miracle monday

i have been thinking about this post for a while. i guess trying to figure out the right way to put this out there.

when i started high school, my mom asked me about some of the people in my school...you know, names, in case she knew anybody's parents. it is a small world, and as it turned out, she actually knew a couple of people's parents.
one in particular was terry. he was in a wheelchair. our moms were friends in high school. as terry put it "we rode in car seats next to each other". terry's mom had lost her brother tragically, the year before he was born. she named him after her brother. she was young, i think 16 when she married terry's dad, and had terry.
our moms lost touch after both of them moved. they kept up with each other a little through a mutual friend...but really didn't keep up as they should have.
and then we had to move, and i went to high school. and there was terry...in a wheelchair. he had been diagnosed with MD when he was a pre-teen. he had been athletic..played sports, and was a pretty outgoing kid. his parents were told it would be a miracle if he lived to be 18.
terry was a party guy. my husband and several others would go and pick up terry and take him to all the parties. he had lots of friends, even if he couldn't walk, and you had a hard time understanding him sometimes. high school was great for him. he wasn't left out, as some may have been. he lived his life to the fullest.
funny thing about doctors, they aren't always right. terry lived to be 18...and 21...and 30...in fact, he's still around. it hasn't been easy. his MD has progressed.
for his privacy, i won't go into how he's doing as of now...
please pray for him. i had no idea how much pain MD can cause. please pray for his mom, she is having a really hard time right now. please pray for his sister, and the rest of their family.

miracle monday

hello dear readers! i would like to share what happened to a friend a couple of years ago. jeff (the friend not my hubby) is the step dad of one of alex's friends. he's a really nice guy, very "faith" filled man. he lost his mom to breast cancer when he was pretty young. he's a great dad. he's also a duck hunter. a very avid duck hunter, as are many men out in our parts. (not my hubby though) he and several of his friends have a really nice duck blind...complete with a cooking stove and chairs, a lower level...very nice. this cook stove is a propane stove. he arrived early one morning so he could get some breakfast cooking before his friends got there, and when he went to light the stove....

BOOOOM!!!!!!!

the stove had been left on a little, or there was a slight leak in the tank, no one is really sure, but the result was the same...the lower level of the blind had filled with propane. when he went to light the stove, it exploded and blew him into the water. his friends heard the explosion and called 911 on their cell phones, as they rushed to him. he was in the hospital for over a month recovering from the burns on his arms, hands, and face.

there are so many miraculous things that came together here for this man.
1. he was the only one in the blind, it could have been so much worse had they all been there.
2. he didn't bend down to light the stove, he just lit the match and lowered his hand. his burns would have been so much worse, possibly could have caused his death.
3. he was blown into the water. had he not hit the water, his burns would have been worse.
4. his friends were right there.

this man's wife spent every day at that hospital with him. they had friends that spent every day with them, helping them with their kids, helping them at the hospital. they had our parish praying for them constantly.

today, i am so happy to say, he has really no visible scars. there are no scars on his face at all. there may be slight scarring on his arms, but you can't tell. he is a different man. before his accident, he was involved in so many church committees. he is taking things a little slower now. he's appreciating life more now.

this man is truly a miracle.

the power of prayer

another miracle monday thanks to beth at http://beth-amomslife.blogspot.com/. she is truly an inspiration. anyone that has any miracles they can think of, post about it and link it to beth. there are some truly amazing stories there!

*warning, this post contains a bad word. if that offends, then this may not be the post for you!

i would like to tell you all about some friends of mine. kathy is a pe teacher. her husband dan is a great guy. they have 3 girls. one is a freshman in college, one is a senior in high school, and their youngest is in 3rd grade with my haley. as some of you who read my blog may know, dan was diagnosed as having ALS back in august. they decided to tell no one, not even their kids. at least not until after christmas. they lived with knowing he had a terminal disease, a horrible debilitating disease. after the start of the new year, they told family first, then friends. when asked by his twin brother if there was anything he could do, dan answered "make sure my girls don't marry assholes". he still had his sense of humor.
of course as soon as we all found out, the prayers started. we all prayed for, if not a total mistake, at least a misdiagnosis. dan started seeing doctors after telling everyone. he went to 3 or 4 different ones for different opinions.
why is this a miracle? after all the prayers, it turns out, he doesn't have ALS. he has parkinson's. while that isn't a great and wonderful thing, it is sooo much better than ALS and the 3 to 5 year life expectancy.
this man, through the grace of God, was given a reprieve. thanks to the many prayers of a loving community, he will get to stay around longer...if for nothing else than to make sure his girls don't marry assholes!

