Enjoy the Journey

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I love about Heather!!

This is a special TT that I'm hoping others will join me on...I'm going to pass it on to Laurie and Susan and hope they will pass it onto others as well. Heather is my best friend. She's fighting cancer right now and she's going to beat it because she is the most stubborn and wonderful person I know...So this TT is especially for her...don't wait until Thursday to continue the list!!!

1. She has an amazing love for God.
2. She has an amazing love for her family.
3. She is a terrific cook and ENJOYS cooking!
4. She makes a mean cup of coffee.
5. She always shows up at the right time with coffee or diet coke in hand.
6. She makes me laugh.
7. She loves me.
8. She loves my kids.
9. She sings harmony beautifully.
10. She is kind to everyone.
11. She always finds time to make cookies for a shut in or dinner for a sick friend.
12. She's the best doula in the world!!
13. She's the most beautiful person I think I've ever met both inside and out.

I am so blessed to have had her presence in my life and neighborhood for the past nine (almost) years. I look forward to a million more years of close friendship both here and in heaven!!

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Poor Little Punkin'

This was the best smile she could give me!!

The saga began the week after Thanksgiving. Sarah started to act like she had a cold. She would spike a fever between 99 and 103 but then it would go away and she would be fine. After a week of this we decided she needed to go to the doctor. The other kids had been sick and it cleared up in a couple of days...she just seemed to be getting worse.

The doctor looked at me like I was a lunatic for bringing her in and told me it was a virus and to keep her comfortable.

It got worse. Her fevers continued to spike up and down now as high 103.8. Then she had a day with no fever and I thought, maybe, just maybe, she had kicked the bug. I was wrong. Sunday night she woke up at 10:30 with a fever of 104.4. I nursed her through it until the next morning and then took her back to the doctor. This time they ran some tests. They did a blood draw to check her white cell count, and a urinalisis to check for a UTI. They ordered a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia. In other words, they had no living clue what my baby had and they were checking everything they could think of. This entire time, her only symptomology is the fevers and a slight head cold. So they start her on Zythromax, a heavy hitting antibiotic that, they tell me, should cover whatever she has. Tuesday night her fever spikes to 104.7, I take her back to the doctor. The run another blood test and another urine culture. For the second time in four days she has blood in her urine so they change her to an antibiotic that targets UTI. Turns out, she has Mono AND a UTI AND they organism causing the UTI is resistant to the antibiotic she is on so they need to change it again. SIGH!!! At least now we KNOW why she was so sick. She actually seems on the mend today and not too much worse for the wear...Her tired mommy, on the other hand, needs to nap for about a month to get over this ordeal!!!

Sunday, December 10, 2006

O Christmas Tree!!

This year we tweaked tradition! We added a chocolate FOUNTAIN for our fondue!! For those of you that don't know, every year when we set up and decorate our Christmas tree we also have fondue for desert. We have done this every year since I can remember, and sometimes more than once in a year because Tim's parents have done this every year for as long as I've known them. The kids love it and it really rings in the beginning of the Christmas season for us!!

Click on the top picture below to see the whole album!!

O Christmas Tree

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Thursday Thirteen!!

Thirteen Things I am Thankful for...

1. The roof on our house is almost done.
2. good health
3. good doctors
4. free long distance
5. our neighbor's Christmas lights
6. my van is running (I killed the battery yesterday)
7. my awesome church!
8. my boss (who is understanding when I have to stay home with sick kids)
9. my friends
10. my family
11. my kids
12. my husband
13. my GREAT BIG God!
I sure am blessed!!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Grief

Have you ever felt like you had a brick in your chest?
Like you literally couldn't breathe?
I think that feeling must be grief.
I've been feeling that a lot lately.
It doesn't help that I can't sleep, even with meds.
I've slept for less than 6 hours total the past two nights and it's 3am right now so that's not looking good either.
I'm exhausted and I feel very old.

Very tired.
Very weary.
Very sad.

I don't know how to continue on, I just put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward somehow. I feel like I'm walking through cement. Drowning in quicksand. I look to the heavens hoping to see God, to feel some relief. It has not come. I feel like all the skin has been ripped off my body and the air hurts.

I cry out with the psalmist...

How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?

Answers aren't coming, and neither is sleep.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

It finally happened!!

I knew this day was coming...and yet, I dread that it has come.

And in someways rejoice at it.

My daughter, who at a mere 11 years old is in sixth grade, came running into my classroom, out of breath, with three of the girls from her class in tow. She breathlessly exclaimed, "Mom! I HAVE to talk to you, outside, RIGHT NOW!" Mind you, I was in the middle of wrapping up a lesson with my fourth graders, but she seemed quite urgent so I thought it might be an emergency. I thought it might be a medical issue not uncommon to pre-adolescent girls.

