Wash lives!

Rob and I drove up to B'ham today for his grandma's costume/birthday party. We went as Zoe and Wash, from the Firefly series. How did we do?


Zoe


Wash

(images from www.firefly-tvs.com)

Tee hee

A picture we took on Rob's Mac this morning. Fun, eh?

Great news!

I just got a call from Dr Nelson, our naturopath, about yesterday's blood test results for me. Here's the update:

* My thyroid seems to be functioning better! My TSH dropped from 3.9 to 1.8 since the end of September. Wowsa! I knew I flt better. It's just nice to know that the testing can confirm that it's not all subjective. So, I stay on the Thyroid Support as it seems to be helping.
* My iron levels are looking good! So, I can slack off a bit on the Chromagen Forte, take it twice a week rather than every day. Great! It was contributing to my nightmare problem.
* My CA-125 test came back normal! That means that I don't have the conditions in my pelvis region that might cause inflammation, such as endometriosis (which was a possibility) or ovarian cancer (which was less of a possibility, though the excess fluid around my ovary did have us asking questions).

I'm glad to see that our pre-Namibia doctor visits are producing positive results. I'm also thinking that having people praying for positive health changes for Rob and I are just what we've needed and God is working in that. Not that we were all sickly or anything. But I am starting to get an idea of how much better I might function if my individual parts did.

Oh ... and I got my new computer yesterday. Double woohoo! The photo here was taken with my built-in camera. I'm holding the Christmas Messenger (LBT's newsletter), which features Rob and I, doin various things. That's me on the cover.

specs on the new computer

We ordered my new MacBook on Tuesday. It will have a 120Gb hard drive, which I will partition so I can run Windows things for work and Mac things for creativity, online things and correspondence. So, I'm figuring out how big I'll need to make the partition so I can run Bootcamp.

Work Needs:
* Windows - 1.5 GB (or 5.5 GB, truth be told*)
* Office - 600 MB
* Translator's Workplace - 25 MB
* Paratext - 60 MB
* Shoebox - 62 MB
* Lingualinks Workshops - 250 MB
* Lingualinks Library - 10 MB
* Fieldworks - 2.6 GB
* Streets & Trips - 1.3 GB
* Data Manager - 5.3 MB
* Adobe Acrobat - 121 MB
* C-Pen - 7.8 MB
* NET Bible - 13 MB
* QuickMem Greek - 0.6 MB
* Keyman - 1.5 MB
* WinZip - 7.3 MB

Fun Needs:
* Skype - 15 MB
* Neverwinter Nights 2 - 4.6 GB
* UT 2004 - 3 GB
* Age of Mythology; Titans expansion - 1.5 GB
* World of Warcraft (maybe...) - 4 GB
* Biorhythm Calculator - 2.3 MB
* Custom Cookbook - 77 MB
* Google Toolbar - 5.4 MB
* Inspiration - 29 MB
* Neverwinter Nights - 11 GB
* Object-Dock - 11.6 MB

So far, that's about 33.3 GB of application space, in the Windows partition.

Then, I have 9.3 GB of documents from my old computer. Without leaving room for expansion, that requires 42.6 GB. So, if I partition my drive for an even 60 GB per operating system, I should be fine for doing everything I need (and want) to do.

And If I keep all my pictures (2.6 GB) and media files (2.6 GB) on the Mac side, that eliminates another 5.2 GB from the Windows side requirement.



* Rob says that he has 16GB of stuff on his Windows side. Between S&T, NWN TK, Acrobat Reader, AOM and UT2004, he put an estimated 10.5 GB of additional stuff on there. That means that installing Windows actually put about 5.5 GB of stuff that he can't get rid of on that side, rather than the stated 1.5 GB that Windows would require. He's tried uninstalling some of the things he'll never need (like Windows Media Player and MSN Messenger) but the computer reinstalls these things whenever he restarts. Gak!

update ... more to come

I had food poisoning on Friday and lost the whole day. I wrote a big blog posting on it but it's trapped on a different computer. Will post more on that later; just thought folks should know.

