What a week!!!

Do you ever wonder why things happen in groups of 3?  Is it just coincidence or does God just really like the number 3?  (To be honest, I don't really believe in coincidences.)

It all started last week when we got home from church.  The first thing I did was change into more comfortable clothes.  After that, I bent down to pet one of our cats and fell to the ground in agony.  No kidding.  I've never thrown my back out before and I definitely wouldn't recommend it.  So picture this, I'm on the ground crying and in pain and the dog decides this is the perfect time to lick my face.  I can't move enough to even push her away!  Fortunately, Mr. Quilting Bug finally heard me and came into the bathroom to rescue me.  You wouldn't believe how long it took to get me off of the floor and onto the living room couch (where I spent most of the next week).  Ouch!

Gabriel - The Face Licker

Like most things, my accident has had a positive side as well.  The forced down time has given me lots of opportunity to work on my hand applique.  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm moving right along appliqueing the bats for my Baltimore Halloween quilt.  But even more positive is the continuing lesson I'm receiving on patience and perseverance.  And the Lord knows how much I need the constant reinforcement.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:2-4 NIV

So that brings me to the second disaster last week...

Anyone who knows us, knows that our dog is just the slightest bit spoiled.  In fact, Mr. Quilting Bug insists on fixing her her own dinner each night after we're done eating.  The night after I threw out my back, he decided to make her a baked potato for dinner.  (She had tried one about a week earlier and loved it.)  Because we've never cooked one in the microwave before, we called my dad for advice first.  He wasn't sure, but suggested 20 minutes.  For anyone in the know, I can already imagine your reaction.  We thought that seemed like a long time, so we poked a bunch of holes in it and put it in for 10 minutes.

Sometime before 10 minutes, the potato started on fire, the microwave died, smoke was billowing from it and the smoke alarm started going off.  Because the smoke alarm is tied into the wiring of the house, there was no way to turn it off, so we had to listen to it until we could clear out enough of the smoke.  Which fortunately was a few minutes before the fire trucks showed up or it would have been a little more difficult to talk to the firefighters!  However, all of the neighbor kids enjoyed seeing the fire trucks and the fire fighters were just as nice as they could be.  We also had some caring neighbors calling to check up on us.  Do you know we learned our now dead microwave actually has a potato button!  As for Gabriel's dinner, she ended up with a handful of dog treats, because this was all that remained of the potato...

Gabriel's microwaved baked potato

 So that brings us to number 3...  Several days after the microwave incident when the house was no longer smelling like burnt marshmallows, I went to turn on my laptop and nothing happened.  It was dead as a door nail.  I'll admit to being a little bit panicked, because I've been meaning to back up the loads of pictures on my computer for a while and have never taken the time to do it.  Please let this be a lesson to all of those out there like me.  Don't put it of!.  Stop reading this right now and go back up those precious pictures and documents that you would regret losing.  I did some serious praying that night that the hard drive hadn't crashed and we would be able to recover the photos from it.  And praise God we were able to!  I now have all of those files backed up, including all of David's baby pictures...

David as a kitten

It was also perfect timing on God's part in terms of budget and finances and we were able to pick up a replacement the next day.  I believe this is my 4th laptop and I've noticed that with each one, the price has gotten better and they've become easier to setup.  It would be nicer if they would last longer too, but I seem to get about 2-3 years out of each one.  However, I wouldn't want to trade the convenience and portability of a laptop for a desktop.

So that's 3 for 3.  My back is still healing and we need to find a new microwave, but otherwise we've come through the week relatively unscathed.  It's also been easy to see God's hand through it all.

Until later...

They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them. 

Psalm 112:7 (NLT)