The passing of time

WOW!!! I cant believe it has been over a year since I posted. I guess a little thing called Facebook has taken some of my time...well all of it really. I have been soooooo addicted!

So much has happened! There was my oldest daughter's wedding...it was beautiful. My youngest went back to school and graduated. My middle daughter moved back home. And now My oldest is expecting twins this summer!!!

I guess I'll have to take some time to keep this blog going. it was nice to look back at a snipit of my life from a few years ago. So much has happened but so much is still the same.

2009...what a year

2009 has come and gone. It was an eventful year. My oldest daughter got married. My middle daughter moved into her own apartment and my youngest daughter moved to Michigan, came back home, and decided to return to school!

Much more occurred within the confines of the year that was 2009 but to go into detail is not in me right now. I have become a FaceBook addict and I know I have not posted anything here in quite some time. I will have to get back into regular posts to document what is going on.

Sooo for now, lets just welcome 2010 and hope that it brings many new and wonderful things into our lives.

It's been a while

WOW I guess it has been a while since I have posed anything here. Things have been hectic and we are now getting ready for the wedding!


The shower was last weekend. It went really well. Kristy got a lot of nice gifts and I think everyone had a good time. Here are some pictures from the shower.






Now is the countdown to the wedding....only 19 more days! I'm looking forward to it...kinda. I have mixed feelings but I think that is normal...I'm losing my oldest daughter but an gaining a son.


I'll post more soon.

New Beginings

When my youngest daughter came back from Michigan, she said she had been going to church and had found God and welcomed him into her life. She did not want to lose what she had found and wanted to find a church here so she could continue her learning. The problem was that I worked on Sundays. She did not want to go to the new church alone for the first time. Well, as of the first of April, my hours changed and I now have Sunday's off.

Last week I did some research and found a Baptist church that was close by and that I thought she would like. We went together and she really liked it! She even went back that evening for the youth group. She came home and said, "Mom, I'm being baptised next Sunday!". My first reaction was that she had been baptised as a baby in the Episcopal Church. But, I thought more about it and recognized that this was something she really wanted so I would stand behind her and encourage her. After all, it was not something bad, but something really good!

Then it hit me......that was Easter Sunday! and I had planned an early brunch for the family. The church service was not going to start until 10:45 and I knew it would run over an hour, so having the family over at 11:30 was out of the question. I called everyone and changed the time to 12:30. This caused a problem for my other 2 daughters. They were meeting with their fiancee' and boyfriend's families at 2. They didn't want to eat so close to when they had to eat again. I had to make a decision...be there for Nicole as she was baptised or stay home and cook for the rest of the family.

I decided that this was such a big day in Nicole's life and that she really wanted to make a change so .... I went to church. Nicole went at 9 and I stayed home and started the cooking. I put everything in a warmer and went to church. My middle daughter and mother-in-law came with us also. They had never been to a baptist church before so it was quite an experience for them. It really meant a lot to Nicole to have them there.

I can only hope that this really will be a new beginning for Nicole. She is much different when she comes home from church. I wish she could go every day! Pray for me and for her and that this really will make a difference in her life.

Happy Easter!!!

Headaches

So everyone has had a headache sometime in their life. You get them with hangovers, if you bang your head, sometimes with the flu. But when they take over your life, you know you have a problem.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, I have been having horrible headaches. Mostly in the winter. I would go to the doctor and they would ask where it hurts. Usually it felt like the front of my face was going to explode with some pain radiating back into my head. I was all stuffed up with watery eyes and post nasal drip. With these symptoms, the doctor has been treating me for sinus problems. Prescription after prescription of antibiotics and steroids to calm my sinuses down. The headaches and problems would slow down but just a few days after the medicine was done, the headache would come back. It was a vicious circle.

