Enough

Do you ever wonder when enough is enough. I feel like God is testing the people of Westside much like he tested Job. I know that the church has gone through a time of prosperity and well being and now we are being asked praise him in the darkness and wear out our praying knees. In one congregation there are so many people suffering. We have a family with 3 children, both parents, and one grandparent facing medical difficulties, we have another family with a 10 yr old child who has been diagnosed with an illness that has no known treatment and no known cure, there is yet another family whose father is facing bone marrow cancer among many many other medical complications and he has had to go to Florida alone for treatment b/c his wife is now the sole income in the family and must continue working to support them. I am asking that my friends please pray with us and for us as our church family are hurting. During this time of sorrow and stress and sadness I will be trying to be more positive and to praise God even though things are so hard. Every day it is my goal to post one thing I am thankful for and one positive statement. I believe that words are a powerful and strong thing and change so much so I plan to have positive words hoping that in turn it will give me the kind of view about things that Job had in his struggle. Today I am so thankful for my husband’s side of the family they are a strong point in my life and I love them. My positive view for today is that Alivia has learned how to say Da Da, she does not yet associate it with Michael but I was still disappointed that she did not learn Ma Ma first, but I am very grateful for the fact that my baby is healthly and developing properly

Not a Good Frame of Mind

Do you ever just feel like you’re in it all alone? Not even the one person that you thought you could always count on was there. That has kind of been my week so far. This week as just been a week full of let downs not only has that one person that you thought you could always count on just not been there but it feels like the second, third, fourth, and fifth person aren’t there either. I guess in the words of Dr. Chapmen my love tank isn’t feeling very full and you can really tell by my attitude. I know that most of this is brought on by stress and feeling unsettled in our house b/c while things are almost all unpacked nothing is completed. There are no pictures hung on the wall there are no personal knick knacks sitting about. All of this is compounded by a teething, cranky baby and a too busy husband. Tonight is one of those nights that I feel like one of the girls off of 16 and pregnant who had this boy promise that he would always be there to help and blah blah blah but at 1 am when baby is awake he just tits there and lets her cry. Now this dosen’t happen very often as Alivia has slept through the night since she was about 3 weeks old but tonight at 12:30 she was up and unhappy. Dear husband was already awake playing some stupid game on his phone and waited for me to get up and get the child a bottle and feed her evern though I had already been asleep for oh an hour and half. After a bottle and the third time I was up he says “what can I do?” my response was short and mean “Not lay in bed.” I know that I should have nicely directed him what would best aide me but by that time I was so mad. I had been home alone all day with her he only held her once b/c I asked him so I could go get her bath ready. I just feel like I am the only one who is taking care of this child and I am so done with it. I know that this is just a bad night and tomorrow I should be completely back to normal I just needed a place to jot down my feelings so that when the princess decides it’s time to go back to sleep I will have some peace of mind and be able to sleep myself.

The House Hunting Adventure

So it seems like Michael and I will talk about things forever and never really do anything about it. Eventually we will browse around online and find something we like and the ball just seems to start rolling. We live in a 900 sq ft town house style apartment, the three of us and dog make for very tight living. Our lease is up at the end of September so we started driving around looking for a bigger place to rent. Well to rent anything bigger then what we live in we are looking at almost doubling the price we are paying for rent which just isn’t do-able with our budget. Michael started looking around online and found a house for sale in our area in our price range. He called his Aunt Susan to have her look up info on it for us. Susan called the realtor the house was listed with on a Monday and found out that the house was being put up for auction that Wednesday and in order for us to stop that action we had to make an offer on the house by Tuesday evening. It is a beautiful 2 story 92 year old house that has 3 bedrooms 1 and ½ baths. It has a living room, den, dining room and a small but livable kitchen. It is a foreclosed house so needless to say the house needs some lovin’ in a big kind of way but after the home inspection we found out that that all of the really expensive hard to do stuff like replacing the windows and blowing insulation into all the walls has been done. The house does need some work there are about 8 light switches/ plugs that need wired and installed, there are some gas leaks that need to be repaired but they are at fittings in the pipe so odds are they just need to be tightened and the chimney needs to be lined where the natural gas heater vents so that eventually the carbon monoxide doesn’t seep into the house and kill us. These would typically be very expensive things to have done but we have men in the church that have stepped up and volunteered their time to fix these things for us. We wouldn’t be able to have this house if it wasn’t for the dumb luck that we had in finding it and looking into it when we did we would not have had the opportunity to get that house. God has really and truly provided for us in so many ways and I love when he gives me a story to share with other people about the way he always provides. I am so thankful for my faithful God!

