The boys at approx. 8 weeks.

Well, we had a feeling it would come sooner or later, but we were all hoping for later.

It’s official, My Life — Laurie, is on bed rest.

The pregnancies been going well — I suppose as well as you can expect with twin boys.

She’s been having some contractions for a number of weeks now, but they started getting worse while she was at work last week.

She came home Wednesday evening, with instructions to “take it easy” and she stayed home the rest of the week.

She was waiting to hear back from the doctor yesterday when they decided it would be best for her to come in and check on a few things.

The doctor said everything still looks good with the boys (in fact Ian’s* no longer breached now) and everything’s moving along fine — but with the continuing contractions, the doctor’s now upgraded “take it easy” to “bed rest.”

So here’s where you (the reader) come in…

How can my wife keep herself from going stir crazy for the next 10-12 weeks on bed rest?

Got any good ideas?

And got any good ideas for me as well? Looks like I’ll be taking on a few more of the household chores over the next few months as well.

Let’s hear them in the comments below.

*Have I mentioned their names yet here? I know Laurie has on her blog, but I don’t remember that I’ve shared their names here on mine – Baby A is Hayden James and Baby B is Ian Christopher.

My Life is on bed rest…

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Sharing the news
• 82 things
• Finding peace
• Beating foreclosure
• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update

Over $4000 raised in just over a month!

Take a look at this map – it shows every city represented by at least one donation.

Awesome!

But we’re still not there yet. As of this morning we still need $450 to reach our goal.

We just need 45 more people to give $10 each, 90 people to give $5 each, or 10 people to give $45 each .

Donate online

Either way, I need your help.

I need you to E-mail this message, Tweet it, share it on Facebook, share it on Myspace. Send them to this page, or the original explanation page.

Get the word out so we can reach our goal and help a family avoid losing their homes.

Donate online

If you don’t think this is a real problem, take a few minutes and visit invisiblepeople.tv or watch these videos:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We can do this — together!

Donate online

Beating foreclosure

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update
• With a little help for our friends
• Help a friend beat foreclosure
• Loving a stranger (Update on helping our friends beat foreclosure)
• My thoughts on church buildings

It’s been two and a half weeks since I put out a plea to all my blog readers, Twitter friends and Facebook peeps to help our friends beat foreclosure.

The plea was simple — can we get 450 people to donate $10 by Nov 1 to help them keep their house.

Donate online

The family is actually $9,000 behind on their mortgage after the economy fell into the crapper and the husband had to close his business.
He’s now working for a couple different fire departments while the wife is finishing nursing school and working nights two or three times a week at a local hospital. They have three young kids.
They’re pretty certain they can get $4,500 together by the first of November, but they’ll need to sell their car and pull money from their retirement fund for any hopes to get the rest.

I thought I’d give an update on a few things… as you can see by our sidebar, we’re nearing the $1450 mark (as of 4:07 pm 10/08/09). But we still have a ways to go.

Donate online

We’ve received donations from numerous people, including folks that have no clue who our friends are. They’ve just seen a need and wanted to help. That blesses my heart tremendously. I love seeing people become the hands and feet of Jesus — rather they realize (or accept) that or not.

It’s also been a big encouragement to our friends to see the donations as well.

Also, they’ve received some good news over the last week or so, the bank has agreed to work with them and has pushed the deadline back to Jan. 1. That 60 day extension is a huge relief.

And our friend received word today that she has a job waiting for her upon graduation!

Now we just need to find 305 more people, willing to donate $10 a piece and we’ll reach our goal! Are you in?

Donate online

If you’d like to post a badge on your blog, Myspace page or website, please copy the code below ::

<a href="http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/take-action/help-a-friend-beat-foreclosure/" title="For $10 you can help our friends beat foreclosure" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/images/foreclosure.jpg" alt="help our friends beat foreclosure"></a>

(photo via inman_news)

Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Beating foreclosure
• With a little help for our friends
• Help a friend beat foreclosure
• Loving a stranger (Update on helping our friends beat foreclosure)
• My thoughts on church buildings

It’s encouraging to see.

Folks from 2 different countries, 5 different states, people that have never met my friends, are all pitching in to help in a time of need.

To help illustrate this, I put together a quick map highlighting the cities represented thus far.

It’s not easy to admit you have a need. It’s not easy to say you need someone else. We’re independent folks – especially here in our Western society.

But this map proves to me that there are still many, many people out there that don’t care about your past — and are only interested in helping improve your future.

The greater the struggle – the greater the triumph…
and God is all about making beauty from ashes.

If you’re interested in helping our friends, you can still donate. With only 5 days in, we’re nearing the $1000 mark. That leaves us a little over a month to raise the remaining $3500 or so.

Donate online:

Or e-mail me for where to mail a donation.

And a HUGE thanks to all those have pitched in so far!

We’re all in this together. We GET to carry each other. And we’ll get by with a little help from our friends…

Click here to view the embedded video.

With a little help for our friends

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Beating foreclosure
• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update
• Help a friend beat foreclosure
• Loving a stranger (Update on helping our friends beat foreclosure)
• Help share St. Peter’s Brewery

UPDATE: I’ve updated the links to Paypal to help track the money coming in easier.

This morning, I sent out a cry for help via Twitter and Facebook ::

Close friend found out home will be foreclosed on Nov 1. Wonder if 450 peeps would donate $10 to cover their deficit…

Need 450 peeps to donate $10 to help friends from losing their house :: http://bit.ly/55Ilf // Please RT

Several people jumped right on board and made donations, others wanted a little more information (which is understandable).

