The Heymann Family Journal

and this is how vertical gardening works. http://www.verticalgardendesign.com/how-it-works

I went for a walk today. It was after breakfast with a friend. But the weather is still cold and I'm getting another cold. Now I've got a cough, I'm not really sure I really recovered from the last cold. I sat next to Jessica’s teacher at the parent info night. Her class is going to Berlin in May. They also talked to us about next fall. Most of the kids can remain in the school another year but Jess is done with school in the summer. She was going to go to the autism house in Sandhausen but they don't have a director. So that idea failed. And they are remodeling the workshop in Wiesloch so that program is closed. In fact all the other programs in the area are over full with the people from Wiesloch. They just don't have room for Jess. I wonder if there really is a better place for her if we moved to Bad Schönborn? Juergen and I get interviewed tonight at church , they have a marriage seminar. They ask us questions for about 1/2 hour. We have had a prett...

I woke up with the idea that the thing that will stop or end the civil war that seems to be starting in the Middle East is their common enemy Israel. I'm afraid Israel will be going to war. Please pray for peace. Also, food is already at a record high, and oil prices will cause food prices to continue to rise. This will really hurt the poor.

The sky is clear outside. It looks really beautiful, but it's deceptive. You get outside and it's really cold. I want to do some serious yard work, but I'm afraid of getting sick again. I am also holding off with starting plants. Everything inside of me longs for warm days, but I know I need to wait some more. And I don’t really like to wait! I seem to wait for everything...it's just where I am at right now. I think of the times we traveled to an island on a Ferry boat. If you drive up to the dock, and the ship pulls away, it doesn't matter how close you are to the ship...you have to park your car and wait for the boat to return. I feel like I'm parked on the dock of "change". It doesn't matter how anxious I am to get on with it, I've got to wait for the ship to come. And so I will wait!

I'm listening to a teaching by John Paul Jackson on how fear kills. He said that many of us fail because of fear, but we never really know when our time of victory will come. Gideon was the most fearful man in Israel. God called him when he was hiding. Nothing in our lives is hidden from God. He knows our past, our failures and our fear. The future is not hidden from God. He is not sitting on his hands worried about how it will work out. But we are challenged to trust and not fear.

http://www.ihop.org/Group/Group.aspx?ID=1000040187

Sarah played all afternoon with her best friend. Then we found out they will be moving soon. In a way that's good news to me. It will not be so hard to get Sarah to move away if her friend already did! Philip's best friend is already planning on going to another school next fall. That makes things easier for Philip too.

In the last days, a piece of bread will buy a bag of gold. Don't invest in gold, invest in food...or land to grow food. I have felt this for the past 2 years, but now many important organizations are warning this is true! You can not eat gold... God please help me find my land!

Juergen and I looked at the old house in Leimen/St Ilgen today. It is a cute little house that needs a great deal of work. It is too little for us. It's not going to be an easy house to sell. Once you put the 100,000 euros worth of work it needs, you could never sell the place because of the bad location (busy street, and train running in front of the house). The renters didn't look very happy to have people looking at it. They seemed pretty comfortable living there. I guess if you buy the place as a rental...that would be ideal! The renters would be glad to stay I think. So we looked! And it's a clear no. Perhaps someone else will buy the house in Bad Schonborn before we can find an archetect? I'm just not going to worry about it! We need to see the place with an archetect, or we can not make a good decision. You simply do not rush when you are spending hundreds of thousands of euro! If not A or B then C or D...we have time to find what is right!

I feel like my head is in a heavy fog. It is so cloudy and I can not see. I want to know what's coming, but I can not. We see this house in St Ilegen tomorrow. I am not excited about it. I want the garden in Bad Schönborn. Why should I even look? I just feel like I should try every door. I do not want to assume anything....but I'm not excited. The kids get to go to the Jr youth group at our church today. It just started again (every 2 weeks). My car can not hold all the kids that want to go. I may need to take 2 trips (I have an 8 passenger van). Sarah wants to bring 3 friends and Philip wants to bring 6 kids. I'm not sure how many will actually come. It's a nice problem. But these are pretty wild kids. I'm not sure the leadership can manage them. They say they can...but we will see if it really works!

