Summer's Hearing Pushed Forward a Month

We learned today that tomorrow's TPR (Termination of Parental Rights) hearing has been rescheduled for October 26th. The reason? One the the one hand, it is to give the birth mom a chance to be better prepared for the hearing. At some point she requested a lawyer, and she just now got one, shortly before the TPR hearing. She also asked if she could have visits with Summer.

I may have mentioned that if the judge's ruling is termination, an application to appeal is almost certain. DFCS (and we) want to cross every 't' and dot every 'i' so no appeals court could sympathize with the mother and say the case workers didn't do what they were supposed to do, so now that the birth mom is requesting visits, it looks like she will get one or two visits before the hearing in October.

Please pray for this process to go as well as it can and that Summer will not be too traumatized by a total stranger saying "Come to Mama, my baby!". Also, please pray for the birth mom--that she can let go and trust that Summer is loved and is well cared for. My prayer is that she does fully recover from her addictions, finds a steady man that will take care of her, and that she does get a chance at raising a child--but not Summer! She already has a family to call her own.

Thank you always for your prayers.

Summer's First Potty Use

Today Summer officially used the potty (for number 1) for the first time! Wow! I was thinking. It takes a lot of diapers to get a child this far. She's 1 year, 8 months, and 30 days old. That's 638 days. Since I'm doing the numbers, let's look at the cost of diapers. They are about 21.5 cents a piece. If she used 5 diapers a day till now, that's 3,190 diapers, for a total of $686! Quitting diapers will mean a savings of about a dollar per day.

Just an estimate, but my mother (and helpers) probably changed 21,900 diapers to get each of her kids to the 2 year mark. Wow! That's a lot. But there's more to the story. There were another 40,000 or so diapers to deal with since my oldest brother Jimbo was bed-ridden his whole life. He was born with cerebral palsy, and it was a pretty bad case. He lived with us until he was 13, and then he was put in a state run hospital where he could get the 24-hour care he needed.

For the 13 years or so my mom was changing diapers, assuming it takes 3 minutes to change 1 diaper, and just for calculation's sake assume the diaper changing was spread out evenly for 13 years (because that's how long she was actually changing diapers), she spent an average of an hour per day changing diapers for 13 long years. And then there's the laundry. Thanks, Mom! I wish she were here to thank her personally.

Laptop Repair Challenges

I occasionally repair computers for folks. I mostly do it as a hobby. I enjoy the challenge. I took the A+ course, and need the experience to go with the book knowledge. But after the experiences I have had lately, I realize something has got to change if I am to continue doing this. I have had both a passion for fixing things and a soft heart for those who can't afford to spend much on their computers, but after spending an inordinate amount of time fixing a laptop for a friend of a friend, I now I see I must lay down some ground rules. Here they are:

1. I have to have as much background information on the computer as possible. For example,

• What is the contact info. on the owner/operator of the computer.
• What works and what doesn't work?
• What were you doing when it stopped working?
• What has been done to try to fix it before you brought it to me?
• What is the model number? (The last one I fixed had all the numbers on the bottom wiped off from wear and tear.)

2. I must have recovery CDs or DVDs before I will even begin working on it.

(Or if they are lost and I order them, I'll charge $25 for the service.)

3. I will talk to people about the fact that they are better off buying a new computer up front before I go spending 10 hours or more on their computer. For example:

• You may have a computer that would work great if only a technician spent enough time to fix it. But then what will you have? A working 7 year-old computer that is not likely to last much longer because all of the parts are old. It might be better to get a new computer and transfer your data from the old one.}
  
  
• Even when someone repairs your computer "for fun", you shouldn't expect him to spend 20 hours on the thing just because you are too attached to your old machine or not ready to buy a new one. How could it take 20 hours?
  Imagine this.
  
  You have a laptop with a bad CMOS battery, which has a foreign language OS on it making it hard to read, to say the least, which has been "repaired" by someone who did more harm than good, and you provide no documentation or software with the computer.
  
  
• CMOS battery replacement is funny. Replacing a $5 part can cost $200 in labor at computer repair shops. The CMOS battery keeps the computer's internal clock working. When this battery dies, the time on the clock has to be reset over and over. Trouble is, on laptops the battery is deep within the laptop and require a near complete disassembly/reassembly of the laptop. This takes a few hours.
  
  
• The process of reinstalling Windows XP (first edition) and then updating it until it becomes Windows XP 3rd edition, can easily take 6 hours. When should this be done? I do it on all my computers about once a year for maintenance, preventive maintenance and to speed them up. So most computers that need repairing are in need of this--especially if it has been infected with viruses, for example. It's a way to clean up the computer and start fresh again.

Needless to say, the last laptop I repaired had all of these problems. If you're interested, here are some photos of the job.

These two cables go to the monitor. The card they are attached to is the graphics card. They had to be disconnected. The connectors are so small that without a digital camera to take this picture and blow it up, I wouldn't have known the best way to remove them safely.

Here is the laptop bottom half, face-up. The CMOS battery is circled in red.
Here is the underside of the rest of the laptop.
Here is the CMOS battery. $5 on ebay.
It also takes a whole table to lay out all the parts, with an antistatic mat.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience. But it took me away from my wife and kids too much. So I will definitely interview the next person with the computer problem before accepting another broken computer to fix. I want to know what I'm getting myself into. Oh well, live and learn.

1st Two Soccer Games

David and Daniel are really enjoying playing soccer this year. They've won both of the two games they played. I think last year the team won only one game the whole season. What a change!

Here are some photos.

Amicalola Falls Trip

We were blessed with some near perfect weather when we teamed up with our friends the Sulser's at Amicalola Falls State Park. Here are the pictures.

Around the House

Just a few pictures from around the house: After we harvested the corn from my sister Connie's, it had to be shucked, of course. Our friends Ray and Boyd showed up and we had a shucking party. It was a good experience for all of us.



We've begun studying "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" now. I have curriculum I bought and modified for studying the book. Daniel, Julie and William are in my class that I teach at Daniel's school. There are some other kids new to English in the class as well from the school. They all love the book--what an exciting story C.S. Lewis wrote! Here are Daniel, Julie and William doing homework from the class.
Speaking of exciting! I'm so excited to have a contained place finally for Suzie to run around in. It required clearing some land and obtaining the fencing, so it was not a simple task to get this. Then we had to wait for a good rain to be able to dig trenches to even up the land and compensate for the hills. Thank God for portable fencing. It comes in sections that you clamp together It is much easier to install than the regular chain-link fencing.
These are Rose of Sharon, or Hibiscus plants brought over from our old house. They were young, but not sprouts. We planted about 25 of them along the edge of our front yard. Now, when nothing else high off the ground is blooming, we are enjoying the flowers. Aren't they gorgeous!

Summer's Case Update

It's been over 10 weeks since Summer's birth mom got out of prison and she has not yet contacted Summer's case worker to ask for visitation. We had a visit from Katheryn, the child advocacy attorney yesterday. We had met her several weeks back at the panel review we attended. When we told her about the birth mom not asking for visits, she lit up and said, "That's great for you and for Summer! That makes it easy for termination of parental rights, for sure!" The TPR hearing will be on September 25th, so we appreciate your prayers.