how i named my blog

i saw someone else's post about how they named their blog, then a friend of mine renamed her blog (with the help of some bloggy friends) and it came to me...a post about how i came up with the name. the story may be long, and cover many years of my life, but i think it will be somewhat interesting. you may learn things you didn't know about me, and things you may have wished i kept a secret, but my history is part of me. it doesn't define me, but it shaped who i am and what i hold dear.

when i decided to start this blog, i tried to think of something witty to call it. being that i am not humorously inclined, i failed. we had just had a 10 year high school reunion, and i thought "hmmm, what did most people think when they saw me?". to understand where i am coming from, you must know how i was.
when i was 13, my parents went through a nasty divorce. my mom actually left my dad 3 weeks before my birthday. it was a pretty tough time for me. it left me a little unsure of myself. ok, who am i kidding, i was way unsure of myself. i was shy to begin with, but changing schools made it worse. i had a mom that thought school should teach her children to put condoms on bananas and that high school was for "experimenting". it didn't matter if that was drugs, or alcohol, or sex. i was always a good student. that never changed. even after i started smoking pot my sophmore year, or when i started doing some stronger drugs my junior year. i never tried meth, or coke or heroin. i did try pot, lsd, hash, well, and some pot laced with stronger stuff. i used them pretty regularly on weekends, and my junior year, when a friend had a car accident and died, i started using them more often. in fact, i smoked pot everyday from march through may. i couldn't handle not being stoned. it is pretty sad to think about how i felt so out of control. the summer between junior and senior year i met my hubby. we both had moderate drug issues. i decided, a month into senior year, i was going to get clean. no more drugs for me. well, i wasn't perfect, but i was doing better. it amazed me how blue the sky was and how green the grass was. i felt like a hazy mist had lifted from my eyes. i was totally clean by december.
now let me back up a little. when i met the hubby, we became "physical" within the first couple of weeks. i don't know how serious we were about our relationship. well, i know i wasn't all that serious. i was planning on going away to college. i didn't want some majorly serious relationship messing that up. he was a really nice guy, but he wasn't going anywhere. he was 19, he didn't go to college, and was working at a convenience store. so i was pretty guarded with my emotions. flash forward to december. in december, i missed my period. no big deal, i had friends who missed theirs pretty often. just because i was like clockwork all the time, didn't mean anything to me. then january came, and still no period. i decided to take a pregnancy test, just to show myself i wasn't pregnant. well, no such luck. i was. i was 17 years old, a senior in high school, and pregnant by a guy i had known for roughly 6 months. yeah, every parents' dream for their child. i had to tell my parents, my teachers, the school nurse, school administration, my friends, my boyfriend, his family, his friends...yeah, it still hurts to think about.
now, i still had several months left of school. i had decisions to make about the fate of my baby and myself. abortion was never a factor. i never believed in it, and getting pregnant at 17 didn't change that. adoption was a possibility, but i wasn't ready to look at that. i felt lost. not to mention the kids at school who said things like "you should give it up or have an abortion because you'd make a crappy mom". really positive and uplifting things like that. not all the kids, just a select few. a select few that i had been close to up until that moment...and then distanced myself from pretty quickly. i also had some shining angels that made it ok. my friends joe, molly, jeremy, and nike made me feel like i was the same person. they didn't treat me any differently.
now, here i am, 11+ years later, with 5 kids, a great husband, and a life i never would have thought possible. i went to college before and after alex was born, but it only lasted a semester. i wanted to focus on being a mom. my hubby asked me to marry him on my 18th birthday (30 days before the baby was born) and we were married the following may. life fell into place. i can honestly say, i haven't wanted to do any drugs since i gave them up. when i became a mom, all that was in my past. those wonderful friends fell away, but i still love each and every one of them for what they did for me. i don't think they even realized how much it meant to me.
and that is why i gave my blog this name...because "who'd of thought" my life would turn out like this!