I'm fine. Puked it up, developed (and beat) the fever, moved on. Still not eating much in the way of food (and off coffee altogether) but not much the worse for wear.

Fun with endometrium

Remember the ultrasound I had done in September? Well, I had a gyno explain it to me today. She said that my endometrium registered as 13mm. A "normal" endometrium is 6mm. So, I'm either double the norm or there's something in there (fibroid, polyp, etc.) that makes things look thicker than they actually are. Getting a sonohysterogram done on November 14, take a closer look.

a Canadian Thanksgiving

Liam and Toni; the cutest nephew and niece ever.

What do you mean? That is an objective statement.

:)

Birthday!

... and be sure to write to Rob (reveith@lbt.org), wishing him a happy 37th birthday. It was his birthday on Saturday.

Full Sunday!

Rob preached 3 sermons and I did 2 Sunday Schools yesterday at Trinity Lutheran in Bellingham! Wowsa! Busy day. We made some great connections with people, got really pumped. Then, Rob went back to his parent's place, had lunch and pretty much passed out on the bed. I watched a bunch of "What not to wear" episodes from a similarly horizontal position. We're unwound, now.

We got up pretty early this morning (6AM) for us to drive back to Woodinville so that Rob could bring the car in to the shop to have the remaining repairs done from the break-in 2 weeks ago. They should have the car for about a week. At least we'll have a rental car, paid for by insurance, while repairs happen.

And I'm waiting to hear about what computer replacement I'll be getting, hopefully hearing on that some time this morning so I can go ahead and place the order.

Moving forward

Does it seem like most of my posts these days are about chugging along? It certainly feels that way. Here's the latest synopsis of my days:

Wednesday - presentation at Hope Lutheran School in Seattle. Despite a Powerpoint glitch that nearly derailed my presentation, "Praise God with a WHAT?", Rob got the computer back on track and it went well. The kids got involved, asked all the right questions, made all the right comments. The pastor liked it well enough to invite us back in December to present to the adults as well. Yay!
Thursday - doing "paper"work. I went through a bunch of magazines that I'd been holding onto, in case of their usefulness for presentations. I threw out what I won't be using, itemized what I can. Called Kirby at SIL Computing to touch base with him on his SIL software test, on Macs with an Intel chip running Windows in Parallels. It's OK if none of that made sense to you; it's a pretty new idea. Long story short - no problem! I'll be getting a Mac soon, one way or another. Got tahnk-you cards mailed to our supporters for August. I used up all our "fall vegetable" stamps and picked up a whole bunch of superhero stamps; they're pretty cool! Called Bill at Cross of Christ to talk about future partnership development possibilities. Went to worship team practice in the evening.
Friday - finished our MMR (monthly missionary report) for September and emailed it in. Am seriously considering getting dressed. :)

Kate is making a special dinner for Rob tonight. I'm contributing "creamed corn"; I just have to go buy the ingredients. She's making the cake. I don't do much with cakes.

Tomorrow, we have an LWML rally in Kent, a birthday dinner in Bellingham with Rob's folks and Rob is preaching 3 services at Trinity Lutheran in Bellingham on Sunday. Also, we may go to Canada for Monday ... if I can get a hold of my brother, Robert.

Remembering Haiti

I just got an email from one of my classmates from Youth With A Mission in Haiti, Lubens. Lubens has gone on to start a new YWAM ministry in Haiti, which is his own country. He is a very cool and caring Christian man and I am very excited to have been able to follow his life and ministry, to see what God has been blessing him to do. His personal ministry needs are very small: $800 per month for his family. However, he currently has no regular supporters for the ministry itself: $3500 per month. While that doesn't seem to me to have stopped him (I get stories of his ministry fairly regularly), I feel like I can vouch for Lubens' ministry and family as a great place to invest in truly indigenous ministry, in a country that needs the loving support of the body of Christ. For more information on Lubens and his ministry, click here. What an opportunity!