The Amazing Rescue

So I don't know how many of you know this but I am a part time nanny for a family in West Chester. They have three girls; Serenity age 8, Audrey age 3, and Brooke age 3 months. Serenity has started back to school and it has made my day so much easier and so much more peaceful well at least I thought I had. My lovey Audrey was running around with the dog yelling and I told her she needed to settle down b/c the babies were sleeping. So she went and locked the master bedroom door and shut it so that she would not disturb them. (In the logic of a three year old the lock apparently makes a door more sound proof) Too bad that the door has a real lock that needs a key, a key in which the family does not have possession. I call the dad (Dan) and tell him what is going on while he is in NKY on a run, his only advice and request was to please not mess up the door jam and to maybe call the fire department to break down the door. I immediately called my hubby and asked him how to get a door knob off from the outside of a room, which by the way is impossible. So he came and we called my dad who is amazing and knows everything. He told Michael what to do and he did it and I with my master tinkering skill used a putty knife to unlatch the locking mechanism and we saved the babies! It was quiet an eventful, tearful (for both babies who were screaming in the room for 20 min and me), day. I am so thankful for my hubby who also comes to my rescue. He is truly an amazing man I could not have hoped for anyone better; I love him with all my heart!

One Year Later

So this Sunday marks one year at Westside Church of Christ. This past year has been quiet an adventure for our family. I moved 12 hours away from everything I have ever known, all of my family, friends, and a familiar place. We moved into a tiny 2 bedroom apartment that was old, not well cared for and it smelled funny. A month after living here we discovered that we were expecting unexpectedly! I have discovered a new kinship with my mother-in-law making family a lot closer then I thought it was. We have made some new and wonderful friends. And I can successfully drive from my house to Wal-Mart, work and church without using my GPS and with out getting lost. The apartment is still way too small especially with the extra body that is living here too but we did manage to take care of the funny smell. And our little surprise is officially 3 months old and she is a beautifully wonderful addition to our family. I am so thankful for the support and courage that Michael gave me while moving and adjusting to this place. I am also thankful for our church family. The elders and minister at WSCoC have been our support and substitute family; the men of this church are some of the Godliest I have ever worked with. They know the importance of feeding those who feed others. For our one year anniversary they paid for Michael and me to attend a four day retreat (hotel and all) in Gatlinburg, TN in February so we would have a time to be fed and rest. I am very excited to see what God has in store for us in the next year!

Sometimes You Have to Laugh at Spilled Milk.

While there are so many things that are incredibly difficult about being a mom there are so many other things that are so easy and there are even more things that make the difficult things more than worth it. I have had trouble with breastfeeding since the beginning. It took me 6 full days for my milk to actually come in which included nursing and pumping around the clock while being completely exhausted once it came in we did really well for like a month and then my darling daughter decided that she was ready to sleep through the night (between 6 and 8 hours at a time) which most parents would cry for joy about, I on the other hand began having an issue producing enough milk for her during the day. We invested in a nice medela double pump and I again nursed and then pumped for 2 weeks and we got things going well again. We are in the 3rd months now and again I am not able to get enough milk; my body is having a very hard time regulating my milk supply. I am so ready to call it quits b/c it is very time consuming and very stressful for me yet I feel like if I throw in the towel I’m a bad mom b/c I know that "breast is best". While I have all that playing around in my mind Alivia wakes up this morning and when I walk into her room to get her she has this big grin and a she actually giggles at the sight of me.... does it make all the stress worth it, oh yes completely!!!!