Hawaii!

The last time Nick and I had a REAL vacation was our honeymoon 5 years ago.

FINALLY, we're going to have one. We're going to Kailua-Kona, Hawaii at the end of October!

If anyone deserves a vacation, it's Nick. All biases aside, he is literally the hardest working person I know. Today, for example, he woke up at 5:20 to go to work at QuickLearn Training. After that, he'll be off to Youth Group.  We'll get home around 9:30 and he'll get to work preparing for tomorrow's class that he's teaching. He will finally be done working around 11:30. That's essentially an 18 hour day.

Besides work, we've had a lot of poo hit the fan over the last few years. 5 years of stress has definitely taken a toll. I feel different. Almost incapable of having fun or staying happy for longer than a day.

Don't get me wrong. Lots of good things have happened, too. Plenty of wonderful holidays, relationships developed, Nick becoming a Youth Minister, I'm leading worship again, Bear was born, we moved into The Barn with 8 members of our incredible family. We've always had a roof over our heads and food on our table. We've had support and help through every big event, whether it was happy or sad.

But, no break. Back when I was being diligent about blogging (lol), I wrote a blog about setting aside a day a week to have a Sabbath. We weren't created to go 24/7. While not necessarily straight from the Bible, I believe we weren't created to go 24/7/365. Nick's only day off every week is Saturday, which usually has a very full schedule anyway. So he doesn't even normally have his weekly Sabbath. And becoming parents, though the best moment in our lives was her birth, has added more responsibility to every day.

One last push. Our vacation is less than a month away and I haven't been taking nearly enough care of myself. I was down to 181 in July of 2011; I'm 207.9 right now (not the largest I've been over the last year). I used to go for hours with Just Dance; now I can barely handle 15 minutes. I used to do the stairs without issue; now I huff and puff at the end.

This is simply not acceptable. I need to be more active so I can walk the beaches with my husband and daughter. Ideally, I'd like to be under 200 lbs by the day we leave, but that's 8 lbs away and I only have 28 days to get there. So I'll just say my goal is to be more fit by that time.

Vacation will be so much fun and I will enjoy it!

Sudden Grief

You know what I mean. You're going about your day, watching Disney with your daughter when you check your Facebook...

Your best friend wrote you asking you to call her immediately 15 minutes earlier. This isn't normal.

That's when it came. I felt like Loki being thrown around by the Hulk. One of my best friends from high school, Tim Stephens died in a car accident last night.

In high school, Tim, Sonya, Jason, and I were inseparable. Even before Sonya, the three of us were good friends. All of us were always doing things together. They were always at my house eating my parents out of house and home. At youth events, all of us hung out with each other. The two of us were total opposites. He was totally a cowboy and I was a city slicker. There were lots of jokes about that. He was a loyal friend then, and I'm sure he carried on that characteristic throughout the last several years. Regretfully, I lost contact with him over the years, but recently found him again on Facebook after around seven years of lost contact.

You know that feeling when you see a really good friend for the first time in years? You just carry on like no time has passed. This was like that. I instantly felt like I had just seen him yesterday and now he's gone.

I've experienced deaths in my life. Grandparents and acquaintances. This is the first time a good friend has passed.

While I do grieve and I have cried, there is also a blessed hope. Tim knew God. He is with Him now.

I look forward to the day when the four of us will hang out again; with every other family member and friend in the blessed presence of God.

Defeat

Defeat. There few worse feelings than the feeling of defeat.

If you let it, it will drag you down.

If you let it, it will keep you down.

If you let it, I will make the horrible your norm.

If you let it, you'll forget where and who you are.

That's a difficult place to pull out of.

The key is to recognize where you might be in these levels. I have been gaining and losing the same 15 lbs since last July. My clothes are tight. I am out of shape. I know what I ought to be doing and don't do it. I have made the horrible my norm. I'm beyond being held down or dragged down by defeat. At some point, I subconsciously gave up.

Time to cowgirl up.

Divine Intervention

I don't know about you, but I hear a lot of others talk about how such-and-such a thing was "divine intervention". Up until this week, I'd only had what I considered divine intervention twice in my life and that was twice in the same year. The first was when I called Sonya for the first time to hang out. Her phone didn't even ring because at that exact same time, she was picking up the phone to call me. You have to understand we barely knew each other. We were in the same french class, but sat on opposite sides of the room. We were in Concert Choir, but she was an alto and I was a soprano. We didn't have mutual friends. We didn't go to church together. The only reason we had each other's number was that a year before, she had asked me to help her learn her part for choir.

The second time was at the end of my senior year in high school. I was driving home from school with my brother, who had somehow managed to fall asleep in that short amount of time. A car had been tailing me the whole drive, so he didn't see my blinker or brake lights when I went to turn on my street. He hit my rear going 45 mph and I was shoved straight toward a ditch. I pushed harder on the brake, to stop us. When we finally came to a stop, my brother woke up and we were somehow right beside the ditch rather than in it. The car was totalled and I got severe whiplash (causing me to wear a brace to graduation and giving me a twitch that I still have to this day), but my brother was uninjured and my injuries would have been much worse if we had crashed into the ditch.