am i jumping the gun?

i found out over the weekend that dan's diagnosis has changed. it isn't als, it is parkinsons. i guess after telling his family, he started to go to wash u for treatment, and they determined that it is parkinsons. now, parkinsons isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot better than als. i don't know how many more opinions they are going to get, but i think i would get at least 2 more. how crazy is that? after holding it in for months, and finally telling people, you find out that you have something else. but thank god it is!

that's all i have time to post about right now. i'll try to put some more on later.

why i love my little town

last night, jeff got home really really late. he had been pretty busy with customers all day. in fact his day, which was supposed to end at 3:30, didn't end until 10. yeah, it was a long day. and yet he came home in high spirits. believe me, that is not usually the case. he told me his boss showed him something pretty amazing...
i'm sure you remember my friend kathy's husband was diagnosed with als, and they have known about it for months, but just told everyone recently. my community, my fellow church members, my friends,(they are all one in the same) are building a house for dan and kathy. you see, they have been dreaming about building a house for years. they have the property, but were waiting until the older girls were out of high school to build. right now they live in a small 2 story home, and their bedroom is on the 2nd floor. that works for right now, but unfortunately it won't work well when the disease progresses. once people in our community found out, several started to think about what they could do for them. we have several builders, and contractors in our community, dan and kathy have lots of friends, like us, that are willing to help, so hopefully soon they will have a new home.

this is not an isolated incident. the generosity of my community is awe inspiring. when our principal started at our school, she had just lost her son to lung cancer. he was in his 20's. he left behind a wife and young daughter. his daughter was diagnosed with cancer while her daddy was still fighting the good fight. this family had struggled alot. his daughter beat the cancer (in her jaw area). unfortunately, it came back within 2 years...this time in her leg. her mother is one of the strongest people i know. parents of the other kids in the girl's class, teachers, and just other community members, got together and threw a benefit for her. they raised over $30,000 in one night for her. people donated so much stuff, and then spent so much money, all for a little girl they had only known for a couple of years. she beat the cancer again. she is doing well.

i know there are other communities that are just as generous out there. but this is my town. these are my friends. and this is why i love it here. i hope everyone can find a place where they are so inspired by their neighbors and friends.

bring it on 2008!

well, it is almost 2008 everybody! are you ready? resolutions? i don't usually do resolutions...but i figured this year should be different. after all i am going to be 30 this year.

1. i want to be more patient with my kids. i am tired of yelling all the time. i am tired of this being the only way to get their attention.

2. i am going to get healthy. i am going to exercise. i am going to be a more fit, and healthy role model for my children.

3. i am going to try to keep the house clean more. i am going to try to do better about getting rid of stuff we don't need, and keeping the house picked up.

that's it. that's my list. i know it's only 3 things, but they are major items in my life. basically i am going to become a total and completely new person.

well, maybe i won't go that far...just better the person i am.

as 2007 comes to a close, it makes me think of how my kids are all getting older. this coming year, my 2 girls are going to be 6 and 9...and that's just this coming month! my boys are going to be 12, 4, and 3. CRAZY!!!

jeff and i were talking about puberty today. you see, my almost 9 year old girl is getting oily hair. jeff didn't realize this is a sign of puberty in girls. he freaked when i told him. he thought that was something we didn't have to worry about for a few more years (like atleast 3 or 4). i told him about a friend of mine who started her period in 5th grade. we were 10. he almost passed out. to think his baby girl could be on the road to womanhood...ahhhh! so now i have to think of ways to have "the talk" with her. jeff had it with our oldest. i get the girls. how do i say "you are becoming a woman, but not really a woman yet"? i mean, puberty is the start womanhood, but you really aren't an adult. you aren't even mature physically as a woman until late teens, right? i just want to make sure she knows more than i did when i was a kid. i had no idea what a menstrual cycle was until we learned about it in school. NO IDEA! my mom never told me anything about any of the changes happening in my body. i was totally freaked out by it. i want to make sure my girls feel like they can come to me about this stuff. my mom tried, i guess, but anything i asked about...the way she responded was more accusation than answer.
example: me "mom, i think i have a urinary tract infection".
mom "oh yeah? whatever" and she stomped out of the room.