I decided I will not go see the house in Bad Schönborn next Tuesday. I think they are using us. The Real Estate agent shows the house to another family on Tuesday. If we see it at the same time it could pressure that family (or us) to buy the house NOW!!!! He offered to have an architect there to give us an idea of the cost of an addition. But it's his architect...I see a conflict of interest. I want to find my own person, even if we do have to pay them. In the mean time, Nicole told me that the house in Leimen/St Ilgen is actually South East facing. I also heard we could perhaps buy the garden space next to the house. So I asked to see this old house on Saturday. I actually love what I see...but the location is a bit loud. But Juergen is the one most bothered by noise, and he says it’s Ok. It would keep us near all we do now. No school changes, or any other changes. I’m also wondering if we could just buy the house, and also keep our house as a rental house? I don’t k...

My spring bulbs are pushing out of the ground. I even saw one tree covered in flowers today. I need to get out into the garden and do some cleanup work. But the wind is still blowing pretty cold air. Sometimes it looks like it would snow again. It may really be Spring in some parts of the world but I'm not sure I trust it! I got a call from the real estate broker, He wants us to look at the Bad Schönborn house again on Tuesday next week. I guess he will be showing it to someone else then. Maybe he thinks our seeing it with someone else will push us to decide...or push the person looking? We need an architect to give us an idea of the cost of adding on to the house. It is way too small for us as it is. I like the place allot but I'm not ready to say yes. Some times God just places thoughts in my head. One thought I've been thinking about is "He had it in mind before I was made". I know that God knows the whole story...and where I live is already known...

Nicole lost her cell phone, so I gave her mine. So today I'm going to buy myself a new one. I don't actually use my phone much. I'm not sure I care about using one. Perhaps I should take my old phone back, and give the new one to Nicole. She will need a good phone going forward. For me cell phones are just rude tools. They are nice to have when you need them, but people over use them...they allow the tool to interupt life. I have a Mp3 player, and a camera, and a computer. I just don't need all of this on my phone. I think I'll just keep it simple! It's just a phone...it isn't my identity!!!!

Today is Valentines Day. The day of love and romance. But it’s also Monday, the beginning of another full and busy work week. Nothing kills romance like work and 5 kids! I asked Juergen if we could go to breakfast together (this was a few days ago). He generally can do that, but lately work is overwhelming. He looked at his calendar and said no…but maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Then you could see by the look on his face even those days would be stressful for him. So I said no, I wouldn’t enjoy it if he was too stressed out. Today he let me sleep in an extra 45 minutes. Sleep is better then roses! He had to rush off to take Thomas to school. I didn’t even get a kiss. But he called me later. He is so sweet. He called me, worried about the whole Valentines expectations. He shouldn’t worry! I appreciate the man who drives his son to school. And yesterday he took us all for a long walk. He is there for me every day. His love is real. All the movies and TV shows try to sell u...

We took the kids on a walk in Bad Schönborn today. We wanted to look closer at the area because we are still interested in a house there. They have a small skate park in front of the school Philip would go to. The school is right across the street from the FEG Bad Schönborn (daughter church of the church we go to in Heidelberg). I feel like the Heidelberg church needs us right now, so even when there is a great church 5 minutes from our house...I'm pretty sure we would keep going to Heidelberg for now. But any way, I loved the area. It was so quite and peaceful! The kids were so relaxed and free. They stayed for hours and didn't want to leave. The school is much better then the school Philip goes to now. They have people from the community that come in and tutor the kids in reading (Philip needs that). and they have a program where they care for dogs in the school. Philip loves dogs! And they have a very good soccer team. Philip loves that. They also have allot of...

