G'pa not feeling well....

Grandpa called me into the living room today. He said he wasn't feeling well. I start asking the usual nurse questions..."what doesn't feel good", Dizzy, Fever, etc. He was pale and a little shakey, no fever, kinda confused, and having difficulty concetrating on what I am saying. Finally got to the part where he tells me, that when he got up to go to the bathroom and his hand went numb and he felt dizzy and shakey. I suspect he had a TIA. As we talk more he becomes more clear and his color comes back. He insists he doesn't want to go to the ER. I can't see any reason to take him at this point. All they will do is run blood work and possible a CT scan and tell me he may have had a TIA. So I will continue to watch him. He now tells me he is feeling better.

Moved in....

Well, we are in the new house and getting settled in. There are still boxes everywhere and furniture is not quite right yet but it is coming along.  I have been able to get the dining room, living room and kitchen put together. Grandpa is settling into a routine and so are the kids. Ian started school today. He is in the AM kindergarten class so I can actually get things done while he is in school. Rosie is quite happy to help in the morning or go in the car for errands. After Ian gets home it is harder to go out due to naps and crankiness. But those few hours in the AM are good.

Walmart is becoming well acquianted with me. I seem to have to go every other day right now. Hopefully that will settle down once I get everything put away and figure out where that darn measuring cup went, etc.

If you need the new address, email me and I will send it to you.

So it begins...

December 6, 2008 we all moved into a new house in Smithville; Me, Sean, the kids and Grandpa. It is a  nice big house with plenty of room for everyone. Grandpa has his own room and the upstairs living room is set up specifically for him. The downstairs has a huge rec room for the kids to play in. 

Grandpa is very anxious right now. He is concerned that we didn't get every thing form the house in Bethany. I explained that there are still some tools we have to go back and get, but that Rebecca is watching the house for us. He has started using his walker all the time now. There is less furniture for him to hang on to as he walks thru the house.  I am thankful he has decided to use it. Hopefully he will fall less now.

I love this collage thingy...

I found this fun feature on Picasa today. These pictures are all from Thanksgiving.

House

WE move in this weekend!! Yippeee!! These are pictures Meg took of various rooms and such.

4 Generations of Family

From left to right 

Back row:

 Tim, Matt, Meagan, Caitlyn, Lisa, Chad, Kristin, Estella Rose, Sean, Seth, Rhianna, Staci, Sariah, James, Samantha

Seated on Couch:

Nic, Matt, Hays (aka Dad), Alexis (aka Mom), Jenny, Grandpa Jim

On Floor:

Jade, Luke, Devon, Ian, Cassidy, Heather

When I say I come from a big family I am not kidding. This picture was taken Thanksgiving day. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to be there. We are missing James and Tina, Marilyn, and Grandma. But we have four generation of family in this one shot. Maybe at Christmas we can get everyone.

First snow.

The first snow of the season!!!

Bethany Missouri

Thanksgiving Dinner - Family Style

Thank you to Samantha for putting on a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. 

Aunt Sarah remembered

Bethany / House update

So we are in Bethany until we can take possession of the house. Oh yeah, forgot to update you on the house front. We found a house in Smithville. 4280 Carter. It is a nice house on 1/2 acre. Technically, it has 4 bedrooms plus a den. The only reason the den isnt a bedroom is it doesnt have a window. It has a full basement, finished. Two of the bedrooms are down there, a full bath and laundry room, plus a huge rec room with a fireplace. There is also a fireplace upstairs in the living room. The offer we made was countered and we accepted so now it is a matter of paperwork. The offer was to close and take possession on 12/13 but it might be as soon as 12/5. Keep your fingers crossed for the 5th. 

The word for today is frustration.

The inspection was done on the Cleveland house and came back with a "structural fault". It is not going to fall down anytime soon but, it will need to be corrected sooner than later. Basically when the second floor was finished into bedrooms it wasn't done properly and caused the weight from the roof to shift so that it is no longer over the load bearing wall. This has caused some dips in the floors and cracks on a few walls. Right now it is cosmetic damage. The rest of the house passed with flying colors.  The current mind set is to go back to the sellers and have them do the repair or drop the price the amount of the repair. If this doesnt work then we are back to square one. Maryann (our relator) and I have already started to put lists of houses together again to look at, just in case.  