The family we’re hoping to help is involved in our small group. They told me about their deficit simply as a prayer request, not asking for financial help –

But the thing is, we GET to carry each other and we’re ALL in this together.

So, while prayer is great (and I strongly encourage it) I hope that folks can take a step of action and give up a couple Mochas from St. Arbucks this week, or maybe a fast food lunch or two to help these dear friends out.

Donate online

The family is actually $9,000 behind on their mortgage after the economy fell into the crapper and the husband had to close his business.

He’s now working for a couple different fire departments while the wife is finishing nursing school and working nights two or three times a week at a local hospital. They have three young kids.

They’re pretty certain they can get $4,500 together by the first of November, but they’ll need to sell their car and pull money from their retirement fund for any hopes to get the rest.

So I’m hoping you can pitch in and join with us to help this family. $4,500 seems like a lot but $10 is nothing.

If you can help out, please visit: http://bit.ly/55Ilf to donate online, or drop me an e-mail if you’d prefer to donate via check.

We’re ALL in this TOGETHER. I hope you’ll seriously consider what you can do to help out.

Thanks!

Donate online

UPDATE: You can track the progress on the front page of my blog. As of 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23, we’ve had $800 come in!

UPDATE: Read the latest (Oct 9, 2009)
(photo from notionscapital)

Help a friend beat foreclosure

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Beating foreclosure
• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update
• With a little help for our friends
• Loving a stranger (Update on helping our friends beat foreclosure)
• Help share St. Peter’s Brewery

If only we could take our house with us .

But since we can’t – we want you (or your friends or family or whomever) to buy it!

You’ll love it!

Check it out and then share with everyone!

Just some highlights I love about the house…

• 3/2/2 Home in a great quiet neighborhood.
• Home is only two years old.
• Just 20 miles south of downtown Dallas.
• Quick and easy access to I-35E.
• Grocery store and other shopping within walking distance.
• Backs up to city easement (no neighbors along back fence).
• Great DR Horton home.

See more photos ::

Red Oak home for sale :: Buy our house

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Buy our house video podcast (episode 2)
• Buy our house video podcast (episode 1)
• Coyote Ridge HOA
• Ellis County churches (and beyond)
• Laundry Love efforts this week

Laurie and I have been wanting this light for our kitchen for a while now – it’s been out of stock at the Frisco IKEA for at least a month.
On the way back from our cruise we stopped at IKEA in Houston and were able to grab the one we wanted.
Took some time tonight to hang it and Laurie took some great photos.
Not sure if it was the summers doing electrical work with my dad or the easy instructions IKEA provided, but its been fun getting my “hands dirty” fixing/installing these random things around the house.

Day 145/365 new light

other posts you may enjoy ::

• My Life is on bed rest…
• Emmanuel. God with us.
• Goosebumps and Justice (advent reflections)
• Beating foreclosure
• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update

View Larger Map

UPDATE :: and here’s the house I grew up in…

View Larger Map
There used to be an amazing Cottonwood tree in the front (where all the grass is gone.) and the house used to be painted red and white.

and here’s the house my mom and her sister grew up in ::

View Larger Map
all the brick work is new and the front door used to be between the two windows. the trees over to the right of the house is where me and my friends used to build forts and such.

Google found my backyard

other posts you may enjoy ::

• Google releases Street View Dallas
• Re: Google releases Streetview Dallas
• Re: Google releases Street View Dallas
• Re: Google releases Street View for Dallas
• My Life is on bed rest…

It reminds me of a great point Shane Claiborne made in “Jesus for President.” He said that while many Christians will get up in arms against things like abortion, they’re rarely willing to actually put real action into their fight. He said that Mother Theresa (whom Claiborne spent several months with) was strongly against abortion, but rather than condemn a mother for considering it, or even possibly for the actions that conceived the child, she welcomed the mother and child into her home and cared for them specifically. She didn’t just tell an un-wed mother – abortion is sin – now go solve your problem. She said, “abortion is wrong but so is me putting you out on the street expecting you to deal with this issue alone. Let me help you in the midst of your crises.”

From CMS:

A while back, we covered a piece of satire discussing churches as a rotating homeless shelter. One of the most encouraging parts of the post (as the original link was a little discouraging) was the response in the comments. So many people have already been part of something like this or heard of something like this.

If you were to join with some other local churches, you could certainly share the burden of this and become a local network in support of local needs. If you could find ten or fifteen churches, you could give the homeless a roof every night in a month by just donating two or three nights yourself.

It puts minimal strain on church resources to be a homeless shelter for two days a month, yet it gets tons of people in your doors (in the shape of those experiencing homelessness and those looking to serve) who wouldn’t normally attend. From a marketing standpoint, folks will see that you care about people, and everyone wants to be a part of that. Not to mention Jesus was homeless, so you surely get some extra bling on your heavenly mansion for that.

Check out a story of one church that did this for some inspiration. And in the comments, we’d still love to hear stories of churches doing this or thinking of taking the plunge.

Faith ideas :: Become a home for the homeless

other posts you may enjoy ::

• C is for Church
• Bono to ground control – ‘Houston we have no problem’
• Why?
• Cymbrogi
• St. Arbucks kicks off a new add campaign

D-Now location

Home sweet home 4 the weekend (for a d-now)

D-Now Home Sweet Home

other posts you may enjoy ::

• My Life is on bed rest…
• Beating foreclosure
• Helping our friends beat foreclosure – update
• With a little help for our friends
• Help a friend beat foreclosure