Blessed

I feel so blessed to be here in Fort Collins, Colorado. It has been snowing and producing the iconic "White Christmas". And I know that it is just for me from my Father up above who delights in the joy He brings me. I am pinching myself everyday. I am so glad to be here with my family, in a warm house, with tasty treats, and I'm even OK with the fake tree (though next year it WILL be real--can't wait!).

But this time of year also fills me with a pang of sorrow, an ache in my heart. This is the time of year that I miss most the people I've lost. I am sorry to not have my mother in my life--though her life is such that I can't--she's still my mother. In spite of all her faults I love her and ache for her. She is so lost, and I am so sorry for her and the pain that her life brings her.

A greater loss, I miss Gage deeply. I hope that he is well, and healthy, and happy. I pray that God will shield my memories of him and keep them firmly planted in my heart. I know that God has Gage in His strong and loving hands.

Still I feel blessed...

What Year Is It?

I just read a headline about how Obama's election is spurring hate crimes, cross burnings, etc... What year are we living in that someone would not only feel such ignorant hate but also feel completely comfortable expressing it? Where is the shame? My dad got text messages from people he works with that were filled with racial slurs following the election and christians that I know are still promoting false information about Obama's religion. Where is the truth? Whether you voted for him or not Barack Obama is our president, the leader of our nation, and as such deserves our respect. I know some who would agree with that, encourage that sentiment out the right side of their mouth while bashing him with the left. How is that respect? How is gossip and rumor spreading a sign of respect? We all should feel ashamed! Ashamed of our country that still harbors such stupid hatred and really ashamed of Christians who do not seek out the truth before condemning others (I include J.K. Rowling in this as well--I can't tell you how many people quote a false article written by a comic newspaper to me about J.K. Rowling recruiting children to become witches.)
It is time for us to embrace the leader that God has chosen for our nation. It is time for us to stand up and speak out against racism wherever it is met.

Sharks

Shark found in swimming pool. I always knew it was possible that Jaws was in the deep end.

Our Little Baby

Rocket Science

A Day in the Life

We stopped to get a Starbucks coffee for mom. (Bradley doesn't need caffeine.)

We took the dogs to the park for a walk. (This was before the wave of 100+ temps.)

Bethany climbed a tree. (In flip flops.)

Bradley climbed a tree. (Yeah!)

Charles Spurgeon

“We have a faith to preach, my brethren, and we are sent forth with a message from God. We are not left to fabricate the message as we go along. We are not sent forth by our Master with this kind of general commission - ‘As you shall think in your heart and invent in your head as you march on, so preach. Keep abreast of the times. Whatever the people want to hear, tell them that, and they shall be saved.’ Verily, we read not so. There is something definite in the Bible. We ought to preach the gospel, not as our views at all, but as the mind of God-the testimony of Jehovah concerning his own Son, and in reference to salvation for lost men. If we had been entrusted with the making of the gospel, we might have altered it to suit the taste of this modest century, but never having been employed to originate the good news, but merely to repeat it, we dare not stir beyond the record. What we have been taught of God we teach. If we do not do this, we are not fit for our position.”

Writing

Writing terrifies me. I get so far in a paper or a story and then I am blank. Empty. There is nothing left in my brain. No clever turn of phrase; no idea where I was even headed. When we move Dan mentioned that he'd like it if I went back to school. Frightening. Do you know how many essays and papers you have to write in college? I haven't even gotten English under my belt. That's at least 5 papers on its own. I feel like I should write...something. I long to put pen to paper and create things. I write the most interesting colorful sentences in my head all the time. They just don't connect into any one coherent paragraph. I often think of writing a short story but can never decide what to write about. The trouble is that everything worth writing about (and some that aren't) have been written. What is my original idea? Where do I want to take it? I don't know; I'm drawing a blank...

Insomnia

I'm awake. Not really by choice. I'm up by choice. However, if I were laying down on my soft comfy bed, I would still be awake. So, I'm improvising neat things to do on the internet. First I did all of the routine things all of you would expect. I checked my email. I checked my blogs. I surfed through all of my usual hangouts. Then I went to myspace. I searched for my brother, my cousins, long lost friends. Then I googled them all. I found an email address for Aaron Foor. Quite exciting since I've been trying to reconnect with Emily for ages. I also found Janette Gleim. She was in my wedding. So, I shot off a random, 2am email to her. Turns out she lives near Denver, CO. Which is one of the top places on our list of lovely places to move. Interesting.
I wish I could email Gage. I have googled him in the past but in fairness he isn't really old enough to have accomplished Google worthy fame. I'll keep trying...
Yesterday I went swimming. It was the first time I've gone swimming since I was diagnosed. It was a lot of fun. It cost me soooo many spoons. I came home, had Dan BBQ hamburgers, and crashed at around 730pm. I slept straight through the night. 13 hours of sleep. I barely made it through today I was so weak and tired. I think I'm so exhausted that I can't sleep. Only people who have ever experienced this will understand it.
I should probably pull out the big guns...yoga breathing and classical music. I really do need my sleep. Tomorrow is another day of mandatory rest and recovery in the regime of "Pace Yourself". I'm supposed to try to do less than nothing. It's harder to accomplish than you think...

