3.5 timeouts tuesday

It's that time of week again.

1.

Puff disconnected the Internet at our house to teach the girls a lesson, then gave the Internet back for a limited period each day so the girls could do their homework.  As the limited period amounted to the time when I was at work. the only person effectively banned from the net was me.  That sure learned me.  But now I'm back.  Sort of.

2. 
warning:  not exactly Catholic and mildly sexist.

I saw this magazine cover at the stand at work the other day.

The words in the upper right corner say: "Mad Men's Christina Hendricks: How she chased her man, and got him!" In my astonichment upon reading that, I had two questions.  1.  Wait, there are words on this cover? and 2.  There was a straight man out there she had to chase?  Man, that must have been tough.  Girls, you'll learn a lot from reading her secrets, I can tell you.

3. 

Thanks for those of you who prayed for my brother in law.  He survived his surgery and is recovering, and is learning how to get along minus his bladder, one kidney, and with a wrecked set of lungs.

3.5

Another prayer sort of answered/minor miracle department:  Thanks to those of you who prayed for my brother.  He is, I am deeply saddened to say, an alcoholic.  It has been years since I have seen him sober.  I asked you to pray that he gets himself to the doctor.  That isn't exactly what has happened, but there has been a change.  A few months back I decided to try what amounted to a one man intervention.  I prayed for God to guide my words, went in and spoke to him for maybe a full minute.  I asked him if he had been seeing a doctor, and he said he goes regularly (I was unaware of that, and I don't know if he was entirely truthful) and I mentioned his stomach worried me.  He has a large beer belly, but what had really prompted my concern was when younger poked him in the stomach a while earlier and found it hard as a rock, rather than soft and flabby "like yours, daddy!".  A hard beer gut is what my father in law had shortly before his final illness.  It was a sign that his liver was failing.   I told this to my brother, and told him to think about having it looked at, because he has nieces and nephew who think the world of him, and I am concerned about him too.  Therein ended the intervention. 

Last time I visited him, he had set up his old weights in the basement, and Puff noticed he was nursing one beer then entire time we were there.  I noticed he wasn't slurring his words.  So he is now at least thinking about his health, which is a good thing.  I just hope and pray he doesn't think he can do it alone.  It isn't the size of his belly that's the issue.  If something is up with his liver, he needs to see to it, and soon.  If it goes, he's done.  No amount of bench presses can cure that.