Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Just too good to keep to myself

Every once in a while I get forwarded something that is just too good to keep to myself. I was sent a You Tube clip on my facebook funwall that positively moved me to tears. I could not figure out how to transfer the post from facebook to my blog, so I searched You Tube. I could not find the exact clip, but was so amazed at how this man has touched so many. There were seven pages of clip about him and in many different languages! Enjoy this clip that is close to what I was sent!

Friday, May 16, 2008

Updates

Hey, everyone!! Just thought I would send out some updates on the happenings of my life! Things are a whirlwind of activity and never a dull moment.



First, let me update you on Kristen. Her ear surgery seems to be a success, but the recovery time has been much harder and longer than we expected. She still has some pain and the packing is not yet dissolved fully. She is very sensitive to anyone getting remotely close to her ear, which presented quite a problem last week when it was time for the stitches to come out. She ended up kicking and hitting the Dr. (He was NOT impressed!) This led to her being scheduled the next day for another surgery to remove the stitches. What should have been an in-and-out thing turned into an all morning thing. They gave her some meds. to relax her before they used the face mask anesthesia. It ended up knocking her out cold for several hours! My suspicion is the nurse made an error and gave her the adult form of it. She was fine, though, and we had some good laughs when she finally started to wake up. At one point she looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, you have two heads. Really." She found her finger very interesting and tried to count the legs on the picture of the rocking horse on the wall. She didn't remember me dressing her and looked in shock when she realized she was no longer in her gown! The skin graft area has healed nicely, and now we are just waiting out the rest of the ear.

Summer is almost here and what fun we have planned this year! The kids still have another month of school left, but we are already thinking ahead. I will be trying my hand at a garden for the first time this year. I hope to get the kids involved and not attract too many critters!

Things with Paul are still going-- and going well I will add! He is such a joy to my life and we are so amazed at how God has brought us together. The healing process still continues and I am so thankful at how patient Paul is with me. He has shown me so much love and respect that I have not known for a long time. Some of the things we have enjoyed in recent times include: a very cold but beautiful trip to the ocean, walks to the dam down the road from my house, grilling out in the yard, and most recently- the building of a fire pit in my backyard. I think there will be much use from this in the coming months! We are just starting to involve the kids in our relationship and plan to spend a lot of the summer building the families together. Paul was there for all of Kristen's surgery stuff and has really begun to develop a bond with her. All of them are starving for a father's love. Through a string of events, I found myself without a babysitter for last Fri. night's work. He came to the rescue, and the kids stayed with him. They loved it and keep asking when he will do it again! We know that it will not always be a bed of roses, but are so thankful things are falling together so nicely.

I recently heard a radio speaker talking about why God allows you to have a dream fulfilled only to see it die. I thought instantly of how all I ever wanted was a Godly home and marriage. The speaker told how sometimes God will give us our dream but then take it away just to see if we love Him more than the dream. Then, sometimes he will give the dream back. I can see this in my life!!! I am so excited for the future-- and enjoying the present!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Kristen

I know, it has been almost a month since my last post!! Thanks everyone, for you kind comments and prayers for my new relationship. Things continue to be wonderful and our love for each other continues to grow each day. We recently had a rare half day of no kids, so we took the opportunity to spend the afternoon at the ocean. We didn't even touch the water- it is WAY too cold for that still!! But what a beautiful day it was to have a picnic lunch and read with each other!

On to my real reason for this post. On Tues. of this week Kristen had reconstructive ear surgery in her left ear. She had a really bad ear infection about two years ago that blew a hole in her eardrum. They did one surgery shortly after it happened, but it was unsuccessful. So we have had to wait until she was done growing in there and for her to go a full year without any ear infections.

On Tues. the ear specialists took a skin graft from the side of her head and created a new eardrum for her. The surgery took two hours and the recovery has been brutal. Her pain the first day and a half was really bad. I could only give her pain meds every four hours, but she would start complaining of pain after about three! It was so difficult to watch my little girl go through so much! Today was much better and I think she will go to school tomorrow. I will send her pain meds with though, as she still can barely go the four hours without complaining of pain.

Please continue to pray for Kristen in the coming weeks. She will not be able to have physical activity for two weeks. Tell that to a very active eight-year-old!! She will also have to be VERY careful over the next two months to not get any water in her ear and to not "pop" her ears at all.

She has been very brave through all of this and really is one tough kid! This should end all her ear struggles and return her to perfect hearing. I praise God for keeping her safe through this horrible thing! At one point she cried to me "mom, haven't I suffered enough?" Talk about breaking a mom's heart!!!