Living life

Let see, so little and so much to report:
I went to the doctor today in regards to this and she said I had “girly boobs” and to just watch them. If I notice anything to come back to her and if not have a mammogram at 35. She said all of my family history is too far removed to have any true bearing on my risk. She said just the fact that I am female gives me more risk than the family.

Cookies are over, FINALLY! I for one am thrilled! Emily did well, she sold as many, if not a few more than last year. I am just glad it is almost over. I still have to do final reports and finish collecting money from girls but no more selling!

Emily also auditioned and got a part in her schools 2nd grade production. It is in April and she has one line. She is VERY excited about it, as am I!

Jacob is growing and finally eating. On Sunday he was a human garbage disposable. He ate so much he almost made himself sick! But I think he is trying to grow again. He woke up last night crying that his legs were hurting. I am thankful that he is drinking us out of milk every week, so I know he is getting some nutrients. In fact last night he ate almost a full serving bowl of corn. I just let him eat till he was full.
That is about it. We are pretty boring right now, just busy living. But having loads of fun doing it!

This is me.

Here are a few links to things I have written in the past that I believe accuratly "explain" me and give insight to who I really am.

My 100. Almost everybody has one, so why wouldn't I?

I have addicitions just like everybody. Here I chronicled one of mine.

My kids are weird, but so are everybodies. Here is an enduring favorite story about my son.

Here is the story of Josh and I's first couple of days together as a couple. Awww, aren't I sweet?

This is one I wrote while I was missing my baby girl at camp.

And parenting sure is tough... but I think I have it figured out, every once and a while.

Grace, what more can I say?

Tolls and Reuinons

Yesterday afternoon I left work to head home to enjoy a fantastic meal prepared by my husband and to be shared with my dear friend Amy. Once I got onto the highway I hear on the radio that I35 is down to one lane up north, right were I needed to go. So I quickly grab my purse and make sure I have $.75 to pay to take the toll road. I do so I head up the road transfer to 183 and onto Mopac going North bound. It was a breeze. Hardly any traffic and I was into Round Rock in 15 minutes. However, as I am making my way through all the traffic I am making phone calls to my Girl Scout parents and I am on the phone when I see the flashing lights. Now, it is not the flashing light of a police officer pulling me over, it is the flashing lights of the toll way looking for my TxTag. Which I don’t have. Uh-oh. I ran the toll. Totally not on purpose. I had the money. I was ready to pay. I forgot to exit in order to pay. Amy tells me not to worry that I will get a bill for the 75 cents that I didn’t pay and it is no big deal. But I FEEL horrible. I didn’t mean to do it. I hadn’t planned on doing it. In fact when I was rooting through my purse looking for the money before I got on the road I though to myself, “If I don’t have it I will just have to stay on 35. Oh well.” I was relieved when I found the dollar hidden in the side pocket of my purse and went right onto that road. But, now I feel bad.

On a different note. I am SO super excited that in May we are having a family reunion of sorts and the entire family from my dad’s parents and all their kids and all their kids and all their kids (those are my kids) will be there! I can’t remember when ALL of us where together. We are going to Lubbock to watch the 3rd grandchild graduate high school. I am thrilled! I love family!

What’s going on…. not a whole lot. Josh has had his shift change at work. He now is “on shift” as opposed to in the kitchen. This means, I never know when he is working. It is something like 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, and that is where I get confused. But the good thing is he has every other weekend off. So that is exciting! Today is his first day and we were able to get everybody up and at ‘em with minimal fussing. This means that I get to drop the kids off at school before I head in, because he starts work at 7 am. But at least it is not everyday and he helps with the kids before he leaves.

Jacob is loosing weight. He weighs less now than he did when he last went to the doctor. I am concerned, but not sure what to do. He won’t eat. He is stubborn beyond his years. I could try the whole, you’ll eat what I say because I am the boss and nothing until then. And eventually he will get hungry enough to eat it, I am afraid he won’t get hungry enough and he will just waste away. He is just that stubborn. This weekend we are going to restock on the healthy stuff that he like, the fruits and vegetables and milk and yogurt. He is over the chicken nugget. He will only eat chicken nuggets out-which we are actively trying to not do very much anymore. He is even over the rolled taco. So he has limited his little tiny diet to crackers and veggies and fruits. He is going to waste away, I just know it.