I followed the four bubbling, giggling girls out into the hall.

That's when my daughter burst out "MOM! JACKSON likes me!!"

Stunned. I was stunned. Not that my baby, my first born, my INNOCENT little eleven year old might have a crush...no, I am stunned that she would drag me out of a classroom where I am TEACHING to tell me this. Stunned and kind of honored. Not every eleven year old would want so badly to inform their MOTHER with this information.

She thinks she's in love.

It takes me back.

There will be so many. So many heartbreaks. So much joy. Giggles, and blushing, and tingling all over. There is no other time like it in a young girl's life. She will never again feel that exileration, the spinning realization that someone she likes likes HER. It's a mystery, built into all of us by God, to propigate a species. She's like a whirling spinning bubble of hormones right now...ready to explode at any moment, into the teenager that she almost is.

Enjoy the journey.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

The Modern Proverbs 31 Woman!!

An interesting discussion went on between some friends of mine recently.

One of them was lost without her Scooba. She didn't own a mop. In the same week her dishwasher died and her laptop crashed. She was having a really bad week.

But the very thought of it made my mind wander to today's women and how it's even possible to be a Proverbs 31 woman in today's society. Today, it seems, we have more to do than ever. Many women work, either because they want to pursue their chosen career or because they must, to support themselves and help support a family in a day when two incomes is often necessary just for basic survival. On top of that our children are more involved than ever, with soccer games and piano recitals, dance classes and play rehearsals, boy scouts, girl scouts, track, clubs...the opportunities abound and are only limited by time and money.

So how is it possible to follow the virtues of Proverbs 31 in modern society?

Well, it seems that the Proverbs 31 woman did work outside her home. She had her own "earnings" and with those earnings she invested in real estate and planted a vineyard. She traded and wisely watched over those investments. She made garments and "sashes" and sold them to merchants.

She also had servants! Verse 15 tells us "she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls." Now, by no means does this mean that she sat around all day eating bon bons. She worked hard, was charitable, took care of her family and watched over her household. Scripture tells us she "gets up while it is still dark" and she "does not eat the bread of idleness."

Here's where I think we go wrong. We try to do it all by ourselves. She had help! She had babysitters, housecleaners, and someone to do her laundry!! I think, as women, we need to let go of the idea of being a SuperMom and make use of as much help as we have available to us.

I think a modern day Proverbs 31 woman might be sitting at her kitchen table while her children do their homework, checking her e*trade portfolio on her wireless laptop, with her washing machine running in the background. She looks over contentedly and sigh as her Roomba circled by vacuuming her carpets, while her Scooba in the other room took care of the tile. After dinner, she loads the dishes in the dishwasher and sits down at her sewing machine to hem up her son's school pants. Later, she balances her checkbook online at the touch of a button and drops an email or two to keep up with friends and family. When she receives an email telling her of a mutual friend whose husband has just lost his job and is in desperate need of some groceries, she quickly logs onto the local grocery store's website and orders a delivery for the next day. One final check of her online business and she is off to bed. It's late but it's been a productive day.

Now if they could only invent something that would pick up the clutter and recycle it into something useful we'd all be in good shape!!

Enjoy the Journey!

Monday, October 16, 2006

I've been tagged!!

My Friend Heather tagged me with this meme.

1. Favorite memory of your mother?
I remember being very little, sitting on my mother's lap while she taught my brother how to read. She didn't realize she was teaching me to read as well and she had to convince me that I could read even though I wasn't in Kindergarten yet.

2. Favorite memory of your father?
My father loved to sail and was always happiest out on the ocean. I inherited that from him. I love the Ocean! I love the memories we have of sailing...even when it was on our tiny little sabit (sp?).

3. What one skill would you like to wake up tomorrow and be able to do (though you'd never learned it)?
Playing piano!!

4. Which one of your dreams has come true?
Believe it or not, I am living my dream...it doesn't look exactly the way I thought it would but I've always wanted four children and I have the BEST and most BEAUTIFUL children in the world! I've always wanted to be a teacher and that I am and I enjoy it most days! I work at a GREAT school and I love the people I work with! The only part of my dream that hasn't happened yet is the fact that I always thought I would be married to a pastor, and that is my husband's dream and I would love to see him acheive that dream...not for me (I've learned the hard way that being a PW is not all it's cracked up to be) but for him!

Now I'm supposed to tag someone...I'm tagging Dave & Lori and Amy.