m hoping someone will actually diagnose me with something. It seems odd to me that my doctor is referring me to this stuff but hasn’t done much to verify what is causing the pain and sleep problems.

The end of this month my family is going to the beach. All of us are going together this time--my parents, two sisters, brother-in-law, and my three nieces. It’ll be fun! I plan to do some reading and writing as well as lots of playing with the little ones.



*”Fish” is the mouth-shape made while signing FINISH. It’s become a joke among my classmates and one of our teachers so now it’s not uncommon to hear someone to ask in English “You fish?” instead of “Are you finished?” or to actually sign FISH instead of FINISH. LOL