I have decided I need to find a job in KC in the meantime. I need to finance a car somehow and can't do that without a proof of income. Unfortunately, I have to renew my MO LPN in order to work as a nurse but need cash to renew it which I don't have because I don't have a job....etc.....I believe this is called a catch-22. So I am looking for things like unit clerk, admin asst, etc. They don't require a nursing license. I also can't just go to a temp agency because of the lack of transportation.  

The word for today, boys and girls, is FRUSTRATION!

Rest in peace...

For my friend, Kelly Woods

May you rest in peace.

Strength and chaos

I realized something , which in my opinion was profound.....


If God only gives you what you can handle, I am stronger than I think, because he continues to pile it on and I have not yet collapsed.


My husband constantly reminds me that I am stronger than I think I am. I usually don't stop to analyse this because the moment I stop I am afraid I will collapse. If I just keep going, the momentum keeps the chaos in motion and therefore it does not collapse and bury me.


Here is the current update of the chaos that is my life :


Dad- Continues with his chemo. I believe this week makes 5 treatments. He is continuing to have good and bad days.


Sarah- Started chemo this week. Not sure how she will react. This morning she was feeling ok.


Cleveland House - Inspection hopefully will take place tomorrow and barring anything catastrophic, we should be able to start the final paper work and take possession soon. The current date is set for the 21st but we are trying for sooner.


Tim- Got the job at Stables Bar and Grill in Kearney. WHA-HOOO!!!


Nic - is being the dutiful son and helping me compile birthdays and such for a massive project I have going of a family info chart.


Ian - turns 6 next week (11/10). Still trying to come up with cool party ideas. Lisa and I are planning a joint party for all the November birthdays....James, Ian, Sammie, Cassie, Matthew...did I forget anyone?

Rosie - is being 2. Enough said.

My grandfather Mayo passed away last weekend. Dad, Meg, Matt, and Sammie went to Texas for the service. I have been at Mom's to help with the animals and Meg's kids.

I have multiple projects going....
Family info chart which included extended family.
Recipe collection / book (I could use help if anyone wants to email me recipes HINT-HINT)
Ian's kuddler Blanket for his birthday
Baby blankets for my friends who are expecting
Birthday/Christmas presents for the boys and family.
Christmas present for Dad....look for email on this one!

and Yes, I suffer from insomnia and these are the things I work on when I cant sleep. It is amazing the brilliant ideas you come up with at 3am.

Bethany update

Grandpa Jim was back in the hospital last week for a few days due to Bronchitis. He was released Friday and is back home. I came up Saturday to spend a few days to make sure he behaved hiimself and get the home health and appointments coordinated. He is doing much better. He still considers chocolate cake one of the major food groups but at least he is including meat and vegetables in there as well. He has a really nice lady who comes in three days a week and cooks him a nice hot meal and I cook when i come up too. He is concerned that we are trying to fatten him up for Thanksgiving. :) 

Biscuits and Gravy

Everybody has a comfort food. For me it is biscuits and gravy with pasta as a close second.  I have had a week that has made me rather cranky. My husband (God love him) decided today would be a good day to do something for me. He made me homemade, almost from scratch, biscuits and gravy. He brought me the plate and I about melted into the couch from delight. So I tucked into the gravy goodness and enjoyed my little pieces of heaven.

Smashing Dishes

I saw the craziest thing on TV the other day. Someone has created a place you can go and smash dishes. You write  your frustration or problem on the dish and then throw it against a cement wall. I think this is a great idea...you are able to get out your anger/frustration without hurting anybody and when you are done you have everything you need for a mosaic.  

Gas Price

Wha-hoo!!! Gas is down to $2.52. I can actually afford to drive somewhere. Now all I have to do is find a car. :)

House update

The sellers accepted the offer made on the house. Now it is just paperwork. The plan is to take possession on November 13th. I know it looks small in this picture but it is deceptive. It has 5 bedrooms, two full baths, a full babsement (kinda finished, electrical, wallboard, painted concrete floor) decent sized kitchen, and family room. The backyard is pretty flat and fenced.  It is within walking distance to the Catholic church , St Gabriel. It also has a K-8 school. It is a few blocks from Penguin Park, for those who know KCMO.  Everybody keep your fingers crossed that this goes as planned

Here we go again...

Dad had his third chemo treatment on Thursday.  After each treatment he has had a temperature and not felt well but last night he spiked a temperature of 101.1 (anything over 100.5 is a red flag) and became quite sick. It was a little scarey for me. I have not seem my Dad sick like that. The on-call doc told him to go to the ER. He really didnt want to go. I told him as a nurse I really thought he should go, but as his daughter if he didnt want to go I wouldnt make him. He decided to go. They started IV anitbiotics and kept him at least until the blood cultures come back (Mon or Tues). 

