This Weekend

We have had a fun and restful weekend. Friday night we took our girl out for a greasy burger. It rained buckets at exactly the time we were leaving the restaurant. Of course by the time we got to our house, in the safety and dryness of our garage, the rain had stopped but while we were walking to the car we might as well have been taking a bath.

She used the meal as an opportunity to attempt to convince her dad and I that it is reasonable for her to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii for a weekend trip so that she can check out the place she wants to go for missions next summer. She has a friend whose family is there for a month and has offered for her to stay with them. Seriously. She's planning to do missions in Hawaii. How do you get that assignment? And yeah. She thinks it's reasonable to just pop on over to check it out this summer. ha! I love teenagers!

Yesterday my hubby and I spent the day together shopping and having fun. Then last night we spent the evening with our adorable niece and nephew and my brother-in-law. We made gourmet hot dogs. Not really. We just grilled hot dogs and heated up some Wolf brand chili but it was fun. We hadn't seen the kids in a couple of weeks and we kind of like having them around. Cade does fun things like pointing a finger gun at you and expecting you to fall over - dramatically. I take great pleasure in obliging. He especially likes to shoot me while I'm cooking. Hmmm, hope he's not trying to tell me something. Calea does fun things like laughing that amazing little girl laugh that just melts your heart and makes you want to do whatever it takes to keep her laughing. Yes. We do silly things to produce that sound around our house. Totally worth it. My brother-in-law does fun things like bringing the kids to our house.

Today we had lunch with Mom and Dad. Mom is doing better all the time. She has her last surgery in about a week. We are all really looking forward to her being able to fully recover instead of recovering just enough to have more chemo or another surgery. Who knows? We may even take a trip together in the fall!

Tonight my husband has taken my son and some of his friends to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the NBA playoffs. Our daughter is at youth group and I'm home alone reflecting on a weekend well spent.

Tomorrow we all go back to our work weeks. We are ready. We have laughed. We have played. We have rested.

How about you? Did you get some rest and some laughter this weekend?

The Power of "We"

The other day something my sister said made me think about why we have spent so much time up at the hospital.  As I've posted before, most nights when Mom is there one of us sleeps in her room.  When Mom is just coming out of surgery she needs someone there to give her ice chips, help her get comfortable in bed, and to keep track of all the information the nurses and doctors are giving her while she is semiconscious.  Also, since she has had four abdominal surgeries, she needs help doing things like lifting her legs back into bed for the first few days. 

I've written before about how sweet this time has been and I am so glad we have been there but I have just been thinking about how we decided that this would be our routine during this time.  While pondering that I remembered the feeling I had when I heard that Mom had ovarian cancer and would be having surgery the week that school started and one week after we moved into a new house.  I felt so utterly overwhelmed and afraid that 'I DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES' to do this well.  For a couple of hours panic took turns with denial thoughts like 'it won't be that bad' and 'I can do this' but I was really scared.

Then my sister called. 

That sentence deserves its own paragraph.  She called and said "how are WE going to do this?"  My sisters live fourteen hours away.  It hadn't really crossed my mind that I would be able to truly share this load with them in any way other than occasional weekend visits and lots of phone calls and emotional support.  But one of my sisters is a 'stay at home minnie' and she has left her life for weeks at a time to come help Mom and Dad - and therefore to help me.   The other sister has taken time off  from work to come give us a break when she could.  Together we have made it through a very difficult year. 

Mom has one more surgery, Lord willing, and this one will be small compared to the other four.  I wouldn't trade the time I have had with her for all of the gold in the world.  And the reason I have had that time is that my sister called.  She wouldn't let me do this by myself and I wouldn't let her sacrifice so much to help me without giving my all in return.  Because of that we can finish this year of hospital visits with a sense of having done well and having been pleasing in God's sight.  Without her, I couldn't have dared to give this much.  Together we have climbed a difficult mountain and as I look out over the view, I feel peace and gratitude for the sister who said "we".

How to Get Lost in the World Wide Web

First you go to pioneerwoman.com and look at the sites she loves.  Then you start going to those sites.  Start with Aiming Low where you will read a discussion of making eggs in the microwave.  Yawn, but somewhat fun to read.   At that site you can also click on an ad for Mabel's Labels and consider spending $50 on labels for everything your kids have ever lost at friends' houses.  Then you realize that your kids are not kids any more and probably would neither put the labels on their stuff nor allow you to do so. 

Go back to the aim lower blog and read some comments, which will lead you to a blog post that is entitled (excuse me but it's just what it's called.  I didn't name it.  I just read it.  And posted it on my blog.)  "the suckiest suck that ever sucked" because you just have to read about the suckiest suck that ever sucked.  There you will find that your life was very easy last week even though your mom went into the hospital for unrelenting vomiting that led to emergency surgery that now has everyone waiting on pins and needles for her digestive system to come back on-line.  But even that week was not the suckiest suck that ever sucked and the Domestic Goddess may actually have won the prize for that with the events that inspired her blog.

Hit back on your browser and you will come to Boo Mama where she will link to Conversion Diary and a great blog about autonomy not being all it's cracked up to be.  This will lead you to "do you want more children?" which might lead you to a great article by Chuck Colson that you might also post on your facebook.  Then you can go back to the conversion diary and consider the "openness to life" viewpoint and grieve a little (again) that you and your husband so quickly got the "snip-snip" when your second was a baby without fully considering whether or not you wanted to be finished having children.

Then, you write a little about the whole experience on your blog, wish you knew how to do those neat little links that don't have all the punctuation garbage in them (which I discovered and fixed!), and tie it off and move on so you can get your to do list done for the day.

Life Goes On

Today my daughter was in the Homecoming Parade!  That was fun.  My kids go to rival high schools in our medium size bedroom community.  Here's the best picture I could get of her float.  I have this new phone see . . . and I can't figure it out.  I pointed the camera STRAIGHT AT HER and pushed a button and the screen went BLACK!  I had to chase that float around a corner to get this:



Yesterday was my "big" work day.  I got home at 9 and started again at 8 this morning.  Tomorrow I will head out around 8 and get home around 6.  But Friday I get to spend the day with Mom at the infusion clinic (since Dad has a cold) and thats totally worth working for.    She had her blood work done today and if her blood levels are good, she can have chemo.  If not, she has to wait.   So we are praying . . .

I made this homemade chicken pot pie with pie crust maple leaves on it for dinner tonight.  It was YUMMY! and PRETTY!  and hubby and I ate almost all of it by ourselves. 

Short - really short - hair

We cut Mom's hair (off) last night.  She is still so pretty!  She went right in and put on a beautiful, brightly colored scarf and looked great.  It's a new look for my conservative, elegant mother but it's a good one. 

Then I came home and ate the most amazing candy covered apples from another wordpress blog.  You gotta read that recipe!  I'm pretty sure it's a few hundered calories of reading pleasure but it's SO WORTH IT! 

Earlier in the day I took a day "off" and cleaned my windows, did laundry, read some required reading for work, and BAKED.  It was heavenly and ended perfectly by sharing a yummy apple with my hubby! Sigh . . . 

Back to work today!