I am involved in Stephen Ministry at church.  I have a blank page journal to express my thoughts creatively without the confines of lines!  The Texas State Fair is going on.  I have moved my office upstairs out of the bedroom, and now have a good view of the field next door. Hey Unique Gifted…

My oldest daughter, the child magnet, comes back to town from the boonies and decides to move into her own apartment and return to college. Sonlight is celebrating 20 years as a curriculum company and to mark this achievement, co-founder and president, Sarita Holzmann, will be chatting with me this Friday afternoon. Over an afternoon cup…

              My excerpt I consider the possibility of sharing my ideas and skills with another family or two. I talk about the beauty of Costa Rica. My guests this week are Dawn Prochovnic and Christie Jenkins, both experts in Sign Language. Although they do not homeschool themselves they are…

My blue-eyed cowboy and I prepare for a trip, without children, to Costa Rica. My mother is beginning to worry me with some of the things she says. I uncover Letter Boxing as a hobby around the country. Sofie Couch, a paranormal child, is the star of, Angels Unawares, a book written by my guest…

Our Dear Friends, We must update you on Jacob’s progress and are sorry to have left it so long. In short the news is mostly very good and we are mightily relieved after a year of dramatic swings of emotion, to be on slightly more steady ground. Jacob had a stem cell transplant on June…

Dear All, This is Jacob speaking. It’s now exactly two weeks since my transplant and my blood test has shown that I have now reached a suitable level to be allowed to go home. This is much quicker than both we and the doctors here at the Marsden had anticipated. I am now able to…

It’s now eleven months since this whole horrible saga began. Ben has now donated every part of his body that seemed appropriate, and Jacob has gratefully received them. The astronomic amount of chemo and radiotherapy that had to be received first went as well as could be expected, and now we just have to wait for things…

Dear All, This is just a short email from us all to thank all who were able to come to our party on Thursday.  I was hugely moved at the number of people who made it to give me such a great send off! It was also so kind of all of you who brought things…

We’re having a lovely spell of freedom from hospital at home ’til we go back in on 18th June in preparation for the transplant in 24th. The sun’s been shining and we’ve been able to behave like normal people. Jake’s been feeling really well and has been reading, cooking and playing the piano. We’re hoping…

Dear all, It’s Jacob here again! Since my last email things have begun to move forward in preparation for my stem-cell transplant, which now has a set date for the 24th June. I’ve now finished my course of radiotherapy to my neck and seem to have got off rather lightly with just a bit of…

Dear Vivienne, Thanks for the email, we are all hanging in there, it’s very stressful much of the time and no day is in anyway predictable. He is just about to have a new proceedure today in preparation for the stem cell transplant in June, we have had (yesterday) the meeting regarding the hundreds of…

Dear All, I thought it might be nice to take the opportunity, now I’m feeling relatively well, to write to you personally. I feel extremely grateful to my parents for keeping you all ‘in the loop’ at times when I have felt unable to myself. Some of you may know already that 2 weeks ago…

Some much happier news at last! Jacob has been discharged from the Marsden this week with a massive bag of medication but FREEDOM for a while to recuperate from the last 2 hideous months. He has celebrated in style by packing each free moment with pleasure, meeting friends and family, going to lovely places in…

Dear All, We thought we would write an update in a different way and give you what we think are the positive things and what we think are the things that still require more time. This is so you can rejoice in one list and hope for improvement in the other. Positive things: Jacob is…

Dear All, Things are still moving fast. Though his brain operation went well, the staples (!) are out and it appears to have had the intended effect, Jake has been left on a continuous morphine drip for shocking headaches. He cannot speak or concentrate for the pain and they have to give extra pain relief…

Two wonderful bits of good news: Jake has started to play the piano again. We cannot begin to tell you how happy this makes us all. It’s not completely back to normal yet of course, but a fantastic new beginning, when we thought maybe that chapter was going to be over. It’s such a treat…

Dear McNenys,  Happy easter to you all, we all had a great day here with nana, cathedral, meals, lambs easter egg hunts in garden and the countryside. Jake is still feeling good though his left hand and arm are not strong yet, the doctors do not know how much damage the abscess has done to…

Dear All, Just a quickie to let you know that Jacob successfully got through the operation on his brain and the surgeon was able to take some of the infected fluid off the sizeable abcess lodged fairly deep inside.  This involved drilling a one pence size hole in his skull which we were told is ‘routine’ !! …

Jacob had his brain operation.  His wounds are pretty painful and the plaster and staples (!) stay on for 5-7 days. Hopefully they’ll send Jake back to Sutton this week, then we’ll all feel a bit more settled. The Marsden is a  million times more hospitable and we have begun to feel quite at home…

Dear All, Things are happeneing at such a rate we feel we must send you more news, Jake’s news is still not better we are sad to say.  Within a day of recovering from a life threatening lung infection, still needing oxygen support, he has been transferred to the Atkinson Morley wing of St George’s Hospital…