Free Comics!

May 3rd was free comic book day. Every year on the first Saturday in May participating comic book stores will give away free comics. This was our first year attending. Bradley was quite excited. We were all expecting to receive one comic book each and hoping that the one we got would be a good one. It turns out that "Free Comic Book Day" is an event used by the publishers of comics to expose many readers to their new lines of comics. Instead of one comic a piece we each were able to pick out one of each kind available. I was able to come away with all the comics you see in the picture. What a fun and exciting event!

What Am I Doing?

Looking forward to summer. I have so many books I want to finish and so many I want to start.

Watching my illness. I've had two pretty good days this week apart from some pretty pretty bad pain in my right arm.

Enjoying Classical music.

Learning to play piano. Who knew? You can teach an old dog new tricks...

Trying to finish Emma by Jane Austen. It's not my favorite of her books and it's long. I'm ready to finish and move on. I'm going to try and challenge myself with Wuthering Heights.

Reading poetry. Really homeschooling provides so many opportunities for me to learn and grow. I hope my kids are getting something out of it too.

Thinking and researching and praying. We are looking to the future and wondering what God has for us next. What is the best next step? Nothing is clear at all. I wish I owned a donkey...I do have a wall.

Hoping to hear from the Lord. About anything. I just love hearing from the Lord.

I am still here

I am still here. Still looking for opportunities to blog, ideas to share. I am still here fighting a disease I don't respect but should. I am still looking to the uncertain future. Wondering. Wishing. Hoping. I am still here mourning the things that I've lost. A child. A life of activity. Sanity. Pain free days. I am still here adjusting and accepting and rejecting and struggling.
I am still here but my ideas for blogging seem to be far away. I find that as I work through the acceptance of this debilitating disease I have become more selfish in my thoughts. It is hard to think of others and outside when inside I am exhausted and worn down with pain. I feel like apologizing collectively to those people I know who are tired of hearing about my new symptoms or the struggles of my week. But this is who I've become. While others are discussing the things that concern them about houses, cars or homeschooling, I am untying the knots of making my body work. I am fighting against a heart and soul that long to run and experience because I no longer have a body that can keep up. I am learning to reject the "I should"s in my head and replace them with "It would be nice if..." If.

Children

Yesterday was my foster son's birthday. I hope he was celebrated well and appreciated. After we lost him we struggled with whether or not we wanted to "try again". We even asked others to pray for us. The ordeal of caring for Gage and then losing him was traumatic for us. Still the grief stalks us and hounds us. It's a pain that lasts forever, I'm afraid.
In my heart, deep inside, I still ache and long for more children. Deeply, deeply. Now I've become sick. And I wonder if this is it for me. Are there to be no more children in my life? Why, then, does God not take this burden and longing from me? I wish He would do one or the other. Take the ache from me or give me hope of more children. Having the ache but no hope is torture.

Windows

I've heard a woman's brain compared to a computer. We can have many windows open on our desktop at once. But we can't exit any window unless the task is complete or the crisis dealt with. We can minimize some of the windows but they have a tendency to "pop up" on us. And even when they are minimized somehow they are still using up our energy and our "disk space". When you lose a child can you ever exit the window? Or can you only hope to keep it minimized? Does it ever begin to use less energy?

March 11

The day is swiftly approaching. Gagers will be three. I haven't seen him in over a year and pictures have not been forthcoming. I check every morning. I wonder how his face has changed. I think of what my older two were like at three. Is he talking up a storm? Beginning to ask the whys? Is there someone there to answer? Does he feel loved and cared for? Does he remember us? Does he still love music? Does he still love to dance?

Oh Lord, I have placed him into your hands. The hands that
no one can be snatched out of.

Keep watch over him. Pour out your love upon him.
Surround him with people who will

care for him and all of his needs. Woo him to You and Your
Word. Protect him from the

enemy. Never leave him or forsake him. Hug him for
me. Sing songs of comfort over him.

Amen.

Buyer's Remorse?