Last year the pain became much worse. But still, the doctor treated it the same way. I had some form of a headache every day for about 18 months. I finally told the doctor that I just couldn't live like this any more so she sent me to an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist. My thought was...FINALLY I will get some help! If it included surgery, so be it! I didn't care what I had to do as long as it would stop the pain. So off I went to another doctor. He ordered a MRI of my sinuses. The results....there is nothing wrong! He also used a scope to look at them .... again ...nothing wrong! I was really upset. Not that I wanted something to be wrong, I just wanted to end the pain. He referred me to a neurologist.

So after about 2 years of unbearable pain, I went to yet another doctor. He examined my head and asked me about a million questions and determined that I was having cluster headaches. This type of headache will mirror a sinus headache and causes all of the same symptoms. The runny nose, post nasal drip and front of the face pain. He put me on a medication and had me come back in a month. The medication helped with the pain but made me so sleepy that it was hard to get out of bed. So back I went, because I wasn't taking it, and he changed the prescription.

For the first time in a very long time....I was headache free! So I took the medicine every night and things were good. But I am very bad at remembering to take medicine. So after a few weeks without pain, I would start to forget to take the pill. Well, I have found out that these headaches are not like a flu or other sickness. Just because you are better, you can't stop taking the pills. When I forget for a few days in a row, the headache comes back. It not only comes back, it is worse than ever!

Just this week, the pain started slowly..before I could react, it was so bad I couldn't lift my head off the pillow! It is hard to explain this type of pain but let me try. It felt something like this...Someone was sitting in my head with their feet on my eyes trying to kick them out of my head. They also have hot sharp knives and are slashing wildly all around. To top it all off, there is a vise squeezing my head and getting tighter every second. I could not finish a complete thought or sentence.

I do not call into work but this time I had no choice. I hate that these headaches are taking over my life! I guess I just have to get better about taking those stupid little pills. I hate taking medicine but, well, I just have to take this one.

Here I am 4 days after the pain started and I'm finally starting to feel better. As you can see, I can think again! So wish me luck in keeping the pain away.

Hooked

So I joined Facebook. I just wanted to keep track of my children and what they were doing online. Then all of a sudden I started finding friends from high school. and further back, that I hadn't seen or talked to in years. Sooooo.....now I'm hooked.

I spend way too many hours on there looking at pictures and talking to friends. Laundry and housework are being put aside. Its terrible! I feel like one of my kids, spending hours on the computer!

I'll try to keep up with this blog better...I just have to walk away from Facebook!

Sleigh

So, we went to Vermont as I told you. And we got a sleigh. So we have been working on restoring it and I thought I'd share some photos. It isn't quite finished yet but here is where we are so far.

We started by removing the "box" from the skis. We were able to get that into the basement to work on it. The ski's were another story. Even with the door removed, we couldn't get it in. There were just too many quick turns and ti was too long. Of course it was about 10 degrees outside so I didn't try too hard. Once I knew it wouldn't fit, I convinced my husband of that fact. He was pretty bummed because he wanted to get it in to work on it during the winter. He tried a few more times and then finally gave up...well not really but for then. He kept thinking of ways to get it into the house. Next he thought of the front porch until I reminded him that the porch door was not as wide as the one we were trying. Not to be deterred, he is very stubborn after all, he tried one more thing. We carried the ski's onto our back deck, over the hot tub, and it fit through the back door straight into the living room. There was no way to get it into the basement, all of the turns, so he put it into an extra room that we have off of our kitchen. Through the years this room has been used as a bedroom, den, junk room and now it is a "craft/restoration" room.

He sanded the skis down a little bit to get rid of some of the rust and then painted them. He got at them so quickly, I was not able to get any "before" pictures. I just barely got the ones of the box and seat. During the restoration, we found the original manufacturer's tag still stapled to the back of the seat! It was built in 1918.

We painted the whole sleigh and re-upholstered the seat pads. It isn't totally complete but we are pretty close to being done. Some of the paint got scraped off when he brought the seat box upstairs but here is what it looks like now.

It was an adventure but I guess it was worth it.