why? well, later she told me she thought i wanted to tell the doctor to put me on the pill.
(by the way, she never did take me to the doctor for that. i got it treated a year later...when i was pregnant.)

but you know what? i have to thank her for that. this was a major example of the relationship i don't want to have with my kids.
thanks

a weekend of crazy

cookie bake day was just ok. in the past, grandma had tons of cookies already done and we had lots of us there to bring in different cookies to share. unfortunately, my aunt was sick. she usually brought the cookies the kids decorate. and grandma decided not to do a big party this year. i guess it's getting to hard for her. maybe i will help her out and do it next year. i don't think anyone else in the family would be able to. it's kind of weird though, my mom and one of my aunts' are living there with them, you'd think that would be enough help. but my grandpa has emphysema and he has been having a tough time with it lately. maybe that's why she's having a tough time. that and their dog humps everything in sight. i swear, if he'd have jumped on one more of my kids, i would have kicked him into next week! maybe not literally (that would be pretty difficult), but seriously!

we got several inches of snow. the kids had a blast playing in it. they built an igloo, snowboarded and sledded down the pond dam (not into the pond!) and just played for hours. it's been a long time since they've been able to do that!

i've decided to edit some of my posts. it seems that if you google some of the names in my posts, they give you my blog. now i don't know why, but that makes me just a tad uncomfortable. so i am trying to figure out what exactly i will start calling people.

one of the little girl's i watch won't be at my house for a while. her mom has pneumonia. she is still in the hospital. she went in on friday, they let her leave with some meds, and then called her on saturday and admitted her. it seems the infection is in her blood stream. iv antibiotics are what they have her on. she will hopefully be home today, but that depends on how the infection is reacting to the meds. please pray for her speedy recovery. she has a husband and 4 kids that need her home!


last but not least....
peanut butter blossoms
1 and 3/4 cups of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of shortening, 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of milk, about 48 hershey kisses.

preheat oven to 375, mix all ingredients (except kisses) well, roll into balls about 3/4 inch diameter, bake cookies for about 12 minutes, when you take them out, press a hershey kiss in the center. (right away!) voila! best cookies ever!

this year though i made peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. i had the chips, and with the nasty storm i decided i wasn't going to leave the house if i didn't have too. they turned out awesome. the kids ate all of my extras. 6 dozen went to grandma's house, and the kids ate 3 dozen.

a picture of strength

ok, this is a pretty sad and difficult post to write.

my niece dani has a best friend who has had cancer 2 times now. she is going into 2nd grade. my kids also know this little girl, grace plays with her, josh loves rubbing her bald head, zack calls to her to come play with him...you know, little kid stuff.
this little girl lost her father when she was 4. he died of lung cancer...he had never smoked, and was only 29. they were diagnosed within months of each other. she is his only child (her mother was pregnant at the time they were diagnosed, but lost the baby).
they did genetic testing on this little girl. unfortunately her cancer is something that will keep coming back...until the cancer or the chemo kills her. they don't know how soon it will come back again, could be ten years, or it could be 1. could be the same kind again, could be bone cancer, brain cancer, or leukemia. they don't know for sure. basically, they told her mom she probably won't make it out of grade school.

her mom is one of the strongest people i have ever met. how do you deal with this? i know god only gives us what we can handle, but who could handle that? she is one of those people that you meet, and feel comfortable with. she doesn't care about others' opinions. she has been so strong for her daughter. i can not even comprehend how she does it. my eyes fill with tears and my heart feels like it has a 20lb weight on it, and i just know them. i look at my kids and i can't imagine facing the prospect of losing one of them. i don't know that i could make it through that. i know god has a plan, and we all have strength inside. but so far my tests have been "life". what i mean by life is, god blessed me 5 beautiful lives to care for. i look at this woman, and i could not imagine the pain she is feeling right now, and keeping from her little girl.

i look at them, and i am in awe. so much love, and i just pray that my kids know i love them that much. please everyone, pray for mackenzie and her mom shaina, and her stepdad jason. they need all the prayers you can send their way!