Posts

Taking Care of Me

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Somehow life always pushes 'moms' needs into the closet..... the door gets shut, life gets busy, and then years later, mom realizes she doesn't know who she is anymore.  Well, that is my story. Looking back, I was just a baby when my first baby was born....and I became a mom.  I was 17 when I got pregnant.... I had just finished high school and had not even thought about what I wanted to do with my life.... I was living on my own, in a one bedroom efficiency apartment. My goal in life was short term - pay the rent, keep gas in my car, and food in the fridge. I never really wanted to be a mom - it just happened. And after marriage, step kids, divorce , and a second marriage, I went on to have two more kids...... Our oldest daughter had a lot of health problems requiring lots of tests, doctors appointments, lab work and children hospitals over a five year period ( you can read more about it here). Our second child is special needs and has many learning disa

Enjoy: The Gift of Sexual Pleasure for Women Book Review

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Enjoy: The Gift of Sexual Pleasure for Women , Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner This book is from Focus on the Family. It's a good book, but I honestly felt like it is written for someone who is not yet married, or who is in a sexless or unfulfilled marriage. Although I agree with the majority of the authors writings... it simply does not apply to me. You see, I've been happily married for 12 years to an amazing hubby who always puts me first in the bedroom. He is loving, understanding, spontaneous, adventurous, gentle and very respectful of me.  I won the lotto, when it comes to my man ! *Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through Tyndale, book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

  A Typical Day in My Post Surgery Life

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Let me preface this by saying- my hubby and I are research geeks. We research a subject until there is nothing left of it.... dead. Never to rise again..... which sometimes can be a good thing, and other times, lets just say, not so much. That's when after I had major surgery (that I had researched for over a year)..... I was completely taken by surprise. I mean, I knew that there would be pain and that I'd need someone to help me, but I honestly never expected it to be this hard, this painful, and this much fatigue. With that said, I did have an emergency second surgery 12 hours later due to internal bleeding and I'm sure that is partly to blame for some of it. The Doctors said having the emergency surgery really set me back.  I was supposed to come home with a pain pump, but they had to remove it during the second surgery.  Anytime, some one has as much internal bleeding as I did, it causes excruciating pain. I also lost so much blood, that I had to have multip

What if All I Want is A Mediocre Life?

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What if I all I want is a small, slow, simple life? What if I am most happy in the space of in between. Where calm lives. What if I am mediocre and choose to be at peace with that? The world is such a noisy place. Loud, haranguing voices lecturing me to hustle, to improve, build, strive, yearn, acquire, compete, and grasp for more. For bigger and better. Sacrifice sleep for productivity. Strive for excellence. Go big or go home. Have a huge impact in the world. Make your life count. But what if I just don’t have it in me. What if all the striving for excellence leaves me sad, worn out, depleted? Drained of joy. Am I simply not enough? What if I never really amount to anything when I grow up— What if I am not cut out for the frantic pace of this society and cannot even begin to keep up? And see so many others with what appears to be boundless energy and stamina but know that I need tons of solitude and calm, an abundance of rest, and swaths of unscheduled time in order

Emergency Brain Surgery

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I knew my son, QW had not been feeling well.... he had been complaining of headaches that last week, but I didn't really think too much about them, figuring, it would pass. Then he started having a fever - not super high, but enough for me to worry. After a few days, he wasn't eating.... We knew something was wrong. I took him to the med express center. They ran a throat culture, and tested him for the flu and strep - all came back negative, but they said that sometimes the strep test can be wrong, so they sent us home with antibiotics saying it was probably strep.  The next two days, QW kept getting worse. I finally took him to the Emergency Room on Sunday, May 28th. They did blood tests and took a CT scan and said that he had acute sinusitis (a bad sinus infection that was deep in the air pockets of his face) and sent us home with a stronger antibiotic. Memorial Day, May 29th, QW seemed better - he ate lunch and walked outside.... we thought he was feeling

Finding Our New Normal......

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After an emergency brain surgery on our ten year old son, five weeks in the hospital, a second surgery to put the bone flap in, daily infusions at home........ Our once active big little boy unable to ride his 4 wheeler, bike, jump on the trampoline, or run, but rather see him sitting on the sofa hooked up to iv's.... After a surgery for me (the mom) and health issues with another major surgery ahead. A 16 yr old who is working, learning to drive, recently graduated and looking at colleges, while starting to spread her own wings..... A Hubby (who is my rock) that is hitting his midlife crisis (which may or may not) explain the brand new Ford F150 pickup truck in his shop...... And a seven year old little girl who had to grow up way to fast this year..... as she spent most of her summer away from her mom.... Life this year, has definately taken a different turn and we are trying to find our new normal. Sometimes life has a way of changing so quickly t

If You Give Your Husband a Kiss....

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I fell in love with Leah Heffners "If you give your husband a kiss" article and I wanted to put my own spin on it for this time in my life. My hubby works long hours, we live on a hobby farm, own a home business, home school three kids, have a special needs son, and try to keep up with everything else that makes up this life we live.... but I still love kissing my hubby and nestling my head under his chin.... So here is my version... If you give your husband a kiss, he’ll probably want a hug to go with it. You’ll nestle your head under his chin, and just breathe him in. The smell will remind you of when you first started dating and you didn’t want to be anywhere else but nestled under his chin. You’ll think back on some of your favorite first dates – ice cream, long walks, holding hands, and late night talks. Before you can get too carried away, a child (or dog) will probably interrupt you, breaking apart your hug. You’ll open your eyes to see dishes tha

The Little Girl Who Broke My Heart...

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While my son, QW was in ICU of the Children's hospital, we were moved to the ICU Burn Unit due to the regular ICU being under staffed. We ended up staying in the ICU Burns Unit for 4 1/2 weeks out of the five weeks that we were in the hospital. We came to like and know most all of the burn unit staff and some of the patients..... including a little (3 or 4 yr old) girl called Miesha. Oh, my goodness, she was the cutest little thing!  She was already there when we arrived and was still there when we left. She was burnt from head to toe and could hardly walk or talk when we first met her, but every day she got a little bit stronger.  The kids in that unit would do their walking therapy in the hall. Miesha would stop and wave at our sons door when she did her walking therapy and my son and I would stop and wave at her door when he did his walking therapy.  Some days you could hear her just scream and scream when they did dressing changes. Other nights you could hear h

Bad Book Reviews -

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Oh, my goodness.... what do you do when you get two different books from two different publishers and both are not at all what you thought they would be??? That's the predicament that I currently find myself in! The first book was "I Almost Forgot About Me" by Terry McMillan. I really thought it would be about a lady finding herself, what she wanted to do with her life, looking at her past along the way, and how she got to that decision. I wasn't completely wrong, but most of the book was made up of Dr. Georgia Young going back to all the men she had 'loved' (had sex with), her two horrible girlfriends, and a whole lot of bad language. It was defiantly colorful - and I don't mean that in a good way - I have never read a book so crude and with so much swearing in it. Ever. I don't mind a little swearing, but this was just too much. The three friends were extremely foul-mouthed, promiscuous, women who come across as lacking the abilit