I am finding I have to put my nurse hat on when dealing with my dad in order to keep my sanity. It probably drives him nuts though.  I want to take care of him so I have feel like I am doing something.  I pray daily for strength. 

No longer needing a bigger bucket....

So for a while now I have been subscribing to the idea of when it rains, it pours and I need a bigger bucket. Well as of today,  I no longer need a bigger bucket....I am now to the point of building a dam. We found out last night that Aunt Sarah, has pancreatic cancer. She is at Research. We do not yet know a stage or prognosis.  Please keep her in your prayers. 

Bethany

I spent the past 5 days in Bethany with Grandpa Jim. He was in the hospital last week for excerbation of his congestive heart failure.  Now part of this is probably due to his version of meals...Breakfast is a cinnamon roll and chocolate ensure, Lunch is an ensure (if he remembers), and dinner is a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a chocolare ensure.  While I was there I made actual meals for him. If I made it and put it on the table and just told him to come eat he would but if I asked him what he wanted then he would not eat and just have a peice of cake. Needless to say I just made meals and told him to come eat. 

We got home health set up to come in three days a week to clean and cook for him. He wasnt very happy about this.  He kept fussing about it, but gave up when I reminded him I was just as stubborn as he was.  Being there for more than a few hours, I really got to see how bad his short term memory loss is. 

Hopefully, we can get things finalized and get him moved to KC quickly. WE have found a house and are in process of making an offer on it.  It is near Penguin Park. 

Week of stress

This week has been eventful.

Dad started his chemo and ended up getting admitted to the hospital. At first they thought it was an infection but have since ruled it out. They think it may be a reaction to the chemo. He

was released today to go home but we made do this again next chemo round.

Grandma has been admitted to the hospital too. She has blood clots (DVTs) in her leg. She is deteriorating quickly. Grandpa was admitted to the hospital too for CHF (congestive heart failure)


We are still looking for a house to move into near Mom and Dad or Lisa. We will be moving in with my grandparents and I will be their full-time nurse. We have found a house but still need to get it approved by the sister triad. We hope to have this done sooner than later.

The stress level is way off the charts right now.

Bugs and Humidity

Well, we are back in Kansas City. I had fogotten, or blocked out, the humidity and bugs. Especially the bugs. We have been here for 6 days now and both of the kids and myself look like we have a weird skin aliment.....red bumps all over our legs and arms....bug bites. ICKY!!

The weather is supposed to cool down, soon.

Cross pens

The other day I was not paying alot of attention to what Sean was doing when something caught my eye. I looked over to see him writing a note and I was overcome by a wave of nostaglia. He was using a gold Cross pen. Growing up that is the same style of pen my father used. He always had it with him. It is one of those silly memories that you think of at the strangest times and it always makes you smile.

Anytime I see someone writing with a gold Cross pen I think of my dad and smile.

10 days and counting

We have 10 days left in WA.

This week has been eventful. Nic left last Tuesday for KC. He has moved to Kearney with his Dad and Shannon for the school year. He will be a sophmore at Kearney High. He enrolled Friday and has chosen the acedemic diploma courses. I was enformed he has his on blog now too.

My last day as the Director of Health and Wellness was Friday. I am still on staff and finishing things up this week. It was nice and scarey this weekend to know that the ambulance was at the building 3 times and I was not called to handle any of them. :)

Ian will start home school this week. We have decided with all the chaos it would be the best solution for now. Once we get to KC I will meet with someone from the school district to decide how to proceed.

This week will be catching up and getting things ready to ship or fly to KC.

Those moments when you dont know what to do...

I am having alot of those moments lately when you just don't know what to do. You are so overwhelmed by the things going on around you that you don't even know where to start, or stop, or....well anything. One of my favorite sayings is from Mother Teresa. She says something to the affect of...God only gives you what you can handle, but I sure wish he didn't trust me so much. I am sure he knows I can handle the things going on, and I am sure there is a plan somewhere in this chaos.

Currently, I am subscribing to another saying...When it rains it pours!.... I just keep asking God for a bigger bucket.

How many Mondays are allowed in a week?

Ok, I know that technically yesterday was Monday. Boy was it Monday. However the way today went I would swear it was Monday all over again. It doesn't happen that often but, this is shaping up to be a week full of Mondays.