On Sunday this week, Bear had two bumps show up on her shoulders. I dismissed them as bug bites. On Tuesday, she had two more, I still dismissed them. She plays a lot outside. However, on Wednesday morning, she had several bumps along the top of her back, a few more on the left of her back, two under her armpit, one on her tummy, and one behind her leg. This concerned me, so I called to make an appointment with her doctor. The only time she had available was 4:00, which worked out nicely because Julie was giving me a ride and wouldn't be back until around 3:00. At lunch, she only had a few bites of Mac n' cheese and I couldn't get her to drink after her chocolate milk she had at 8:00 that morning. She wanted Lewis to hold her, but she didn't want to play. She took her nap an hour early. When she woke up, she turned on her mobile and just laid there silent. She didn't call for me or start playing with her toys. When I came in and turned the light on, she didn't stand up to greet me. I went over to her and asked if she wanted to get up. She said "yeah," so I picked her up. Hot with fever, limp. I tried sitting her down and she didn't want to separate from me. So I laid her on top of me on the couch and took her temperature. 101.4. She cuddled with me until Julie got back (around an hour); unusual because she's not a cuddler.

We rushed to her doctor who promptly sent us on to the ER at Seattle Children's Hospital when her temp was 102.4, her HR was 204, and her breathing was a bit low. Just as we were getting ready to go, Bear threw up what little she had eaten and drank that day. Rushed to the ER where they did every test in the book and started pumping fluids through an IV. Just as we thought she was getting better, she started shaking severely and threw up again. We were admitted. Through the rest of the night, they continued giving her fluids and checking her vitals. When the doctor came to look at her in the morning, it turns out the illness and "rash" were separate things. The rash was actually bug bites. She has some virus that was wreaking havoc on her body.

Had she not had all those bites, she would not have been able to get into her doctor's until the next day. Had she not gone to the doctor's we would not have gone to the ER until the shaking (around 11:30 PM). It would have been much worse than it ended up being. Why did the bugs decide she was a buffet when she hasn't had any bites so far this summer? Divine Intervention.

God cares.

The Potency Of Parental Emotion

There are some things you can't grasp unless you experience them yourself. When I became a mother, when I held Mary in my arms for the first time and looked into her beautiful eyes, I thought I understood a mother's love for her child. It's immediate and overwhelming and wonderful. However, nothing really prepares you for when your child is sick and getting poked with needles in unmentionable places and examined by every doctor, nurse, and their mothers. This has been a long day.

This morning, Bear woke up with a spreading rash on her back. I set an appointment for this afternoon. She didn't really touch her mac n' cheese at lunch, which is odd for her, and took her nap nearly an hour early. When she woke up, she had a fever of 101.4 and she was limp and lethargic. When we got to her appointment, we discovered her temp had gone up, her pulse was 204, and she puked up what little she had to eat and drink. Her PA sent us to the ER at Seattle Children's. In the ER, they took blood (slightly high white blood cell count), examined her, pumped fluids through an IV and took a urine sample in the most painful way. Just when we thought she was improving, she puked again, her temp went back up, and her pulse increased again. They decided to have her admitted so we can figure this out. Everyone is stumped. My little one is now asleep snuggling Bucky the Beaver (Beanie Baby) because she threw up on her lamb.

I wept with her. I felt her pain. I hungered and thirsted along with her. I laid with her on the exam bed. I hated being powerless to help her.

How much more does God love us? Our parental relationship with our children is meant to reflect God's love for us. He weeps with us. He feels our pain. The difference is that He is not powerless. He is omnipotent. He fulfils our hunger and thirst and provides comfort when we need it. If what I've experienced today is at all what God feels for us, we are truly blessed.

On another note, I have a new understanding for parents of ill children. I don't know how you do it day after day; I could barely handle one day. My heart and prayers go out to you tonight.

BFF

I was using this phrase before it was popular. It actually means something to me. My BFF is Sonya McKinnon. We met in high school. I introduced her to her hubby. We did Master's Commission. We left around the same time. She was essentially an adopted member of my family. We've been through so much and have depended on each other for a shoulder to cry on, even if we were on opposite coasts. We have mourned our miscarriages and celebrated the births of our children. We wept when my family fell apart and celebrated when we found out she was moving to Washington.

No matter how long it's been since we've seen each other, we always just pick up where we left off. Just recently, I saw her for the first time in 5 years. The first thing that happens is Bear vomiting on her carpet. No big deal.

It took me until my Senior year of high school to get my BFF. I was a teenager with an extremely low self-esteem and didn't trust very easily. I had moved many times and had friends say that they would stay in touch and it didn't happen, despite my best efforts. But there was something about Sonya; something told me I could trust her (probably the Holy Spirit). So I did. And we've been sisters ever since.

Are you open to people or have you corked yourself into a bottle of solitude? Are you too afraid to meet and spend time with new people? Now, I'm not saying to just trust people instantaneously, but you shouldn't close yourself off.

Who knows. Maybe that wall flower is your BFF and you both just don't know it yet.

Busy Bees

"I'm tired from my long day."

"I can't wake up early."

"I can't do it because I'm on vacation."

"I have too much studying/homework/work."

The list goes on and on. We are such a busy culture and we often look down upon those who do take breaks (Heaven forbid). We have so much in our personal schedule that it interferes with other things that are important: God and our family. Why is it that real quality time with those we love most is placed below everything else on our list of priorities? How often have you snapped at a loved one because you were in the middle of something? It's just not right.

If you don't have time for God and your family, you're too busy. It's time to cut something out or ask for help in accomplishing your tasks. It is vital not only for your sanity, but also for your soul to slow down and have relationships with people.

Take a break or you will get broken.