Lubens

Silly teeth

Well, I never had my wisdom teeth removed in my 20s so, now that they're impacting my molars, I am having them out. Surgery is scheduled for December 1 at 10:30AM with Dr. Thomas Maring. Not excited at the prospect, me. First time being fully sedated. They're cutting them out, not pulling. I think he's a good surgeon, though. Preparing for and getting to my appointment with him took up the better part of the day. Downtown Seattle is a real beast to navigate.

Now, I'm calming down before dinner, so I can digest.

Busy days

It's been a full weekend. We went to an LWML Rally in Puyallup yesterday and another one in Bothell this afternoon. There are a bunch of rallies happening this month in the LWML WA/AK district. We made some great contacts and anticipate having at least 10 new LCMS churches to connect with from the recent rallies.

Another joy report: we got to be on the Mosaic worship team at our home church this morning: yay! And we have pictures, taken by fellow Mosaic member, Pete Stewart:









You can click on any of these to see them bigger. Thanks, Pete!

Computer update

The police report has been filed, with the serial number, model number, warranty number and all the information we had. I'm talking with my supervisors at LBT now about what computer will replace this one.

I had recently started writing information in a Control Journal (paper notebook) as part of my FlyLady program so even alot of the data accumulated in the last few weeks is still available to me; thanks be to God!

I said to Rob last night on the way home in the car that I felt like God has known about the theft as a definite possibility for at least a month because of all the "urging" I've felt to get away from my laptop as a main place to store important information. Also, I backed up everything about 3 weeks ago because of how wonky my computer has been acting lately since the video card crapped out in May.

Car window

... and someone is in the driveway right now replacing our car window that was smashed.

Police report

Here's my account of what happened and the damage/loss:

We (Robert and Eshinee Veith) arrived at Resurrection Church, 134 S 206th St, Des Moines, WA around 5PM on October 2, 2006. We entered the church to register for the LWML Puget Sound Rally and meet our contact person, Elaine Nelson. Over the course of the next hour, we went to the car to get our display supplies from the trunk and set them up, probably at 5:20PM. There were people coming and going in the parking lot until at least 6PM, arriving for the rally (about 50 women, mostly over 60), leaving from having worked at the church during the day and leaving handbells practice. For about 1/3 of the time that we were in the front area of the church waiting for the rally to start at 6PM, we were sitting or standing in rooms with glass walls overlooked the part of the parking lot where our car was. The car was parked in the section of the lot roughly parallel with the church wall that was closest to the church, about 50 ft from the church wall. Between the lot and the church is just a bit of grass so if there had been any breaking of glass, I assume we would have heard it through the glass walls. Rob and I sat down for dinner at 6PM with the rest of the ladies at the rally. About 5 minutes before 7PM, we finished dinner and I went with the ladies to the sanctuary for the business part of the rally. Rob went to the restroom on his way to the car as he was going to leave during the business portion. When I sat down, I heard Elaine Nelson in front of me saying, "Do you know someone here with a Chevy Cavalier?" I told her that I did. She came back to my seat with a Post-it note and asked me if that was my license plate number, 695 UHY. I told her that it was. She said that there was some broken glass outside the car. I asked if my husband, Robert Veith, was around since he was supposed to be leaving. She said she hadn't seen him. I rushed out of the sanctuary and through the foyer, left the building and headed down the ramp toward the parking lot. I saw him headed towards the car, about 20 ft in front of me. I rushed to catch him so that we arrived at the car at the same time. We saw that there was glass all over the ground outside the passenger side door of our 2 door red 1998 Chevy Cavalier convertible. There was also glass all over the passenger seat and on the floor of the passenger side. The passenger side window of the car was broken. I could see immediately that my work laptop was stolen. After the glass was cleaned up, we were able to assess exactly how much had been taken. Here's the current assessment:

Lutheran Bible Translators' (of PO Box 2050, Aurora, IL, 60507) stolen property:
* Toshiba Tecra M3 [serial number: 45081476H] - $1600