As way of explaination...Mondays are the days that nothing really goes wrong. However things do not go as planned.
That dinner you had planned to make requires milk, you get home to find no milk. So you make something else but crave the first thing.
You are going along with a spreadsheet only to find that your computer locks up and you only have 3/4 of it saved.
These are the kind of things that have happened all day. Nothing horrible, nothing earth-shattering, just nothing right either.

Heart wrenching decision

The decision has been made. We are moving back to Missouri at the beginning of September. Although it has been really difficult to make this decision now that we have I feel a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am excited to see my family again. I am going to miss my friends here in WA but with the great internet we will still be able to talk frequently.

Now the fun really begins....trying to figure out what stuff to keep and what to get rid of. It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in 4 years.

Ok, so my dad is out of surgery but they weren't able to take out the cancer. I am really struggling to wrap my head around this. It is really difficult to be all the way out in WA while he is in a hospital in MO. So now I am faced with the decision of staying here in WA where I have a good job and a few friends, or moving my family back to MO and essentially starting over job wise but being where my family is. It is a really hard place to be. The two little ones are to young to have established lasting friendships, the teenagers have long-term girlfriends but also a sense of duty to the family. Although they arent thrilled with the possibility they are willing to go. Sean is a whole other thing. He has been here for years and is established in the community and church. He has always sworn he won't go back to MO, until now.

This is a hard choice.

Beyond help....

This was just too perfect not to post!!!!!

being a fixer

I was reminded today that is ok to just do what you can. Sometimes it isnt about doing your best, it is about doing something. I have also recently learned it's ok to NOT do anything sometimes. I have a bad habit of saying yes to everyone at the expense of myself. I am learnigng, slowly, that there are times I have to say no and that there are times I can not fix it. That is the hardest part for me. I am a fixer. I think that is why became a nurse. It is also why sometimes I hate being a nurse; there are times you just can't fix it.

So I ask for the strength to get thru the day and the strength to accept what comes.

Bubbles

One of the greatest joys of childhood is bubbles....cheap, inexpensive, soap bubbles. Rosie loves them. And I enjoy watching her. She just laughs and twirls trying to catch as many as she can. It is the best way to spend time on an afternoon.

Curveballs

Life has a way of throwing you curveballs. The convalidation mass is in 9 days, my wedding dress has gone missing (i will have to make a new one), the reception has had to be cancelled (due to it being planned for the backyard), Sean changed his schedule, so daycare has become a challenge, work has asked me to pick up days at another building to cover while they are without a nurse, my sisters arrive on Saturday, my parents arrive next wednesday and in the midst of all of this I have to pack up my house and move. Our landlord broke our lease a month early. Trying to find a house large enough for a 6 person family is challenging. We found one that is more than big enough but it needs some love. Life is crazy right now.

There is a quote attributed to Mother Teresa..."God only gives us what we can handle, but I sure wish he didnt trust me so much."....I think that sums things up nicely.

Getting things together

It is hard to make changes. I have found myself thinking about things in my life that need to change. I feel like I have been in a holding pattern for awhile now. Trying to figure out how to get started. It is overwhelming when you look at everything so I am focusing on just one thing at a time. This week my thing is to smile everyday and walk/jog for 30 min every day. I need to be happier with myself and feel good in my body again. This is totally selfish on my part. I am not doing this for anyone except me. That in and of itself is hard. I am good at doing for others but not very good at doing for my self.

Snow in April???

This is crazy. It is the middle of April and yesterday we had rain, hail, and snow all in the course of 5 minutes. It continued to snow and sleet the rest of the day. By the time I left work and headed home (6pm) we had an inch or so of snow on the ground. Now, being from Missouri this doesnt particularly bother me. However the Washingtonians who havent learned to drive in snow/sleet do bother me. This is the only place I have lived where people will actually abandon their vehicles rather than drive in snow.

The crazy part is last week we had a record high in the 70's with gorgeous sunshine.

Are you always that generous?

A man got on the bus, the fare was $1.50, he only had bills... no change. He asked me if I had change for a dollar. I did not. I did however have 50cents. So I offered it to him. He thanked me, paid the fare, and sat down. The rest of the ride was uneventful until we reached my stop. As I stepped off the bus, the driver asked me, "are you always that generous?" I thought it was an interesting question, because I didnt think I had done anything generous. My answer..."If I do something nice for him, maybe he'll do something nice for someone else." It is amazing to me that the act of giving someone 50 cents is considered generous.