Thomas bagan school, and we had to figure out the transportation there and back. I think we have it worked out. Juergen takes him to SAP where he can catch a direct bus to school. Then Thomas rides the bus to Sandhausen after school and I pick him up from there. He could ride a bus home to Leimen from Sandhausen, but he would need to wait an extra half hour. So for now that is how it will work. He enjoyed his first week. He feels included, and the level of work is a bit lighter(easier). So he got an A on his first math test. He has no more French. One of his teachers is also the leader of his summer camp. And He plays soccer ever day! It was a good beginning! Sarah had her 8Th birthday this week. Her party is today. Juergen took 4 of her friends to jump in an indoor play park. He can make phone calls and get some work done while the kids run and play. I just finished a slide show for my church. it's for 3 baby dedications. That took a few hours but I think it turn...

Nicole and I got to go to a worship concert lead by Sean Feucht. To be honest with you, I had heard his name but didn't really know who he was. But the worship was pretty good. Loud, but good. The thing I was most blessed by was his stories about worshipping on the University campus' in America. I was a University pastor for 7 years. I love students. It blesses my heart to hear of revival breaking out at the Universities. He sang a song about swimming in Gods love. He wanted us to pretend to swim. I didn't feel like it...so I didn't do it. Nicole did it. She enjoyed it. But I don't need to be silly to feel the joy of God. Believe me, I've done tones of silly things in my time. The whole time I was dreaming of being alone in my garden, alone with God. I saw my giant sunflowers. Nicole told me her youth group is doing a missions week at church (just a week before her exams). I had to be the bad mom and say no...not wise...must focus. I haven...

Jessica's teacher is still sick. I think we had the same bad cold. She will not be able to work tomorrow. So I guess Jess will stay home a day or 2 more. It's good I am a stay at home mom. I'd have a hard time keeping a job. Thomas starts at his new school tomorrow. Today it's just getting the supplies together. I think we have most everything. If not, Jessica and I will shop for it tomorrow. I made Sarah's birthday party invitations. She has a small party on Saturday with 3 friends from school. We allowed her to invite who ever she wanted, but she wanted it small. I help her bake cup cakes for school tomorrow. And Jessica and I will shop (God willing) for her gifts. I wanted to shop last week, but I was just too sick. I'm still run down, but not too bad. I think I'll live for now! Juergen is weak but also better.

I started to listen to the audible book "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp. The idea of the book is we need to live more in the moment with a greater awareness of the many gifts or blessing God has given us. Not fixing our eyes on the tragedies and troubles of this life (and not pretending there are not troubles). But to really consider the good things. And when we stop to see all the goodness in life, letting go of the grief and pain...this is when we start to live. I started my own list of 1000 gifts. I'm planning on adding to this list daily because God gives me so much every day. I'm almost 50 years old. I do not want the rest of my days to just pass by with out notice. 1. Juergen took care of me today (we were both sick). I could count Juergen a 1000 times a day! 2. The boys had good report cards. They both did better then I had thought. Nice to be surprised! 3. Thomas got to play in a band today. His first band! I played drums in a band when I was his age. 4. N...

I took Philip, Sarah, Thomas and Jessica to see the Dr today. Jessica was pretty stressed out. The other 3 were actually very good! But I'm still pretty sick. It's very cold outside. We had freezing rain today. I need to be careful. I keep pushing the tea. It seems like I'm getting better, then I have to go out in the cold again. I took the kids to the Dr, Nicole to the train station, Sarah to her karate class, then picked them all up again. In and out from the warm house to the cold. It's killing me! And sadly, Juergen isn't much help. He has the heaviest work load I've seen him have in years. He is working way to hard! I’m sure I’ll recover just in time to take care of him. He seems to be getting sick too. I really hope he can slow down a little. I’m grateful he has a job…but I don’t want it to kill him!

Phil did not see his shadow...so we will have an early spring! I sure hope that's true! Oh, I hope it's true!

Jessica and I are still sick. We both have bad colds. Jessica's nose is so sore it's bleeding. She has diarrhea (and I will not bother you with the details of the mess that can cause). I feel so badly today I would love to just stay in bed. Sleep really is the best medicine. Unfortunately that's just not possible. Juergen is 100% stressed at work. He had to work at home until 2am. I wish I was able to hire a maid. I guess I'll just have to ride it out. I took cold medicine, and I'm drinking elderberry tea.