Eshinee Veith's stolen property:
* Age of Mythology game cd - $30
* laptop briefcase - $30
* Streets & Trips with GPS - $100
* car power adapter into cigarette lighter - $30
* telephone cord (in the briefcase for dial-up access) - $8

Eshinee Veith's broken property:
* cassette adapter for mp3 player - $10 (cord pulled out of the cassette while it was stuck in the tape deck)

Not a tragedy ... just bad

We were in Des Moines, WA tonight for an LWML rally and, during dinner, someone broke into our car and stole my laptop. Argh. I had almost everything backed up to one of our friend's hard-drives, except for all work done in the last 3 weeks or so. Still ... someone stole my freaking computer! Argh! My "arghs" get louder.

Part of me thinks that they might feel bad, even afraid, if they realize that they stole a missionary's computer. Then, I remember that they stole it out of a church parking lot.

If you're out there and you have my computer, it's not too late for you to make this right. You can return it, right back to the church you took it from. They'll return it to us and you will be forgiven.

More to come, as things develop. We've got someone coming to replace the passenger window tomorrow. It was a cold drive home.

Happy Birthday, Sammy!

WELCA convention

We drove down during the lunch hour on Friday and set up our display at the Red Lion convention center in Olympia. Then we drove to our hotel, the Comfort Inn in Tumwater, just a few miles south. The convention started at 7PM. I went to the convention and Rob sat at the display table, talked to people who stopped by. He also had speakers set up, quietly playing music that he had recorded during his Africa trip this past summer. After the opening meeting, there was a choclate fountain in the room next door to the meeting room. Yumm! Strawberries, pineapple, cherries and dried apricots. There was a bunch of food left over so, knowing that the hotel staff was going to have to chuck it all when we left, I grabbed a napkin-full of dried apricots for snacking later. We got back to the hotel after 10PM ... long day!

Saturday, we got the the Red Lion at about 8:30AM. Again, I attended meetings and Rob sat at the display table. In the afternoon, there were workshops for the ladies. I learned how to make cards and photo albums from paper, glue and ribbon; very fun. The dinner was a banquet; prime rib, veggies, chocloate cake. I had been pretty much vegan since the the meeting with the naturopath on Wednesday but I figured, hey, when in Rome. Well, when I got up Sunday morning, my face and neck were covered with what I call "beef bumps". Guess that meat wasn't as hormone-free as I had gambled on. Still trying to decide if it was worth it ...

We left our hotel Sunday morning and drove to Bonney Lake to speak at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. Rob did his now-normal Keynote (Mac version of Powerpoint) presentation during the sermon slot, about what he did this past summer in Africa. People really liked it, told us so. Then, they took up a door offering. After the service, we stayed and talked to people a long time. It was a good morning.

Got back to Woodinville later that afternoon. We went to dinner at Black Angus in Bellevue with the Buerers. Got to play some Neverwinter Nights with each other in the evening.

Rob's at a Firestone right now, getting a tire fixed. Yes, you read that right. Another flat. Are we seeing a theme here? I think he took it to Firestone because it's still under warranty but I'm thinking we may not be in such a rush to get Firestone tires anymore after this. It seems like we're having to deal with flats more and more in the last few years. Of course, that could simply be because we're on the road so much but, hey, who can say? We could try another dealer and see if it makes a difference.

He dropped me at the library so I could work. Also, there's a payphone here so I could call the family in Newfoundland, check on my sister Lily and her family. Both she and Nonny/James (my 8 month-old nephew) were in hospital in Korea, hooked up to IVs for rehydration, last time I checked (Saturday) so I wanted to get the update from home. They got some kind of bug, source and nature unknown. Well, the word is that Nonny was well enough to go home with his daddy Matthew but Lily was kept in a little longer, probably home by now though.

[from when Nonny was first born]

The Chromagen Forte may be giving me stress dreams because I've been taking it about an hour before bed and having stress dreams every night. However, Rob says that I've had stress dreams every fall since he's known me. Thinking back, I think he's right. Still, I'm going to try to change when I take the Chromagen, see if that helps at all.


When I take them, I think of that old George Lucas movie: