Do you believe in Miracles?

You better believe I believe in Miracles! Deaf people sign the word miracle as "wonderful happenings" and thats exactly what miracles really are.

Miracles Happen Everyday

They are amazing and they happen every single day... we just have to open our eyes and see them. But now and then we are blessed to see a miracle that is such an awesome "God Thing" we can only praise the Lord again and again for His provisions and protection. Let me share two stories with you.

Story about Ashley

My family is close friends with another family. Our 12 year old daughters are the same age and also best friends. They talk for hours on the phone about who knows what every day!

Last Friday, June 20, my friend Kirstan was just leaving work when she got a call from the local hospital saying her daughter, Ashley was in an accident and they needed her permission to take xray and other medical care. I can't imagine the panic Kirstan must have felt during that call and the urgent prayers that she prayed as she rushed to the hospital from work (a 45 min drive). I found out later, Ashley was riding her bike and was "nipped" in the back by a van. Ashley flew backwards and hit her head on the van's windshield. She was NOT wearing a helmet. Your first thought from knowing that much is that she had to have suffered from a brain injury or maybe broken body parts after such a hard impact and fall...

but no... its a miracle... with the exception of a few bumps, bruises and cuts.. Ashley came through this incident unharmed. She did spend a night in the hospital for observation purposes. She did have a concussion and had a headache for a few days. But she is perfectly fine now. I cried with relief!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!! This is so amazing and we are extremely grateful for the Lord's protection over this family and Ashley herself. You can read more about this story on Kirstan's blog.

Story about JanieRuth

Speaking about head injuries... let me share with you the other story. Unfortunately, the result is the opposite of what Ashley experienced. I understand its two different circumstances but both involved a fall and an accident. This is about JanieRuth from OSI Rockstars.

On June 24 she fell 10 ft from a banister at the Chicago Institute of Art. She immediately had brain surgery for closed head injury. She has since been gradually improving. They moved her to rehab yesterday and that is an excellent sign of progress. I have never met her but she seems to be full of personality and very ambitious. It is her goal to be completely healed and there is no reason why another miracle of a different sort cannot happen here as well. You can read about JanieRuth at this site..http://janieruth.chipin.com/janieruths-fabulous-fund If you want, you can also make a donation to the family fund. This family lives in AL but as long as JanieRuth is in the hospital, they are "living" in Chicago so are away from home until they release her and they can all go back to AL again.

Please keep JanieRuth in your prayers and let's watch for miracles everyday!

My New eBay Store Logo!

What do you think????

After several months of going back and forth, Alex from OSI Rockstars and I finally came up with the above design. This is my new eBay store logo! What a proud moment as I've been wanting a custom logo for years.

Did you know that "Bienlein" means "busy bee" in German? I have a deaf friend who lives in Detroit who was the first to tell me that translation. I believe she was born and raised in Germany so she would know!

It is so appropriate as anyone who knows me knows that I am not one to sit and do nothing! I am constantly on the go and busy busy busy jumping from one thing to another. I often refer to myself as Tigger (from Pooh fame)!

Next step is what?

Now I will contact Jennifer at SittingBoo.com. She is an amazing web designer specializing in eBay store design. She does awesome creative work. I am SO looking forward to what she does for me. I just hope I can afford her!

Have you checked out my store recently?

Come and check out my eBay auctions! Right now I'm listing the items of two major consignment clients. One has a huge library of Bible related books. The other is a hodgepodge of assorted items but it includes a lot of military related stuff as this client was a career military man.

Movies Closed Captioned on Airplanes?

Yesterday I shared about how a few weeks ago my husband and I took an impromptu trip to Rome, Italy for a few days. One of the nice blessings we had was getting to sit in first class. If all the first class seats were taken, we would have had to sit in coach. Thanks goodness there were several available seats in first class on both the flight there and home.

Our own TVs

One of the nice things that first class (actually they now call it Business Class) passengers get to enjoy is individual TVs. You pull it up in front of you and you can choose from a variety of movies, TV shows, music, games, and flight information (shows you exactly where the plane is at that moment).

Any movies CC?

The passengers are also given free headsets. You have to pay for these back in coach. Of course, headsets are worthless to me as I'm deaf. One of the flight attendants on the way to Rome told me that such and such (I can't remember the title anymore!) movie was captioned in English. COOL! I checked it out and it was actually a French movie subtitled in English. It was kinda funny as their mouth movements did not match the words as different language so I soon gave up lip-reading! I could not find another captioned movie after that was over so I spent the rest of the flight time playing different games, reading and sleeping... oh yeah... eating. They feed you well in first class and you have, I think there were 4 choices.

Foreign Movies with Subtitles

Coming home was different. We were blessed to get first class again! (Wow Lord thank you!) I decided I was going to go through ALL the movies and see if I could find another foreign movie subtitled in English. I ended up watching one Korean movie (about the Girls handball Olympic team) and 2 Japanese movies... (one was about why patients were dying from a surgery that was previously successful.. the other one was a court trail drama) It was funny as I discovered that the same lead male actor was in BOTH Japanese movies that I watched!

Why not ALL movies CC?

This brings me to the question about why are not ALL the movies closed captioned? Don't the Deaf pay the same amount for their ticket as hearing do? Why do they not get the same benefit. Oh... I get it... if the movies were CCed, the airlines wouldn't make as much money from selling the headphones if EVERYONE could read what was being said.

What do you think? Does that bother you too?

Busy Month!

Wow... here it is almost the end of June already. What a busy June I have had so far! A few things I expected but one thing popped up totally unexpected and we thoroughly enjoyed!


I'm ok with good surprises!

My husband had decided several months ago to take off the week of June 9-15 for vacation. Our 26th anniversary was June 12 and my birthday is June 15. We had no idea at that time what we would be doing but would decide when the time came. Well... before we knew it, it was June 9th and his first day of vacation. He was home and really didn't want to spend the whole week at home doing the "usual". So... he gets on-line and does his "magic" and asked me what I thought about going to Rome, Italy for a few days.

Rome, Italy!

That was an art student's dream city to visit... all those famous painting and architecture we studied from slides and books. To see them in person was a dream!

While I was really busy with my own business and another project, I said "Let's GO!" Business can wait for another day. We are very spontaneous. My husband works for a major airline and as an employee, he and his immediate family can fly free around the world (well.. international travel costs $50 for the year.) This is a HUGE blessing we don't take advantage of as much as we should. This is the first time we have been out of the country together in 20 years. Before our kids were born, we traveled a lot.

We quickly made arrangements for our 16 yr old and 12 yr old. We left Flint on Tuesday June 10 and arrived home again Friday June 13. We got to spend our 26th wedding anniversary in Rome. We were blessed to have first class seats BOTH ways! The flight was 9 hrs and there is a 6 hr time difference between Rome and home.

Two days was perfect. We did so much walking we were exhausted and couldn't have walked a third day. We spent one day visiting the Coliseum and the areas around there and one day at the Vatican. We saw the Sistine Ceiling which I will probably say was the highlight of the trip for me. Art history comes alive!

This is my husband in front of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

Again and again, I can only say we are truly blessed to have this opportunity. We did have our share of adventures. I might share those in another blog and also more about my busy June.