It is the time of year when I go about searching and obsessing over curriculum for the following year. Most of it is pretty easy since I use Ambleside Online. They provide the book lists and I just have to seek out the best possible deals. However, there are a few subjects that Ambleside leaves open--such as Math, and a few that I just don't follow. (I'm such a rebel.) This year's difficult subjects have been math, science, foreign languages, and some electives. For some the problem is that there are so many good choices, so many good treats I want to try. For others there are so few good choices and they are so hard to find. Either way, it seems that I can't make up my mind. Every year I seem to wonder if I have made all the right choices. Or I wonder if I shouldn't have added this or left that out. This year I have decided on my curriculum. It is written out in my notebook...and yet I still find myself perusing, and wondering and wishing. Could I just add one more thing...

Creature Comforts

We are soon getting our tax return. With it we will be getting two recliners. Yay!!! Can't wait for the comfort. It should be a really good purchase for us. Sitting on the couch has become quite a painful endeavor. Dan has his back problems and I have my all over pain. We've been casually shopping for recliners for about a year now. We had hoped that last year would have afforded us the opportunity to buy. But this year it has become a priority. We have been back and forth between styles and fabrics never quite feeling as though we had found the chair for us. We had tentatively decided that the Calvin in leather was a good choice. It is a great price for a leather recliner. But for some reason when we went back to La Z Boy we still wanted to "try out" some more chairs. We split up and wandered the store. Bethany came with me and Bradley went with Dan--advisors--very important job. I sat in the Calvin again but something just wasn't clicking, so I moved on to try some others. Finally I ended up in a chair known as the Clarkston. It was heaven. I felt as if I could fall asleep right there in the store. Unfortunately we had decided to go leather and this chair came standard in fabric. Upgrading was going to be quite expensive. So, I wandered to go and find Dan and let him know that I had found the recliner that I wanted. Surprise! He was sitting in the exact same recliner at the back of the store. We had each separately picked the same chair. We were considering forking over some major cash to get them in leather--you know as a good investment but it turns out that the fabric that our chair comes in is a microfiber and of a very high quality (and ultra super soft as well). Yay!!! We saved some cash and got a great chair. However, it takes 6-8 weeks to get them ordered. And so the waiting begins...

And Loving It

I've been feeling a little better lately. Just a little of my pep and spunk has returned. The pain is still there nagging me and if I'm not careful about pacing, the fatigue that lingers on the edges overtakes me. But I am hopeful. More and more hopeful every week that my meds are going to really help me. I can't wait for them to be able to jack up the dose to where it should be. I'm starting to get cabin fever. I'm starting to get bored with the things that I am "able" to do.

Totally Obsessed With

Once-Soundtrack

The music is so hauntingly gorgeous. The vocals echo in my mind long after I've turned off my ipod. It just won't leave me. Incredible! Amazing!

There you are

Well I haven't been updating this blog...AT ALL. I'm sure that any stragglers that still checked in have long since moved on. I have been consumed lately with a mysterious illness. I haven't been well since June but around August/September things took a turn for the worse. In addition to the bone crushing fatigue I was experiencing I began to suffer from pain in my muscles. I had good days and bad days which eventually translated into all bad days. I don't have any symptom free days anymore. I'm grateful when the pain is something I can "soldier" through. It's tougher when the pain is an 8 or 9 out of 10, or when I can't walk. My family has been really supportive. The kids will fetch water and pain pills, empty the dishwasher, even cook some relatively easy meals when my symptoms are bad. My fatigue topped out one day when I went to Target with the kids (Dan was out of town). We went in the door nearest the Halloween costumes so the kids could look around and get ideas. But I needed some chap stick which was on the opposite corner of the store. As I shuffled along and my kids did their best to slow their pace to mine it occurred to me that I might not be able to make it to the other side of the store. What a devastation! This illness has robbed me of my life as I knew it. I'm not sure if I will get my old life back or if I'll have to continue to learn to live in this new unpredictable body. I am hoping for a diagnosis to come through this Friday. A label, a name for what's happening will somehow make all of this feel more real. It will hopefully help me to deal with my denial. In the meantime, I've become better at driving scooters around Target. I haven't quite gotten the courage to use one at Costco or Home Depot. One step at a time I guess. I'm terrified of going shopping with a friend and having to humble myself to use a scooter. I know that they don't care that I'm driving around; they like me anyway. But still it's hard. I never thought I would have to get used to driving a scooter and dealing with those inconveniences so soon in my life. Plus it's embarrassing when you hit reverse and the machine beep beep beeps to (humiliate you and draw attention to you) warn others. I am clinging to the truism that God is Good. That He works ALL things for good for those who love him. Some days I cling better than others but I am looking forward to getting through the tunnel and embracing the light.