This Year

It's very quiet in here this morning as everyone is sleeping in. School is out for another week and since I don't have any learning coach duties for another week, it's a vacation for me, too. It's been awhile since I sat here and intended to write anything, but since 2015 is drawing to an end, it seemed appropriate.


I have to say for the very first time ever that I can remember, Christmas meant very little to me. As a little kid, it was about getting stuff, then Jesus, and now, I don't know what. I guess I was rather humbug this year. The kids were spoiled and I was even able to help out another family in need a little, which is something I always hoped to be able to do, so that felt nice. Mom and my sister and I shared some Norm memories over wine.


The two biggest memorable events from this year happened this summer and in quick succession. My sixteen year old daughter has some friends online, one she met several years ago, who lives in California (actually he was her first "boyfriend"). Well, after they were no longer a couple :), she set him up with another friend she met on an art website. This girl lives just a few hours from us and the boy was coming to visit her with his family on their way to visit relatives in Michigan. The girls thought it would be cool if Rachel could go and spend the day with them. At first I wondered what I was going to do all day while they were together and worried about leaving the other kids at home for several hours. I researched and found a nice water-park nearby the friend's house and I took the other kids there while the friends went to the mall, pizza, shopping with her mother. It was really a perfect day. I don't know how to describe it, but it really was. Whenever I want to raise my spirits lately, I imagine that day.


Exactly one week later, I got the call from Mom that Norm had had (what they thought at the time to be) a stroke. The rest of the summer was over, and for the next six weeks, we all watched him pass away. It was truly awful.




Life goes on, and I've been dealing with the grief and sadness and back to normalcy.



Joe and I (mostly Joe) have started getting some much needed home improvements started. It will be a long time before it's where it needs to be, but one step at a time. He's also been very passionate about taking care of himself this year and has lost weight and is now working out regularly. I'm proud to be his wife. Rachel is now employed at the restaurant I work at. I'm proud of her, she really is doing a good job. Nick, my oldest son, just started interning at a local computer repair shop and he loves it. His Christmas wish lists are always interesting. He asked for a C++ programming book and a Raspberry Pi, some components, and breadboards. He's always working on something. I'm proud of him. Tim started taking Taekwondo classes and has done well, I'm proud of him. Daniel seems to be a natural on the drums. He's very good and I'm looking into upgrading his little kiddie starter set, which he makes sound amazing, so he can keep that up. He also makes me feel proud. Stephen is learning guitar and was using a shoestring as a capo the other day, so I did get him one for Christmas. He has always liked to wear suits and did get a size upgrade for the holiday as well. He makes me smile, and proud. Leah is just a very sweet little girl. She is our little cheerleader. I find that she shares Rachel's and my weird sense of humor. I love her and am proud of her.

Stephen and his capo string

The boys are all letting their hair grow long, which is fine with me. You get used to people thinking they are girls at first, but it does get annoying at times.




Life is good.



Here's to a Happy 2016.

Flu

Hey everybody:)


It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, it seems. Work, school, blah, blah. I also got a nice flu virus that knocked me out for about a week, that was fun.



I really, really hate being sick. It makes me MAD.




I don't know that I really need to do anymore failed prophecy posts for now. The point has been made to a certain degree I think. In my searching some things out, I found this testimony from a former member of Jews for Jesus, and what he said at the end made me smile:

"Looking back I have certain mixed feelings. I left in most ways with a sigh of relief. I could begin to think again. I could feel for the pain of others apart from the question where were they going to spend eternity in heaven or hell. I could experience the pain, but also the joy of making choices."

I'm not limited in my thoughts anymore and that I don't need to fear or avoid anyone or anything. There are choices now that fall squarely in my own lap- no God, no Plan, no Destiny. It's up to me. It's thrilling and terrifying, but that's life now. I don't think I would want it any other way. 

A New Life

My sister had a baby boy yesterday. Being as she doesn't live close by, I had to check in with my mom via texts all afternoon. Pacing about the house as I felt my updates weren't coming through quickly enough, I just wanted her and the baby to be okay. It's really hard waiting for someone you love to have a baby and this (her third) was no exception.


Mom and baby are well.


I remember the first and the second, too. Hoping and praying that they and she would come through it all okay. I know bad things happen.


I think back to my last child and the decision to have her at home. How crazy it must have seemed to those who knew that I had hemorrhaged pretty badly with the previous home-birth.  What was I thinking?


I bled very badly with her, too, and almost ended up in the hospital anyway. She was fine, but I had lost more blood than the midwives would have liked. They told me if I couldn't get up and walk on my own, we would have to go and by sheer will, walk I did. I was not going to the hospital. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I was. It took me two weeks to recover from that and I remember after my fourth baby (a hospital birth) getting up and walking around an hour later as if nothing had happened.


Medical advancements ain't so bad.



I'm thankful that my sister is in a good hospital with good care. And I can't wait to hold my new nephew.