clanMcGraw.com

Just take 2 of these and call your heart doctor in the morning.

My favorite quote: “This is what a trans-fat looks like.”

Diane went home from the hospital today. She’s got a long road to recovery still ahead, but this was a major step. Thanks to all of you for your continued prayers.

Julie gets full credit for capturing this one for posterity. She’s got the full story over at her place.

New Dimensions Worship Center - It’s time to invest in a thesaurus.

My mom got out of the hospital yesterday!

A happy St. Patrick’s Day to you:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you
in the palm of His hand.

First, the good news:

Amanda’s Mom had her balloon pump removed yesterday. She’s in a sort-of step-down room in the ICU yesterday, and is doing well, all things considered.

Now, the bad news:

My Dad called me last night to tell me that my Mom was admitted to the hospital last night with chest pains. She’s supposed to undergo some stress tests today.

It’s been one heck of a week. Please keep us all in your prayers.

Friday afternoon, before all of the stuff started happening with Amanda’s Mom, the boys and I went to Mobile with the Scouts. We spent the night onboard the Battleship U.S.S. Alabama.

Read the rest of this entry »

Got off the phone with Amanda just a few minutes ago. Diane’s completely off the ventilator now. She’s pretty bruised up from the procedure, but has been pretty coherent and, all things considered, is doing very well.

Please keep Amanda’s Mom, in your prayers. She is having emergency triple-bypass surgery this afternoon…

More later…

Update (8:20pm)

Diane had 2 arteries that were 90% blocked, and one that was 70% blocked. They were able to bypass the 2 90% blockages, but were unable to bypass the 70% one for some reason. She’s currently on a ventilator, and some balloon-blood-pumping device. Amanda’s staying with her Mom in Tuscaloosa for the forseeable future.

Thanks to everyone for your calls & emails. It meant a lot to Amanda and me. And a special thanks to my Mom, who dropped what she was doing today to go and sit with Amanda. That meant the world to us both.

For the .0005% of you who care:

The weather station in the backyard has been throwing some really weird temperature readings for about the past year, due to the amount of direct sunlight that it gets.

No longer! I built a housing for the temperature gauge last week, and it’s now showing consistent readings with all the other local weather stations in Hoover.

A lot of you might have read about this story that made the headlines yesterday: Sixth Graders Had Sex In Class.

The story, in and of itself, is sad and disturbing enough. But this morning, when I read this quote in a follow-up piece, I almost hit the ceiling. Quoted in the story is Kevin McDowell, the attorney for the Indiana Department of Education:

McDowell agrees parents have legitimate issues about classroom supervision - but has a different take concerning students who may have witnessed the activity:

“This doesn’t pose any danger to the other students even if they did see it,” he said.

When asked for claification, McDowell repeated his stance.

“All right, so they may have witnessed this. While this is an activity you certainly don’t see in a school and it’s something that would be certainly unusual, I don’t feel - I don’t know where it posed any immediate danger to those children who saw it,” McDowell said.

Let me paraphrase: “So what? Nobody was in danger.”

Words escape me (well, at lease non-four-letter-words that I’d not put on a more-or-less-family-oriented-blog escape me. I’ve got plenty of the others that come to mind right now).

The story concludes with this snippet:

Many of the parents we spoke with are considering whether to send their children to Raymond Park next year or to even remain in the district.

Simply amazing. What are we becoming?