Miracles!

May 25, 2019

Miracles!

 I haven’t been writing for my blog often.  I’ve been very busy lately!  (And yes, the picture is an old one, like 4 years ago, but it’s one of my favorites of Becca & Anastasia.)

This past week was totally amazing in how God just orchestrated things to work out for good.

If you’ve been reading, you probably know my little sister has been going through some rough medical challenges.  Read this if you don’t know about it.  (Okay, she’s always going to be “my little sister” to me, even though she’s a very competent adult.)  On Wednesday, my Mom texted me at work (she was playing taxi for Becca) with awesome news!

God had closed up one of Becca’s varicose veins!  But she was already prepped for surgery and had prepaid for it so the Doctor said they’d do the worst vein on the other leg.  That was so amazing!  Actually, they scared her to death before telling her it was good news.  The nurse with the Doppler says “stop talking” and moves the Doppler around with a serious face.  Becca’s heart jumped into her throat.  Then she sets the wand down.  “Let me get the Doctor.” And then Becca had to find her calm place and bite her tongue as they both moved the Doppler stuff around and made comments like “I see it” and “yes, that’s odd.”  Becca said finally the nurse says to the Doctor, “shall I tell her, or do I?” and then they told her it was gone.  They offered, since she was already prepped, to just start in on the other leg (the worst, largest vein) so of course, Becca said yes.

The second miracle happened two days later.  Anastasia has been severely allergic to eggs all her life.  Like so allergic she needs an EpiPen and can’t touch anything that touched eggs.  We have chickens, so you’d think our house was a definite no-no, but we are very diligent about keeping her away from our eggs and washing everything (hands, countertops, etc) to keep any contaminates from her.  And we bake cookies, breads, ice cream, and cupcakes without eggs anytime she’s over.  She’s really good about asking if it has eggs in it.  (Louis picked up a cookie snack from Aldis when she was shopping with us & she asked, “does it have eggs?” so we put it back and Christina made eggless cookies instead.)

Anyway, so much for backstory… at the end of school, the school gives back all medications to the parents.  Normally, that’s on the last day, but they almost gave Anastasia’s EpiPen back on Thursday instead.  Her Dad wisely didn’t take it; he told them her Mom would get it on Friday.

So her EpiPen was at school for the party day.

And that was when she needed it.  She misunderstood somehow and thought the cupcakes were eggless, so she ate one and two bites into it, her body rejected it and it ended with her in anaphylactic shock.  Although she had to go to the hospital, my brave 5-year-old niece recovered fine.  Becca raced from work to get to her.  The paramedics let Becca drive her to the hospital and she was admitted with a “severe level 5 reaction” so the doctors had to observe her in case her reaction returned as the medicine wore off.  (It didn’t.)  The Doctor was extremely helpful and handed Becca his card, which had John 3:16 written on it!

God lined everything up so that Anastasia would have her medicine and get just the right care.

Our family has felt the love of God and amazing miracles in the prayers, support, and love from all of you!  Please continue to keep Becca in your prayers!  I just had to pass along how awesome our week had been in the way God had been letting Becca feel His presence through these challenging moments.

God always has our best.  We give Him our lives with all of our stuff and He blesses us with His constant love and care.  He shows us love and grace and we are the hands, feet, and arms of Jesus on Earth.  Sometimes we are the givers and sometimes receivers.  And sometimes God shocks everyone with something totally unexpected like healing something in our bodies!

Thank you God, for Your warm arms gathering my little sister and her baby in Your tender care!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Fresh New Year

Who else is excited for 2019? Who else looks at the new year like a child on Christmas morning looks at presents around the tree?

December 31, 2018

Fresh New Year

“It’s still 2018, right?” asks Kimberly, working on her History.

“Yes, it’s the last day of 2018,” I respond.  Christina pipes in with, “and our Aunt’s birthday!”  (One of their aunts is born on December 31!)

This makes me think: (uh-oh, I just heard two kids say “Mom’s writing another blog in her head.”) Yes, my children know me!