Strep invades our house!

Edited at the bottom***************************************************************

I am officially better. I think I may have been holding onto this hole strep thing since December when Josh had it and it never turned into anything real noticeable until now. Today I feel the best I have felt in ages. I am focused and on top of stuff. It is great!

On Saturday when Emily got out of the bath and showed me a bit of a rash on her tummy. I put some stuff on her and off we went to a booth. (Which I nearly died at, too soon to be out.) It was bad when she got a bath that night and I went across the street to Mrs. Ann’s house (I love Mrs. Ann!!!) and borrowed some calamine lotion. That didn’t help either. Well today at 8:30 I received a call from the school nurse saying she has to be picked up because she has a rash. I call Josh to have him pick her up and call the Doctor to get her in to see her. So after the visit, she has strep as well. It hasn’t gotten to a point where her throat hurts or anything hurts actually. Just the rash. So she got a free day off, Josh got the day off and she is on antibiotics. While Josh was at the doctors he went ahead and made an appointment for Jacob, just to make sure he isn’t harboring any nasty germs as well.

What a mess.

Hopefully we will all be back on our feet by tomorrow and the kiddos won’t have to have the painful throat and fever like I did.

Edit****
Jacob has it as well! We are a fun house on antibiotics! Yeah!

Back from the dead, sort of.

On Wednesday I left work early, at like 9:30 because I felt horrible. I thought I just had a little cold. I thought I would come home and sleep all day and start feeling better. But that was not the case. The further along the day went the worse I felt. I ended up with a fever of 102.4 that stayed with me from Wednesday afternoon until sometime last night. I went to the doctors yesterday morning, because, I could hardly talk my throat was so swollen. I haven't heard back officially, but when they look in your throat and jump back you assume the worse. I am fairly sure I have strep throat. Yuck! The worst thing about all this is that my throat hurts SO bad I can't eat or sleep. So I am cranky, very cranky. Plus I can't talk. At. All. I sound like I am deaf when I talk. The kids look at me like I am crazy and don't understand that I just need them to be good, because I feel horrible. Josh is off work today and is taking care of me. I hope to begin eating liquified foods today, as I am starving and have a horrible headache from not eating for three days.

That is enough of my whining.

So everyone (my mom and Mamagrand) will be happy to know that I have officially made my next appointment with the surgeon in regards to ~this~. I will be back into the doctor at the end of the month for my almost three month after follow-up. I still feel something, it is still tender and I am still a little bit scared.

On the positive side, Amy and I are planning a little practice road trip in 2 weeks. We are heading up to big ‘ole Sweetwater, TX to attend a wedding of one of our college friends. It should be interesting. I haven’t seen dear Carmen since before I was married. That was nearly 9 years ago! I am excited to see her and a few other friends we are planning on seeing on the way or once we get there but mostly just excited to hang with my girl. We seriously don’t hang like we should. Sarah gets all my hang time. Darn job! Oh well, gotta pay the bills. That is why road trips with dear friends are necessary and the planning is in the works. We are so going to rock the house! Or rock it as much as 2 nearly 3o year old wives/mothers can, we will probably be in bed by 9pm.

Grace

In the past few years the church has been teaching a lot about Grace. I often wonder as I sat through classes regarding this subject why it doesn’t faze me like it usually does the other people in the class. I think part of it is the church I grew up in wasn’t entirely legalistic. I think I always knew from a fairly young age that while it was a good idea to attend church and to pray before dinner it wasn’t necessary to do such things to gain entry into heaven. But the idea that works were required either wasn’t taught at my particular church or I didn’t soak that part in.

In 1989 while living in Germany with my family I attended a Church of Christ summer camp in the mountains. I had been once or twice before, but this time I was there with the big kids. I was going to be in high school after all. The councilors were college(!) kids from LCU. They all were members of either Best Friends or Kings Heirs. They generally shuffled us around and ensured we didn’t kill each other or ourselves. One night the two groups, which rarely combined performances, did just that. It was mostly your typical church drama group stuff. Stuff that at the age of 13 was pretty interesting and convicting. For the last performance of the night the group played the song “Watch the Lamb.” This particular version was sung by Best Friends. It has been sung by many other people as well. As the song was being played the group acted the song out.
Here are the words:

Watch the Lamb

Walking on the road to Jerusalem
The time had come to sacrifice again
My two small sons,
They walked beside me on the road
The reason that they came
Was to watch the lamb
CHORUS:
Daddy, daddy what will we see there?
There's so much we don't understand
So I told them of MosesAnd Father Abraham
And then I said,
Dear children, Watch the lamb
For there will be so many
In Jerusalem today
We must be sure the lamb
Doesn't run away
And I told them of MosesAnd Father Abraham
And then I said,
Dear children, Watch the lamb
When we reached the cityI knew something must be wrong
There were no joyful worshippers
No joyful worship songsI stood there with my children
In the midst of angry men
And then I heard the crowd cry out,
Crucify Him
We tried to leave the city
But we could not get away
Forced to play in this drama,
A part I did not wish to play
Why upon this day
Were men condemned to die?
Why were we standing here
Where soon they would pass by?
I look and said, Even now they come
The first one cried for mercy,
The people gave him none
The second one was violent,
He was arrogant and loud
I still can hear his angry voice
Screaming at the crowd
Then someone said, There's Jesus!
And I scarce believed my eyes
A man so badly beaten,He barely looked alive
Blood poured from His body,
From the thorns upon His brow
Running down the cross
And falling to the ground
I watched Him as He struggled
I watched Him as He fell
The cross came down upon His back,
The crowd began to yell
In that moment I felt such agony
In that moment I felt such loss
Until a Roman soldier grabbed my arm
And screamed, You, carry His cross!
At first I tried to resist him
Then his hand reached for his sword
And so I knelt and took
The cross from the Lord
I placed it on my shoulder
And started down the street
The blood that He'd been shedding
Was running down my cheek
They led us to Golgotha
They drove nails
Deep in His feet and hands
An yet upon the cross
I heard Him pray, Father forgive them
Oh, never have I seen such love
In any other eyes
Into they hands I commit My spirit,
He prayed and then He died
I stood for what seemed like years
I'd lost all sense of time
Until I felt two tiny hands
Holding tight to mine
My children stood there weeping
I heard the oldest say
Father, please forgive us
The lamb ran away
Daddy, daddy what have we seen here?
There's so much
That we don't understand
So I took them in my arms
And we turned and faced the cross
And then I said,
Dear children, watch the Lamb


They completed this piece and it affected me. I remember truly struggling with myself and my salvation and my sense of who am I to deserve this kind of gift? This gift of Grace. I was, at the age of 13 being presented an idea in which many people would not hear or understand until they were much older with much more water under their bridge. At the age of 13 the only sins I can ever remember having committed where lying to my parents about stuff that really didn’t matter, saying a cuss word, alone in my room ( I was SUCH a nerd) and bickering with friends the way ALL 13 year old girls do. When I watched this performance I suddenly understood. I understood that God had given me salvation. And I was nowhere near perfect enough. But that was ok. I talked with a fantastic student from LCU, James Cutrera that night, he helped me understand. I struggled with the idea of being loved despite my faults and being accepted because of my faults, all because of Grace. This was a life changing moment for me. I honestly believe this was when I accepted Christ in my life, I knew I had to. (I mean, I didn’t want to go to hell for cursing. I needed God!) I did not do so publicly for nearly another year, knowing that I wanted my parents to be there with me, and I didn’t want a church camp baptism. I needed to let this new, overwhelming idea sink in for a while.

I have understood the Grace of God for 16 years. I was able to grasp it as a young teenage girl and use it through out my adolescence. I never used it as an excuse for my behavior. I was a good kid, regardless what my parents may think (I joke, I joke) I never participated in many activities they would be horrified to have me around. I made good decisions most of the time. But I have made plenty of mistakes throughout the years. I think, no, I know it would be SO much harder to grasp this idea that God’s love is never ending, all encompassing and overwhelming if I was only now being introduced to the concept. I have so much more in my life now to “be ashamed” of. But grace cleans me and God loves me.

James and I continued to have contact for many years. I encountered him at several different LCU sponsored activities throughout my high school years, I even spoke with him a few times during my short time at LCU. I have lost touch with him, but I know God placed him in my life at a time when I needed someone to listen to me and my silly problems. He did just that and I am thankful to God for both his Grace and his ability to fill your life with people that can help you to the finish line.