Tomorrow starts a fresh new year.  We are given a new beginning each day as the dawn warms our skies and the sun rises to dry the dew.

In the service industry, all days blend together and all the New Year has meant for me in the past 8 years was a barrage of people calling to order reservations at 1am on New Year’s Day from the Bayfront downtown or 11pm from the Saint Augustine Beach peir (two locations at the times we can never promise) so then it turns into irritated people who don’t understand the simple line, “I can’t guarantee that time at that location, you can try to call us at the time to see where our cabs are.”

I’m so glad today does not involve dispatching!  I’m only answering questions from the school table – awesome!

In 2018:

  • I started working at WGV Gymnastics as a coach (LOVE this job).
  • We closed our taxi company in December.  It feels awesome to be able to shut off my phone and not worry about missing a reservation call!
  • I’ve finished, polished, and published four new children’s books: A Foundling Furball, Alena’s Baby, The Tightrope Dare, and Fibbing Fishermen!
  • I’ve rejoiced with the addition of my best friend’s 10th baby!
  • I’ve rejoiced with my sister who is due about the same time I am!  (They will be close cousins!)
  • I’ve mourned and rejoiced with my family after my Daddy passed.
  • I celebrated the first Christmas ever without him – that was his favorite holiday.
  • Christina achieved CAP rank of C/CMSgt, become Red Cross certified, started officially babysitting, started working as needed at what she calls “my somewhat part time job,” and completed her third college semester.
  • Becky completed her second college semester, bred and raised a few dozen chicks up to “independence” for clients, raised her batches of “babies” (aka Guinea Piglets), joined gymnastics classes (finally finding something to encourage her fitness!), and has taught most of her siblings the Latin terms for every body part since she’s been dissecting animals in her biology labs!
  • Kimberly joined gymnastics classes with her gung-ho attitude and is expecting great things from herself, was gifted a bunny (she’s been saving to adopt one for almost a year but her awesome big sisters beat her to it) and Minuit has never left her side.
  • Jaquline discovered the amazing world of Geometry and everything is now interpreted in shapes or gymnastics skills!
  • Jillian started losing teeth, is studying sketching (she’s getting rather good actually!) and digital art along with Becky, and getting herself lost in the world of reading!
  • Lucas started trying to write his name!

We are all expecting amazing things to come in 2019.  God has paths lined up for us that we may not even be able to see yet – if you’d told me at the start of 2018 that I’d be teaching gymnastics for an awesome Christian boss, be pregnant again, and have no taxi company, I would have laughed.

But (positive!) God knows the desires of our hearts!  He knows I love children, love teaching, and that gymnastics has always been a dream. (Dream job come true?  YES!)  He knows Lucas loves babies and is super excited about getting to “take MY BABY home from church.”  (All the other babies he’s been around are those of church family, so he can’t take them home.)  He knows that rebuilding hybrid batteries is something else I love – tinkering with electronics as Daddy taught me & a niche few offer around here so maybe that will be our main income soon!

I’m about to polish and release a few more children’s books (maybe an entire new series working around my budding illustrators’ work!) and my goal for this year is 12 releases.

Who else is excited for 2019?  Who else looks at the new year like a child on Christmas morning looks at presents around the tree?  I see each day as a gift from God to be opened at each dawn.  I see gifts we can’t even dream of yet sitting there, waiting God’s perfect timing for us to unwrap and enjoy.  I’m praying that certain things are there – which day holds the gift of my child’s birth?  Does a gift in that pile include a property or home of our own?  Is there a gift of being able to read my books before a class, teach a grammar workshop, or tutor another child?  Only God knows what each gift holds.  My Daddy loved seeing the smiles and squeals of excitement on Christmas morning as his children opened presents – I love this part of Christmas morning as a parent too.  I can only imagine God smiling as we open each gift and yelp with excitement!

Enjoy your daily gifts in 2019!  Happy, blessed New Year!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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